TRUE STORY

HEAD OVER HEELS

Frances ME-1-G

Virginia and I were driving to Boston Sunday evening after nine glorious days at Fantasia Fair '78 in Provincetown (Mass.). I was still very much "en femme" from my wig, well corseted figure to my five- inch heels. They were lovely boots from London and on three occasions women have come to me and asked if I would mind telling them where I got those "lovely boots." This always thrilled me and sadistically I thought to myself, "I hope you're as green with envy as I have been so many thousand times when I have admired the fashion- able clothes of well dressed women."

"Frances," said Virginia, "do you realize that every day women trip and fall on account of their high heels and at your age (I'm 76) you could break something if you fell. Are you prepared in case you have to be carted off to a hospital as Frances? Are you prepared for the publicity and explanations you would have to give to those who don't know you as Frances?"

"No," I said, "but I'll take the risk. Like the current commercial on television with the girl singing about her gloves, I don't wanna take 'em off cause they feel so good when they're on. I feel the same way and probably more so about my heels."

A few weeks later I had the fall! But it wasn't caused by my exotic high heels. I have handled high heels for the last sixty years and feel more at home wearing them than I do without them.

I had driven in a blinding snow storm from Betsy's home in Rhode Island to an apartment where I was staying in Boston. I was wearing my figure-revealing brown print dress and gorgeous brown high heeled boots, also from London, and as I entered the apartment build-

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