Berkeley Blog: The Ghetto Boot Story
The Ghetto Boot Story:
Most of the time when I speak with people I know well, I prefer to get into some deep, meaningful shit. But these days, the majority of my life is spent talking real surfacey-like with students I don't really know. Time is short in college, we have only a few minitues before or after class to really say anything at all to each other. Many times, words are not spoken, just gestures like the "yeah, I see ya" nod, or the quick half-raised hand turn... ya know, to at least acknowledge someone's presence. We are all such busy bees rushing to and fro, and any free time is spent studying somewhere, or going home, so conversations tend to be short.
The longer conversations are usually part of an "ice-breaker, get-to-know-ya" exercise, where students are asked to briefly describe themselves, and share something personal that relates to the theme of the course. For me, being concise without hardly any preparation is a Herculean task. I want to think of an interesting story or antidote from my background that nicely fits with the theme of the course, all without being too long, boring or elementary. Like an Oscar speech, the good one's mix in humor and joy, while peppering in a serious comment or two in order to impress and possibly inspire the audience. Some celebrities do this very well, some not so much. Students' messages tend to be simple and emotional. Makes sense really, considering they haven't done much in life yet. But for me, I put all kinds of pressure on myself to come up with something that would rival the best Best Actor speech you've ever heard. This, of course, never ends well.
In a cultural anthropology course last year, the teacher asked students to speak about their own culture and how it made them who they are today. Culture? Oh dear. That's the hardest one for me to answer. As others spoke about their heritage, ranging from Mexican, to Filipino, to different parts of Asia, Africa and Europe, I couldn't think of a damn thing to say about my white ass. Perhaps the "southern culture" is something I could talk about. But no, that culture had little effect on me since I left the south when I still young. Californian culture? What the eff does that even mean? Should I talk about how waiting in traffic or having two actors as governor somehow made me the person who I am today? No, I don't think so. In hindsight, I could have spoken about a lot of things like grunge music, skateboarding, drumming, tech/nerd stuff, etc but none of those things came to mind. I had no time to think properly, and nothing seemed inspiring. At the last moment, I decided to talk about growing up poor.
Poor, I thought, would go over well and relate to a cultural anthropology class considering we would be learning about such domestic and foreign groups in class. And I had the perfect story to tell. In Nashville during the winter we would share the one "good pair" of winter boots between the four older kids. These boots were proper winter boots: insulated, warm, and snug. The other kids without the good boots would create their own boot, complete with ziploc bags around two pairs of socks to act as insulation and to keep our feet dry from the melting snow.
We would slide our sneakers on top of this make-shift "baggy sock boot" and tighten the laces extra tight. This ghetto boot did not have the lasting power of the good pair of winter boots but since nothing could stop a kid from sledding, it gave us enough protection for a bit of fun durng the snowy times. The point of the story then was to discuss how perseverance and determination was a key component of my upbringing, something I've taken into my adult life as well. How neat! A little bit of a silly story, with a serious undertone, but with a nice important lesson!
Well....
Since I was all panicky and rushed, my words were scrambled and weird. My story came out: "When I was young, I was poor and we had to wear bags because it was cold and snowy. There were 5 of us in a room and there was only one good pair of boots that we shared sometimes too. But it was fun. I guess the poor culture is something that made me, me. Yeah... so... later in
high school, I got a motorcycle as a gift... So.. clearly I learned at lot about being poor."
The class was silent and visibly shocked. The teacher broke the silence, apologized and quickly skipped to the next student... Noooooo! Pity was the last thing I wanted. I had a nice message! Perseverance and determination in the face of challenges! Not "whoa is me!" -- What happened?! I didn't even explain the story correctly! When I said "I was poor and had to wear bags because it was cold and snowy. There were 5 of us in a room..." - literally made people think we were shoved into a small shack, wearing potato sacks to keep warm during the winter. I didn't even mention that we would put the bags over our feet, for sledding! I even added my sister Hayley to the kid count, making it 5 people sharing boots, but she was too young to fit in them! I only mentioned her, to paint a picture that we had to share a lot of things...all part of life! And why did I mention the motorcycle? I think half way through the speech, I realized my words made the students feel uncomfortable and weird, so I wanted to explain that all was better! I got a motorcycle! I'm not poor anymore. Don't worry about me!
I've learned that even if the message is good, the speech can lead to awkwardness due to the extra weight of trying to impress an audience. Other stories that have "landed" the right tone tend to be stories that I have "let free." The audience's emotion and reaction to the story is their own, I have no control over them. And the more I concentrated on the story then, instead of the reaction of the people hearing it, the more my words automagically created the inspiring story.
In the picture below, teenage me is readying myself for a motorcycle ride in the rain using the same techniques as the winter Ghetto Boots. I used garbage bags instead of an expensive rain suit.
Most of the time when I speak with people I know well, I prefer to get into some deep, meaningful shit. But these days, the majority of my life is spent talking real surfacey-like with students I don't really know. Time is short in college, we have only a few minitues before or after class to really say anything at all to each other. Many times, words are not spoken, just gestures like the "yeah, I see ya" nod, or the quick half-raised hand turn... ya know, to at least acknowledge someone's presence. We are all such busy bees rushing to and fro, and any free time is spent studying somewhere, or going home, so conversations tend to be short.
