Herring boxes without topses sandals were for Clementine

[rolanni]

So, this morning was the hospital's breakfast and gala celebration of their volunteer workers.  It is, I'm told, National Volunteer Month, so if you know someone who volunteers at a hospital, or the library, or the church, or at school -- it is appropriate to thank them for their service.

Inland Hospital's thank-you was very pleasant.  There were about seventy of us present, and each had a made-to-order omelette, home fries, danish, and fruit salad, with beverages of our choice.  We had the Kennebec Chordsmen for entertainment while we ate, and I had occasion once again to be grateful to my grandmothers for taking me to All Of Those Concerts in the Parks when I was just a chitlin, so that I had more than a passing acquaintance with the Songs of My People.

After breakfast and entertainment, there was speechifying by the president, who honored our Volunteer of the Year. Then the volunteer coordinators were up, to give out certificates and service stars (I was there as a guest, having only served a few months so far).  Throughout it all was the drawing for and bestowing of door prizes.  All in all, as I said, a very pleasant affair, and also useful, as I got to put the names and faces of my colleagues together.

I want to talk a little bit about clothes.

Yeah, clothes.

And, also, height.

And expectations.

And fear.

Because, see, when I was dressing for the nice affair described above, I naturally reached for respectful clothes.  I therefore put on a yellow oxford cloth shirt (men's tall medium, LL Bean); a pair of khakis (women's tall 18, Eddie Bauer); a black leather vest (Penney's, I think, back a hundred years ago); striped socks, naturally, and a pair of Dansko lace-up oxfords (which I just found out they don't make anymore, dammit).  And, no -- this is not a story about how I was vilified at the affair for wearing inappropriate clothes.  No one said anything about my clothes, though a couple of people admired my hair.

See. . .

People who have been following along here for a while, and those of you who have seen me in person will have noted A Thing about me.  Most people, in fact, notice this Thing about me immediately, and often comment upon it, far predating the purple hair, and with...significantly less enthusiasm.  In fact, most people, when commenting on my Thing...sound a little accusatory.

I'm six foot tall (just under 2 meters, for those who measure by tens).  Perhaps not quite so tall anymore (doctors differ), but still -- tall for a woman.  And most especially tall for an Older Woman in Maine.

Now, the thing about the Thing?  Is that I've been damn' near six foot tall since I was twelve.  I came from a family of tall people and I am, irony being what it is, the shortest person in my family group.  I remember shopping for clothes with my mother -- proper girl clothes, you understand, this was the 1960s.  The sleeves would be short -- "Roll them up," said my mother -- the skirts were too short -- "Bend your knees," said my mother -- the shirt tails too short -- "Don't lift your arms," said my mother.  Most of my clothes were, yes, home-made, and for a long while after I grew up and moved out, I made my own clothes.  Which solved that problem, sort of.

The thing about the Thing, though?  Is that I liked wearing jeans, and invariably did so on my own time.  On one occasion -- I was 14 and had walked up to the local shopping center and was browsing the women's section in the local, I dunno, was it Kmart, then, or still Kresge's?  Anyhow, a saleswoman approached me -- I was wearing jeans and a flannel shirt -- and told me that I was in the wrong section, and I needed to leave.  The one thing that does give me away, if that's even the phrase I want, is my voice, and she knew she'd made a mistake when I asked her for a date, but that didn't stop her from calling the security guard.

Who didn't throw me out, but who did give me a lecture about not being flip to my elders.

When it became possible for women to be seen in the workplace wearing pants, I enthusiastically adopted the practice and never looked back.

And there's when the trouble really started.

I was tall.  At that point in my life, I was slender.  I wore my hair shortish.  I favored tailored suits and what are these days called "boyfriend" jeans.  I also wore makeup and earrings.

And, nine times out of ten, twenty times out of twenty-one, fifty out of fifty-one, I was addressed as "sir," by almost everyone who stood behind any kind of counter, or who had to do with putting gas in my car, or almost anything else.  At one point -- this was in the late 1970s, now -- Steve and I walked, hand-in-hand, into a mall jewelry store.  One clerk turned away from us.  Another -- possibly the manager -- bravely stepped up to ask if he could help, "you gentlemen."

Some years later, when we had moved to Maine -- and I had long realized that wearing men's clothes meant I could find sleeves that were long enough, and jeans that were long enough, and skirts were no longer an issue -- I worked the night shift at the daily paper.  My shift ended at midnight.  Steve would often meet me after work, and we'd walk the long way home, across the Concourse, so called, which, at that time of night was the territory of drunks and bikers -- not necessarily the same population, but there was an overlap.

One night, we were walking by a group of night-time livers, hand in hand, as we usually go, and someone in the shadows spat, and someone else said, "Fags."

Steve turned around, still holding my hand, and said, "Hey, man, you insulted my wife."

