My Red Shirt and Me The red shirt incident begins with a rather ordinary
red shirt. Not a brightly colored red shirt, not a dramatic cherry or
firehouse red, more like a faded burgundy. But, for several days, my
very iden- tity was bound up in its redness. It was me, and I wore it
with the pride a matador takes in his splendid cape, a hero in his
medals of bravery, or a nun in her religious habit. I'll never forget
the bound- less joy I felt wearing that simple, pullover, short-sleeved
red shirt in the hospital--or the rush of relief that I experienced
when, at last, I decided to surrender it. However, we are getting ahead
of our story, which starts a short time earlier with a most unfortunate
accident. A light flurry of wet snow had begun to fall as the university
limousine turned the corner on its way from the Bronx campus of New York
University to the downtown campus. Although eight of us were packed into
the car and had resigned ourselves to the usual boring faculty meeting
awaiting us, somehow a spontaneous air of joviality was created.