Today in Impromptus, I write a little bit about anthropology (taking off from my NR piece, “Majoring in Anthro: A lament for a field”). I wanted to share with you a letter from an extraordinary reader and friend of ours: NR cruiser, all-purpose sage, and American original Pat Gigliotti.

Jay,
I went to Central Missouri State and was a Phys. Ed. major. When I went home for the weekend after my first month at school, my father took me to the social center in our Italian neighborhood to show me off. I was a college student, a rarity, and my father, who never went to school a day in his life, was proud of me, so we went to Sal’s Barbershop.
A mob boss — a guy my father had grown up with — was sitting having his hair cut. Everyone knew everyone. The guy called me over and said, “I hear you’re in college. What are you going to be?” In order to add some prestige to myself and my father, I replied, “I’m an Anthropology major.” I am not kidding when I say that I had no idea what that meant, but to me it sounded more important than Phys. Ed.
He looked me straight in the eye and said, “What, you gonna open an anthropology store?” It was humbling. Luckily, it was out of earshot of my father.

Today, as you may know, there’s a chain of stores called “Anthropologie.”