Tan Shoes with Pink Shoelaces

It was one of those weekends when no ideas for a musing seemed to be forthcoming – until I thought about my unplanned Saturday afternoon stop at the Sketchers outlet store.  Turned out I was glad I took that detour as I walked out with 4 pairs from the clearance rack. One pair resurrected some lyrics from the 1950s, something about “she wore tan shoes with pink shoelaces…” I fell asleep that night thinking about footwear and trying to remember the rest of the song.

I remember my dad polishing his shoes once a month. He would get out his brown and black little round metal cans and his polishing cloth. Sometimes I would join him, with my bottle of white polish to freshen up my sneakers or my saddleshoes. In sixth grade my friends and I got our first pair nylons and stacked heels. There wasn’t much variety so many of us had the same black shoe with a little gold buckle.

My feet recall treks to and from the train in heels in the days before everyone shifted to comfortable shoes for the commute and professional shoes stored under the desk at work. Years ago there was a store that got sample shoes in my size and for a couple of years I had really cool and fashion-forward feet. Luckily those years coincided with the era ,when I wasn’t thinking so much of comfort. There were vacations where we packed many shoes to go with different outfits we planned to wear. Somewhere in a drawer I have a shoe polish cloth from a hotel, a souvenir that used to be a common amenity.

Years ago I adopted the simple living philosophy of when I buy something I have to get rid of something. Buy a new shirt, recycle an old one. I’ve been pretty good at that, except when it comes to shoes.  So bringing in these new shoes presented an opportunity to really purge. Out went the 7-year old tan shoes I got for our trip to Italy along with the blue Pumas that never really fit and gave me blisters. Out went the high heels I will never wear again and the well-worn comfortable runaround shoes my physical therapist pointed out were not helping my posture.  

In wrapping this up I googled the lyric that triggered this trip down memory lane, while of course wearing new shoes. That’s when I learned that it was he, not she, who wore “tan shoes with pink shoelaces, a polka dot vest, and man oh man, he wore tan shoes with pink shoelaces and a big Panama hat with a purple hat band.

Don’t get me started on hats!

Marilyn