University of Puget Clowns

President PieRce called this school "The University of Puget Clowns" at graduation ceremonies. Why do I delight in that moniker?

Faithful readers of this blog know that I delight in "The University of Puget Clowns" [® Susan Resneck PieRce].

To understand why, recall dialogue from a movie now forty years old:

"Frank Burns does not know his way around an operating theater, he does not know his way around a body. And if you will have observed anything, you will have observed that Major Frank Burns is an idiot. He has flipped his wig, that he's out of his head, that he's a lousy surgeon."

"Oh on the contrary, I have observed. And Major Burns is not only a good technical surgeon, he is a good military surgeon. I have also noticed that nurses as well as enlisted men address you as 'Hawkeye.' "

"Yes because that's my name, Hawkeye Pierce. "

"Well that kind of informality is inconsistent with maximum efficiency in a military organization."

"Oh come off it, MAJOR. You put me right off my fresh fried lobster, do you realize that? I'm now going to go back to my bed, I'm going to put away the best part of a bottle of scotch... And under normal circumstances, you being normally what I would call a very attractive woman, I would have invited you back to share my little bed with me you might possibly have come. But you really put me off. I mean you... You're what we call a regular army clown"


[Thank you Internet Movie Database!]

Every time I write "University of Puget Clowns," I think of the movie MASH. I think of the armies of "regular clowns" with whom I have worked over the last 24 years. I think that I am reputed to be a funny guy yet am intentionally far less comical than many colleagues are unintentionally.

Of course, the men and [too often] women rejected by the University of Puget Clowns may not see the humor in the holders of the "Hot Lips" O'Houlihan or Frank Burns professorships.