my professorial post in the minute academic department of hoop pedagogy, college of my own making, is perched atop a brick post on the median strip of 33rd, where students and bypassers pay my scant teachers pay.  

they teach me as much as i teach them, my professorial post being merely a representation of the facts that:

1. i made the hoops myself

2. i stand up on the post for hours hooping almost every saturday morning

3. i listen and watch for pedagogically significant moments in the sociology, economy, and science of these things i sling

on a vaguely related note:

two nights before i had received a phone call from a woman who needed hoops, we decided to meet in the 7-11, which was swarming with cops.  they spoke with me, asked about the hoops, almost asked me if it was alright that i was doing this here.  i assured them that it was, and when the woman pulled up, selected her hoops, and paid cash for them, they just sort of looked through us, eating their doughnuts and such, talking to each other in their loud police accents.  for me at least, it was a victory of sorts.