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Hate to be a "told you so" but…
Here come black & white saddle shoes again! by CHUCK OFFENBURGER 
You may remember back in late January, how in my speech to the Shenandoah Chamber & Industry Association’s banquet, I told the story of my black & white saddle shoes. I told how I’ve been wearing them since I was in sixth grade in Shenandoah, a whole long time ago, and that I’ve always been convinced that "they are going to come back into style at any moment."
Candice Sorensen, who is doing those excellent videos for the KMAland.com site on the Internet, caught me on tape and posted the tale – and you can see that again in an insert in this column. A quick synopsis of it is that back in 1994, my B&Ws were worn out, I couldn’t find new ones anywhere and learned that the Bass Shoe Company had quit making them. In my columns in the Des Moines Register, I conducted a "Back in the Saddle" campaign that ultimately persuaded Bass Shoes to put these cool shoes back into production, after 675 Iowans had given me $48,000 worth of orders for them. When Bass’ sales force wore the newly-produced B&Ws into the New York City Shoe Show, they wound up getting orders for 10,000 pairs – and I wound up on page 1 of the fashion section of the New York Times. Well, Candice Sorensen and KMAland.com evidently have quite a following! Suddenly, we have shoe manufacturers across the nation scrambling to start making black & white saddle shoes again – and they’re touting them as a "fresh new look" in their spring fashion advertisements. Willits Shoes of Pennsylvania, Cole Haan of New York City, and, yes, even Bass Shoes – resurrected by a new corporate owner Brown Shoe Company of St. Louis – are all advertising their saddle shoes now. Meanwhile, the steadiest source, Muffys.com of Vernonia, Oregon, still has them, too. The nice thing is that most are saying it’s the classic black & white, with the orange crepe sole, that is leading the surge, rather than some off-colored perversion. Costs are generally in the $70 to $85 range, except for the Cole Haan saddles, since that company insists on high-end leather soles that push the price up to $198 in the ad I saw. Kristin Holland Weaver, a 1983 Shenandoah High School graduate who now lives in Stafford, Va., and works in Washington, D.C., first alerted me about the Willits saddle shoes. "I go to Willits Shoes online for my B&Ws," Weaver says. "I wear them to court here in D.C. and get stopped on the street daily from people asking me where I purchased my shoes. I’ve been through two pairs in the past year. I walk a lot!" Joe & Cindy Connolly, of Council Bluffs, sent me a link to the new Cole Haan advertisements with a note saying, "You’ve finally done it!" My step-daughter Janae Jaynes Learned, in Scottsdale, Ariz., was the first to call my attention to the new ads from Bass Shoes. The new Bass saddle shoes look really fine, and an improvement is that there is now something of a grid on the bottom of the orange crepe sole, so that the shoes might be a little less dangerous when you’re wearing them on snow or ice. Janae’s note took me to the online edition of the widely-read New York Magazine, and specifically to a feature called "the Cut" in their "New York Fashion" section. Here with my column, we are reproducing the headline "Saddle Shoes Shimmy Back Into Style" and photos that accompanied a brief story by fashion writer Lauren Murrow.
"Spring shoes are tauntingly multiplying in stores, and amid the racks of platform sandals and huaraches, we’ve noticed another throwback trend – the ’50s-style saddle shoe," Murrow wrote. "In perhaps an inevitable progression from the oxford, we’ll all be looking like we’re on our way to a sock hop this spring. Various versions are also popping up for the men. Would you rock the saddle-shoe trend? We have to admit, we’re tempted. Though we suspect that you also need model-esque gams to properly pull off those bobby socks." Well, let me answer her with an enthusiastic, "Yes, I will rock the saddle-shoe trend!" In fact, as you all know, I was rockin’ saddle shoes before saddle shoes were cool. And just forget about whether you have the "model-esque gams" to wear the B&Ws. Saddle shoes will make your feet so happy that who cares what your legs look like? The readers of "the Cut" story in New York also have been raving. Some of their comments:
Kristin Holland Weaver would, too. She’s nearly 20 years younger than I am, so I never knew her growing up in Shenandoah. She explained in our exchange on Facebook that she is a "veterans’ law specialist," who watches court cases closely to make sure the rights and benefits of our military veterans are maintained and maybe enhanced. I know I’d like her because, well, just read this additional explanation from her: "When I go to court to listen to oral arguments, I wear a suit – usually black – and I always where my saddle shoes. I have been stopped in the Metro subway system by men and women asking me where I got my shoes. I usually won’t tell them because I like being a bit ‘different.’ Along with my B&W saddles, I also own PF Flyer sneakers – black high-tops." She said that her husband John Weaver, not of the Shenandoah Weavers but rather from Benton, Pa., works with Homeland Security. He "is not a saddle shoe devotee, although I've tried to get him in the two-toned brown ones to start," Kristin writes. "He does, however, polish mine when they need it and laughs when people on the street stop me asking about my shoes." Oh yes! We are going to need outlets for these shoes in Shenandoah and elsewhere across KMAland, I just know it. |
| Want to be in touch with Chuck Offenburger? He’ll be glad to hear from you, and e-mail is the best way, chuck@offenburger.com. |
| Friday Mar. 5th, 2010 |
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You said it!
