Historical September 1993 article. Dates, prices, services and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
Another summer, another vacation. And, as the wife always says, ‘What’s a vacation other than a chance to shop in another city?’ I knew we were in trouble when all the salesgirls applauded my wife as we left one store. Oh, I’ve nothing against buying souvenirs, mind you. but this went far beyond purchasing trinkets to take home. Attila’s hordes didn’t bring this much booty back with them.
The vacation started out pleasantly enough.
The first wife and I were going to “do’ — as they say in the Central West End — England. Ireland. and Scotland.
My thinking was that it would be a nice relaxing trip. I’m a Churchill buff, so England is always fun to visit. Ireland and Scotland are full of beautiful countryside and ancient lore and, besides. everybody would speak our language. What more could you want?
The wife. on the other hand, was excited about this particular trip for other reasons.
A couple of days before we left. our friend. Marsha. asked her where we were going on our vacation.
The wife replied.
To sweaters, shoes, and crystal.’ Last summer we were in France, and in our scrapbook she’s labeled the pictures of that visit Our Trip to Jewelry and Shoes.” I’ll give my wife credit, though, she researches where we’re going before we go so that we can take advantage of the places we’ll be visiting.
For example.
I had no idea that Dublin, alone, has seven different shoe factories; not shoe stores. SHOE FACTORIES! And 1 can tell you. from first-hand knowledge. that they’re all a bit different.
The O’Leary Shoe Factory, on O’Connell Street, for example, specializes in women’s shoes.
We spent some time talking to a vice-president of the company, and he was quite fascinating.
As we walked in the door to the factory, he gave me a cursory look (remember, this is a women’s shoe factory) and immediately looked at the wife. Without a second’s hesitation he said, “You’re a 6B.’ Her face lit up. and it was as if two long lost friends had found one another. At the conclusion of the tour of the factory, after the other tourists left, he and the wife looked through scrapbooks of shoes that O’Leary had produced decades ago. Fortunately, by this time I was well into McCullough’s 1,000 page biography, Tnsman, so I happily sat in the waiting room and read. Not a bad visit here: I read about Truman’s early days, growing up on farm in Missouri, and the wife bought four pairs of shoes and two pairs of boots. Touring Shamrock Shoes on Tannen Street wasn’t all that exciting. It’s a fairly new factory, so for safety reasons they wouldn’t let us near the assembly area. Nonetheless, the wife took seventeen photos of workers cutting and sewing the leather.
This wasn’t too costly of a visit: one roll of film shot and three pairs of shoes purchased. Truman is now a soldier in World War I, stationed in France. Peacock Shoes on Lifley Street was interesting because they only make high heel shoes. It’s a small factory, and it’s clear that their profits are down.
We joined the plant manager for lunch, and he told us that they’re thinking about abandoning high heels and making running shoes instead, “bigger mark ups,’ he said with a smile. Only two pairs purchased here; the wife was very disappointed. Truman goes into the clothing business and finds little success. (Maybe he should have tried selling running shoes!) My favorite stop, though, was probably the visit to the Sullivan Shoe Factory on Cedar Street. Sullivan Shoes was in the countryside. far from Dublin, and it took us almost an hour to get there in our rental car.
But it was worth the drive. Here. too. the person who met with us — as with all of the other shoe factories. the wife had written ahead to let them know we were corning — greeted her with a ‘Hi, I bet you’re a 6B!” They established a quick rapport.
She spent an hour with us, personally taking us through their private shoe museum. It’s located in the ground floor, and isn’t ordinarily open to tourists.
But clearly we’re not “regular” tourists when it comes to shoes!
The wife’s soleful reputation precedes her, so we got to see the museum.
She was in rapture over getting to try on boots from the 1880’s.
In her glee and appreciation. she bought nine pairs of shoes from the Sullivan Factory.
To be fair, one pair is for her sister (a 9D), but the other eight are all hers. By now Truman is working as a county administrative official in Missouri.
