 My name is Doug O'Keefe and I am co-producer and host of a series called Inside Leather History, a Fireside Chat. Over the course of a few years, I've been interviewing some of the big names in the leather community for historical preservation. And I've had the privilege of meeting some of the people who've really shaped our leather world. One is right here in the audience. Mom, Sandy's right here. And the purpose of these chats is to record for posterity in the leather architects of museum, the history of people who have shaped us. So what we're going to do today is videotape the actual chat, which I expect to last between 45 minutes to an hour. Then we're going to open the floor for questions. The question and answer session will not be filmed, so you can ask whatever you'd like. And I hope we're going to have a great chat today. I have a very special guest, someone I've wanted to interview now for quite a while. None other than Mary Elizabeth Boyd. Thank you, Douglas. I don't even understand why you are here, but I'm thrilled to be doing this. Let's start at the beginning. Tell us about Amelia Courthouse, Virginia, your hometown. That's really the beginning, and that's really a long time ago. It's a very small village. It's outside of Richmond, and it is sort of known for its war between the states. You notice I didn't say civil war. I'm a southern girl. The war between the states, it's sort of known for that because it's about 34 to 37 miles from Appomattox. So it was on the direct retreat. And one of the things that we like to brag about is that when the Union troops came through Amelia, they were going to burn the county records, and the county was founded in 1732. So General Custis stood in the Courthouse door and wouldn't allow them to burn the records. So the Indians may have wiped him out, but he saved our county records. And as a matter of interest, Jason's mom lives in Amelia's. Well, please tell us a little bit about your family history. You have an amazingly fascinating lineage. My family came to this country almost all of them very early, so I'm a long time resident of the United States of America. And we lived in a very hot spot area of the country at one time. I have to say I'm really proud of my mom because we were 24 miles from Prince Edward County. And anybody in this country knows that that was the first integration in the country. And my mother was a school teacher, and she was asked, are you going to go to the school system that had broken out, that was called the academy system, to keep from going to school with people of color? And she answered, no, I'm going to the public school because I believe in public schools. And because the Lord, when he told me to be a teacher, he didn't tell me whether the children were going to be white or black. And so a person that had lived in a segregated world all of her life went to the public school to teach. And I thought it was a wonderful thing. And I was so proud of the fact that when I was out in the country one day, the paper boy, who my mother had taught, delivered our paper and he threw it into the mud puddle on the side of the porch. And he wrote on our steps, nigger lover. And my mother was so... So she said, we'll wash this off. It's okay. He doesn't understand. But when he came to collect his money, she walked to the edge of that porch and threw her money in that same... Oh, my God! My grit. Now, it's a little bit about your great-grandfather, John Mercer Brockenborough. He's got quite a clean history. And he was a Frickin' Dick general in the Civil War. And they actually, while between the states, had a plaque for him in Gettysburg. He couldn't do so well. He was one of the people that they get charged over. But anyway, my grandmother, being a broken boy, went to White House School in Richmond as a little girl. And that's kind of a fun thing, because if you've ever been to the White House of the Confederacy, she would say that they would stand on the second floor porch, which didn't have any railings. And they would say, kids, remember a little Jeffy Davis? He fell off of that porch and killed himself. Meaning enough to those children. Introduced to the leather. Introduced, I think I fell into it, was a horseman. And I think you will find a lot of people in the leather community that started with a introduction into either western horses, boots. I grew up in a day and age where western movies were a big thing. Lash LaRue was my favorite. And that's whips and black outfits and things. So that kind of gives you an idea of how it started. But I really loved my father's boots, too, when he was putting them on. And I always knew there was a stigma. And I was kind of a model and brand-o, salmoneo type of person. I always thought, even when the carnals came to town, those people with all those tattoo's and those earrings. Boy, they were so exotic, you know. And I kind of had a little thing for them. My mother was appalled. I thought it was just wonderful to talk to them and find out that this was a country girl that hadn't been exposed to those things. Well, tell us a little about the leather world that you knew when you first came out. Into it, I should say. It was always attractive. The one thing I can tell you that probably started me a little bit more than boots and a little bit more than the rodeo and all that kind of stuff was, I was an avid dancer. I loved the T-dances. And I even sponsored some of them in the D.C. area. And the D-dances were a time that everybody came out. It wasn't just the Twinkies out there dancing. It was leather people. It was everybody. And I used to dance with this guy that always wore leather pants. And he