The Importance of Being Clyde

There's this women's group in Vancouver, Wa., where all of these career climbers gather around with other pseudo-powerful people and "network." It's a miserable party, but I had to go to report on this hospital CEO's speech at such a luncheon today. The woman hosting the event announced that everyone would have to introduce themselves by name, organization, and "your best mentor or teacher and what role he or she played in your life." I thought she surely can't mean the whole room, there's like 100 people in here. But sure enough, every single pant-suited, hairsprayed one of them told of some pant-suited, hairsprayed branch manager they worked under, or about their kids, "who keep me grounded."

"I had to have surgery last year, and I couldn't paint my toenails, so my daughter came to the hospital and did it for me. She got toenail polish all over my toes, and when I got upset she just said, 'Relax Mom, it's just your toenails.' That was a real epiphany for me, and that's why she's my greatest teacher." That one's my favorite. Then a husband in attendance said, "My best teacher is my best friend and wife Janie." Then his wife got up and said her best teacher is her supervisor at work.

I considered jumping out the window and into the Columbia River to escape my turn, but I was the third person to go and I was still sort of in shock from the toenail polish story. All I could think of was Grant Warren, who taught me how to bartend and not get in the weeds. He told me run the bar and not let the bar run me. Great advice. But I just told them my best teacher is my mom. It was an easy answer. But sitting there and having to face such a fucking retarded question, and hearing all of these retarded answers like, "She taught me to love everyone," and "He taught me to always find the silliness," I had to look around at this bunch and wonder who the fuck these people were. Who is actually like this? Or are they all just bullshitting me? But no, there are actually people like this. They wear scarves, and cufflinks. They play golf every weekend. They belong to clubs. The spend their days in board rooms and hotel conference rooms talking in circles and validating their existence by joining various subcommittees. And their heroes are branch managers.

My friend Joe and I were driving to Home Depot the other day and he started telling me about his family gatherings during the holidays and about his Uncle Clyde, who always got really drunk. Joe's an older guy, and has tons of great stories from his years in the Navy or working for the park system. But my favorite is about his Uncle Clyde, the scoundrel, alcoholic, bisexual nutcase who would sneak away to the bars during holidays and come back with a withered, drunken hag on his arm and introduce her to the family. Or when he'd go fishing and then bring his catch to Joe's house and put it between his parents' while they were sleeping. Now there's a role model. There's a goddamned teacher.

Uncle Clyde was some sort of distributor for bars, and used to take Joe around when he was a kid and make his stops around town. He'd have done pretty well for himself, but every bar he went to, the bartender would just give him free drinks until he was too wasted to remember the bill he was trying to collect. Uncle Clyde had another curious habit. He didn't like his name, first or last, and felt it was best if he went by something else in his business and social dealings. So when young Joe would call him Uncle Clyde in public, Clyde would interrupt and say, "No no, shh, nobody knows me as Clyde around here Joey. When we're out, you always call me Brad. Brad Bradford." Bradford wasn't even his last name. He must have just liked the sound of it.

So now that I've really given it some thought, my best mentor is my friend Joe's Uncle Clyde, though I've never met him. He taught me that sometimes you just shouldn't use your real name. We should all be so lucky to have a mentor like Uncle Clyde. I mean Brad Bradford.