Jackie and me---White House Tour

It seems hard to believe now, but way back when, I was quite frequently told I looked like Jackie Kennedy. What's even harder to believe is that I wasn't particularly flattered by the comparison. I thought she looked okay, but her looks weren't a cult favorite then, and she was about a decade older than I was, but I took the comparison as the compliment it was intended to be. That is, until my encounter with my college freshman speech teacher. She was an older woman, and also a drama teacher and involved in professional and semi-professional theater.
And she was a forceful, strong woman for her time, outspoken in her analyses and critiques. Needless to say, I was intimidated just by walking into her classroom, not to mention having to actually deliver speeches. During that time, Jackie Kennedy, as the young First Lady, conducted her widely televised Tour of the White House. Our speech teacher, Miss Futterer (actual name), used Jackie K's tour speech as a terrible example of how not to talk. She said it was dreadful, she hated her delivery, her breathy voice, and in essence everything about it. I don't recall having any particular opinion about Jackie's performance. I had so much else taking up my time then that I hadn't really paid much attention to a historical documentary show anyway. That is, until the next time I had to deliver a speech before the class. After each student speech, the formidible Miss Futterer would critique the performance, right there in the classroom before the whole class. (Precursor of American Idol judges.) That was when Miss F. took apart everything I had done wrong, point by point, and ended by saying I and my voice reminded her of Jackie Kennedy. Oh, the horror! Since she had announced the week before how much she despised her , I knew this comparison was not meant to be complimentary. And to add insult to injury, she referred me to Speech Therapy before she would even release my grade for the course. I had to commute to college, and was so strapped for time, and overscheduled, that one more session of anything was a hardship, but that paled compared to the demoralization and humiliation I felt at the prospect of having to go to Speech Therapy. I was sadly lacking in confidence, but I thought I knew how to talk, at least. So I found my way to the Speech Clinic, where before my initial session, I had to wait while the student ahead of me finished his remedial class. He had red hair and was completely unable to pronounce the letter "L," among other problems. I remember thinking his speech was way worse even than Coach Furlong's. So I was next, after the red-headed boy "we-scheduwed" his next appointment. The speech therapist, a young man named Mr. Leonard, handed me a passage to read, which I did. He looked confused, and asked me why I was there. I must have answered something brilliant, like because Miss Futterer had sent me there. He told me to speak a little louder, and to come back in a week. I returned the following week, spoke a little louder, and that was it. I think I finally got a "C" in Speech Class and felt lucky to get it. (Later Ruthie and I would laugh at the memory of "before I was loud." Miss Futterer had told me that my voice was "precious." That was NOT a compliment. We tried to look up what that meant, but at the time we weren't really sure. Like so many other things, I never really understood what was happening until later on---maybe.