The Other GCCs: How familiar initials can change your life

After reading Simplify Your Sloppy Life, I streamlined my instructional wardrobe by purchasing five bold, block-letter “GCC”  T-shirts that matched my black, khaki, grey, forest green, and navy blue Dockers.

     My life changed. Almost imperceptible nods and other subtle insider cues were sent my way at international cultural events, in transcontinental airports, and around Valero gas stations. I believe the new HMO pharmacist offered me the tickly beginnings of a secret GCC handshake along with the custom cough syrup, but I failed to respond in kind and he quickly withdrew. Reflecting on this, I suspected that my GCC might not be his GCC. Still, it was as if I were again accepted as a fellow Skull and Bones member or a Faber College Delta House drinking buddy, if only for a moment. I wondered if a gold pendant with runic inscriptions could be far behind, or even hidden under his powder-blue, nylon-blend pharmacy staff coat. What about blood initiations? In any event, my GCC T-shirt said it loud and proud: I belonged!

     But to what, precisely? And where? I could have asked him what the deal was, but who wants to appear clueless in the company of a fellow Greek, geek, or whatever?

     At an Americas dance festival in Lower Barstow a week later, as I was watching South Bakersfield Middle School Spirit Squad’s “historically accurate” homage to Toni Basil’s “Mickey,” a lean, tanned man with a tattoo of an eighteenth century Man’O’War in full sail, 24-pounders blasting away on his big biceps, bumped into me and whispered, “excusez-moi, geeceecee.”  I caught a small, wry, knowing smile as he disappeared into the screaming throng.

     As I was saying goodbye to a friend at LAX’s Lufthansa gate a few days afterwards, three raven-haired, black-shirted women raced by. Stalled for a ticket check, one idly glanced my way and then tugged excitedly at her friends’ dark sleeves. They shouted “Durcheinander! Durcheinander!” at me again and again, vigorously thrusting their fists in the air, until they were very firmly ushered on board.

     On my way out, a tiny girl with an emerald-colored, stub-necked vulture attached by five-inch talons to her left trapezium recognized my T-shirt, smiled broadly, and pointed at the seething lice nest. “He’s a buddy, he’s a buddy,” it shrieked knowingly before they were hustled away by her parents. As I waited for the shuttle, half-a-dozen large males in camouflage fatigues slithered like sea snakes out of an infinitely long black limousine just feet from where I was standing. One noticed my GCC shirt, started to salute, caught himself, and gave me a somber and clearly members-only nod. Seconds later, a man about my age pumped my hand like he was working a long-dry well, thanking me again and again for “your caring staff.” How would you have reacted? Precisely. That kind of grin, before I thoughtfully replied, “Anyone would have done the same.”

     Something was up, and not just because of the psychotropic cough syrup. Thankfully, instructing students in advanced research strategies is part and parcel of my duties in English 104.  I teach the tough stuff: Google, Wikipedia, even Facebook.

     Eventually, I found that we are but one speck among many friendly splotches in Galaxy GCC. The pharmacist was probably a former frat boy acknowledging a fellow lodge member from Arizona’s Glendale Community College. The others were tougher to figure.

     The guy with the sea battle from Master and Commander inked on his ample arm was likely an alum of Garde Côtière Canadienne, or Canadian Coast Guard. The blackshirts shoved on the Lufthansa jet had to be members of the radical artist German Chaos Crew. The little girl had a giant Green-Cheeked Conure on her bloodied and dislocated shoulder. The man who thanked me? I apparently resemble a Genesys Convalescent Center nurse. The brass were probably warlords from the Graduated Combat Capability, the Gunnery Career Course, the Geographic Combat Command, or the Greenland Commanders Conference; it’s tough to tell, because some of our extended GCC community members are very hush-hush.

     Similar to powers in The Da Vinci Code, GCC communities are often offshore, omniscient, or omnivagant. The Gulf Cooperation Council has its very own flag, just like Cleveland. Unlike Cleveland, it has scads of money. Still, you can’t really figure out what either actually does. In contrast, the Grand Council of the Crees website carefully details the internecine workings of a group representing “14,000 Crees…of eastern James Bay and Southern Hudson Bay in Northern Quebec.” One simply knows that they are in constant contact with our Garde Côtière Canadienne.

     We even have our own religious institutions. Catch a Granger Community Church service online, beginning with a power trio performance just one riff shy of a Rush concert. Misappropriating a line from the film School of Rock, I may not be in the church, but I’m “in” church, sipping a latte, jalapeno novelty underwear unchanged.

     There are more GCC community colleges: Guam, Greenwich, Greenfield, and Germanna (with multiple campuses in a number of small towns; a Nathaniel West fan, I instantly took to Locust Grove).  

     Some GCCs will likely forever remain shrouded in mystery, however. I can’t decipher the workings of the Golay Convolutional Code, the Gaussian Collision Channel, nor the Generic Cascaded Canceller. The Global Cricket Corporation too will remain uninvestigated, along with the Greek Competition Council, although on first impression they seem quite jaunty.

     I crave community and belonging, but perhaps some GCCs should remain aloof, abroad, alien, and abstract. Like a grading rubric, a little mystery never hurts. Call me a Romantic, but the next time somebody’s eyes flip open like Mazda Miata headlights when they see my GCC T-shirt—and assuming it’s not because of Glendale Community College Cafeteria Breakfast Burrito #9 overflow running downhill like steaming lava from neck to navel—I’d like to believe it’s because they know, on the deepest levels, that we have something special in common: the Greater GCC communities, inextricably entwined like the Tibetan knot, reflecting the interrelatedness of all phenomena; GCCs magical, wondrous, and universal; and GCCs that are very, very secret, as in “I’d have to kill you if I told you” secret.

     Those confidences aside, you should absolutely know this: Any time you wear a GCC T-shirt you are one of us, and we accept you. We accept you, you’re a member, and you’re in.

     Even if you blow the handshake.&

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