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Looks Can Be Deceiving

Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Mark Des Cotes, I permed my hair in high school, twice, and I believe if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living. In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I talk about misjudging people for how they look.

I just want to take a minute to thank each and every one of you that voted for us in the podcast awards. It doesn’t matter if you voted just once or if you voted every day, it’s appreciated. Now we just have to sit back and wait until the winners are announced on April 14th. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.

Today’s Fun Fact of the Day: Spring is finally here, at least in my corner of the globe, and although it’s still cold and there’s lots of snow on the ground, the sun is shining more and more each day causing people to emerge from their homes to enjoy it. But Did you know that each year, the number of skin cancer cases due to tanning is higher than the number of lung cancer cases due to smoking? So even if it’s still cold outside you should still be wearing sunscreen to protect yourself.

So, it’s official, we are now accepting written feedback for our Friday Forum. So I want to see that mailbag so full that Darrell can’t lift it. You can submit your story by visiting our Feedback Page at goldenspiralmedia.com/feedback. Keep in mind that we still prefer audio feedback and recorded messages will take precedence over written submission. Not to mention it gives Darrell’s voice a break.

Here’s What I leaned yesterday.
This past weekend my son and I went to an outdoors show in Ottawa, Canada’s Capital. There were exhibitors, displays and presentations about camping, canoeing and kayaking, mountain climbing, white water rafting and so much more. Ryan and I got to meet Kevin Callan, aka The Happy Camper who is known the world over for his outdoor experiences.

One highlight of the show was a huge central pool where various canoe and kayak demonstrations were held throughout the day. Ryan is a member of his university’s kayak club, so he was more interested in these presentations than I was. During one of the demos I found myself at the back of the crowd standing next to a man that had a huge bushy Grizzly Adams type beard, a threadbare military style jacket, old jeans and boots and a worn out ball cap on his head. For all intense and purpose he looked like he could be a homeless person there seeking shelter from the cold. Now, I know looks can be deceiving, and since I also knew how much tickets to the event cost, I figured he wasn’t some vagrant passing time. So, being the person I am, I struck up a conversation with him. I motioned to the pool and asked if he ever kayaked. He shook his head and told me canoes were more his thing. So I asked him where he liked to canoe and the conversation took off from there.

It turns out he was originally from northern Manitoba where he did a lot of camping and hunting growing up. After high school he decided to study finance and ended up getting a job at a bank in Winnipeg. He spent a few decades working his way up the ranks and now he’s living in Ottawa working as a regional manager for one of the largest banks in Canada. This hoboesque man I was talking to, was an extremely wealthy and powerful person. While talking he told me he hates the monkey suits (his words, not mine) that he wears during the week. He enjoys his banking job but he loves the great outdoors. His wife passed away a few years ago so he spends most of his weekends and holidays trekking through backcountry locals all around the world. His job allows him the financial freedom to follow this passion.

Once the kayak demonstration in the pool was over we said our goodbyes and parted ways. I couldn’t help think that I never would have guessed his profession by his appearance. As I said, looks can be deceiving.

I knew at that moment that this would be my next topic for SILY. As I let the idea stew in my head I remembered something from my youth that falls along the same lines.

In 1984 I was in grade 10. I had long hair below my shoulders and my wardrobe consisted mostly of torn jeans, one of many different rock or heavy metal band t-shirts and an ever present jean jacket. One of my favourite tops was a Union Jack muscle shirt I wore often. It’s kind of funny since I was tall, thin and scrawny with absolutely no muscles to talk of.

Some of the older grade 12 & 13 kids liked to pick on me for some reason. Maybe it was because I dressed like the stoners they despised, the ones who hung out outside the school doors at breaks smoking. But since I didn’t smoke or do drugs I wasn’t part of that group, which meant they didn’t have my back. So the older kids were free to pick on me without consequences.

At one point during the year I acquired, what was to me, a real cool muscle shirt (I know, what’s with the muscle shirts). It was exactly like one I had seen worn by Alex Lifeson, the lead guitarist of the Canadian rock band Rush. The shirt had black and white rings on it starting at the centre of the chest and back and working their way out. So it looked like a big black and white target. Well, you can probably take a wild guess at what happened next. When I started wearing it at school, those annoying older kids took it as a challenge and started throwing pens and markers at me trying to get a bullseye. They took to calling me Target Kid and would ask me to wear that shirt again whenever I wore a different one.

Now you’re probably wondering what this has to do with the banker form the Ottawa Outdoors Show. Bear with me.

