Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Saddle Shoes




As a young kid every year I was “blessed” with a new pair of saddle shoes. This tradition continued throughout my early years in elementary school. There were two major issues with saddle shoes.

The first issue, I did not go to elementary school in the 50’s, it was the mid to late 60’s. I really can’t remember what shoes other kids wore I just remember how different mine were. The other big issue was with big wide feet when you wear saddle shoes you truly look like you wearing black and white gun boats. No wonder I was always tripping over my own two feet!

I am pretty sure I had other shoes, maybe some keds tennis shoes, I just can’t remember them. I do remember being barefoot a lot; I had no idea going barefoot all the time would make my feet get wider!

As a kid shoe shopping was awful. I can remember every fall my dad (step dad, mom had remarried) taking me to Hofimers to buy shoes. It was always such a production, I would place my foot in that silver thing that measures your feet, the clerk would just look….it was like hmmm….wow you have a wide foot!

I don’t think they made a lot of wide shoes in those days. So my feet would be squeezed into whatever would stretch…saddle shoes it was! So picture this…a short chubby kid, with glasses and braces wearing shiny black and white gun boats!
Don’t get me wrong, I was very proud of my new shoes. My parents had me convinced they were “cool” shoes. Mom would show me all kinds of girls wearing saddle shoes….you know cheerleaders, Gidget and the kids from Father Knows Best.

Every year I would proudly go off to school with my new shoes, convinced I knew what was stylish. On the outside I held my head high; on the inside I just wanted to be that “cool” skinny blonde girl who wore jeans and tiny nondescript shoes. I just knew with those saddle shoes one day I would be a cheerleader!

What made it worse was my mom had perfect small narrow feet, so she always had the pretty “princess” shoes; I wanted those shoes so bad. I couldn’t even play dress up with moms shoes…my toes wouldn’t go into the shoe.

Lessons learned. Reflecting back I realize my parents weren’t trying to torture me; they were trying to keep shoes on my feet. When you hold your head high and act as if you are okay, you will survive. And keep your little kids from going barefoot, it will make their feet spread; maybe there is something to the old Japanese custom of binding feet. The most important lesson was saddle shoes did not make you a cheerleader later in life!

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