Getting the Boot

 These are currently my favorite boots.They're about 3 years old, and, as usual, I fear that they will be at their most comfortable right before they're worn out.

I have other boots; boots are my favorite footwear. No heels, though - I hate heels. Not on other people, just on me. Heels are pretty, but they hurt.

They might hurt less now; I had surgery on my feet to correct congenital bone deformations a few years ago. The receptionist asked me, as I left after getting my cast removed, "Are you going to go out and buy some great high heels now?" My answer was a resounding NO. I am all about comfort.

For most of my life, "dress shoes" meant high heeled sandals. A solid shoe had a tendency to squeeze my bunions, which was beyond painful. I bought sandals so that the bunion could stick out between the straps. Sure, it looked kind of funky, but it didn't hurt as much. My daughter did the opposite with her bunioned feet, because she was embarrassed by the bunions. No sandals, no flip flops - she wore shoes that hid her feet.

When I was in high school, these were my favorite dress shoes. (Yes, that's me wearing them.)

They were a big name brand, Candies, but I got them at a steep discount, because it was spring, and they were in fall colors. Pfft! I didn't care. I loved those shoes. But man, they HURT. If I wore them to a 2 day debate tournament, Friday and Saturday, I'd have to spend most of Sunday on my couch, off my feet. I'd limp through church, and most of that required sitting. Still, at that point, I considered it worth it, because the shoes were adorable.

At that age, I'd also deal with tight waistbands and other indignities, if I thought it looked good.

At 20, pregnancy forced me into flat shoes and clothes with stretch, and I realized that I'd been living my life all wrong. Now, if it isn't comfortable, I don't wear it, unless it's a lifesaving device.

The first time I came downstairs wearing these black boots with a dress, on my way to church, my youngest daughter informed me that I was fashionable. "That look is really hot right now, Mom! Good choice!"

That was not the response I got from my oldest daughter when I unpacked the boots at her house a couple of years ago. I'd come to attend my grandniece's naming ceremony, and was staying at my daughter's house; my nieces live about 30 minutes away from there. I'd worn sneakers through the airport, and had the boots in my luggage.

My daughter looked concerned. "Did you bring dress shoes?"

"These are my dress shoes." She looked blank, so I re-phrased. "I wear these with my dresses."

"Did you pack any church shoes?"

"These are my church shoes." Again the blank look, again the attempt to explain; "I wear these to church. (My daughter blinked.) I teach Gospel Doctrine in these shoes, every week."

"Did you bring any other shoes?"

I pointed to my sneakers. "These."

She was aghast. This is not surprising; she's despaired over my clothes, and wanted to dress me, since her age was in single digits.

She felt a bit better after we arrived at the synagogue. Another niece, the new baby's auntie, is easily the most fashionable person on that side of the family. She had on a dress and cowboy boots. My sister, the baby's grandma, is also terribly fashionable (and lovely); she had on a dress and knee high black boots.

My daughter felt better; not that she likes my boots, mind you, but because, "At least you aren't the only one." To be the only one doing anything is horrifying to her. I hope that she didn't notice that I'm the only one here in a pattern instead of a solid. Well, OK, not the only one; my niece has on a striped cardigan.

I think we all look pretty good. I certainly don't think that I look scandalous.

I am so very aware, however, that not everyone agrees with me. One of the things that frequently makes my life more difficult than it ought to be is the expectations for women's footwear, in either a business context or in a special occasion context.

My husband and I like to cruise, and cruises have formal nights. Dressing up isn't required, they won't bar you from the restaurants if you're dressed casually, but dressing up is nice. Plus, you can get great portraits on those nights. But, formal clothes are hard for me, specifically because of the shoes. I have a dress that I bought specifically for cruises. It's black and silver, from a higher end store than I usually patronize, looks good, and packs well. Yet it has never left my closet, because I can't find shoes that I'll wear and would be considered appropriate. My daughters lean on me to get ballet flats, but those are usually either too narrow or have zero arch support (or both), and as someone with collapsed arches, arch support is often a deal breaker issue.

Narrowness is also a huge issue. Go to the store, and put women's casual and dress shoes next to each other. The dress shoes will always, always be narrower. I've seen shoes marked "wide width" whose soles are an inch and a half narrower than my actual foot. With uncorrected bunions, that was easily 2 1/2 to 3 inches too narrow. I have seen too many dress shoes whose soles are less than two inches wide. Whose foot is that made for?

