Shoes

Donald Rogers
October 27, 2015

Shoes
How my life has been ruled by shoes.

My wife and I have decided to tear out the carpet in this house, and replace it with laminate flooring, which is not too expensive and looks great. I wish I had done it years ago when my wife was suffering with pulmonary problems and asthma, and spending a lot of time breathing inhalers and nebulizers trying to get back to breathing easily again. She first started having breathing difficulties after we bought new carpet for the front room years ago. I wish I had been more observant and noticed the connection then.

Since we replaced the carpet with laminate flooring a year ago in the front rooms, she has not had to use the inhaler or nebulizer at all, so we are going to do the back bedrooms now. This entails a lot of work moving furniture out and emptying the room so we can rip up the carpet, pull out the nails and tacks, and sand the floor down smooth.

The hardest part for me seems to be the shoes. Back in a corner of the bedroom was a pile of shoes gathering dust, most of which hadn’t been worn in years. I must have some kind of obsession, because it causes me anxiety to contemplate throwing out shoes that still have some wear left in them.

I suspect that Imelda Marcos and I have the same obsession. (When she and her husband were driven out of Manila by a revolution, thousands of pairs of Imelda's shoes were found in the presidential palace). I’m pretty sure we share very little genetic material. I’m not that familiar with Imelda’s childhood, but I’ll bet she was not raised rich enough to have new shoes for the asking, at least not until she got older and married into wealth. I was raised by my mother after my dad left the family, and for several years in my childhood shoes were a scarce and luxurious commodity.

I remember going to school with holes in the soles of my shoes, which I covered with cereal box cardboard insoles every day so my feet would not actually be walking on the ground. Luckily I lived in central California, and the weather was never cold enough to worry about frozen feet.

I also remember the soles would come loose from the tops out in front of my toes, and trying to lift my feet a little higher so that the sole wouldn’t catch and fold back under my foot. It wasn’t just the discomfort that I worried about, but the idea that some other person would see that and know how worn out my shoes were. I remember the embarrassment of being asked about the loose sole once, and trying to make light of it by explaining it worked well for scooping up coins from the sidewalk.

One time my great uncle Roy took me downtown to a “surplus” store where people took used clothing for poorer people to rummage through. It was similar to a Goodwill or Salvation Army store, but I don’t remember any prices—I think you just took it away if you liked it. It was on 16th Street in Merced, CA, which was “Skid Row” then, before the freeway went through. All those bars and flophouses are parking lots now.

Anyway, under one of the rude wooden tables where the clothing was laid, was a pile of shoes of all sizes and styles, most of which were for adults and were much too large for me. But as I crawled around under the table, I found a pair of shoes, “tennis” shoes, sort of, with laces from the toe to the top, ankle high, that not only fit, they were barely worn. Most wondrous of all, instead of being made from canvas, which would wear out quickly, they were completely leather! I’ve never seen any like them, before or since.

I stayed under the table putting on those shoes because I wanted to make sure that they would be mine and nobody could take them away. I emerged with the old, decrepit shoes in my hand, looking for a trash can. Uncle Roy looked just as surprised as I did when he saw those shoes. We both left very happy and satisfied.

For many months thereafter I wore those shoes everywhere. Not only to school, but to church, too! They outlasted any other shoe I had ever worn—especially the ones we bought at Karl’s Shoe Store, which my mother swore were made of cardboard instead of leather.

So when I look at that pile of old shoes in the corner of my bedroom, still with intact soles and no holes in the bottom, I just have a terrible time throwing them away, even though they may  be scuffed and misshapen. I think to myself, out here on the farm nobody will notice if I use them again, even though I never do.

Not many people will understand my obsession. Just me and Imelda.