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Germanna Community College English professor Tim Trask owns more than 40 Hawaiian shirts. He wears them to class daily to bring about a more relaxed attitude in the classroom. Trask even did his master's thesis on the Hawaiian shirt culture. |
The airy garments covered in palm trees and big blooms make him approachable, says 36-year-old Trask, and they make others comfortable.
Each morning, he puts one on and heads to Germanna Community College, where he teaches English.
Around campus, Trask is known as the instructor who wears Hawaiian shirts. He has at least 40 of them.
Most are in his closet. Some hang on his office wall like art. He likes to look up from his desk and see them there, all bright and happy. They make bad days seem a little better.
But there’s another reason for the the uniform. Trask says the Hawaiian shirts put him on a more even plane with those in his class.
“I know my students are more comfortable when I’m wearing them,” he said, and they’re more likely to speak up in class.
The shirts also serve as a kind of visual aid in Trask’s writing classes.
At the beginning of each semester, Trask explains that effective writers write on topics they’re interested in. Then he points to his attire and tells students the story of his master’s thesis.
While in graduate school at the University of Arizona in 1998, Trask went into a department store in search of something cheap and comfortable to wear.
He spotted a $4 Hawaiian shirt on the discount rack. Trask snatched it up. He liked the hibiscus print and the airy, casual feel of the shirt.
He wore it so much he decided to by another Hawaiian shirt. And another.
Soon, Trask was wearing them almost all the time.
He was an American studies major, focusing on folklore and pop culture. His original plan—to write about a living history museum—had fallen through.
Trask told the professor he would pen his master’s thesis on the expressive culture of Hawaiian shirts.
Why, he wanted to know, was a shirt bought in Arizona and made in Korea considered Hawaiian? And how had the shirt-wearers become synonymous with laid-back and anti-authority?
The point, Trask tells his students, is that he took something that interested him and wrote a 62-page thesis about it.
“And I got to go to Hawaii for research,” he says. “It was a happy accident.”
Trask loves to talk about Hawaiian shirts. He can tell you they originated in the 1940s, when Chinese and Japanese workers made them from Kimono scraps for their children.
He knows that wealthy vacationing Americans brought the shirts back to the mainland and they became a sort of status symbol. As more average folks passed through Hawaii after America’s entrance into World War II, they became more commonplace.
And Hollywood, Trask tells those who are interested, is responsible for the rest of the Hawaiian shirt’s cultural evolution. Trask notes the 1961 film “Blue Hawaii,” in which Elvis Presley plays the part of a rebellious young guy who is at odds with his father.
Elvis wears Hawaiian shirts. His father wears a suit and tie.
Trask is a self-admitted, two-time college drop-out who found his way later than most.
He grew up in a small town in New York and went to the huge Brigham Young University right out of high school. It was overwhelming.
“I was your basic 18-year-old with no concept of what college was about,” Trask said.
He left and went home, enrolling in a local community college. Trask began to enjoy school so much he decided to stay in. He got his master’s degree and became an instructor two years ago.
Trask didn’t start his career in oversized shirts and sandals. He wore a suit and tie, because it seemed like he ought to.
But he wasn’t comfortable.
When he met with Germanna’s president, Frank Turnage, Trask told him all about his love for Hawaiian shirts.
Would it be OK, he wanted to know, if he wore them to class?
“He said, ‘Whatever makes you feel comfortable, go for it,’” Trask recalled.
Germanna student Ginny Van Valzah remembers the first day of Trask’s class. She was expecting a buttoned-up professor and got a sandal-wearing scholar instead. It was a relief.
Annie Washington agreed.
“I thought, he’s gonna be pretty cool,” she said.
Turns out her instincts were right, and the attire matched Trask’s personality.
That’s what he likes to hear.
Trask occasionally reverts to standard clothing—about once every three months. He’ll don a solid-color shirt, usually silk, when he gets sick of the Hawaiian look.
That happened last semester.
“The students thought I was mad at them that day,” Trask said. “They said, ‘Why are you being so mean tonight?’”
His colleagues wanted to know what was wrong.
Trask said his wife rolls her eyes at the obsession. But for the past few years, she and Trask and their two children, 5 and 2, have donned Hawaiian wear for the family portrait .
As for the rest of the family: “They’ve known I’ve been slightly off-kilter my entire life,” Trask said. “They’re not fazed.”
He doesn’t think he’ll tire of Hawaiian shirts anytime soon.
In fact, he wants to be buried in one.
To reach KRISTIN DAVIS:
540/368-5028
kdavis@freelancestar.com