"Wife?" said one guy, maybe a little truculent, while his buddy put a hand on his shoulder and said, "Sorry, man.  Nice lookin' woman."

And so we passed on.

Always -- and I mean, To This Day -- when I walk into a public ladies room, and there is someone there before me -- they do a double-take.  Always.  Nowadays, the purple hair sometimes smooths the alarm away into a smile, "I love your hair..."  But I gotta tell you, I just love that start of fear that I generate, just by being who I am.

But here's the thing about my Thing -- obviously people are not very observant.  Certainly, the normal joe or joan on the street can't be trusted to correctly identify any random passer-by by their gender.

And, even if they could -- so what?

People are people, people.  Just...sorta bear that in mind, 'k?  It'll make everybody's life a whole lot easier.

Today's blog title brought to you by, "My Darlin' Clementine," which is one of the Songs of My People.

Comments

[sharon murphy karpierz (from livejournal.com)]

Don't go to the bathroom in North Carolina. You'll get arrested.

I am... not as tall as I would like to be, having inherited my Grandmother's short torso to go along with my father's long legs and arms. I had the same inseam as my father who stood 6'4" to my 5'8". I also learned to make my own clothes for that reason. Now I shop Roaman's and Women Within to get my tall jeans, having a rounder figure than you.

[gerald heaton (from livejournal.com)]

My step sister had the other end of the problem.
4ft 7in on a good day. 5 ft with 3+ inch heels (when she could find them in her size)

In the 60s and 70s there were very few stores that carried what is now called "petite" sizes.

She had to shop in the children's sections.
And believe me, a 20 something wearing a child's dress really got strange looks at semi-formal affairs.

[margotinez.livejournal.com]

So your mother was from the short side of the family? Or perhaps locked into the 60s lockstep. A dear friend of mine was 6 ft, married a guy 6' 4", and their children were also tall. As preschoolers, the children were thought to be slow and others treated them so. I hope you were able to escape this.
At 5'8" I was comfortably above the average, but not into the stratosphere. Hosting my friend's TipToppers Club, however, gave me a sense of life as a midget.
I have a tenor voice and most oft addressed as "sir" on the telephone. Thanks for sharing your experiences.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

My mom was just too short to get into the local Treetoppers Club. I'm talking half-an-inch or less.

In fact, I was in the "slow" class during first and second at the Roman Catholic School. I don't think it had so much to do with my height -- though it did make me an easy target -- but with the fact that I stammered, and couldn't seem to get my words in the right order when I spoke. Also? I was left-handed, and the nuns "changed" me, which made a lot of stuff murky for a while. I read just fine, and when, in third grade, I was transferred to the public school, their testing placed me in the "bright" class. Go figure.

[attilathepbnun.livejournal.com]

*scratches head in puzzlement* People can be so odd ....

[thewol.livejournal.com]

I've always been a firm believer that you should wear the clothes you feel comfortable in. I am not comfortable in heels, hose, skirts, or bras (harnesses are for horses). I've always like the fit of men's jeans better than women's, and I am not tall (5'4"). I am a lot rounder than I used to be, however. I hate blouses/shirts that button, hate prints, and generally hated the whole "what women should wear to work" deal. (God and Mr. Rogers like me just the way I am, i.e., without makeup). I had the luxurious delight of a career that let me work from home (medical transcription). I also don't like cutting my hair (which was blonde, and is now white), although about every six years or so, I whack it all off and start over. The time before last was because of rotator cuff surgery (my hair was so long I couldn't even comb it with one hand, never mind wash it, etc.). I whacked it off last year to make my mom happy. (she of the short, ratted, hairsprayed into immobility "helmet hair" generation). She's 92; my opportunities to make her happy are diminishing, and hair grows.

Still a post on clothes is tres apropos in view of this. (https://knitsfromtheowlunderground.wordpress.com/2016/04/14/rolannis-necklet/)

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Well, how pretty!

I'm honored.

[jessie-c.livejournal.com]

Alas, transphobia, your lack of Clue no longer surprises me. I would have hoped that in the middle of the second decade of the 21st Century you would have died out alongside your sibling homophobia, but the ignorant do cling so tenaciously to their irrational hatreds. [1]

At least your experiences generally end in the confused embarrassment of the 'phobe in question. Those of us who are actually trans tend to get rather more severe treatment (http://planettransgender.com/trans-woman-attacked-20-men-destroys-ffs/) than that.



I am worried that my sarcasm will encounter a sarchasm wherein you may think that I'm actually addressing you rather than the irrational bigotry of the uneducated. If that's what happened I proffer my sincerest of apologies in advance.

[jessie-c.livejournal.com]

Oh dear. Eljay's brain-dead spam filter ate my reply :(

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

One "suspicious comment" found and unspammed.