had a thing attached to his belt loop that I called a squirt. I don't even think they used that term anymore. But as he danced, and I would always dance with him, that squirt would go between my legs flogging. I thought, ooh, this is something kind of neat in here. You know, I kind of like this. What is this all about? He's a body that is a dancer. You get it straight right away when you go in. That dance floor is full. There are lots of different type of people out on that dance floor. You decide, I want to be associated with those guys over there. So let's move across this dance floor and get in with the group we want to be associated with. The group we know, the group we like, the group we want to be a part of. And a lot of that was the leather. Because the leather would come to these T-dances early in the day before they go to the D.C. Eagle. Because basically that was the name of the town in D.C. So that was kind of my first introduction. Then I lived for eight years with one of the Spartans in D.C. And I kind of lived underground at that time. Going back a little bit to your first grade years, I remember you telling me a little bit about a present you received that had very special interests. What was that? Oh yeah, I will remember this. One Christmas what I wanted Santa Claus to bring me was I wanted a cowgirl suit and boots and a hat. Well, Santa Claus exactly couldn't find boots my size. So they bought me these jean archery boots that were a little bit too big for me. I had this Dale Evans cowgirl suit that was red with white vinyl fringe on it. I thought it was the prettiest thing I ever had in my entire life going to the first grade. I put that suit on. I mean, all kids want to the first day back at school to either take what you got, or wear what you got to school. It's a common thing. You want to show everybody what you got. I came down and just pictured this. My mother was a school teacher. She said, oh dear, you cannot wear that. I said, oh, but it's so pretty. I really want to wear it. She says, you cannot wear that. The kids will all laugh at you because I didn't walk to school. I lived in the village, I walked to school. She said, you can't. I said, mom, I have to wear it. She said, okay, but I'm telling you, they're going to all laugh at you. And indeed they did. And the boots were too big. And he was a slow girl. And there was all the high school people laughing at me. But do you think I gave a damn? I didn't care. I thought it was beautiful. And it, I believe, shaped me the rest of my life. I'm going to do what's right for me. I'm going to do what I want to do. And I walked the whole way and the whole way back and nobody was going to laugh at our old suit. To your father being a horseman. In our previous conversations, you've actually talked about a specific interest in his boots. What was that? What did that mean to you? Well, his boots were too hard to take off. I think we all, if you have a good relationship with your father, you have wonderful memories of something you did as a child or an experience you had. And he would come in from riding. He was an English saddle rider. And sometimes I would ride with him. I had a pony that we would ride together. And my pony would follow his horse. And I would ride in hunts and I would ride in trail rides with him. And when he would come in, it was hard for him to get his boots off. And so I would help him get his boots off. And because he, there weren't too many things that would ask of us as children. But one of them was to polish his boots. And I like that. A boy in this stage of my life. But I can understand how the boys enjoy the servitude of polishing boots and seeing the boots and having them for the person that you cared about. When I saw them, I thought, oh my. These Tom of Finland drawings. And you see, I'm an artist. So these Tom of Finland drawings really have a special meaning for me. I thought that Tom, in his exaggeration, all of you all don't drip when you see them. Even though we don't see a lot of Tom of Finland leather today. I grew up where anybody who wanted to be somebody, they dressed like Tom of Finland in those balls. They took a stance. They stood like those drawings. They put those glasses on. The bars just so goddamn dark, they couldn't have seen them. If their life depended, they would have fallen down if there was something not them. Because they just took a stand. Well, I think they took a stand because they couldn't see. The other drawings, the inner face, which are entirely different, are a drum from Drummer Magazine. Drum was so nasty. Drum was so dirty. His boots were always untied and coming down a little bit. You could smell him on the page. That was the visualization and the part you saw when you saw those drawings. The message that they communicated was just fabulous. You've been quoted as saying that leather is pushing the envelope. What does that mean? Well, I've sort of pushed the envelope and everything I've done off. But I do like the idea, the responsibility, the protocol, the push the envelope. And once you get it, it's not that people preach to Yucca people about Old Guard. I don't think anybody wants anybody today to say, how as a 20-year-old can I be an Old Guard? Because it is a progression of time. It is a growth. You can't miss a beat. You can't tell me that they wouldn't know not to touch the cover. With my picture that was in this booklet, I do have a movie star or whatever. How dare they show me without a cover and talking on the microphone. I'm upset about that. It's such a silly nothing. But once you get the beat, you know that you would never do that to a person. I have my cover here. I'm