Men can, and often do, pair suits with casual shoes, even sneakers, and it's considered fun and fashionable and appropriate. My husband has a pair of black tennis shoes that he frequently wears with his dress clothes, because they blend, and people don't even notice. I can't do that. I've seen too many people raise their eyebrows when I wear sneakers with casual clothes, even on vacation.

When I competed in high school speech and debate, and thirty years later when I coached high school speech and debate, the students were supposed to dress up in "business" attire, to compete. The guys often just tossed on a blazer over their T-shirt, jeans and tennis shoes, and they were considered well dressed and prepared. Even if the T-shirt had a design on it, or the jeans were ripped, it could be passed off as edgy and trendy. A girl dressed the same way was seen as being inappropriately dressed, not caring about herself or the event, and unprepared. Even swapping pants for a skirt, but wearing the same top and shoes she'd worn to school, was often deemed inadequate. One of my students wore brand new, deep blue jeans with her blazer, and got "inappropriado wardrobe" written on her ballot. (We are still trying to figure out what "inappropriado" is actually supposed to mean, since it's not a real word.) Many, many girls packed slippers to wear between rounds, because their "appropriate" shoes hurt. 

Business women do the same thing. How many go out to lunch in their office suits and skirts and sneakers, because their dress shoes are just for show, like for when they clock in or meet clients?

This was a constant struggle for me over decades of taking wedding photos. I could "look appropriate," or I could wear shoes that were comfortable. Sure, men sometimes face this struggle, too. I remember cringing when I heard a woman say that she "should have known" that she'd get "terrible photos" of the wedding when her male photographer showed up in sneakers. "How much of a professional could he be, dressed like that?"

This is why my husband, also a wedding photographer, always said, "I'm dressing up even if I'm the most formally dressed person at the wedding." To me, though, that's just evidence of how men and women move through life differently. It would be difficult, and often prohibitively expensive, for me to try to be the most formally dressed person at a wedding. Other women are likely to be in gowns, silk, satin, taffeta, sequins. I'm not going to be working in those clothes. I often end up climbing on chairs or benches, or getting flat on my stomach, to get the shot I want. It irks me tremendously that wearing clothes, and especially shoes, that let me do my job well is seen as being inappropriate, not caring about myself, the clients, or the occasion. I can't do my best work if I'm in pain. I shouldn't have to.

Three of my childen are married. To two of those weddings, where I was not only the parent of the bride or groom but also taking the photos, I wore boots under my floor length skirt.

Even if I was the only one in boots.

True But Misleading

One of the things that I taught my own children, and something I teach my speech and debate students, is that it's possible to be truthful but misleading, on purpose or by accident.

Usually, my first example is an easy and common one. "Imagine that someone was describing you. They listed all of your best qualities, and the best things you've ever done. Does that give an accurate picture of you? Then, a second person describes you, listing all of your worst qualities, and the worst things you've ever done. Does that give an accurate picture of you? Yet, both are true."

If someone who had never met you listened to both of those descriptions, they'd be confused. They'd probably start trying to figure out which person was lying. The thing is, neither of them are lying! Yet, neither is giving an accurate account of what you are like.

Take any single aspect of a personality - quirks, fears, awards, occupation, anything - and describe the person using only those facts, and the picture is incomplete.

I reminded one of my daughters of this when she was in college. She'd described her sister's idiosyncrasies to her friends in advance of her sister's visit, and then informed us, "They're terrified to meet her. One told me that she wouldn't even know what to say to her."

"That's because the only things they know about her are what you've told them."

"It's all true!"

"Yes, it's true, but it's also very carefully chosen to paint a certain picture."

"No, it isn't! It's all true!"

"True does not necessarily mean accurate."

"Yes, it does! True means accurate!"

It doesn't help that this child tends to define herself almost entirely as "not my sister," so anything different between the two is seen as extraordinarily significant.

(And yes, after they met her, the friends thought that some things her sister did were odd - for instance, her university did not allow people of the opposite sex into the bedrooms of students, so she wouldn't go into any men's bedrooms - but the comment that made it back to us was, "She's a lot more normal than her sister made her sound.")

There's an example that I love to use, especially in class - Surgeon's Photograph.

