Country shoe-in
By PAT WICK
© Another Day in the Country
When I got all dressed up this morning in my sleek black pants and turtleneck wool sweater from DKNY (reminders of the era when my daughter was one of their managers) and pulled on my black faux fur jacket from Sams Club — I had to laugh. This was definitely east meets midwest.
It was even funnier when I laced up my snow boots — well, really they look more like MUD boots! One look in the skinny living room mirror and I shook my head. The top half looked like "New York, New York," while the bottom was definitely "down on the farm."
Such is life in the country!
I used to rhapsodize about spring weather and literally long for melting snow. Tooltime Tim, ever practical, would say, "Just give me winter." Mud came along with the spring thaw and he hated mud.
As I wade across the chasm that will eventually be Mom's front yard, to help Tim do the drywall, I, too, say, "Just give me winter." The whole front area is semi-sloshy, gooshy gunk and we jump from one snow pile to another to try and avoid the worst of it. Our shoes always are filthy!
While I stick to the practical footwear, my sister, on the other hand, desperately misses wearing her high-heeled shoes. She left boxes of them in storage and donated even more boxes to Goodwill when we first came back to Kansas. On her birthday, though, when we made a hunting-and-gathering trip into Wichita, she came back with a pair of high-heeled shoes that are destined to become a farm phenomena.
"Take a look at these," she said extending her petite foot, "These oughta work on gravel."
The shoe on her foot was the highest high-heel I'd seen in at least four years. It was black and white patent leather with white shoe laces across the toe. This was a spectacular shoe — a faux saddle oxford on spikes, if you can imagine. And the piece de résistance was that those shoes have tread on the bottom.
A week later, Jess had succumbed to a streak of country practicality and was ready to take them back to the store. "Nah, keep 'um," I said. "They're unique. They'll make good conversation material and if they don't work out, you can always toss them in our costume box." (Little did I imagine, those shoes would be fodder for a column).
Last week, Jess was taking Mom to a Valentine event at her church and she came walking out with her new high heels on — they were a knock-out. She bravely started out the door and in fact made it to the car to warm it up. On the return trip through an errant snow drift, she changed her mind.
When she finally left, she had on a severely practical pair of shoes and I was disappointed that she wasn't sporting her new saddle-spikes. And then I saw tucked under her arm — her new shoes. She hadn't given up! "I'm wearing them — one way or another," she said with a grin.
Well, it's another day in the country and I've got a meeting to attend. No, I'm not changing shoes — but I suppose I could clean off some of the mud and add a coat of shoe polish.
