Humor: Why the three wise men bared their soles

Why the three wise men bared their soles

I think the people who formed the logjam at my local shoe shop yesterday will agree that often you do not realise you need new shoes until winter arrives.

Well, it has arrived here in Canberra. It is cold and wet.

And, sure enough, I have discovered that the shoes that served me so well through a hot, dry summer have developed tiny holes in the soles capable of sucking up uncomfortable quantities of icy rainwater, dew and frost droplets as I slosh my way hither and thither.

"While you are at the local shops, John," my wife Katherine said yesterday,"why don't you go and get some new shoes?"

Normally, I would think this was a daft idea.

We already have more shoes around our back door than seems decent for a family of three. We have boots, gumboots, slippers, casual shoes, dress shoes and sandshoes and it is sometimes quite a puzzle working out how they belong to and why they need to be there.

But, as I said, it is winter here.

And I am not alone in my sloshing about.

Two workmates confessed the other day that they, too, were in need of new shoes.

"Hey," I said in all seriousness. "Why don't we go into a shoe shop together and see what kind of buying power we have?"
I was thinking along the lines that if we told the salesperson we were there to buy not one, but three pairs of shoes, we might get a free shoe or even a free pair.
But I think the consensus was that we would probably be lucky to get a free pair of shoelaces.

So I went to the shoe shop alone - boldy going, it seems, where everyone has gone before.

I often walk past that shop and there is no one in there, except six attendants waiting to swoop on potential customers.

Yesterday, however, there was just one attendant and six customers.

It did not take me long to work out that there were a lot of holes in a lot of shoes in Canberra and I would be a long time getting served.

As I stood there in front of row on row of shoes of different colours, makes and sizes, I had plenty of time to think though. About shoes mostly.

I discovered not long ago that I am a great, great grandson of an Irish cobbler, so no doubt I carry some kind of shoe gene that gives me a special insight into this area.

We do tend to take shoes for granted, don't we?

Yet, I wonder how many icy cold mountains humankind would have scaled without sensible footwear.

And never underrate how nostalgic shoes can be.

Remember the first set of booties you gave your baby, the first pair of little footy boots your son wore, the first pair of ballerina's shoes you gave to your daughter?
Do you remember how you pirouetted awkwardly in your shiny new gumboots when you trod in a fresh cow-pat while picking mushrooms in the crisp morning mist. Bet you did not even know you could do it?

my son Jack, followiing in the family tradition I remember quite clearly when I was three or four stepping into my dad's shoes, which seemed enormous, and wondering if my feet would ever be that big.

And I remember my son Jack as a toddler doing exactly the same thing with my shoes, with much mirth.

I also remember my first set of school shoes which had specially moulded novelty soles that left animal-type tracks. Actually, they were my only pair of animal-track shoes. Katherine will not let me have them now. I think it is because she fears they will frighten our cat.

Social analysts tend to underrate the importance of shoes to us all.

Some years ago, I had great difficulty in finding a shoe to fit me in Goulburn, in country NSW.

Everything I tried on seemed to be designed for bigger feet than mine.

I found this astounding. I am not tall, but I am hardly diminutive. Looking around me, I did not think I was a unique size.

Governments are routinely blamed for the drain of young people from the country.
The critics say they have to move to the city for the best education and employment opportunities.

My theory, however, is that young people merely move to the city to find shoes that fit.

I know I did anyway.

And all was going quite well on the shoe front for quite some time.

Until now.
Until these blasted holes.
Squish, slosh, squelch.
How long has winter got to go?

"I thought you were going to buy some new shoes?" Katherine said when I returned home empty handed from the shoe shop yesterday.

"I was," I said. "But I had to wait ssssssuch a long time to be served.
"I finally gave up when three blokes came in and used their buying power to get ahead of me in the queue.
"I could not bear to stick around and see them get a free shoe too."

NB: I called this site Dunno because I kept drawing a blank when I had to put a name to it