For decades, it was the most famous photograph purporting to show the Loch Ness Monster. It was supposedly taken by a London gynecologist (a man assumed to be intelligent and sober), and showed the classic long necked "monster" appearance.

Monster enthusiasts were delighted. This was scientific proof, they said, of the creature in Loch Ness.

Doubters pointed out that, in and of itself, a photo proves nothing. Plus, this one had no identifying features to show that it was taken in Loch Ness, and no other objects for scale, to give an idea of the size of the object.

The photo was taken in the 1930s, and decades later, when NASA had the most sophisticated photo analysis capabilities on the planet, the photo and its negative were sent to NASA.

Allow me to digress for a moment to explain "photographic negative" to those too young to remember film. In the days of film cameras, a camera was loaded with a cartridge of light sensitive material, "film." Every time you took a photo, the film would wind from one side of your camera to the other, making one image every time you pushed the shutter button. Rolls of film came in different lengths, so that you could take 12, 24 or 36 photos per roll of film. Then the film was exposed to chemicals that set the image, and the image was in reverse - negative - of the way the print made from it would be; light was dark, dark was light. When film started being able to show color, red was green, etc. on the negative.

To make prints, you needed the negative. If it was lost or damaged, the only way to reproduce a photo was to take a photo of the photo, so you'd have a new negative.

The only way to "retouch" a photo was to painstakingly paint either the photo or the negative. Altering a negative was very difficult.

NASA determined that in the above photo:
1. The negative had not been altered in any way.
2. The printed photo had not been altered in any way.
3. The object and the water were physically present, not a reflection or painting.
4. The object was in motion, going forward.
5. There was a much larger mass, or body, under the water.
6. The forward motion came from the movement of some part of the mass or body under the water.

Monster enthusiasts were delighted, again. This was scientific proof, they said, of the creature in Loch Ness.

Decades after the NASA analysis, a man came forward to say that he, not the surgeon, was the photographer, and that the photo was a hoax. He'd sculpted the head and neck, he said, and attached them to a toy submarine. He then put the toy sub in the shallows of the lake, and took the photo.

For me, here's where the story becomes fun. Not one single determination of the NASA analysis is inconsistent with the toy submarine story. All of those conclusions can stand as absolute truth, and the toy sub hoax can be accepted as true.

In fact, most researchers and others now consider this photo to be a hoax - but a very successful hoax.

There are a handful of folks who say that the hoax story is the fake one. For instance, the supposed hoaxer said that the original intent was to embarrass the Daily Mail, the newspaper that first printed the photo. If that's true, they ask, why did he wait decades, until most of the Mail employees from the 1930s were dead, to reveal it? They also point to other bits of analysis, including a note in the NASA analysis that says it is possible that there are whiskers on the animal's face.

All of those things could, in fact, be true, without discounting any of the NASA analysis.

See how much fun that can be? Each side can claim that the hard evidence is on their side, and they can do so without lying, or even trying to be deceptive.

Once when I was teaching my debate students about when and how to challenge evidence, I said that it's possible to ask for the credentials of any quoted experts. "Dr. John Doe says, in an article published in X journal..." might be entirely true. But, if the subject is medical research, and Dr. Doe's doctorate is in Medieval English literature, well, he wouldn't be a particularly credible source.

"Only use this information to discredit your opponents," I said. "Don't go putting things that sound good but are total bunk into your own arguments."

"Oh, sure," said one student. "Like you're going to teach us this stuff, and we're not going to use it for The Dark Side."

(And therein lies the problem with knowledge. And adolescence.)

"Just remember," I tell the students, "just because something is true doesn't mean that you're getting the whole story, or an accurate picture."

I remind them of one of my favorite Mark Twain quotes: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

Use Your Words

I am absolutely giddy right now with the anticipation of coaching a brand new homeschool speech and debate team, with one of my best buddies, one I met years ago doing college theater. We'll be competing in the same league, against some of the same schools, that I competed against as a kid.

I did not enter high school intending to study either speech or debate. The opportunity sort of snuck up on me. Some of my fondest memories of high school come from debate tournaments; I never would have predicted that.

In honor of this exciting new adventure, here's my memory of my first speech contests. I now help organize my Rotary Club's speech contests; life comes full circle.

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I listened to myself arguing with my husband recently. My angry retort included the phrase, "That is why I can lend absolutely no credence to your assertion…" I'm used to the way I think and speak, and even I found myself thinking, "Who talks that way?"

