If only we could get rid of people who walk heavy…boom! boom! boom! The kind of slam-heel walking that can make an older home vibrate and shudder. People who pound their heels like a weapon. My younger sister used to walk like this. When she used the stairway in our pre-war home you could hear those jackhammer heels ramming and thumping and giving pause to the main beams.

If you’re an elegant person (and by that I mean someone who also takes relatively short showers) you’ll walk around like you’re wearing hush-puppies. Like Swing Time Fred Astaire or Cary Grant over the Cannes rooftops in To Catch A Thief, or Marlon Brando shuffling across a sound stage in Guys and Dolls.

Remember Paul Newman describing Jackie Gleason as he was “shooting the eyes right off them balls” in The Hustler? “Look how he moves, he’s like a dancer!” It doesn’t matter if you’re big-boned or a Jabba; if you know how to walk you’ll always step softly.