I won’t go into detail about the visits to the other shoe stores. Let me just say that when it comes to shoes. my wife is a bit like Will Rogers: she never mot a pair that she didn’t like. (In fact, coming back from the vacation on the plane, she tore out an ad for California Closets from one of the complimentary airline magazines. Yep, you’ve guessed it: with between twenty and thirty pair of shoes purchased on this trip alone, she’s now worried about how they’ll fit in her closet. Since the wife has names for each pair of shoes — no, the new ones aren’t named yet, that’s a ritual yet to come — it’s not as if she can simply throw away an old pair to make way for a new one. Once I foolishly suggested this, and she said, to parents throw away an older child when a new baby is born???” It’s hard to ague with that kind of logic, so I simply said that I’d heard good things about California Closets, and she should give them a call.) We found a shoe factory when we visited Scotland and toured it, but after the Dublin Forced March of Shoe Factories, the Scot one, “Amazing Kilts.’ paled in comparison. By now Truman has just accepted the Vice-Presidency under FDR and the campaign is underway. Shopping fatigue is showing: only two pairs of shoes purchased here. Scotland was great for sweaters. though.
I don’t know whether the lambs get shampooed and cremerinsed daily or what, but the wife says that their sweaters are the best she’s ever seen.
She says, “We don’t know when we’ll ever be back to Scotland again,’ so that means that we need to stock up on sweaters. ‘After all,’ she says, ‘once you’ve tried on a Scottish woolen sweater. nothing else will do.’ Personally.
I wouldn’t know; I didn’t try on any Scottish sweaters. By now Truman is President of the United States. Damage: Eight sweaters and one pair of shoes. Again, to be fair, two of the sweaters are for friends.
But get this, the shoes that she bought weren’t intended for sale.
They were purchased from the feet of a salesgirl in the sweater factory. Later, even the wife admitted that she didn’t know why she’d purchased the shoes from the salesgirl: ‘I’m not even sure I like them,’ she said, ‘but it seemed like a good idea at the time.’ But they were her size, and she hadn’t bought any in a couple of days. so I wasn’t surprised.
The absolute highlight of the trip was in Waterford. And if I didn’t know that Waterford Crystal came from Waterford, Ireland, I quickly found out. Personally, I’ve never been too fond of anything that breaks when dropped. but the wife collects crystal, so there was no doubt that we’d visit the Waterford Factory. Twice. And we even sent postcards from there. DisneyWorld has nothing on Waterford!
The visit to the factory begins with a 20 minute film.
Then the “guests” (see what I mean about likening it to DisneyWorld?) hop onto a train of golfcart-like vehicles to see the factory, complete with a tour guide who speaks about the beauty of Waterford Crystal in three languages.
There the guests see sand being melted into glass. and workmen blowing the glass into wonderfully delicate and complex shapes. Actually, I, personally didn’t really see any of the tour; at this point, I was reading about Truman’s decision to drop the A-bomb, so the wife went alone.
To this day. I’m not sure she realized that I wasn’t with her on the tour.
My not going with her was probably a mistake because, of course, the tour ended at the WATERFORD CRYSTAL GIFT SHOP! And anytime you’re in a gift shop where they provide free coffee. you know you’re in trouble. At first I thought I was safe, because even the wife wouldn’t think it smart to buy crystal and try to handcarry crystal back home.
I was right.
But I didn’t realize that Waterford ships its crystal by air. How foolish of me I’m not sure what crystal we bought, because it hasn’t arrived yet.
I do know that upon our return home. we received a notarized letter from American Express, asking us to sign a form which would allow them to provide and carry life insurance on us, at their expense, with them as the beneficiaries. So now we’re back and rested. Hardly a day goes by without a visit from our new best friend, the United Parcel delivery man, bringing us another piece of Europe. Yes, almost all of the shoes were shipped too. And the California Closet people have already come once to give us an estimate.
They think that rather than organizing her closet differently, it would make more sense to take a spare bedroom and turn it into a walk-in closet for shoes.
They even suggested having a computer listing of all of her shoes at the door, so that they could be cross-referenced and located by season, color, material, and surname. That makes sense and would sure be easier than having this information on all of her 3X5 cards, as is presently the case. And then maybe her closet could be used just for the sweaters. Already I’m thinking about next summer’s trip. I’d like to go to Iceland or Russia.
The wife says that she’d like to visit jewelry or shoes.
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, September 1993.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1993_09.pdf, printed page(s) 8; PDF page(s) 8.
