New American Gothics

I gave a presentation in my Career Development class on Thursday. The purpose of the presentation was to describe how the class had helped me focus on a career and develop my hireability by strengthening interviewing skills and my resumé. I decided to be a smartass, as is my wont, and give a presentation describing why I'm more suited to being a farmer than to pursuing a conventional career. I even interviewed a local organic farmer for the project and looked into summer internships on local farms and with organizations like WWOOF. (A few of my friends have "Wwoofed" around Europe and loved it.) My classmates chuckled as I said I was more comfortable with poverty and gritty hard labor than with powersuits, profiteering and cubicles. Too bad I wasn't joking.

Well, imagine my surprise when I opened the Sunday Styles in my Times today to find an article called "Leaving Behind The Trucker Hat: Young urbanites, learning that dirt can also be soil, are using their overalls as originally intended." It's all about city dwelling young people kicking the dirt of the city off their shoes and heading off to the farm, so "their Carhartts are no longer ironic." "Many longtime observers of small farms say they have noticed an increase in recent years among college graduates who want to farm," says the Times.

Who knew? And who's laughing now, classmates? I've got the Times on my side.

By the way, I have a feeling I already dress like the woman pictured above.