Ties would be a great topic for Father’s Day, so I am a little ahead of myself. I bring them up now because, lately, I have been helping people tie neckties. For the past three days, I have helped fellow tap dancers tie their red satin neckties with a traditional Windsor knot—the only way I know how to do it. The knot is triangular, symmetrical, and classic-looking. A friend of mine in sixth grade taught me how to do it one morning before assembly, and I have been tying them with bravado ever since.
The neckties were part of a costume for a performance at a local theater. My beginning tap class was invited to do a basic “number”—my phrasing, not theirs. I’m not sure what everyone else calls them. Besides tap dancing, the performance, which concluded with two shows on Saturday, included ballet, hip-hop, modern dance, and something resembling gymnastics. Many of the dancers were highly skilled, and the choreography was impressive.
In addition to our red neckties, my class wore black pants, black button-down shirts, and red-sequined trilbies. We were quite a sight. I like to think our two dance lines brought down the house as we trotted onto the stage to Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York.” It certainly sounded that way. We had been practicing for weeks and performed the number, sandwiched in between two performances featuring girls from our studio’s ballet classes.
I enjoyed helping fellow dancers tie their neckties. I also noticed that ties have been showing up in unexpected places. To wit, a few weeks ago a neighbor came over, tie in hand, and asked for help tying it for his son’s wedding. He told me he came to me because, “If anybody knew how to tie a tie, I figured it’d be you!” I told him I was happy to do it, although I had to wonder about the impression I’ve made on the neighborhood–James Bond, shoe salesman, stuffy? Then I asked him if he had any nails I could use to secure the tarp in my backyard (see Stoned). He gave me a container of electrician’s staples. It was a win-win exchange.
Seemingly unrelated to this, yet in fact directly connected, is Whittaker Chambers’ beautifully written memoir, Witness (see A Third Ending). It is not only of historical significance regarding Communist infiltration of the federal government during the thirties and forties, but also offers painfully relevant insights into the current socio-political climate. And not just socio-political, but religious as well.
As if to underscore the point, I came across this quote the other day while reading it. Apparently, the lawyers hired by Chambers’ employer, Time magazine, to defend him in a libel suit brought against him by Alger Hiss in 1948, described their first meeting with him this way: “When we heard that you were an ex-Communist, we expected a wild-eyed man without a necktie. You are quite a surprise.” Here, neckties serve as an iconic symbol of order, reason, and civilization, standing in contrast to chaos and violent revolution. Only “wild-eyed” Communists go around without a necktie.
I doubt that ties have been making the rounds to impress upon me the need for order. I’m fairly ordered already. While I don’t wear a tie to class, I am formal enough so that a fellow dancer commented once about my going to class directly from work. “That’s dedication,” she said. When I told her I’m retired, she wasn’t sure what to say. It reminded me of an uncle who used to show up at barbeques in a starched white shirt and tie. It was a different time back then.
This synchronicity of ties could have another meaning. It could symbolize familial and emotional connections, a reminder of the need to stay anchored. There’s a tendency later in life to untie some of the ties that bind a person in place. Part of that is natural. In my case, it is also an attempt to unknot the knots that have formed over the years–at least the complicated ones.
Rather than taking an Alexandrian approach and simply cutting the knots with a sword, so to speak, I am undoing them in a cooperative, peaceful way—helping others work through their own damnable knots, red-satin and otherwise. “I’m gonna make a brand new start of it.”
Source credit: Whittaker Chambers, Witness: A True Story of Soviet Spies in America and the Trial That Captivated the Nation (Washington DC, Regnery, 1969), p. 642. Image credits: Soroush Karimi, Daniel Leżuch. Want more? Click on Amazon above right for other publications or go to Robert Brancatelli. Visit other blog readers under “Who You Are.” Leave a comment by clicking on the Comment tab above. This post is dedicated to Tara Firenzi.
