Shoes

Shoes ©

By Michael Casey

Shoes we all wear them, they were the one thing that wasn’t handed me down when I grew up, trousers I remember they were handed down, and I was the 4^th of 4 brothers. I can remember the summer of 1970 my mum sat on an old barn chair with the back missing and she took up the legs on a pair of puke coloured cords, then I ran up and down the yard and garden with my hands in my pockets admiring my first ever long trousers. Yes I really wore shorts with long socks with elastics to hold them up, my knees were exposed till I was nearly 12.

But what of shoes. Shoes are nice and I think expensive, so I bought cheap leather almost Oxfords for office work. Though these past 10 years maybe I buy soft leather nice shoes, brown, because brown is cheaper than black, and black means in service, like working in a hotel, and I know all about hotels. There is a Clarkes shop on New St in Birmingham so if you wait for the sale you can get ½ price Clarkes and nothing is nicer than new shoes. The Internet also allows you to get bargains too, so I buy 2 pairs at a time. My latest pair are and were the best pair of shoes I’ve ever had, light brown in colour with soft leather, with a strip of while sole, like nougat I suppose then with a thin strip of lighter brown on the sole. Yes yes yes, those shoes are the best. Comfort while you are working is a must, then best of all when the shoes are too shabby to wear outside you convert them to house slippers.

I have a confession to make, I do have smelly feet and dandruff, sounds like something from my piece about “what makes a man sexy to a woman” which Funny or Die ranks at 100% funny, 250 view in 2 days. I’ll get back to the shoes, I do have smelly feet but I have fixed that by Oder Eaters which are foam insoles that take the stink away. Stink is the word, I confess to  clearing an entire coach in 1972 while my form was at Romsley. We had been out catching tadpoles and I had been wearing wellingtons all day, and one thing led to another, it was worse than poison gas, but I am my father’s son, and he did work next to a furnace all his life. So as I do have Oder Eaters in my shoes, I don’t have smelly feet, everything is contained. Oder Eaters are soft too so you get more comfort in your shoes. I should also point out that I don’t have dandruff, no I’m not contradicting myself, Head and  Shoulders really does work and the Aldi cheap version works too, so that’s those two points laid to rest.

Now some have metal bits stuck to their shoes, so there is a great racket as they walk along. Little Caesar was my Latin and Spanish teacher, he was a lovely man, 5feet nothing and he sounded like a flamenco dancer as he strode all the corridor, it was like listening to approaching thunder. Shoes are an accompaniment to our life, they are like the herald if you like. Me I prefer to be quiet, no not like a cat waiting to pounce, just quiet.

I do have a pair of shoes I hate and would love to throw out, but they are like a bastard child, they are still useful, I wear them in the winter or heavy heavy rain, with climate change I will keep them till I am 100.  Now if I were a woman, and I do have great legs, anyway IF I were a women I’d have shoes and  boots and sandals and pixie boots and kinky boots and all kinds of  boots. These boots are make for walking, sang Nancy Sinatra, boots and shoes and whatevers do change our mood, do enhance our self worth, just as a dress does, just ask J Edgar Hoover.