Historical April–May 2002 article. Dates, prices, services and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
And what did you do over Spring Break? Hopefully you went some place exciting, or maybe you just gazed at Skinker and Forest Park Expressway intersection, consciously forming nice images and memories which we’ll all need over the next decade as the area is torn up for the Metro Link construction. Me? You-know-who and I just came back from attending a Shoe Convention. You probably didn’t even know that there are Shoe Conventions, right? Well, there are and they’re quite a trip.
Each year the national organization, T.O.E.S. (The Organization of Elegant Shoes) brings together shoe collectors from all over the world.
As conventions go, it’s not that large; typically only one to three thousand people attend. “The relatively small size of the convention doesn’t begin to capture the extent of its excitement and information,” says the First Wife (F.W.). For her, appropriately, it was a religious experience.
This year’s T.O.E.S. convention was in Toronto, home of the Batta Shoe Museum. (Regular readers of this column can retrieve my spring 2000 column in which I described my visit there, culminating with the F.W. being asked to be a guest lecturer.) Anyway, the conference began on a Thursday morning with a kick-off presentation (pun intended!) by that famous shoe raconteur. Dr. Leo V. Armstead. Dr. Armstead is a legend among shoe afficionados and claims to have over 3,000 sets of exotic shoes in his collection. Upon reading this fact in the program, the F.W. nudged me and whispered, “Three thousand? What’s the big deal about that???’ Before she could continue to inform me of the obvious she has nearly that many pairs in only one of her shoe closets Dr. Armstead came to the podium.
As if one, the crowd rose to its feet and began applauding madly.
I couldn’t figure out why at first until I looked at Dr. Armstead through my binoculars (we were seated sort of, like, way back).
His patterned leisure suit was white fabric with pictures of shoes everywhere.
His lapels featured drawings of tennis shoes and sandals (that explained, I remember thinking, why the lapels were so wide) while portraits of spikeheels were all over his chest.
His tall top hat featured a real suede slip-on. Sixty-plus years old and looking a bit like a successful business executive straight from a Monopoly game, Dr. Armstead drew even more applause when he pulled up his pants legs and exposed his shoes: red sequined flats, straight out of the Wizard Of Oz!
The crowd began to chant “Shoes, shoes, shoes!” and clap in unison. Dr. Armstead began to do a slow tap dance, looking a bit like a cross between Anthony Quinn, Fred Astaire, and Madonna.
The cheering grew louder and he kicked even higher.
I felt like I was at a Rams game; in a way I was. “Gosh,” I thought. “I hope he doesn’t click his heels together. Who knows what that will cause?” The cheering continued, unabated.
After what seemed like a long time, but was probably not more than 10 or 15 minutes, Armstead raised his arms, wiped his brow, and asked everyone to be seated. Once the hall was quiet, he had the lights dimmed and began a Power Point presentation of his shoes.
He had them categorized, of course, by the Lewey Shoe Decimal System. (This system of categorization goes with the Dewey Book Decimal and Huey Video Decimal systems. Together they form the… yes, you’ve got it!) Dr. Armstead started with the 200 series, summer wear, and proceeded all the way through the 800’s, combat shoes.
The F.W.’s favorites, no surprise, were in the 660.5 series, “shoes to wear to Chinese restaurants.” In fact, on about the eight or ninth picture in this series she jumped up and shouted, “I’m wearing these suckers” and held her left foot high in the air, balancing herself rather precariously on a folding chair.
She was correct: the image on the giant screen was the same as those on her semitiny feet (and we weren’t even eating Chinese!).
The few hundred folks siting near us peered through the darkness, some shining flashlights on her feet, and roared with approval.
After Armstead’s talk, when the lights were turned on, about a dozen or so folks, recognizing the F.W. from her picture in her monthly column in Sole Food, the national shoe magazine, asked her for an autograph. Of course, she gladly signed the soles of their shoes.
After the keynote there were many different two-hour presentations from which to choose.
Most of them featured shoe collectors talking about their special collections and showing some of their most prized possessions. Since exotic shoes can be quite ‘valuable, most people brought photos or slides of their shoes, rather than the actual precious objects. One guy from Vermont, however, went against the trend and brought his entire collection of presidential shoes.
He had shoes from every U.S. president from Taft through Carter.
He was accompanied by a security guard who wore Reeboks.
