After watching a movie on TV at home, classic Christmas fare you’re always glad to see again, though for me it was the first time, somehow the conversation turned I don’t know how and Chaz was urged to tell again the story I hadn’t heard yet, about his friend and/or colleague who had big feet and wanted to take advantage of the opportunity offered for mail order shoes. The instructions urged a very careful outline of the foot to serve as a template for the scrupulous craftsmen who would produce the perfect fit just exactly made to precise order that could slip on immediately almost like a second skin and walking would at once be never as before. What could be better? So the friend drew with great care the outline of his entire foot, but his foot inside his shoe, so the drawing was the outside of the shoe, much larger than the foot he already knew was large to start with, huddled inside its extensive carrier, the foot somehow forgotten, the memory left behind. The Company sent him a letter, something to the effect that “our expert technicians have reviewed the mathematics and the pattern you have sent us and fear there may be something wrong in the calculations, please carefully re-trace your foot again and re-submit.” And he drew the same outside template of his shoe and sent it off again.

We all laughed at the story, a first time hearing for me, and while the laughter was still hanging in the air, my mind and memory drifted to analogies and connections relevant to my own feet, and patterns, and templates and tracings, and I spent a few moments to see where the thoughts would lead me.

I have small feet. But wide. 6 1/2 w, actually extra wide, actually extra extra wide. My wife said I had duck feet, like paddles, and that was why I could swim the length and back of an Olympic sized swimming pool underwater along the bottom with just one breath. She said it wasn’t just the operatic lungs, it was the feet. I wasn’t sure whether to be modest or proud.

And I thought about Hitchcock Shoes. I still have their catalog somewhere. I may try them again. They were an answer to the frustration of not finding shoes wide enough in all the stores around. Some stores stocked wide, some even Extra Wide or Double Wide. But they didn’t know who they were dealing with. My feet were wider than that. Their shoes were made by underpaid workers in some country far away who followed the pattern given to them of the imagined American foot. One size does not fit all. And limited variations are just not enough to encompass a foot, my foot, that I had always thought was nothing special, just a foot down there to hold me up and walk around on, and there ought to be a shoe somewhere appropriate to put it in. Apparently I was wrong. And the lure of “custom made to order” drew me like a siren song. I traced my foot Oh so carefully and sent the exact pattern back east where they made a rubber plastic template and kept it on file, to be preserved forever in the archive always available as needed, and only updated from time to time because, as you know, things can change a bit, feet can flatten or spread a little more…. And I got boxes in the mail, and opened them up to the smell of leather and quality, I knew they had taken all the pains to get me right, those shiny shoes that almost glowed, I put my foot in to the shock that they were heavier than I expected, immediately I knew my life had been upgraded to a higher level where people walked around and quality weighed more. And I walked around a little extra to try and get used to my new foot life, no more those common shoes of approximate fit, I was walking in a more nearly inner circle, I had somehow made it to the above, and could look down and sneer at those below, if I so chose, and life was good. I was validated, I had made it, a member of the foot elect. And they revealed to me the inner secrets of their offerings, the E for Extra Wide could spread out to include Triple EEE, even EEEE, even EEEEE, and as they got to know me better, their enthusiasm to spread and range slowed down and cooled to the reluctance of EEEEEE, and, dare I say it, in the most extreme cases which we both hoped did not include me, that almost unbelievable and so far untouched unreached EEEEEEE. I think they were on the verge of recommending medical alternatives to my foot spread. I felt myself the innocent victim of a process that spread like oil on water.

Something had to stop. I think it was the cost. High price for custom, and I had been poor all my life, never self-indulgent. I could make do, and I made lots of it. I decided on my own that lower pride and the satisfaction of the readily available at higher numbers where the fit not perfect but close enough to walk around, from my documented 6 ½ w to maybe 7 w commercial, and even 7 ½ w, rare but findable, and “close enough” could get me through the day. It didn’t really matter to my accommodating self that my big toes had begun to lean inward as if squeezed by a constriction which had so far not reached pain. And I could still walk. But pay less. And I still revere Hitchcock and the standard of quality I had reached and they had shared with me. And I still have their catalog somewhere around the house.

And then I thought, as thinking leads one thing to the next, you know how it works, of feet too small to find the size. I had been when young the shortest kid around. I was famous for it. I used to say with some satisfaction after a few years, “Well, when I was young, the average height was 5’ 6”, and I grew up to be average.” Honesty made me add reluctantly that the average grew up as well and towered over my 5’ 6”. Sometimes you just can’t win.

And little tall, or not tall, and little feet however wide, seem somehow related so that if you’re talking about one, you’re maybe invoking or including the other.

So moving right along. I think the whole world has gotten taller. The average height, the highest high, was obvious to everyone. I used to be satisfied with easy explanations, genetics, cross breeding, better food, more milk, milk makes bigger bones. And I think back just one generation before. I’m taller than my Father from that generation. He was about 5’ 3” and I could look down on the top of his head. And my Mother was under 5 feet, maybe 4’ 10”. Little people. The way it was then. And I remember that funny scene between my Father and my soon to be Father-in-law, another little guy from Athens who felt comfortable enough to tell the story of how when he was just a baby his Mother and Aunt would put him on the scale in the market where they would weigh the fruit, they’d look at the dial on the scale and laugh and say, “Too small, Throw him back.” And he grew up to be short, like my own Father. And here they were, the potential in-laws, strutting and sizing each other up, competing: “I’m 5’ 6”, and the counter “Well, I’m 5’ 7”!” And I had to restrain myself from saying, “Hey! I’m 5’ 6” and I can look down on both of you!”

And I think of all the older generation little people who run around from store to store to try to find small clothes that fit, and by default they’re driven to the Children’s Department where they hope to find a fit that doesn’t look like child, and shoes, they hope those little shoes will look grown up enough to not embarrass, the little shoe of the little foot just fitting into the palm of the hand.

And then the time, segue again, aren’t segues wonderful? when we went with friends to the mountains for a ski vacation, and I had never skied and didn’t know how. They had all their gear, but I had to go to the ski shop to get ski boots – I’ve written about it in a little collection of poems called Virgin Ski because it was my first time, and the store measured my foot, and here’s the little poem verbatim:

Little Feet

I’m
sorry
but
      we
          don’t
                 have
your
size

Ha Ha. Again.

And then I wonder as so often, how did I get here on this subject, and where am I? And I look back, because I can, and say oh, yes, of course, telling family stories at the holidays, and measuring feet. And I know this train of thought is always running, and I’ll come back for another direction, but for now, for anyone reading this, whenever you read it, because of when I’m writing, I can say just a little prematurely ahead of schedule: Merry Christmas, and I mean it.