NEW CASTLE —
All I have heard from my wife for the past three years is, "You need new shoes!"
For the past 25 years, I have purchased the same style of dress shoe from the Mason Shoe catalog.
I'll admit the dress shoes I now have are slightly worn on the bottom.
Come on! Who looks at the bottom of your shoes anyway?
Unless I would prop my feet up on a table, you would never know the condition of my soles.
Since I wear my dress shoes to church, I did have a slight fear of being carried out on a stretcher.
All the congregation would then see the condition of the bottoms of my shoes, and probably take up a collection for me.
Since this is my 50th class reunion, my wife finally put her foot down and made me go to Reyers to get new shoes.
It has been 25 years since I had to pick out a new style of shoes, and I was a little rusty at it.
The salesman brought out several pairs he had in my size for me to try on.
One pair had a square- instead of a round-toe area.
I immediately ruled them out.
The salesman said to me, "You are where I was a few years ago."
I felt like I just crawled out of the gutter and was in an alcoholics anonymous meeting.
He went on to say that square toes are the "in" thing now. He has made the transition and is now wearing the new thing.
I didn't want to go to the reunion wearing the same shoes I graduated in, so I went with the square ones.
This made my wife very happy.
I can't say I like them.
They do have a few advantages to the smaller, round-toe shoe.
If your ice cream falls out of the cone, it will probably land on your shoes instead of hitting the ground. You can then scoop it back up and finish eating it.
They will make a nice raft if you should fall into the lake.
And best of all, they should keep the wife quiet for another 25 years.
Gary Church
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About Gary Church: Gary is a columnist and contributing writer for The News. He’ll share his thoughts on this blog each Tuesday and Friday.
Discussion
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