Melissa's Place

Rite of Passage: The Half- Windsor

There may be few occasions in a boy’s first 13 years of life when he must know how to properly tie a tie. Then suddenly, he finds it’s graduation picture day and his fairly conservative Korean mother has sent him to school in a stiffly pressed white shirt, armed him with an unraveled tie. Or maybe it somehow became unraveled between home and school. Either way, he finds himself left to his own means in securing it about his neck.

It’s second period and this young man, we shall call him A, finishes his math test early (he is very good at math and always finishes early). He then begins to fret and stew about how he will get this long black piece of fabric tied around the collar of his shirt. I watch him from my desk as he twists and loops it a few times with a furrowed brow. His friend, T, who is proudly wearing his striped brown tie, finishes his test. They know they are supposed to be absolutely silent during a test. So they proceed to have the following conversation, with arm gestures and body language only.

T: Put it around your neck.

A: Like this?

T: Yes. Now make sure THIS side is on top.

A: Okay. Is mine right?

T: Yes. Yes. Okay, now put it up through the middle.

A: Around the back?

T: NO NO Up the middle.

A: Oh, up here?

T: Yes, now take this end and hold it high above your head.

A: This high?

T: Not high enough!

A: I can’t do this! Come do it for me.

T moves his chair across the room to A. He takes both sides of A’s tie then shakes his head and whispers, “I can’t do it on you. I only learned last night. I can only do it on me.”

So I watch intently as T tries again to walk A through the steps of tying a half-Windsor. He even shows A how to tell if he’s done it correctly, by pulling the short end out and unraveling it into one twisted long fabric, instead of a knot. I wave A over to me and attempt the knot. It doesn’t look right when we’re done and I can tell A is not comfortable standing so close to a teacher. T does the unravel test and discovers that my knot is not, in fact, a correct half-Windsor. Smartie pants.

A and T sit down again, face to face, and tackle the problem systematically and in exaggerated silent gestures. Meanwhile, many more students have finished the test and watch with intent interest. L unabashedly pulls his chair close, rests his chin in his hands and watches as if engrossed in a gripping movie. M, sitting on the opposite side of the class, mouths some words in an effort to express that he is willing to help if they run out of options. P steps in (also sporting a very finely knotted tie). He unravels his own tie and tries to teach A. A tries again and fails. T takes A’s tie and puts it around his own neck, ties the damn thing, loses his glasses trying to take it off his head, gives it to A, who almost loses HIS glasses trying to put it on. Four sets of hands stretch out toward A to help him adjust it to the correct length.

The ordeal is over.
No words were spoken.
But one graduate’s photo will show a perfectly groomed young man, where a boy once sat.