Brooke & Dunn
Shoes
It was the fall of 2019. It was time to clean out the closet, donate whatever was usable and throw away all that wasn’t. There was a lot that wasn’t. I have a tendency to keep, wear and wear again things which I like, even when those things are tattered and worn out. This applies especially to shoes. Comfortable shoes are like … comfortable shoes. Until they are completely shot, I wear them.
The work started pretty well. Before long, I had a pile of old shirts with ragged collars and cuffs, sweaters with holes in all the wrong places, jeans so tattered they weren’t even cool anymore, and other stuff that was just plain junk. Very little donatable; mostly all chuck-able. I was even convinced that a couple of my old pairs of shoes, dress and casual, were not salvageable any longer.
“Don’t even think about keeping those,” my daughter said. She was good at this kind of thing. “They’re junk, Dad.” So out they went.
That said, there were several pairs of athletic shoes which I managed to hold on to. These were old tennis shoes and sneakers which had once belonged to my sons, and which had long been replaced in their own closets. They were all still in good condition, all fit my feet, and all still very wearable. There was also a new shoe box with something inside. I was curious. What new shoes had I kept inside a shoe box in the back of my closet? I had to see.
Opening the shoe box, I almost burst out laughing. Inside was a pair of brand new, very high-end, bright colored sneakers. I knew exactly where they had come from – and some of their back story. How the box and shoes ended up in my closet, though, was a mystery to me.
The shoes had been bought by an old friend and college baseball teammate of my son Shea. His name was Nick, but he was known as Lu. He was a great guy and a very good ball player. He had had a tough life, a rough upbringing, though. He hadn’t had a lot of nice things growing up. He had been fortunate enough to have been drafted into pro ball out of college and had received a nice signing bonus. Rather than save or invest his new wealth in something which would be safe or bring him a good return, Lu had invested in shoes. Somehow, somewhere, he’d been convinced to purchase scores – yes, scores – of pairs of brand new, top of the line sports shoes in just about every bright color of the rainbow you can imagine. They were hot on the market, and they fashion forward. Everybody wanted them and they would be popular forever.
They were eye-catching. But there were only so many which he could wear at any given time. Two. Since he was traveling around with various minor league teams, season after season, he also needed a place to store his investment. All those dozens and dozens of boxed shoes took up a lot of space. He approached Shea to see if he could hold the shoes while he traveled; Shea said OK. And as a result of his willingness to help a friend in need, Shea became the keeper of the shoes.
God only knows where they all went. Under beds, in closets, stuffed into car trunks. Anywhere there was an empty space got filled with shoes. For a while, anyway.
Time passed. Shea graduated, moved, found an apartment, moved again. The shoes had become a burden.
“Lu, Bud!” Shea said, “your damn shoes are a pain in the ass. What are you going to do with them?”
“Crap, Dude, hell if I know. Sell ‘em. Use ‘em. Rent a storage locker! Whatever…”
So that’s what happened to Lu’s shoes. They got sold. Given away. Used. Whatever. Some got lost in several shuffles. Shea sent money to Lu from time to time, but Lu never got a solid return on his investment.
Somehow, one pair got tucked into the back of my closet. Oddly enough, they reminded me of a very different shoe story of my own.
In the spring of 1959, I had an urgent need for shoes – cool, camel-colored, snap-tongued, slip-on shoes.
I was tired of having to tie my laces every time I went out, and besides, everybody had them.
“You don’t need trick shoes,” my mother told me more than once.
What she didn’t understand was that I really did need them. Really! All my closest buddies were talking about them, wearing them. They sat downtown, all tan and clean, in the window of the Buster Brown Shoe Store, calling my name. Joey Quatrini got his pair first. He always got things first as he was the youngest child and only boy in a 2nd generation Italian family. Then Timmy O’Mara got his pair followed closely by Jimmy Lyons and Aidan Burnell – who we always called “Mike” because Aidan wasn’t a regular’ name back then. It seemed like every guy in town had a pair except me.
