When I buy a pair of walking shoes, they go through a fairly lengthy life cycle.
First, I wear them to work. As often as possible I walk to work which is about half a mile from home. If I go home for lunch, there is a two-mile day before I count the walking I do for house chores and what happens at work helping patrons.
If the shoe looks good enough to keep wearing after the inner cushioning starts to fail, I'll by new inserts - sometimes more than once.
Once the shoes start to look too ragged for work, I'll make them my house chore shoes or my yard shoes. And I always try to have a pair that I use when I paint a room (or a shed or ...).
Today was the last day of use for a pair of navy blue shoes that I bought sometime during the 1980's. I remember that I was teaching and, during the summer, I was working at Shearer's Pharmacy in Marengo, IL. I often walked to work that summer as long as I could get a ride home after work. The walk was 4 miles. I am vertically challenged, so with my short legs, it would take me about 1 1/4 hours to walk to work. I enjoyed doing it.
(By the way, I found out the building where the pharmacy was had at one time been a grocery store. Grandma Lena worked there. She would walk to work wearing her two-inch heels. The walk from her father's acreage was probably a good mile and a half, maybe two miles.)
I got annoyed with those shoes a little sooner than most because, whenever I walked in wet conditions like rain or dew, the blue from the shoes would bleed onto my socks. Eventually I had a batch of blue-toed socks. So they were changed into paint shoes. There are drops of paint on them that I can identify from at least two houses ago. They have moved with me from Illinois to New Hampshire to Illinois again and down to southern Indiana.
When I lost my previous pair of yard shoes, the blue ones went into more active service again. I believe that was late last fall. Whenever I mow or get into a lot of dirt like working in the garden, those shoes slipped onto my feet like they belonged there. They were still comfortable after all this time.
Today, as I was mowing on the most perfect morning of the season, and just before I finished, the bottom of my shoe started flopping every time I took a step. The same thing happened with my last pair. The lowest layer had pulled loose at the heel. I kept using those until the bottom layer started folding under my foot as I was pulling the mower backwards. At that point, I decided they were getting dangerous, so I dumped them.
This time, there was no "wait until later". The whole base of the shoe came off of the upper part halfway to the toe. I let go of the "dead man's bar" on the mower and hobbled into the house as best I could. I grabbed a roll of duct tape and wrapped two long lengths of it around the shoe. I figured that would hold until I could finish the lawn. It did.
This is what I do to shoes before I'm finished with them. It's not that I'm not willing to contribute to Goodwill or other worthy thrift stores. It's just that those places wouldn't want what I have after I'm done with it.
Thanks for visiting with me.
Kathi
First, I wear them to work. As often as possible I walk to work which is about half a mile from home. If I go home for lunch, there is a two-mile day before I count the walking I do for house chores and what happens at work helping patrons.
If the shoe looks good enough to keep wearing after the inner cushioning starts to fail, I'll by new inserts - sometimes more than once.
Once the shoes start to look too ragged for work, I'll make them my house chore shoes or my yard shoes. And I always try to have a pair that I use when I paint a room (or a shed or ...).
Today was the last day of use for a pair of navy blue shoes that I bought sometime during the 1980's. I remember that I was teaching and, during the summer, I was working at Shearer's Pharmacy in Marengo, IL. I often walked to work that summer as long as I could get a ride home after work. The walk was 4 miles. I am vertically challenged, so with my short legs, it would take me about 1 1/4 hours to walk to work. I enjoyed doing it.
(By the way, I found out the building where the pharmacy was had at one time been a grocery store. Grandma Lena worked there. She would walk to work wearing her two-inch heels. The walk from her father's acreage was probably a good mile and a half, maybe two miles.)
I got annoyed with those shoes a little sooner than most because, whenever I walked in wet conditions like rain or dew, the blue from the shoes would bleed onto my socks. Eventually I had a batch of blue-toed socks. So they were changed into paint shoes. There are drops of paint on them that I can identify from at least two houses ago. They have moved with me from Illinois to New Hampshire to Illinois again and down to southern Indiana.
When I lost my previous pair of yard shoes, the blue ones went into more active service again. I believe that was late last fall. Whenever I mow or get into a lot of dirt like working in the garden, those shoes slipped onto my feet like they belonged there. They were still comfortable after all this time.
Today, as I was mowing on the most perfect morning of the season, and just before I finished, the bottom of my shoe started flopping every time I took a step. The same thing happened with my last pair. The lowest layer had pulled loose at the heel. I kept using those until the bottom layer started folding under my foot as I was pulling the mower backwards. At that point, I decided they were getting dangerous, so I dumped them.
This time, there was no "wait until later". The whole base of the shoe came off of the upper part halfway to the toe. I let go of the "dead man's bar" on the mower and hobbled into the house as best I could. I grabbed a roll of duct tape and wrapped two long lengths of it around the shoe. I figured that would hold until I could finish the lawn. It did.
This is what I do to shoes before I'm finished with them. It's not that I'm not willing to contribute to Goodwill or other worthy thrift stores. It's just that those places wouldn't want what I have after I'm done with it.
Thanks for visiting with me.
Kathi
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