not wearing it because I respect you that you have come for this. I earned this. The person I earned it is in me or with me. I had to make it my own. I put the chain across the top. You don't think he'd ever put all this guardie goo on it? Well, I'm a guardie goo. And so therefore that's my form of leather. And I had to make it mine. Because when it was his, every time I wore it, it went a little bit this way, a little bit that way, which wasn't too cool. It was like he was correcting me. This is mine. Don't quite wear it that way. And I promise you of something else, I carry this with me when I travel. I'm not checking this. I'm incapable of earning a cover from somebody. And this is mine and it will be running until I die. But I am honoring you by putting it under my arm today and having it here. But whenever I'm doing something of importance, my cover is going to be with me. This interview needed my cover because this tells you who I am. And that's something that is in my protocol of my day and my age. What one leather activity most intrigued you or shocked you upon first exposure? The shock? I'm not shocked at very many things, things I disapprove of, but things come to mind. One of them in IML many years ago when it was still in the Congress hotel and everybody gathered in the lobby. Wonderful, wonderful days. I'm sad that some of you didn't work that out for those days. There was a, in fact we were talking about this the other day, there was an old master, no a young master that came in who had probably called himself a master. I'm not sure he deserved that title. He had two slaves, they were hooked up and he brought them right in the middle of probably 200 people in that lobby every night, room to their knees. He called them to put their hands out as they did. He put out his scar in both of their hands and the colds went all the way into their skin, burned very deeply and you could see they were in a great deal of pain and there were several masters in the room and they looked across the room. They said, masters face to the wall and Mary Elizabeth and we turned their faces to the wall. We don't approve of this. You as a master have a right to do with a slave as you want but you do it in private. You don't do it as a show in front of other people. It's inappropriate. And if you think anybody is going to commend you for that or say job well done or how big you are, you're not big, you're little when you do that. So that was shocking. Sometimes in my early days when I would go to IML people would come in with faces and it was a movie about that time. We used to call it Silence of the Lamb People. We would give names to these people or a little extreme in the community when I'm almost Rommel with these boys. And any of you who have been to IML in the early days probably know exactly who I'm talking about when he came in with his little group. I don't know that they were shocking but it was a different thing with my leather part of it. The pride in the friends I have in level that I've made I would say that's the best. Here, here. One little funny, funny thing too. One time we were in San Francisco and it was drummer days and after the contest we went out to eat and there wasn't anything open and they sent us to the hamburger merries and they weren't really open for food. There were a lot of people in line and they told us to go over to this other place and this was Mike Zool to ask Mike about it. He'll know. And we went to this Chinese restaurant and we came in and we noticed everybody was watching us. We had full leather on. Irwin who used to do the voiceovers for drummer many years ago had this big voice that was just fabulous. And he was talking and there were a couple of people there that had in their mouths and big clunkers for their noses and the restaurant was convinced we were the village people. We're not the village people. First lady of leather, tell us how do you attain that? What does it mean? Well it's not a title, earned title. It was given to me and it was a person from Washington, D.C. that was mid-Atlantic, I believe Troy was mid-Atlantic drummer. You know I forget when, I was on the drummer Bullwood and I forget when drummer and leather served exactly the year, but I think he was drummer and he was competing in San Francisco. Well it would be drummer then. And he worked at the White House for 17 years doing the Blue Room Christmas tree. So everybody would laugh about that that I was just a volunteer there but my friends worked in the flower shop they hadn't got me down doing these trees. And so Troy said, Mary Elizabeth, you're the first lady of leather. Well it just caught. And it comes home to bite me because one time someone said is it because you're the oldest woman You helped the first claw nation party. Tell us about that. Well I came to claw and it dawned on me that Dennis and Bob Miller were working so hard and all the volunteers they had that they kept talking about it being bigger and bigger and bigger every year. Well you physically, it gets to a point and I think Mama Ryan Hart will understand this too that when you give fundraisers and things and you want them to become bigger how can you do it bigger? It becomes almost a physical impossibility of how you can make something bigger. And so it dawned on me that if they were doing charities and we were doing charities national why could the people go home and give a party where the money would go to claw? I think Cleveland put a party on but I could do one in Washington D.C. and my form has always been of doing a garden party in my home. And so I did a garden party. I cooked all the food and they had a full dinner. Dennis