There were also sessions on the care and nurturing of shoes, the economics of shoe design, shoes as an investment, shoes and music, shoes through the ages, using shoes to spice up cooking, and, of course, the ubiquitous politics of shoes. Normally the F.W. presents at this conference. Last year, for example, in Memphis, about eighty people came to her talk, “Friendship Among Shoes.” She expounded on the importance of organizing one’s shoe collection so that like shoes can be by like shoes, i.e. shoes can be near their friends. Too often, she noted, a pair of canvas shoes will be alone in a closet, surrounded by only leathers or, worse, patten shoes. “If we want our shoes to grow and develop,” she said at the end, her voice rising in a crescendo and her passion washing over the podium, “we must put them in a situation where they can flourish.” She also talked about sending some of her most promising schools to shoe camp, two-week long sessions in the Ozarks where shoes go to meet other kinds of shoes.
She decided not to make a presentation this year, though, because she is still too distracted by the spat among her high-heel shoes.
The spat – more of a downand-out fight, I’d say! – occurred one day, about two months ago, while she was at work.
The F.W. returned home to hear a ruckus in closet 14B.
When she opened the door, several score of .highheel shoes came plummeting out, still arguing and yelling at one another. “Children!” the F.W. implored, “What in the world is going on?” At this, 1377sf, a left brown leather, began to cry, talking about how 8769vc, a right black shiny job, had been taking up too much space. “So you pushed him?” asked the F.W. incredulously to 1377sf.
With a bit of a sob and a tiny genuflection, 1377sf fessed up. “Violence never solves anything,” said the F.W. and punished 1377sf by removing his taps.
The closet was in such disarray that it took her several hours to organize the shoes.
As she typically does, she crossindexed the holdings so that every shoe is labeled by and can be located by any one of its variables: color, material, cost, date of purchase, country of origin, educational level, closest kin, or size. Thank goodness for computers and shoe classifying software.
But back to the T.O.E.S. Conference.
The F.W. was elated to be among so many kindred spirits and ranked it as one of her favorite all-time conferences, right up there with the nine-day tap dance seminar we attended in Reno. Me? Unfortunately, here, as in so many other areas, I fall short.
I mean, I try to care about shoes and I try to ask her how the shoe categorizing is going or what she’s learned from talking to her boots.
I even try to be patient when we visit shoe stores on our vacation. Going to shoe stores in foreign cities when we don’t have time to see museums doesn’t even bother me any more.
I tolerate shoe upon shoe upon shoe and try to be enthusiastic.
I try but try as I might, it’s just not an area that interests me. Shoe-t. Heck, when we were first married, wanting to be a good F.H. for the F.W., I even joined the “Shoe Of The month” club.
It was fun for a while.
On the 15th of each month a surprise package would arrive. Other than them being my size, 10EEEE, I hadn’t a clue what kind of shoe was coming; that was part of the fun, proclaimed their advertisements.
I remember that a pair of red corduroy boots came in honor of President Bush’s election by the Supreme Court.
When Gore got the nomination in August, they sent me a pair of pale yellow hush puppies. (I couldn’t figure out the significance of the month’s selection – and there’s always significance – so I called the company.
It turns out that they chose this shoe to capture the fact that they thought Albert Gore was one dull dog; get it? Oh well, good thing they’re in shoes, not comedy.) Lately, though, I’ve stopped trying to become a shoe devotee. Face it: I’m a heel. Realistically, I figure that the F.W. isn’t into my collection of aeronautical cigarette lighters, so turn-about is fair play.
The last meeting of the Toronto T.O.E.S. Conference was a plenary session on Friday afternoon. everyone, the thousands of us, sitting together in one giant room in the convention center. Only instead of hearing from Dr. Leo V. Armstead or, even, Ms. Marian B. Padledog (a collector who specializes in shoe strings), we were inspired by Mr. Jose T. B. Garundermeyer.
He showed how the right kind of food and exercise had turned some of his sandals into hiking boots. Next year’s T.O.E.S. Conference is in Albuquerque and we’ve already booked our flights.
The F.W. is planning to take photos of her clog collection. At last count, she had between 81 and 83 pairs (the confusion is because a couple of pairs of clogs have applied to become open-toed dancing shoes so we’re not sure of their status), cross-referenced by their DNA similarities.
As I write, the F.W. is doing some research on shoe genealogy over the net (www.shoesforever.com). She’s convinced that long ago her snow boots were probably related to her racquetball shoes. Personally, I don’t see it; I mean, their tongues don’t even look like one another.
But it keeps the F.W. busy, and that’s good.
While she’s reading stories to her shoes and making sure they have adequate sunlight, I can spend my time polishing my silver jet plane salt-and-pepper shakers. Besides, I hear the Mexican food is quite good in Albuquerque!
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, April–May 2002.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times2002_04.pdf, printed page(s) 8; PDF page(s) 8.
