University of Virginia Library

Professor Day
Appears In Ad

By PARKES BRITTAIN

"Evolutionary changes in the grille. A
longer, lower hood. More ample room
inside.... Sure-Track braking, all-weather
Michelin tires, Automatic Temperature
Control, and Cartier timepiece.
Continental. The final step up."

Parked next to this sleek beauty on an
Albemarle estate at sunrise is Douglas
Day, a professor of English here at the
University.

According to the Richmond-Times Dispatch,
Mr. Day's modeling career began last spring
when he was contacted by an advertising team
from Ford Motor Company who had come to
Albemarle County to take photographs for
their 1972 ad campaign.

They had received his name through "some
mysterious means," so he and his wife, along
with several other area residents, agreed to pose
for several sessions.

In an interview with the Times Dispatch, Mr.
Day said that "the best time to take pictures of
cars is either at dusk or dawn. It gives the car
sort of an exotic quality - everything is sort of
unreal at dawn anyway."

"It was 5 in the morning, cold as hell, and I
had to teach the rest of the day," he continued,
"but I kept telling myself 'a hundred bucks for
just standing here'."

There were five sessions in all, amounting to
a check for $500, which he happily drove off
with in his 1968 Volkswagen.

However, since the ads have appeared in
several nationwide magazines, including
Harper's Bazaar, The Atlantic Monthly, and the
New Yorker Magazine, Mr. Day has had some
misgivings about the whole situation. "It was
pretty funny until I saw the ad," he said. "I've
been feeling lousy ever since."

"The picture shows no skill or talent on my
part," Mr. Day continued. "Anyone could stand
beside a car and have his picture taken. The last
thing you need is intelligence."

Understanding is in order for the professor,
who has received some "good-natured ribbing"
from both students and faculty, who, he says,
have somewhat facetiously accused him of
"selling out to the establishment or turning
crass and materialistic."

"You know what's so funny about this
whole thing," he said, is that for the past eight
years I've been doing my best to teach and I
think I've made some contribution."

"I've also written a couple of books and a
monograph and published 15 or so articles. Yet
nobody ever called me and asked for an
interview. Then I have my picture taken while
standing beside a car and here you are.

"I guess," he added, "that says something
about our society, doesn't it?"