sent me some auction items. I collected auction items and I have to say the people by the will of God came to that party. I charged them $20 a ticket which wasn't anything for a the dinner of the type we gave them. We gave them irons of beef, we gave them salmon, we gave them anything, open bar, everything we had beautiful things in then we had the auction. People gave things, people brought things. Many people obviously did not give money at all. Many people gave $50 or $100 checks. Some of them were not even people in the leather community just came to support this. I never even really told them except, you know they do charity work. I never really told them where the money was going because in that day and age it wasn't really carefully delineated and you weren't able to do charity and I would not tell them how much I had raised but I was so ballsy that I stood up in the dinner and challenged everybody there to be what I could raise that I was going to have a party I challenged you to raise more money than I did and we raised $3,000. Well that was a lot. I didn't think about it and for a long time it was the highest they'd ever had come in and it was out of home it was not at a bar and so I'm very proud of that because it really started something but I did say to Bob and Dennis you cannot ask people in other towns to raise money unless they have a piece of the action maybe you need to give to name your charity in your town when you give your party and it was a really fun, fun thing I had a great time doing and they've just taken my picture with all of the guys of for the posters the call posters Well how have you seen claw evolve over the years from your pudding? It's a lot more attendance than it was there really were more auction items so years ago you that were here many years ago know they were huge amount of things and the things that bought big bucks were some very named people in the community and Jim and people like that that died and would donate their things and people really wanted them and they would pay thousands of dollars to own a piece of those people's leather so I've seen it that there are not so many auction items I've seen more people they didn't have as many workshops in fact they were having trouble they needed workshops they needed because of their schedule C status they needed workshops to be able to be in that category and so I've seen it change a lot I think that my suggestion to them and please take this the right way because they work so hard and they really do a lot and as anything that gets bigger and bigger and bigger M.A.L. has changed remarkably because of the number of people the centaurs used to cook all the meals can you imagine them cooking all the meals now it would be a physical impossibility they used to cook all those breakfasts and things it gets to a point you can't do some of the same things you used to do surely because of numbers and because of the cost of buses and the cost of things that as you are involved in my suggestion to them would be it is a charity thing it has been billed as that it has been billed as no contest and I believe that if we are going to have workshops and things like that if you have a package you should be able to take part in everything if you don't have a package maybe there should be a little charge because it is a charity thing and maybe there should be more workshops on how do you raise money in your community who are the people that have been successful what are the successful events and maybe even an award with people bringing information and pictures about that successful events maybe that would be a wonderful thing to do in the guise of this is charity shifting gears a little bit how do you see the role of women in the leather community when I came into the leather community women didn't have a role and I would hate to tell you how many women come up to me at events and ask me why are you accepted how did you get by how can I be accepted I can't tell them how because I don't know I'm kind of a horse of a different color and it's really hard for me to tell them how I never had any resistance never that's kind of a hard thing for me to address I think that women I think that anybody that has felt alienated from a group it is a matter of time it is a matter of interaction I am kind of surprised when I judged international Mr. Death Leather some years ago I was very surprised when some of the women did not want to be called gay they wanted other terms terms that I felt could be derogatory to a gay person queer they want to be called queer folks I was very surprised at that and I said where does that come from well I think it was an evolution I think everything is an evolution of being included finding your own way I think that all things that change need evolutions and many things happen in those evolutions I think that women definitely have a place I think that women are a pride sort I think they are an interesting sort I think that even men who don't want to associate with women when they associate rather find them interesting I can say for myself when I was first introduced to drummer when drummer was still owned by Amsterdam and the boys would come over here they didn't want to pretend I existed if I came into the room they would look at me kidding you and I thought they're going to like me whether they don't like me or not I'm going to make them see that I have as much strength as they do I have as much respect for them and I would like for them to respect me and those men ended up by eating dinner in my house in their bull leather and it was so sexy because they ended up being rats with the things they did with drummer