Of Barbours and Books

Prompt of the Day #1

Don't they look warm, playing in the leaves that are left over from autumn, the glow of spring dappling down on them in their snug coats.
Write about a coat - either about the places it goes, the people it hugs, whether its old or new, what makes it a good or bad one. 

Good Morrow Fellow Scribble Bugs,

Today I decided to focus on the Barbour. Coats are wonderful things - they can keep you warm, protect you from the wind, have extra pockets, conceal the terrible shirt granny gave you for Christmas, act as a wily disguise, attract large crowds of admirers, give you a different body shape, become a blanket or a pillow, the list goes on. Now THE BARBOUR is a type of coat, it's a jacket, it's a fashion statement, it aligns you with generations of Brits that attend point-du-points across the country and it also seamlessly blends you into the country background around you. For me, the Barbour is also a name with many memories attached. I used to dress up in my mothers and hide under my fathers, my best friend worked in the New York store for two summers and I have a wonderful Zara equivalent. I also had a teacher at UNC-Chapel Hill who was called Reid Barbour and for those of you acquainted with the writer Sarah Dessen may be familiar with the name. 

In her novel 'What Happened to Goodbye' there's a line which reads:

 “…so ravaged it looked like one of my term papers from when I’d taken Ap English with Mr. Reid Barbour, the hardest teacher in my last school.”

Yes, this in fact a reference to the same man who scrawled across my university papers on Milton's Paradise Lost, a man considered by many as a charismatic demon - a phrase here that means 'a man that is both at once incredibly impressive and equally hard to impress'. He's the teacher everyone wants to have: enigmatic, shoe-less, passionate. 

And here he is: an INSPIRATION.

Now it's your turn. Pick up your coat and think about those inspirational aspects of your life. Maybe they can turn you into a #1 Best Seller for the New York Times. 

Je serai poète et toi poésie,
SCRIBBLER