And you're right; my experiences were definitely on the mild side. Within the first week that we moved to Maine, a gang of teenagers chased and beat up a young man named Charlie Howard, then threw him off of a bridge into the Kenduskeag Stream (do not let "stream" fool you in this case. I wouldn't want to be thrown in to the Kenduskeag Stream from a bridge, and I can swim) in Bangor, because he Charlie Howard was gay. Charlie could not swim, and he drowned.

Someone recently said to me, "But you don't live in a civilized country."

Right.

[aitchellsee.livejournal.com]

Surebleak....

[kalimeg.livejournal.com]

All the gender insanity by Southern legislatures makes me cringe. What? Will they be examining genitals? Even that is no guarantee of identifying birth gender.

One of my best costumes was a cross dressing effort that made fellows in KaCSFFS refer to me as "that guy" until it dawned on one of them that I was disguised. I tend to cross dress all the time, but I am not slender, and not difficult to identify unless I actually work on disguise.

Thing

[kumanooni.livejournal.com]

I too am 6 foot. Have been since high school. And the only time it irritated me to be called 'Sir' was when I was obviously pregnant. Pissed me off, actually. Now, well, I buy my clothes in the men's section, and shoes are boots. But then, they don't make women's sturdy boots in 13 1/2 size.

[melita66.livejournal.com]

Completely by coincidence, I walked into a women's bathroom at work (one that I infrequently patronize) today and stopped in confusion in the doorway because my brain thought I was seeing a young man brushing his teeth at a sink. I did a double-take at the door picture to make sure I hadn't walked in the wrong one. She (of course) said, "No, you're right, Melita." I replied that I was so sorry, and she said "It's okay." She had a very short haircut, oxford shirt with sleeves rolled up, jeans, a slender figure and of Asian descent. Not particularly tall.

And here, I'd thought to myself this morning, 'Oh, I'd never do something like Sharon's talking about.'

extraordinary story of tallness

[catherine ives (from livejournal.com)]

Come out to visit UT sometime. I think there are lots of tall women out here. There are lots of ladies of Swedish descent you see.

But in Maine at least they have the Very Large Cats which must be a comfort to very tall people.

[anne marie scott (from livejournal.com)]

Sorry I'm late with my comment, but I had to get in on this one.

I never blink at "Sir." Why?
Because I'm 5'10 1/2" and a retired USAF officer. I worked rotating shifts a lot, which back in the day, meant woodland camo BDUs - we all looked like olive drab bushes. Nothing like some poor kid, almost asleep on his feet, not really quite looking at me, asking, "Bag, please, Sir?" I'd politely put my bag down for inspection and said, "Sure. Here you go," and then get the head jerk up, and embarrassed/worried/slightly annoyed reply of "Sorry, Ma'am!"
Just doesn't bother me at all, and never did. There's more important things to worry about in this world.
And no, bathrooms aren't one of them either - we should probably realize how lucky we are to have bathrooms, plural, with running water instead of worrying about who goes in which one.

How we grow.

[ireneha.livejournal.com]

I'm 4ft11. And for years I have been envious of Sharon Lee, and her majestic height. Sadly, 15 years...30...45 years ago, there weren't Women's Basket Ball teams (and here in CT "Where the men are men and the women are Champions", we've got those.), or other tall role models for girls, and models for teachers and the public on how to react to those tall ladies. Luckily people learn. Slowly, but they do (eventually) learn.

But that isn't the story I wanted to tell here.

Just on Sunday.
So here I was at the airport. 2 hours before my flight. Took the long walk to the bathroom.
Now it was 30 minutes before my flight. Took the long walk to the same bathroom....
Men? Lean back, yes the symbol for Lady on the door. Ah, mens room closed. Stalls have high walls and doors, Men? Whatever.

BUT, I shouldn't have cared, or noticed or done that double-take. I too need to learn.

South Carolina made the big time

[ann sharp (from livejournal.com)]

North Carolina and Mississippi have now made the UK Foreign Office's list of places UK tourists are advised to beware of:

UK tourists are advised to beware of crime and terrorism in Kenya, to beware of Afghanistan because of the war, and to beware of their cough medicine in Uzbekistan.

Now updated to warn British citizens about risks visiting America's south. The update issued by the UK Foreign Office on its website under the heading of "local laws and customs," highlights potential problems. "The U.S. is an extremely diverse society and attitudes towards LGBT people differ hugely across the country," it says. "LGBT travelers may be affected by legislation passed recently in the states of North Carolina and Mississippi."

"To sum up, UK citizens planning to travel abroad should be wary of al Shabaab, the Taliban, the Uzbek National Security Service, and the state legislature of North Carolina."

www dot esquire dot com/news-politics/politics/news/a44244/north-carolina-uk-travel-advisory/