I tried to convince, cajole, and connive my way into those shoes for weeks. Coming up on my twelfth birthday, feeling the first twinges of adolescence, and not wanting to be left out, and definitely wanting to be cool, I used every argument in my arsenal to change my mother’s mind.
“They’re kinda like suede,” I said, “so I won’t have to polish them. Just brush ‘em.” Polishing shoes was still one of my regular household chores back in the day, and I hated doing it!
“Suede shows spots,” my mother replied, matter-of-factly.
“Well, it’s not real suede,” I countered.
“Then, they won’t hold up,” she countered.
Some of the guys got to wear their new shoes to school. Others could only wear them to church on Sundays. I’d look. I’d admire. I’d point out how cool they looked. Comfortable, too. I’d admire how the light tawny color looked great against early tans, summer pants and bright shirts.
Of course, my mother knew that the real season the shoes were so popular was their slide open, snap shut tongues. That, and not the color or the fake suede, that was why all the kids wanted them. Instead of criss-crossing shoes laces that tied at the top, that broke when pulled too hard, that needed to be double tied and then got tangled, these babies had an outside tongue with a pair of glides. Slide the tongue up, snap it closed. Done. No laces to come untied or break. Valuable seconds – minutes even – saved each time the shoes were put on or taken off.
“Trick shoes,” again. “They’re a fad. They’ll never hold up” I heard these comments individually or together over and over all spring, into summer. There was no reasoning, no arguing.
The school year ended. Spring turned fully into summer. This seasonal change gave me new hope. My birthday was coming up. I was growing and, in truth, I did need new shoes. The fact that I seldom actually wore ‘dressy’ shoes during the summer didn’t matter. I saw an opening, an opportunity.
“Know what I want for my birthday?” I asked both my mother and dad one day in late June. “New shoes.”
My dad was caught off guard. He hadn’t been in our earlier shoe conversations. He had no idea of my many attempts to convince my mother to let me get the cool trick shoes. My mother, on the other hand, knew exactly where my mind was going.
So on July 1, 1959, my mother and I walked into the Buster Brown Shoe Store on Desmond Street downtown, and I walked out with a perfect pair of caramel colored, snap-tongued, slip on shoes. I was turning 12, I was cool; my life was complete.
The next day was my birthday. It was a Sunday that year, and I wore my cool, new shoes to church. I felt about 6’ tall. I wore them to church almost every Sunday that summer. I wore them around the house a bit, but they were, of course, too good to wear outside to play in. Nobody actually saw them, but that was OK. I had them.
Finally, it was time for the new school year to start. I wore them to school on the very first day. Only then did I realize that none of my friends were wearing theirs. The urgency had passed. What had happened, I wondered.
“What shoes?” asked both Tim and Joey.
Jimmy explained, “I spilled some cherry pop on my one shoe, and it looks really funny.”
“The tongue broke.” Mike said.
The urgency had passed. The cool had cooled. The fad was over.
I wore my trick shoe to church for a few more Sundays. They were no longer a ‘statement’. No longer worthy of note. They were just shoes.
Then one Sunday, as I was putting them on, the glide separated from the slide. Actually, it pulled completely off the shoe. One shoe was busted, out of order, totally useless. As a pair of shoes, even with careful use, they had not held up. I wore my Keds to church that Sunday, and truth be told, almost every day afterwards.
I tucked my caramel, cool slip-tongue shoes in the back of my closet. They sat there for months. Nobody asked why I wasn’t wearing them anymore. My mother never threw them out even though she must have been aware of their absence from my life. As fall set in, I did get another pair of shoes, though. Regular, lace-up, sturdy cordovan shoes.
After 12, I got to be 13, then 14, and so on. Old friends grew up, too; some moved away. Others moved into town. My voice changed. My body developed. I almost made 6’! Fads came and went, and somehow, I survived.
Eventually, one day cleaning out my closet – getting ready for college, I suspect – I threw my cool, caramel colored, snap-tongued, slip-on shoes away.
I saved Lu’s, though.
In the back of my closet.