New York City, 1976
Gernot, my boyfriend at the time, was a skilled German art photographer, Bruno Walter devotee, banjo player and a zealous beer guzzler who flirted with every girlfriend I had.
The one skill he never explored, that is, until he met me, was making toe rings. With no place else to work, we constructed makeshift jeweler’s bench in my tiny studio walkup on East 52nd Street.
A goose-necked lamp clamped to a plywood shelf served as illumination and soon Gernot began hammering away at a jeweler’s mandrel attempting to
transform a snippet of gold wire into a ring that would comfortably encircle my second toe. The ear-piercing sounds of hammering, sawing, drilling and polishing permeated the apartment walls, making our neighbors above, below and sideways, disturbed perturbed, and unnerved.
For the finishing touch, he drilled three tiny cavities in the metal for a ruby and two tiny diamonds on either side. At last, the first, “Original Toe Ring” was ready to debut refashioned for a shoe-wearing public.
I was able to cajole a few more toe rings out of Gernot, but alas, from his perspective, the time he spent making toe rings didn’t leave him enough time for the pub. As for me, I couldn’t foresee that my toe ring would get me into trouble, but it did. At a party we attended, a guy told him that he once made out with a girl who wore a toe ring, which at the time, could only be one person. Ooops!
In short order, Gernot and I were no longer a couple.