Shoe shopping

My wife and I recently went shoe shopping. As with most married couples, this meant that she shopped while I tagged along.     

She is quite sneaky regarding such things. I was lured into a superstore with hints that we might visit the power tool department, only to find myself wandering through a maze of shoes. The stacks of footwear were high enough to tickle the bellies of passing clouds.       

“Where are we going?” I asked in my best non-whiny manner.       

“Stop your whining!” my wife replied. “You sound an electric coffee mill. We’re here because we both need new shoes.” 

This was news to me. I glanced at my feet; both were thoroughly shod. Why did I need more shoes? After all, a guy can wear only one pair at a time.     

I knew better than to voice these thoughts. We were already in the shoe department, and federal law dictates that we had to buy at least a pair of flip-flops. Or so my wife implied.     

Despite the same number of feet, women seem to need more shoes than men. Remember when it came to light that Imelda Marcos, former First Lady of the Philippines, owned several thousand pairs of shoes? Males generally reacted by shaking their heads and muttering “That’s nuts!” Females generally reacted by saying, “That’s a good start.”  

So there I was, looking at serious time in the slammer unless I made a shoe purchase. My wife picked out a pair for me — she’s better than me at shopping and seems to derive pleasure from it — and I did my part by trying them on.     

The ancient ritual of trying on one shoe and walking around swept me back to a portentous moment early in my shoe-wearing history.     

I was perhaps 8 years old, and Dad and I were at Orville Terkelsen’s shoe store. It’s hard to believe this, but our little town once had a stand-alone family shoe store.     

Dad had taken me to Terkelsen’s to buy my very first pair of work boots. Up until then, I owned exactly two pairs of shoes: my school shoes, which had to be worn with care as they were also my Sunday shoes, and my “tenners.” The tenners were also known as Keds.     

Dad and Orville chatted for a while and got up to speed regarding local news before the talk turned to footwear.

“The boy here needs a pair of work boots,” Dad said. 

I nearly burst with pride. Work boots? For me? Only real men who worked real hard got to wear work boots! This could only mean that I was at last a man.   

I tried to recall when this metamorphosis had taken place. Maybe it happened the night before in my sleep. Glancing at my forearm, I thought that the peach fuzz on my arm looked somewhat manlier.     

Orville sat me down and used a nifty gizmo to measure my foot. He announced my size, then advised that we go a bit larger as I was still growing. Dad agreed with the seasoned shoe sage.     

Orville went into the back room and soon returned with a large rectangular box. He opened it with a practiced flair, as if he were unveiling a Fabergé egg. A pair of tawny high-topped work boots glistened like a long-lost treasure.     

After slipping my right foot into the corresponding boot, Orville showed me how to crisscross the laces through the brass hooks. The boot felt solid and powerful as he cinched it tight against my ankle. I nearly fainted from pride, not realizing that I had just stepped into a harness that I would wear for the next several decades. 

Orville checked the fit and announced that my big toe had plenty of extra room. With any luck, these work boots would see me through an entire year. Hopefully, by then I would have worked off the value of the boots and be deemed worthy of a new pair.    

I noticed a particular word emblazoned on the shoebox: Wolverine.

I wondered if this meant that the boots were made from the hide of a fearsome forest creature or if the boots gave their wearer strength and ferocity disproportionate to his size. I decided that both things might be true.

As my wife and I wandered through the superstore’s labyrinth of footwear, I was gripped by a powerful sense of nostalgia.

“Let’s see if they have work boots,” I said

“Don’t you already have a pair?” she asked.

“I do. But a guy never knows when he might need a spare.”

My new work boots were an unnecessary indulgence. You can just call me Imelda.

Jerry’s book, “Dear County Agent Guy,” is available at workman.com and in bookstores nationwide.