Dan has always been flustered by the way I argue. "I can't argue with you. You were on the debate team," he used to say when we were dating, and even when we were newlyweds. It drove me crazy.

"What does that have to do with anything?" I'd fume. "If you have a valid point, it remains valid." He was used to determining who was "right" or who "won" by tallying up which of us had the last word; or, alternately, seeing which one of us expressed themselves the best. I was used to both sides weighing what the other had to say. Eloquence is nice, but it doesn't mean the well expressed opinion is the right one.

By some quirk of personality, I express myself best when I'm angry. I'm not a shlump in daily conversation, but I become blazingly articulate when I'm upset. It's a skill honed during adolescence. My friend Dave is convinced that it's a skill also helped along by the fact that I don't swear. Eliminate certain words from a person's vocabulary, and they have to work harder at expressing opinions. I remember fondly Dave's reaction when I described someone as a waste of the air he breathes.

It must be frustrating to be married to someone who becomes better able to express themselves the angrier that they get.

You'd think that I'd enjoy arguing, given this proclivity, that I'd be one of those people who uses verbal jousting as a form of entertainment. In fact, I dislike it. I've learned not to run from conflict, to meet it head on. If need be, I'll be the one to instigate – when a complaint needs to be made to a company about shoddy service, for instance. Still, I do not enjoy conflict.

Ariane, my high school best friend, has an entirely different approach. She thrives on verbal jousting. It took me a long time to understand that about her. I remember being frustrated with her during our senior year, and asking her, "Why do you pick fights?"

"I don't!"

"Yes, you do! You do it all the time. You will deliberately pick a fight."

She didn't quite see it the same way I did. "I just like to see how people express themselves," she explained. She wanted to know how they would support their opinions, especially under duress. She chose volatile subjects and incited strong feelings because she felt that was when she was likeliest to get the purest form of the other person's opinions, she explained.

It was a totally foreign concept to me. I have spent my entire life feeling that we should all just get along and that everyone should find common ground. Ticking people off to see how they expressed themselves was something that never would have occurred to me. It surprises no one that Ariane became an attorney.

The high school debate team was full of lawyers in training and lawyer wannabes. It's excellent practice for someone who will make their living navigating the legal system.

I always felt that those of us who were also actors had an edge over the others. When competing in debate, whether on a team or solo, you are required to argue both sides of an issue. During one round, you will have to convincingly argue for whatever the current proposition is. During the next round, you must argue just as convincingly against it. Either way, you are expected to have documentation to back up your assertions. Actors are used to being convincing while having someone else's words come out of their mouth.

Of course, there are generally debate team members who dislike the actors, who feel that they are less intelligent, less intellectual and just generally too frivolous to be competing against serious minded, brilliant folks like themselves. It's annoying.

I first competed in debate during my sophomore year. The school was frequently sent notices of speech contests in the area, and these notices were always given to the debate team adviser. Frankly, I think the information should be broadcast more widely than that, but the assumption is, or at least was then, that the debate team members are the students who will be interested in and capable of such speeches. So, as a sophomore, I learned of a speech contest sponsored by a local Elks Club.

Four of us ended up representing the school. There was no qualifying task; the adviser just took those of us who were interested. Three of us were also actors. The competitors were myself, Chris, Suzy and Merrie. Suzy, Merrie and I were actors. Chris was a senior and the captain of the debate team. After high school, he was headed to a prestigious school back East on a hefty scholarship.

It was generally accepted that Chris would win, and the rest of us were just along for the ride. Chris especially seemed to think so. He found it to be unconscionable that mere actors were allowed to participate. This was a Serious Event, to be attended by Serious Students who had done Thoughtful Research. I don't know if it bothered him that we were female; I don't recall him being particularly sexist. I did get the distinct impression that he thought I was also too young to be of any consequence, even though Suzy and I were in the same grade. He seemed to be upset that more seniors couldn't compete. He cut Suzy some slack since it was her second year on the team and she'd proven her worth. Merrie and I got no such concession. At least Merrie was a junior, not a lowly underclassman.

The contest topic was, "Freedom and Its Responsibilities." I rolled that thought around in my head for a few days before I started to write anything. I didn't want to fall on my face the first time out, especially since it would confirm Chris' opinion that actors were inferior. We had to submit a written copy of our speech to our adviser to be approved before we competed. I gave mine to the teacher, rather anxious about what she would say.

