PAGE §, THE TOWNSMAN, Thursday, October 27, 1977 Bull Smiley Why Pma teacher By BILL SMILEY Friends of mine in ail walks of life can’t understand how I can stand teaching as a vocation. With striking originality, they ask: ‘How can you stand it?** So, with another 10 months of my chosen way of life under way, | thought [I'd look at it, and try to give them an answer, . Perhaps we could start with elimination. It would take an act of God, or a change of sex, or something equally dramatic, to make me an engineer, [ have just completed the job of trying to change a typewriter rib- bon. It took me 39 minutes. } wound up with ink all aver - my fingers, my face, and a clean shirt. And guess what came out when I began typ- ing? Red words. It was one of thos half-red, half-black ribbons, and ['d got it upside bassackwards. The ‘only reason you are reading this in black is that it is being reproduced by someone else. My lack of engineering skills prec’ :ides my making a fat living where the real money is ticse days: as a repair man. If you have a son or daughter pondering a career, for the dear ,good- ness’ sake, steer it into fixing things — plumbing, eiec- tricity, TV, cars. Took my lawnmower to a repairman the other day. It wouldn't start. Picked it up three days later. The'bill was $41.16 — one dollar and {6 cents more than half what [had paid for the new machine a few years ago. The bill for labor was $27. You could have a baby for that not so terribly long ago. . I've never wanted to be a scientist. Can’t see spending my life in a lab trying to find a new additive that will make clothes whiter than white or a new chemical that will make deodorant dryer than ever. Medicine, since I have never had a secret desire to be God, held fittle appeal for ‘me. It’s a noble profession, and you can make a pile of money by peering into people’s apertures, probing their flab, making their blood spurt, and writing prescriptions among other things, None of those things turn me on, though. Dentistry, ditto. I can see no particular charm in stan- ding at an angle most acrobats couldn’t maintain ‘ for 10 seconds, gawking at gums ang crumbling renova- tions, One look into my own mouth would give me nightmares for a week, To heck with the $50,000 a year. Then there’s the law, of course. There's a great deal of poppycock about the ma- jesty and the integrity of the law. All of it stems from lawyers and judges. But I wouldn't care :to be associated in a profession where there is, despite all disclaimers, one law for the _ rich and another for the poor. Shakespeare said it nicely: ‘Let them hang all the lawyers,’* Another field that brings ina mighty good buck is ac- counting. But where's the fulure in that for a fellow who can't even account to his own wife for the way he behaved at the party on Saturday night? Quite a good career these days is ‘working for the government.” Certainly you'll never be fired, unless you turn up drunk four days _ in a row and rape four dif- ferent secretaries, Even then, you’d probably just be “transferred to a less sen- sitive area,’ or put aut to Pasture ona pension. When I was a student, we used to say scornfully that if you couldn't do anything else, you went into the ministry. This was a base canard, of course, but the delights of the parsonage never really got me excited. E wouldn't have minded poun- ding the old pulpita bit, but I. couldn't have stood the old biddies and the back-stabbers and the constant mendican- ting. . What I thought I might be was a professor of English. Sit around in a book-filled study, dispense wisdom to awed students, and give the occasional brilliant lecture, Well I’ve since met some of my old friends who chose that path. They're more bor- ing than the guy who comes to fix my furnace. ‘What I really and truly wanted to do when I was young and romantic was to become a foreign correspon- dent. Influenced by movies, I wanted the works: trench coat, snap’ brim felt hat, bylines from Hong Kong and Nairobi. Nearest I gol to that was editing the country cor- respondence from con- tributors to a small-town Capitalistic common sense weekly.. That wasn’t a bad vocation, except that you worked 60-odd hours a week and never made any money. I guess my secret desire for ‘years was to be a writer. Preferably a pipe-smoking, enormously popular, im- mensely wealthy one, several times divorced, a world traveler, a lecturer in great demand, yet with a depth, a plus quality in my novels that would put me up there with Hardy, Conrad, Hem- ingway. With three or four of my novels turned into smash hits on Broadway and in Hollywood. And all my own hair and teeth, Only trouble with that wish was that I was tao lazy. Oh, the talent was there. No question about thal, as we novel-writers manque can assure anyone. So instead of becoming a Hemingway, I became Bill Smiley, a chronicler of the tribulations and the trivia of the mid-20th century. And not a whit’ bit- ter or disillusioned about it. That wasn't quite enougn to keep a body alive, so I became a teacher, Not only because most other profes- sions fill me with nausea or loathing. But because I like young people, words, ideas, and two months holidays. © The Argyle Syndicate Lid, Tiffany’s touches their hearts NEW YORK (AP) — The Tiffany touch embraces emeraldladen bracelets, solid gold watches and diamonds by the yard. Yet few people