One day while out driving with my mom a car pulled up next to us at a red light. It was a 1977 Black Pontiac Trans Am with a gold eagle on the hood, The same car Burt Reynolds made famous in Smokey And The Bandit. Driving it was one of the kids from school along with three of his marker throwing accomplices. As soon as they saw me they started teasing me, calling out “hey target boy, you out for a drive with grandma?” This was an honest mistake on their part, If you recall from episode 218 I mentioned that there was a big gap between myself and my older brothers. My mom had me in her forties so she was approaching 60 at this time and was pretty much grey. You may also recall from that same episode that my mother had a 1972 Mustang Coupe.

When the boys didn’t get a rise out of me they started picking on my mom. Asking her if she had a mid life crisis or where did she steal the car. When the light turned green, they pealed out with screeching tires laughing at the top of their lungs. They slowed down on purpose at the next set of lights and waited for us. When we pulled up next to them the taunts and jabs continued. “You should trade that in for a walker old woman”, “You accompanying your grandma to her doctor appointment?” My mom asked me who these kids were and I told her they were the ones that threw markers at me causing the stains she had to deal with. The light turned green and they burned another strip of rubber as they took off like a bat out of hell, again laughing and waiting for us at the next set of lights. All this time I had kept my head faced forward, not wanting to look at them in case it goaded them on. At the third set of lights I remember my mother turning her head to the right to look briefly at the other driver as the jabs continued “where did you get your license old lady?” “you drive like a woman”. As I said, looks can be deceiving. My mom reached for the gear shift, dropped the automatic transmission into low 1, and whispered to me “hang on”. When the light turned green, the Trans Am squealed and took off, but it was no match for the mint green Mustang. My mom handled that car like a pro as she accelerated past those stunned kids, shifting gears with perfect timing. My mom purposely slowed down to allow the next light to turn red. I was staring at my mother wide eyed with admiration as the Trans Am pulled up next to us. My mom had her eyes fixed on the driver’s seat but all four boys in that car kept theirs pointed straight ahead and not one of them said a word. When the light turned green they slowly accelerated, never glancing our way as my mom kept pace with them. They took the first opportunity to turn right onto a side street and get away from us, ending the game.

I don’t know why or how, but this incident changed their opinion of me. They stopped picking on me at school and started acknowledging me as I walked by them in the hallway. The rest as they say, is history.

Here’s what I learned.
Those boys learned a lesson that day. The saying goes don’t judge a book by its cover, but the same can be said of people, looks can be deceiving, you shouldn’t judge people by the way they dress, the way they look, the way they talk or the way they act. Those boys saw an old woman driving a sports car and they made fun of her. They couldn’t imagine that she could handle it the way she did.

I never would have guessed that scraggly bearded man at the outdoor show was a powerful banker, but I also wasn’t surprised when he told me. I’ve met a fair share of people in my life that didn’t look like you would expect. I myself don’t like to shave, and often go out looking scruffy, and yet I’m a successful entrepreneur and business owner.

Heck, just look at photos of Albert Einstein. If you didn’t know him, would you guess that he was one of the smartest people to ever live?

You never know what’s behind the facade. I remember my first job at the restaurant. A filthy looking man came in and sat down at a table on a slow afternoon. The waitress whose section he was in found him so disgusting that she didn’t want to serve him. She tried to pass him off to one of the other girls. One of them finally agreed but only if the first waitress agreed to switch a weekend shift with her. At the end of his meal the man thanked his server and gave her a $100 tip. We never found out who the man was or what he did for a living but that first waitress lost out because she couldn’t get past how he looked.

Of course, this doesn’t just apply to business or successful people. The news is full of stories of people being pursued or prosecuted solely for the colour of their skin or the way they dress. There was a story a few weeks back of a woman who was sexually assaulted and the suspect was in custody. And yet somehow the blame was being put on her for wearing a short skirt. People on the news were saying she was asking for it, it was her fault because of how she dressed. Nobody brought up that maybe she wore a short skirt because she was comfortable with her body and thought it made her look good? They were judging her without knowing her.

Age is another factor, young people are often viewed as naive and inexperienced and yet there are kids out there making life altering contributions to science, business, the arts, and so much more. They are connected to the world in a way we never were at their age and we should recognize that. And seniors, they’re often dismissed for being out of touch with today’s world, pushed aside as second class citizens and yet they have a lifetime of experience and wisdom we can and should draw upon. After all at one time, they were teachers, bankers, engineers, and so on.

So take a moment the next time you’re about to judge someone for their looks or behaviours and think about what’s behind that facade. Looks can be deceiving, and although not every strange or different person you meet may secretly be successfully wealthy, I do guarantee they all have a story behind them that’s worth listening to.

BTW, My mom shattered my dreams by selling her Mustang a couple of months after that incident, just a few week’s before my 16th birthday and my getting my learners permit. I don’t know if that day played into it but my mom told me she didn’t want me to learn to drive on such a powerful car.

I’m Mark Des Cotes and this has been stuff I learned yesterday.

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