I expected to be given some revisions to make. Instead, when she handed it back, she had nothing more to say than, "Good job." I was slightly puzzled, but glad that she liked it. I thought I had some pretty sound points. If she had no revisions, she must feel it was ready to go

The competition was to be held during an Elks Club lunch, so we got out of school to go. We all dressed up, and our teacher drove us to the luncheon. It was held in the Sky Room at the Mapes Hotel, a plush downtown property. The Sky Room was on the top floor, with windows all the way around two sides. The view was gorgeous. The hotel had, in the past, entertained such luminaries as Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable. I don't remember what we ate, but I remember that we ate it at a table in front of the room, facing the club members. I worried a lot about spilling food on myself or displaying manners that would shoot down my chances.

I don't remember in what order we spoke. I thought I delivered my speech well, and that my actor's training helped. Never let 'em see you sweat. It's an asset to be able to appear unruffled when you're unsure and intimidated. It was also easier to do when I was presenting my own ideas.

I think we were all shocked when the winner was announced, and it was me. I remember being called up to the podium, the audience smiling and applauding, and the presenter sincerely congratulating me. Merrie and Suzy were both happy for me, but Chris looked like the proverbial ton of bricks had fallen on him. In his universe, it was supposed to be his award, and I was supposed to be filler, someone to take the slot that gave us enough participants to compete. He was not supposed to lose to a sophomore drama student!

The hotel was across the street from the bank building where my mother worked. I insisted that we all go across and up to the 15^th floor to tell her before we went back to school.

Today, my mother would probably be called an administrative assistant or something of the sort. Back then, she was called a legal secretary. She was the office manager, typist, bookkeeper, appointment book and general right hand of an attorney. He and his brother had a practice together in what was then the First National Bank building.

Someone, maybe the teacher, worried about us just dropping in on the office. I was sure it would be just fine, and insisted as much. We trooped across the street and up in the elevators, teenagers and their keeper loose in the downtown business district.

I introduced everyone to my mother. Chris smiled politely. He didn't say or do anything that was outright rude. He was too controlled for that. He did, however, sulk all the way back to the school. After the obligatory remarks to me immediately after the competition, I'm not sure if he ever spoke to me again. Word was, he never quite got over being furious and feeling cheated.

Back at school, the teacher dropped a small bomb on me, one I was immediately glad she'd saved for after the competition. "When I read your speech, I didn't understand it," she said.

I was floored. "What?"

"Well, you know, you used the words 'however' and 'although' right next to each other. I didn't see how that would work. But when I heard you say it, it made sense."

My mind spun. She'd told me it was good when she read it! How is it even possible, I wondered, that she has a college degree, is currently at work on her Master's Thesis, and she could not understand the writing of a high school sophomore? If she had told me this before the competition, it would have completely thrown me. I would have been convinced that the fault was mine, that the ideas were unclear and badly expressed. Having just won, though, having not only won but won against Chris, I knew the speech was good. Other people obviously "got it." I had to entertain the new and frankly frightening thought that my teacher was, well, perhaps not very well suited to her profession.

Maybe it was this kind of angst that contributed to the process of creating the next speech I used in a contest. This time, we were not required to submit the text beforehand. Consequently, I did not put anything down on paper until I was in the bus, on the way to the contest, this time for the Rotary Club.

I won.

My mother, while proud, was beside herself. "What can I say to you? If you'd lost, I could say, 'Well, if you had prepared, you might have won.' What am I supposed to say now?"

I tried to explain my processes to her. I had composed the speech in my head weeks earlier, and had simply been fine tuning since then. By the time I write anything down, I have rolled the words around in my head, trying out and discarding dozens of phrases. I have internally debated the merits of "azure," "cobalt" and "indigo." I try out half a dozen ways to say something before I actually say it. I even do this to a lesser degree in everyday conversation. Just because I hadn't committed anything to paper didn't mean that I hadn't given it any thought or expended any effort. I finally wrote it down just so I could have a "cheat sheet" for the competition. I know that most people need rough drafts on paper. My rough drafts are virtually always internal. She wasn't sure whether I was serious or rationalizing. I was very serious.

My husband, God love him, is not a language lover. He works best with machinery. Machinery makes sense to him. Words are nebulous, interchangeable, inefficient. Give him an electrical circuit any day. In this, we are totally incompatible.