and anybody that was there knows the ratty things that happened I don't need to go into that but in that time you know about me and I'm a woman and I see it and they sit down and they stretch that boot leg out of the floor it's worth those boots Hitler in the Third Reich but it's like the Third Reich is sitting there with those boots when they do those boots stretched out and they stay on straight they sit straight and having the stashes they set them on stashes I can tell you any way, shape or form I can tell you the way he sits in the child I can tell you the way he sits in the stage because that's part of him and that's the sexy part of him Where do I go after that? Tell us a little bit about your professional work What is healing design? Sign all my life I'm an artist inside of me always painting drawing and things as a child took a job with the it was Veterans Administration in that day and age it's Veterans Affairs now all of a sudden I happen to be sitting in an office when all the medical centers begin to rise up across the United States because the World War II veteran was going to peak in our facilities and we needed to build new facilities I can truthfully tell you and it is a source of pride with me I'm not bragging but it's a source of pride with me I have worked on more replacement hospitals nursing homes and medical facilities than any designer in the world and it will always be that and all of a sudden as I was sitting in the right place at the right time and this was all happening I began to know there was not one product to go into a facility that was called a healthcare product now the world is full of them but there wasn't one flooring there wasn't one anything that was listed as that and as I began to dig and find flooring that could be maintained flooring that were I was really the steward of your money your money pays for those VA hospitals taxes paid my job I began to invent colors that were better products that were better and I would tell anybody that would come in you know you're paying my salary I can tell you what we need and they started developing these products and all of a sudden the light bulb went out you know we shouldn't just be picking something that's pretty or something that works or something that's cheap doing healing design and I started talking about it I talked all over at every healthcare function they had about healing design hospital army runs on its stomach a hospital runs on its floors what will perform what will be what will tell you an Alzheimer's patient don't go through that door because they were wondering what will keep a person from having a hesitation and falling hesitation is a fall a fall is a broken hip a broken hip is death so I mean it began to dawn on me and as it dawned on me it began to dawn on other people too but I was one of the early ones that did that I brought the ASID which is American Society of Interior Designers I am in the healthcare I was the first one to go in the healthcare hall of fame and I'm a fellow in ASID and I'm very proud of that oh yeah when I was doing the White House Christmas trees they come rolling in there first north of Stuart comes rolling in there and they tell me you don't ever speak for the White House you are serving at the capacity of the people you're serving by and you never say anything the first lady talks or first folks person talks you don't talk so they tell me well Stuart's going to interview in here and we want you to be the person she interviews and I said I don't feel comfortable when you tell me not to say these things although you can do it well the first thing, just don't talk about the house the first question she asked me was about the buildings in this room it was blown around with the big tree and other statistics that I knew I wasn't supposed to say and she asked me why are the windows dirty well you know I shouldn't be talking about the White House about that I mean I'm only a volunteer working my year and I had done it a long time and I knew enough not to do that but the business with Martha Stewart I shouldn't but the interview on Good Morning America with Charles Garalt was you know how they do that every year with the things if you come to see me I've got a copy of it what's the biggest misconception that people I heard Sadie say this or someone say this in Sandy's interview that I saw for the first time today they think I'm unapproachable people will say I've always wanted to talk to you but you've always got people around you and I never felt you could come in well smack your face with me so bad person in the whole damn world if you haven't got fortitude enough to get through those people then you shouldn't be talking to me how do you see the future of the letter E you know I don't know no one knows that I think it again is going through that push and pull the same thing I talked about with the women I think that all of these fetishes is very hard for me I want them to have a place I want them to be there I want to enjoy them and when Alex was the ABW Alex opened my eyes to a lot of things because Alex had such a wonderful thinking about fetishes and what he was into and Alex is so good looking and he's so wonderful in those fetishes that I really saw a lot more it's damn hard when I see a bunch of dog heads coming in and comparing that with Thomas Fiblin stuff hard for me all I can think about is my grandchildren would love those dog heads hard for me I think that it is evolving into a more acceptance as everything is becoming a little bit more acceptance I think it's going to still be groups people that are more into the same things which it is kind of now I think that like