Buying Shoes

How much money do you spend of a pair of shoes?  

Where do you go to buy your shoes? 
What kind of shoes are you looking for? 

What is your expectation about the shoes you are purchasing.

A little about my feet. They are flat. If they were two pieces of wood planks, they'd be a carpenter's dream they are so flat!  They have almost always hurt, no matter what shoes I wore, up until a few years ago. 

Growing up, my parents bought me decent shoes. By decent, I mean shoes that were purchased from any of the major department stores, Sears, J.C. Penny’s, or Montgomery Ward’s. [dating myself aren’t I.]  So, I never REALLY gave shoes much thought ...other than some shoes made my feet more tired or achy than others.  

As a boy I really liked cowboy boots. In the price range I grew up in, I suppose good quality boots were out of the question, in that they were way to expensive.  To be fair, my dad never wore cowboy boots that I can recall, nor was he into anything resembling cowboy, unless it was a western on TV, and then it was the actors wearing the boots, not dad.

Dad’s favorite shoe, other than maybe golf shoes were the classic wingtip, with leather soles and leather heals.  The heals had a little metal wedge in the back edge of the heel. To my young eyes those shoes were the height of cool. Dad carried enough weight on him, that when he walked on just about any concrete surface, wearing those wingtips, he’d crush small rocks and stones and sand.  Man did that sound awesome to my young mind. One of my kid goals was to grow up and make that crunchy/walky sound like my dad!

Well time marches on.  To date I never quite ascended to the point where I produced the crunchy/walky sound my dad made. It is a nice memory though!

It turns out my feet required a softer touch. Mother must have caught on to this before I figured it out. She helped me into higher quality tennis shoes, like Reeboks for example. They did a lot to ease the pain of those ole dogs at the end of a given day, and they were an attractive shoe as well. We’d get a pair, and I’d ware them out in about a years time. I’d ware them longer, but the cushioning benefits were long expired before replacement.

In these last 15 years or so ... Kat has put me on a somewhat different path.  Between 1997 and about 2005 I was a free-lance computer consultant. My work, was spent diagnosing and repairing Macintosh computers, setting in front of a display screen, or crawling over, under and around computer disks. More setting, less standing.

I eventually went to work for one of the local Goodwill stores. I was a brand new Assistant Store Manager.  This job required me to be on my feet.  More standing, less setting.

I remember the first day like it was yesterday. My feet were KILLING me.  My legs were KILLING me.  My back was KILLING me. I hurt in places where I didn't know I had places. My aches had aches.  Naturally part of the problem was I was not in shape the other part of the problem were those flat little dogs I stand on. Did I tell you the job required me to be on my feet?  A lot more standing, a great deal less setting?


I came home that first evening, and went right to the  bathtub.  I drew as hot a bath as I could stand, and soaked in it for what felt like ... forever! 


Kat looked at me ... felt sorry for my pain, I’m sure.  Then said, “Honey, this weekend we’re buying you some new shoes.”  I numbly said “Okay, sure! ... I can get some cheap at Goodwill.”

“No,” she replied, you need some GOOD shoes.”  She got it through my thick head, that I needed a shoe that would hold up and actually support my feet and legs, now that I’m on my feet so much.  Being the excellent researcher that she is, she turned to the internet.  I had mentioned Reeboks as being a comfortable shoe, and certainly that was an option.  As I recall, we bought a brand new pair of (better quality) Reeboks ... My mother would have been proud! They helped a bunch ... but did not completely resolve my achy/tired feet issues.

A little over two years later I went to work for the MacSuperstore in San Luis Obispo. I again needed new shoes. This time Kat and I ended up at Takken’s Shoes in Santa Maria’s Town Center Mall. The gentleman who helped us that day, was skillful, polite and to my eye very knowledgable. Reeboks are a fine shoe, the gentleman commented, but not made to hold up to the kind of stress and wear I put them through.  We ended up with two pair of Ecco shoes. One pair black, the other brown, both the same style. 

He commented that shoes need to rest between wearing. While not his exact phrase, the implication is that when you wear one pair of shoes day in and day out, you will prematurely wear them out. They are not given enough time to dry out and breath as it were. 


With the comfort factor licked, I wore those two pair of shoes for 5 years.

Today we returned to Takken’s. This time we choose “unstructured” by Clark, complete with an aetrex orthotic insert. 




You see, they had this cool computerized device that you stand on in your sock feet. Your weight and subsequent pressure reveals where the bottoms of your feet are most impacted.  A second scan, standing on the orthotic alters, or re-balances how you stand, redistributing the pressure on the feet ... thus you have a more comfortable shoe and walking experience.

 

Once again I purchased two pair, this time, with two orthotic inserts. All this fun for $400 and change.
  

Kat stood on this foot scanner too. As a result she also bought some orthotic inserts too. She reports that they are making quite a difference in her shoes too.

Okay reader, it’s like this.  I/we highly recommend Takken’s Shoes. We purchased at their 162 Town Center East (Santa Maria, CA) location.  I am comfortable telling you that I’m sure ANY of their locations will provide you with a GREAT shoe purchasing experience.

Lastly, my new shoes are so comfortable, I was trying to figure out a way to sleep with them on.  
I won’t of course ... but I did consider it ....