Sunday, October 11, 2009

Sorry, Mom...

When I was a little girl, shopping wasn't done at malls (or, as I prefer to think of them, mauls). Instead, one dressed up, with patent shoes and white gloves, and went downtown (on the bus) to the department stores. We favored Hutzler's but shoppers had the choice of Hutzler's, Hecht's, Hochschild Kohn's or Stewart's...all independently owned. We dressed up, as I said, and had lunch there...either in the fancy restaurant (oh, their Welsh rarebit...yum) or across the street in the Annex Coffee Shop, which was more like a diner. Conveyor belts carried the covered plates out from the kitchen to the counter waitresses. Each cover had from one to three holes in it because there were three bays to the counter as it twisted across the room...

Anyway, on one of those trips when I was eight or so, we went downtown to get me new dress-up shoes. There were lots of black patent shoes, some white patent, and oh my, one pair of gorgeous red patent shoes. I fell in love with these shoes...they had straps like Mary Janes, but those straps could swivel back and tuck behind the top of the heel so that the shoes worked as slipons, too. There was red grosgrain ribbon around the edges of the shoe and a large bow at the toes. They were a gorgeous shiny red.

And my mom said no. Absolutely not. Nice little girls didn't wear red patent shoes in my mom's world. So home we came with sedate black patent shoes.

Well....


Sorry, Mom.

I got myself some new shoes yesterday. This red pair may be my favorites. But I also got these, which will show off my handknit socks nicely.


And these, the fluffy linings of which will keep my feet nice and warm.

5 comments:

Kaethe said...

As a fan of comfy footwear, I'd like to ask you to identify those shoes, please. The red patent Mary Jane's of your youth sound divine!

Rooie said...

The red ones and the fuzzy ones are both Merrell. The brown leather ones are Naturalizer.

All Courtesy of DSW.

I see Zappo's has the red ones. They're called Encore MJ. Ooooh and they have them in blue.

mlw said...

Funny what we do...hard to understand...if there's anyone who would have understood the pull of a pair of red patent leather shoes, it would have been your mother. Fortunately, a long life allows us to loosen up a bit and I'm sure that your mother would be happy to see you in them trotters now.

Are we getting together for Thanksgiving this year, do you think?

Oh, Brother said...

I'd say it was a taxi, as often as it was a bus, that took us downtown . . .

And Mom was the one who, in her youth, wanted (so bad) to have a pair of those boots with the knife-holder (and knife) located at mid-calf. Guess not many kids are wearing them anymore.

Rooie said...

Gus, I remember taxis coming home but buses going down...at least when we were living on Nottingham Road...I remember standing up on the corner of Edmondson Avenue with Mom waiting for the bus.

ML, Becca was muttering something about Thanksgiving but you'd have to check with her. The only thing I'm sure of is that Rachel won't be home.