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For Want of a Shoe...

February 20, 2012

Austin has the weather. If you don’t like it, wait a day or two - it will change completely. Yesterday morning it was 31°, with sleet and snow flurries. The day before it rained hard for most of the day and temperatures hovered around the mid-forties. Today, once the dense fog lifted, it has turned out to be bright and sunny with a temperature of 75°.

The changing weather has put me in mind of my misery in December when we were traveling around Missouri and Kansas. Day after day we were camped or moving slowly through the sleet, snow or freezing rain. And every day I was slapping myself with a cold, damp sock for being lazy and not buying myself a pair of warm waterproof shoes at Harry’s while I was back in New York City the month before. I had promised myself that, while in the city, I would take time away from seeing friends, drinking wine and eating at the old hangouts to buy the perfect pair of nasty weather shoes from the world’s most perfect shoe store. Yes I have regrets: I should have had one less glass of wine and bought myself the damn, much needed, foul weather shoes from Harry’s.

I was a fool.

All I have out here are my wonderful little black driving Pumas and some mesh walking shoes. My feet have been cold and wet and they take forever to warm up.

For those of you who are unfamiliar, Harry’s Shoes, in New York City, is the epicenter for finding all things that make up the right shoe. It is the world’s most wonderful shoe store. They have the right shoe for every purpose. Well, not really...as far as I can tell they do not stock sexy, tart-it-up-open-toed-strappy little numbers, but if you need to get somewhere, play some game, survive in extreme weather... Harry’s has the shoe, boot or sandal for you.

Sure  they have urban walkers, but they also carry river walkers, beach walkers, and bush walkers, along with lightweight as well as tech climbers. There are low shoes as well as medium and tall work-type all-weather boots... (You take this totally for granted when is around the corner.) I am in desperate need at the moment. My once perfect ANO black water-resistant thinsulate™ lined winter urban walking shoes (from Harry’s, of course) were worn-out, cracked, leaking... and now gone. They had carried me thru floods and blizzards for many years.

Outside the camper door here, in cold and rainy Austin, the mud and water are deepening. Driving is not an option at this time, but neither is walking the dog. For the first time ever, I am opening the door, pushing him out into the cold mud and saying, “Hurry-up.” (Oh, the guilt.) He stands outside the door in the pouring rain and stares at me through the window as if I have forgotten something too desperate for words. Squinting his little collie eyes at me, he refuses to move unless I join him.

I cannot believe that now even here is Austin, I still need Harry’s. I need to browse amongst their hundreds of perfect pairs to find something that will be exactly right for the circumstances in which I keep finding myself. Light snow and freezing rain is beautiful on trees, but not underfoot. Even tho there is no piling snow on the corners, no ice flows rushing past to the sewers like in New York City... there is an inch or two of water on the ground giving way to  deep mud. I consider 1 to 3 inches of soft mud deep as well as slippery. Where is the Harry’s Nationwide Chain when I need it? ( I can’t use any of the billions of Designer Shoe Warehouses all over the country!)

FYI, Harry’s is located on the corner of 83rd and Broadway on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. There is a small window display on the 83rd street side of the store, where they display the closest thing to trendy footwear they are willing to sell. (That window is where I first fell in love with my velcro laced black driving Pumas.)

Inside it is almost always crowded.

There used to be gobs of children and parents shopping after school and on weekends, but mercifully Harry’s opened a children’s branch a block north on Broadway, and now there is a little less pandemonium.

There are still the older ladies who insist that they are a size six when obviously their falling arches have moved them into the 8.5 - 9 range. They actually force little low-heeled shoes onto their abused feet. Puffy swollen bags of flesh hang over the sides of the shoe as they take a few steps, and announce, "It feels fine." Meanwhile the helpful staff member is encouraging them to let him measure their foot. Yes they still have those black and silver sliding things that measure feet.

A Bit of Shoe-Fitting History...

Long gone from shoe stores are the green lighted cancer-causing fluoroscopes used to check out how your toes fit in the shoe. (Am I the only person old enough to have received a lifetime of roentgens before the age of 8?) My brother and I loved  to play on the machine, trying to stuff various combinations of  hands and feet into the green-lighted x-ray hole while the other peered  into the viewing hole. Bones glowed with an exotic shade of green, it was quite fun.

Oh yes, as long as I’m dreaming of Harry’s, I should tell you, they have a magnificent selection of socks.

OK. I know. Enough already. It’s just shoes - back to the rest of America...