Humor

In Your Ear — Bata Shoe Museum

By Tom Hoerr

February–March 2000

Historical February–March 2000 article. Dates, prices, services and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.

Honest to goodness, you’d have thought she’d died and gone to heaven.

There we were, standing outside the BATA SHOE MUSEUM in Toronto, Ontario.

With the giant grin on her face, the first wife looked like a Cheshire Cat without the fur. “No, I never knew that there was a shoe museum either.

It does make sense, though, after all, we have museums that are dedicated to wars that shouldn’t have been fought, to politicians who shouldn’t have been elected, and to history that is only speculation. So why not shoes? Anyway, there truly is a shoe museum in Toronto.

To quote from the museum’s brochure, Shoes are part of our everyday life. Around the world, footwear has been adapted to suit the particular needs of different people, based on their environment, activities, and traditions.

The Bata Shoe Museum Collection explores the extent to which shoes, more than any other personal item, reflect the living habits, the culture, and the customs of the people who wore them. Standing out front of the museum, ignoring the winter weather, indeed, heating the entire block with her enthusiasm and excitement, the first wife was beside herself. Well, no, actually. she was beside me, but you get my point.

She had seen an article about the shoe museum in the weekly newsletter that she gets, Shoe Afficionado.

She was a pilgrim returning to the Holy Land, a Crusader looking for the Holy Grail.

A few days later, we were TWAing it to Canada’s largest city. Of course, this is far less easy than it sounds.

A good deal of energy was spent before the trip, trying to determine which of her hundreds of pairs of shoes would get to go on the trip. Why? Well, imagine having 300 or 400 children, all of whom you love dearly, and only getting to take 15 or 20 to DisneyWorld. Get the picture?

To be fair to all the shoes, she did a random drawing, entering the names of each pair of shoes.

The lucky winners were packed in two suitcases.

We were accompanied to Toronto by highheels Fred, Edna, Sally, and Mark. By boots Bill and Oscar, by sandals Louise, Ramona, and Esmeralda, and by causal wear Jose, Eliot, Lauren, Betsy, and Linda.

We arrived in Toronto in the afternoon and after a quick evening dinner in the local Chinatown, we were at the Bata Shoe Museum the next morning at 10:00 a.m. when it opened. Actually, we were there at 8:45 a.m., just in case.

The guide unlocked the door and welcomed us: “I’m sorry that I didn’t hear you knocking,” she said. “Oh, that’s ok, I was just trying to get a jump start on the exhibits” the first wife said as she rushed inside, brushing against the guide so quickly that I had to help her regain her balance and straighten her uniform (which had a badge in the shape of a shoe).

I apologized hurried to catch up with the wife.

The museum covers four floors.

The ground floor — they called it the Sole Floor, honest! — begins by focusing on what cavemen and cavewomen wore for shoes. “Hrmmp, no style at all,” said the wife when she saw the grass moccasins that we think the cave people wore. There’s actually a replica of the Lucy footprint found in Africa, the oldest known trace of humanity. Turns out Lucy was a 6B.

The second floor, called “The Tongue,” focused on shoes from the birth of Christ up to the twentieth century. Shoes featured range from armor worn by fighting knights to leather sandals depicted in drawings on Egyptian tombs to boots worn by American frontiersmen and women to an actual wedding day shoe worn by a bride who was married in Indiana in 1888.

As we moved from metal to silk, the wife began to slow her pace, pausing for long periods of time at each shoe. Several times other people asked her to move on or step back so that they could see the exhibit.

The third floor, “Strings and Fasteners,” was her nirvana: shoes of the twentieth century. This, dear reader, is why we went to Toronto.

A copy of Dorothy’s red slippers from the Wizard Of Oz was there as were actual shoes worn by Marilyn Monroe, Elton John, Frenchy Fuqua. Twiggy, Madonna, Mae West, and Ronald Reagan.

There were hundreds of shoes, depicting each decade of the century, from shoes worn by prohibition runners to a size 22 basketball shoe to a boot by an astronaut on Apollo IX.

A copy of virtually every shoe imaginable was present.

On four or five occasions the wife said, “This is simply too much for me,” and sat down to take deep breaths and fan herself.

But it was on the top floor, known affectionately as “Straps” among shoe lovers, that the first wife stole the show.

The floor contained a den of meeting rooms and offices, a place where shoe conferences and lectures are held.

The schedule indicated that future speakers included a Mr. Jacobie, a cobbler, the heads of marketing from Tom McAnn and Stride Right, the granddaughter of Dr. Scholl, and a gala shoe collectors fair to be held on March 10, Imelda Marcos’ birthday. And there, in big, bold letters on the door of the last room before the stairs, was written Office of the Shoe Appraiser. “A shoe appraiser!

My gracious!

We must meet him,” said the wife, and I complacently followed her, as I do through much of life. No sooner had we walked in the door and introduced ourselves when he looked at her, took a step backwards and said, “You aren’t the Karleen Hoerr of St. Louis, by chance, are you?” She nodded eagerly, tiny tears coming to her eyes. Suffice it to say that when she told him that she was, in fact, the Karleen Hoerr, he leapt for joy and clapped, breaking into laughter. “Oh my goodness,” he said, taking monocle out of his left eye, “we surely know about you in these parts.

I can’t wait to hear about your collection! Please, oh please, come in and talk with me.” He snapped his fingers and coffee and sweet rolls appeared.

The wife and he began to talk in technical terms, referring to shoes by both their serial numbers and first names.

I pulled out Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, found a quiet place nearby in the hall, and began to read. No surprise, we spent most of our time in Toronto at the museum.

I read three books, started this article, and became friends with the baggage guy at the hotel.

The Bata Shoe Museum’s Head Appraiser and Executive Director became soul mates with the first wife. And the first wife?

In addition to her many other accomplishments, she’s now an adjunct faculty member of the Bata Shoe Museum.

Her first series of lectures, “The Role of Shoes In An Age Of Paradigm Shifts,” begins in April.

She can hardly wait. For those who would like to savor the culture the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto, more information can be obtained by calling 416-979-7799.

If you go and enjoy yourself, remember, I toed you so.