know tes: tr tering palace on Fifth Ave- nue as a showcase for capitalist common sense and religious credo, The driving force is Walter Hoving, Tiffany’s board chairman and chief executive. He likes to believe the world’s most famous jewelry store has a conscience. “T think a company should have a soul,” he said in an NEW YORK (AP) — Victor Borge has one more dream to realize. The noted jester even- tually hopes to conduct opera—‘‘even if I have: to use another name.” An alias, he feels, might be desirable so people wouldn't regard serious -"dsiry as a new waggish naper. “My heart has always been in musi¢,’’ insists the star, who is best known for verbal quips and merry mannerisms, although he Started keyboard studies at age 4 and is a highly skilled performer, Borge has flashed his baton over symphony or- chestras including the Philadelphia, Cleveland Los Angeles, London, and Concertgebouw of Am- sterdam. “That work has become an extremely welcome interview ‘‘Most don’t, I know. That's why American business has gotten such a bad reputation. Profit maximizing sounds so greedy.” While this: gentle man enjoys selting standards of taste and elegance for the Social Register set, he has another consuming interest the Walter Hoving Home in Garrison, N.Y., for heroin- addicted girls. More than $355,000 is sent to the centre each year from . Store sales of a small pin with the message, ‘“Try God.’ Hoving, a devout Episcopalian, wears one in the lapel of his tailor-made suit jackets. SUCC. E HIGH We eal oY he girls to accept God“into thir lives,” said the tall, jean Hoving, who has run ‘Tiffany’s since 1953. ‘‘We take them out of verty and put them into he Lord’s hands. . Our success rate has been phenomenal.”’ That is the private side of Tiffany's. The public side is spelled out in the store's familiar, subdued ads ap- pearing almost daily in New York Times, Wall Street Acting onstage and off The clown is serious variation of my ap- pearances..because I bring people to symphony con- certs who have never been there and don’t mow what they are about.” PLAYS IT STRAIGHT “We play three or four compositions straight,” he explains, “then something more humorous because that is what people expect from me.” Musicians, he quickly adds, ‘‘are my best audience because they know I know what I am ing.” Borge recently returned to Broadway for a four-week | engagement in Comedy With Music, a standard melange of the word games and never-quifecompleted iano pieces that are his au gh: gener ating it dispensables. “This is still the supreme court,’ he says of Broad- way. The media critics responded with generall admiring notices, althoug! several found a deja vu quality—which just possibly may have already been sensed by the entertainer in his thoughts about future activities. By booking freak, Borge has visited Broadway three limes at precise 12-year intervals. On Jan. 3 next he reaches 70, a milestone appreciably diminished by the enthusiastic vigor and irrepressible jocularity that he displays, “T-am sometimes asked if I'm going tc retire, and I aay, ‘a-ure fram what? Retire from the things that come naturally?’ “T do the same thing off- stage that I do onstage—put on an act, really.” Borge has never tried to figure just how many miles . Journal, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times and other newspapers, Sometimes the $1,000 ads display jewelry. Other times they are mini-lessons in capitalist thought, with such titles as Is Profit a Dirty Word? and Are the Rich a Menace? This kind of personal con- viction mystifies Wall Street analysts and may be the reason Tiffany’s has retained a unique corporate image since it was founded in 1837 by Charles Lews- Tiffany. he has covered on his mirth mission. “I’m sure I've been as far as the moon and back,” he says. Then with a twinkle he adds, “I’m delighted to sa that I’ve ben so well received that I was able to y my own transportation oth ways.” - MAKE WINTER GREAT— _ PARTICIPATE A Fieness. Io your heart you kis it's righe, Twice a day, six days a week, Hoving visits Tif- fany’s huge street floor. He points out a new design toa Prospective customer or stops to admire the legen- dary Tiffany diamond, the world's largest canary dia- mond, DECLDES ON STYLE - Tiffany’s 800 employees don't spend hours analysing Rubide fast tnahead tex jewelry is chic and exciting. “That old motto about ‘Give the customer what she wants’ is ridiculous,” Hoving said. ‘‘Most people don't know what is beau- tiful. So they rely on us to show them.’ With branches in Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, San Francisco and Beverly Hills and a boutique in Japan's famous Milsukoshi department store, Tiffany’s ‘has influenced all classes of people, Although Tiffany's closed its Paris and London stores after the Second World War, travelling shows were sent recently to the Arab countries to cash in on oil money there. Business was reported brisk. Despite stock market declines in recent years, Tiffany’s profits are stronger than ever, Hoving says they usually run about six per cent, well above average for retail and department stores. Are diamonds a girl’s best friend? Hoving is the first to admit that gems have been ° kind to an old gal like Tif- fany's. And, as he recently told a meeting of the New York Society of Security Analysts: “I'd say we're having the time of our lives.”