The longer conversations are usually part of an "ice-breaker, get-to-know-ya" exercise, where students are asked to briefly describe themselves, and share something personal that relates to the theme of the course. For me, being concise without hardly any preparation is a Herculean task. I want to think of an interesting story or antidote from my background that nicely fits with the theme of the course, all without being too long, boring or elementary. Like an Oscar speech, the good one's mix in humor and joy, while peppering in a serious comment or two in order to impress and possibly inspire the audience. Some celebrities do this very well, some not so much. Students' messages tend to be simple and emotional. Makes sense really, considering they haven't done much in life yet. But for me, I put all kinds of pressure on myself to come up with something that would rival the best Best Actor speech you've ever heard. This, of course, never ends well.
In a cultural anthropology course last year, the teacher asked students to speak about their own culture and how it made them who they are today. Culture? Oh dear. That's the hardest one for me to answer. As others spoke about their heritage, ranging from Mexican, to Filipino, to different parts of Asia, Africa and Europe, I couldn't think of a damn thing to say about my white ass. Perhaps the "southern culture" is something I could talk about. But no, that culture had little effect on me since I left the south when I still young. Californian culture? What the eff does that even mean? Should I talk about how waiting in traffic or having two actors as governor somehow made me the person who I am today? No, I don't think so. In hindsight, I could have spoken about a lot of things like grunge music, skateboarding, drumming, tech/nerd stuff, etc but none of those things came to mind. I had no time to think properly, and nothing seemed inspiring. At the last moment, I decided to talk about growing up poor.Poor, I thought, would go over well and relate to a cultural anthropology class considering we would be learning about such domestic and foreign groups in class. And I had the perfect story to tell. In Nashville during the winter we would share the one "good pair" of winter boots between the four older kids. These boots were proper winter boots: insulated, warm, and snug. The other kids without the good boots would create their own boot, complete with ziploc bags around two pairs of socks to act as insulation and to keep our feet dry from the melting snow.
We would slide our sneakers on top of this make-shift "baggy sock boot" and tighten the laces extra tight. This ghetto boot did not have the lasting power of the good pair of winter boots but since nothing could stop a kid from sledding, it gave us enough protection for a bit of fun durng the snowy times. The point of the story then was to discuss how perseverance and determination was a key component of my upbringing, something I've taken into my adult life as well. How neat! A little bit of a silly story, with a serious undertone, but with a nice important lesson!Well....
Since I was all panicky and rushed, my words were scrambled and weird. My story came out: "When I was young, I was poor and we had to wear bags because it was cold and snowy. There were 5 of us in a room and there was only one good pair of boots that we shared sometimes too. But it was fun. I guess the poor culture is something that made me, me. Yeah... so... later in
high school, I got a motorcycle as a gift... So.. clearly I learned at lot about being poor."The class was silent and visibly shocked. The teacher broke the silence, apologized and quickly skipped to the next student... Noooooo! Pity was the last thing I wanted. I had a nice message! Perseverance and determination in the face of challenges! Not "whoa is me!" -- What happened?! I didn't even explain the story correctly! When I said "I was poor and had to wear bags because it was cold and snowy. There were 5 of us in a room..." - literally made people think we were shoved into a small shack, wearing potato sacks to keep warm during the winter. I didn't even mention that we would put the bags over our feet, for sledding! I even added my sister Hayley to the kid count, making it 5 people sharing boots, but she was too young to fit in them! I only mentioned her, to paint a picture that we had to share a lot of things...all part of life! And why did I mention the motorcycle? I think half way through the speech, I realized my words made the students feel uncomfortable and weird, so I wanted to explain that all was better! I got a motorcycle! I'm not poor anymore. Don't worry about me!
I've learned that even if the message is good, the speech can lead to awkwardness due to the extra weight of trying to impress an audience. Other stories that have "landed" the right tone tend to be stories that I have "let free." The audience's emotion and reaction to the story is their own, I have no control over them. And the more I concentrated on the story then, instead of the reaction of the people hearing it, the more my words automagically created the inspiring story.
In the picture below, teenage me is readying myself for a motorcycle ride in the rain using the same techniques as the winter Ghetto Boots. I used garbage bags instead of an expensive rain suit.
Get it. A classmate in a poetry writing class 150 years ago was always stuck on asking the writer "What was your intent?" when it was his turn to comment on a poem. One day the professor explained that often it is less important to know that than to know what it invokes in you as the listener. It has been a good lesson for me. People may even get different things from the same writing. Getting something is fine even if I'm the only one who had that one thing invoked. Maybe it was just what I needed. Maybe the times when we are in sync - writer or orator and reader or listener - maybe those become the magic times that can change a piece of the world in a flash. The others are not as "flashy" and change the world a bit at a time....just another part of the process but just as valuable. Love your blog, Mr. Matt! Love you too.
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