Shoes

For a while in my late 20s, I found it easy to buy shoes. I would walk into the local running-goods store, or the expo before the Marine Corps Marathon, and buy a pair of Asics Excalibur GTs in my size. Never before had I found running shoes I liked as much, and never since have I found anything comparable. I have found decent enough shoes, shoes made well enough, but nothing I could count on like them. I expect that a designer could explain to me in detail why the new shoes are preferable to the Excalibur GTs, but I don't care. Of course, I have added twenty pounds, thirty years, and a size and half in the foot, meaning that a supply of the old model would not necessarily do me any good.

In those days, dress shoes didn't matter much. I wore Rockport shoes when I needed something better than running shoes. Rockports are not especially dressy--my wife once told me that many scientists seem to wear them, which I didn't and don't consider an endorsement of their fashionableness.

Much more recently, I have found that Ecco made a shoe that I like, dressy enough for work yet comfortable. The model I like has lasted me through a couple pairs each of black and brown shoes, and many heels on both.The most recent black pair lasted about three years. But when it was time for new heels, my wife, acting as my fashion conscience, suggested that they were worn out and that it was time for new shoes. We stopped by the store yesterday.

That model of Ecco is no longer made. I settled on the nearest approximation, and hope that it will work out. I am more concerned that the variations will affect my stride than I am confident that they make the shoes more handsome. It seems unfair that a model of shoe that suits one so well should disappear like that.