The Mountain Eagle
WHITESBURG WEATHER

Shoes worth opening new savings account

Points East



Having heard them held in high regard for the last dozen years or so, I finally broke down and tried on a pair of SAS shoes at store in Richmond a few weeks back.

I never bothered, at the time, walking around the store in them because of sticker shock. After taxes they were going to cost well over $150. I did tell the sales guy that I had a good running Chevy pickup that I was trying to sell and wondered if he’d be interested in trading two pairs of shoes to it.

He said it would work better if I sold the truck first and then just brought the money in to him; otherwise he’d have to have a commission on both the shoes and the truck and he was afraid we’d both lose money on a deal like that.

But the shoes were light as feathers and they did feel good there in the store, so I came home and promptly went online to Ebay. And, to make a long story short, I found a pair of size 11 SAS tri-pads, purported to have been store display models, that I snatched right up for 20 bucks plus another eight for shipping.

And now I’m here to tell you that I would not take $150 back for them nor even trade them for a brand new pair. The ones I purchased may well have been display models, but they’d had a little use on the street as well and that’s just fine with me. They are already broken in and the guy who did it must have feet precisely the same size and shape as mine.

I haven’t purchased a pair of shoes in nearly 40 years because they looked good. I will admit to being somewhat a slave to fashion when I was in high school and college back in the ’60s, but since those days comfort has been my primary concern.

Daughter Jennifer bought me a pair of Elk Stags or Stag Horns or something like that for Father’s Day four years ago and I’d never worn anything that comfortable before. For that matter, except for sneakers, I hadn’t worn anything as comfortable since before I sneaked up this sweet deal on the SAS. Actually I hadn’t worn anything else besides the shoes that Jennifer gave me and they have, shall we say, greatly exceeded the recommended mileage.

Half a dozen people over the last couple of weeks have told me how nice my shoes look. They don’t come right out and commend me for finally buying a new pair, but it’s been a long time since anybody actually complimented my taste in shoes.

Still, like I already said, these things get bragged on more for how they feel than how they look. And it is almost like walking on air. I’ve never owned a pair of shoes anywhere near as comfortable as these even though I’ve spent the last 40 years shopping specifically for that feature.

So let me say again that my ’92 Chevy 1500 is still for sale and I need to put her in another family so I can both pay my taxes and maybe have enough cash left for shoes. She looks a little rough around the edges, but she runs like a high dollar Swiss watch.

In the meantime, I have opened a savings account here at the bank in Paint Lick.

My SAS shoes are black and now I’m thinking that a brown pair might also feel as good and that by switching around from week to week, I might be able to make them last considerably longer. I figure if I can sock back a few bucks every payday I should be able to pay the store price around the end of the year so maybe I’ll be able to buy myself some new shoes for Christmas if the price does not increase.


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