Stepping Out Figuring What To Wear On Your Feet On Slushy Days Can Be A Telling Decision

Living in the Inland Northwest means having to make a decision.

This is it. When there’s a lot of snow or slush, what will you wear on your feet?

OK, maybe it’s not exactly a window on the soul. But it could be argued that an individual’s answer says plenty. Because wintertime footwear choices can be viewed as a character-defining metaphor for a person’s coping skills and approach to tackling the challenges of living here.

Or not. That’s for you to decide.

But surely the whole “Should I wear my clunky boots today?” dilemma represents, at the very least, a telling line of demarcation. On one side stand Inland Northwesterners committed to doing what needs to be done and perhaps to a vision of their own seasonal savvy. On the other side are those gamblers who would rather celebrate convenience (and perhaps denial), stick with their regular shoes and count on being able to deftly rumba through the deep spots.

Gabriele Tilley operates an inhome pet-sitting service for people on vacations or long skiing weekends. She’s out and about, regardless of the weather. And she’s proud of her personal dress-for-the-conditions policy. You can hear it in her voice. “I wear appropriate footwear for the weather,” she said.

When she sees someone in flimsy street shoes trying to tip-toe through several inches of frozen precipitation, empathy is not her immediate reaction. “I think, what an idiot,” she said.

Well, Jack L. Johnson doesn’t merit that description. Far from it.

But the 74-year-old retired state park manager admits that, on occasion, he has headed out on snowy and icy days in regular shoes. Sometimes he pays for it. “I’ve gone on my keister more than once,” he said.

He has tried wearing rubbers on his shoes. “But you can’t take those off to save your life,” he said.

Lawyer Chris Wright approaches the prospect of snowy sidewalks with what he termed his “three-stage plan.”

“I have regular shoes,” he said. “Then I have hiking boots, which aren’t real heavy or anything. Then, if it gets really bad, I go to my Sorrels and then change at work.”

Deane Callen, who operates a feed store in Hayden, tends to go right to Wright’s stage three. He has been known to keep his insulated, waterproof boots on all day - a practice that invites one key question.

Don’t your feet get hot? “I don’t have good circulation in my legs, so it doesn’t bother me much,” he replied.

Jim Cooper, who works for a wholesale food business, sometimes likes to wear cowboy boots in winter. But he has two words of advice for those considering doing likewise: “rubber soles.”

Of course, there’s often more than just the weather to consider. A person’s schedule for the day can determine planning needs.

“I forego fashion and put on my boots,” said “domestic goddess” Karol Startzel. “Besides, I love it when it snows because I get to be home and play in it with my kids.”

For Cheryl Johnson, a ninth-grader at Deer Park High School, the boots-or-shoes issue is not always so easy to resolve. “It depends a lot on what outfit I’m wearing,” she said.

Big clompers don’t go with everything.

Some Inland Northwesterners, before they even go to bed at night, plan what they’re going to wear on their feet the next morning. Others are out the door and halfway to the car before they give any real thought to the wisdom of that day’s choice.

Some regard their boots as a tan badge of courage and ruggedness. Others have no aspirations to be mistaken for hardy pioneer stock.

Denise Guiles, who works for a downtown photo studio/film-printing shop, opts for the lined, waterproof numbers commonly known as duck boots. “They’re ugly, but they work,” she said.

Shirley Gardner, lunch coordinator at Regal Elementary School, has plenty of boots. But she’d rather not wear them. “It’s got to be pretty deep,” she said.

Pat Montgomery, a secretary, is guided by a simple common-sense preference she shares with more than a few others: “I don’t like wet feet.”

So even though she can park about 30 steps from the door to her office, she has no hesitance about putting on her winter stuff and changing into regular shoes after she gets to work.

She has a lot of company. After all, the footwear required to get you from your car to your workplace isn’t necessarily ideally suited for going from your desk to the photocopier. Not if you object to co-workers calling you “Bigfoot” anyway.

Secretary Pat Rossini has lived here for 25 years. Still, she admitted that when it comes to winter, certain aspects of her California upbringing are hard-wired into her psyche. (Never mind that her husband is from near the buckle on the Blizzard Belt, Buffalo, N.Y.) “I’m not really comfortable walking along on anything other than concrete,” she said.

So she wears duck boots and then changes.

“They’re not really all that attractive,” she said.

Looks aren’t everything, though.

Sometimes you just have to outsmart winter.

Sandpoint’s Pat Gallaher, a retired composting enthusiast, has plenty of boots - some fashionable, some not.

But when Mother Nature dumps a lot of the white stuff on North Idaho, she sometimes skips the what-to-wear wondering and employs a different tactic.

“I send my husband out.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Staff illustration by Molly Quinn