myself and other people have heard me say this really just shout us in the passing of time when you want to know about the days we lived in my god if you had ever been there it would Sandy talked about this too we just cannot tell you our lives were changed completely by AIDS our roller-dexes were wiped out our friends were wiped out we would go to funerals we were crying for the person that was dead there we were crying for all of them we had lost and you realize that it gave you a heavy heart it gave you the same heavy heart that you see on the news today turn the damn thing off you can't afford to have those heavy hearts you need to move on and I'm so happy that people have come into the leather community and introduced new things and understand it I'm so happy for it I'm so happy of the joy and the passion they have of what they are into but I do think you're going to see a lot more things to come and then I think you're going to see a swing back I think all of this business with master Mike and the workshops are trying to show people some of the things that were their passions and were their joys I don't think they're going to come out exactly the way that they are being taught I think they're going to come out in a little bit different dimension when you build your own dildos here I don't think they're going to look like the ones that Tom and those guys had I think they're going to have little twists to them I think they're going to be maybe puppy penises or along the way I mean I don't really know it was always a fool but Sansan says they know everything and I'm not a fool and I certainly don't know what it's going to be I'm waiting to see I'm always looking around the corner when you judge a contest and you see a group of contestants there before you ask of them and what qualities do you look for in a successful contestant I want to know why they're doing it that's the first thing and are you prepared to represent who you are standing there to do also want to get into their head any way I can get into their head because I can't pick the right person I think the person looks right on the outside but if they don't have the right inside they shouldn't be doing that contest and you'll find they will disappear and you'll never see them again or they won't do the things they're supposed to be doing so that's kind of it's like a guy I judged and he couldn't understand he was the best one on the stage pretty good answers thank for bar title and he playing along which the interview is always 60% most of the contests said in the interview that he didn't expect to be in that city anymore that he had bought a house somewhere else and he didn't know when he'd be back do you really think I was going to give him that bar title he had sunk himself also in a couple men of color here and one year I was sitting in the cell block and Verne Stewart was sitting next to me and a gentleman was asked on the stage at the cell block which onyx started in Chicago for any of you that don't know this and he was playing along asked how can we get more men of color into contests and in the community one of us I will go to the colored bars do you really think that man was going to win that cell block title that was the year I won you look and being where I'm from you stand on that stage and I've seen this in many contests you've got dirty boots you're going diamond you don't have respect for me you have a Ralph Lauren and you think I don't see the mistakes I see a friend from D.C. Eagle that came up without any socks and tied up wing tips for his formal leather now come on I mean so I mean a little common sense but I would tell you one thing in my area this is not really the question but anybody that out there if you can mentor your contestants they don't see themselves those ways do you know how many terrific contestants we see at IML that don't have a ghost of a chance because nobody told them nobody told them not to do that what their good side was when Daryl was running for one of his titles and Daryl was going to rock at IML I said what have you done he said I can't think of anything then he thought and he said I was in Oliver when I was a little boy and we talked a lot about that I mean you need to mentor those people to get them to pull things out of them and to show them what their best sides are because they need to show that it doesn't mean you're changing them from who they are because I would never want anybody to be a contestant and say things that they don't really believe or that they are not but you need to mentor them along that way so in conclusion we have a lot of title holders here at Claw that are going on to IML this year what advice can you offer them go to the forum next that I'm going to be know yourself if you know yourself talk to yourself in the mirror know yourself the one thing that I would say to anybody and I encourage people every day in my life to run for contest you'll never know yourself like you know yourself after you've run for a contest you'll never meet as many people as you meet at a contest but you have to know yourself know why you're doing it know what it's for know what you have to offer know what the title the title has to offer for you but also don't stand up and say with this title I could do this you could do it without the title it just gives you a good it greases the slide for you it does grease the slide though just know what unique thing you have and you may have to pull that up out of yourself what uniqueness about you that you have before but it would be to your benefit to pull it up anyway Mary Elizabeth Boyd I would like to thank you for a wonderful chance thank you very much