Comments, reactions & ideas from you readers. What is it about tournament time that inspires many of us to poetry? About 10 days ago, Derek Martin, the KMA sports director, wrote in his blog that he was so cranked up over basketball tournament time being here, he was inspired to poetry. And he wrote a poem for us. It was sort of a knock-off on the famous Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways." Rough as it was, you’ve still got to like a sports director who thinks like that. So I wrote Martin and told him that among the odd things that I am partial to in life, one is sports poetry. In fact, back in my sportswriting years at the old Evening Sentinel in Shenandoah, one fall I ran the "Evening Sentinel High School Football Poetry Contest" every week. Fans could submit a poem – I required that they rhyme – about their local high school’s game on Friday night, and it had to mention both teams and the final score. The poems had to be at the Sentinel office by Sunday night (or was it Monday night?), I’d pick a winner and publish it the next day. I think there might’ve been a $10 prize. It was really fun, with the oddest collection of sports fans you can imagine entering the weekly contest. The late Marjorie Ross, who was a recognized and published poet, and who was the mother of my high school classmate Nancy Ross Perry, entered the contest nearly every week under her pen name, "M. Browning," and she was a winner, too. So you can see that it was a classy operation. I wish I could remember the various ways fans tried to rhyme something with the name "Farragut." Later, when I moved to Des Moines and was writing columns for the Des Moines Register, I would always hang out at the girls’ and boys’ state basketball tournaments and do color columns. One year, the girls’ tourney boss E. Wayne Cooley asked me if I’d become aware that Sharon Hanson, co-coach of the Dowling Catholic Maroons of West Des Moines, had some goofy "state tournament poem" that she was leading the Dowling student body in chanting at their pep rallies before state tournament appearances. I did some undercover work, and sure enough, Sharon explained that the poem was "just some dumb ol’ thing from the farm" that she’d learned growing up in the South Hamilton School District near Jewell. She was a Hall of Fame player at South Hamilton in the ’60s, and her team had adopted that cheer for their tourney games. Who’d a-thought that 35 years later, the sophisticated city kids at Dowling would love the same cheer? But they did, and they’d demand that Sharon lead it at the pep rallies. Here ’tis, just to help everybody get in the proper mood for state tournament play: Pork chop! Pork chop! Chicken wing! We’re gettin’ ready, to do our thing! – Chuck Offenburger A fantastic IPTV documentary about Evelyn Birkby next week All in KMAland, mark your calendars for next Thursday, March 11, at 8 p.m. and then put yourself in a place where you can watch a documentary on Iowa Public Television about our own Evelyn Birkby. Titled "Iowa’s Radio Homemakers: Up a Country Lane," it uses the life story of the 90-year-old Birkby, who lives in Sidney, as an example of the women who enthralled radio listeners, especially from the 1940s through the 1960s. Some forms of the shows still air, and in fact, Evelyn still does a chat with listeners once a month on KMA. And as most of you know, she has written a chatty weekly column "Up a Country Lane" for more than 60 years for the Shenandoah newspaper – without ever missing a week! Among those interviewed for the documentary are Evelyn’s husband Robert Birkby, one of her sons, several of her listeners and readers around the area, and from KMA Tom Beavers, Dean Adkins and Tim Wayne. I also was interviewed by Deb Herbold, who produced the show for IPTV, and she let me watch an advance copy of it. In a word, it’s fantastic – must-see TV for all in this area. Evelyn is scheduled to be in the IPTV studio the first time the show airs on March 11, and the IPTV hosts will talk to her live then. The documentary will be repeated on Friday, March 12, at 8:30 p.m. and on Sunday, March 21, at 1 p.m. Do not miss this. Comments from you readers Joan Vest, of Farragut, Ia., after she learned from my column in the February 19 KMA Advantage Club Newsletter about the good news I’d received from my cancer treatment: "I’ve been out of town, so I’ve just learned of your illness. Hope all goes well, and I’m remembering you in my thoughts and prayers." Greta McCarthy, of rural Montgomery County in Iowa: "What wonderful news! Once heard a doc say that ‘in the future,’ cancer would be treated like diabetes or arthritis – if it couldn’t be cured, it could be managed. That future is here for some, and hopefully soon for all types of cancer. You gave us something to smile about in spite of the snow piling up AGAIN!" Don Kenworthy, of Corning, Ia.: "Chuck, I have followed your bout with the dreaded ‘C’ with much interest. I too was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins mantel cell lymphoma. Up until then, I didn’t know there were as many as 50 different types. Anyway, after several months of every known chemo, we still didn’t have it under control, and I was a good candidate for stem-cell transplant, which I accepted with no questions. It will be three years this May, and I am cancer free. Faith, prayer, a great support team at home, positive attitude, and of course some of the best doctors at UNMC. Still enjoy reading your articles. Take care and good health." Harriet Welty Rochefort, now of Paris, France, a Shenandoah native: "Just a quick note from Paris to congratulate you on your good health! It’s so nice to hear good news like that." Allen Hall, of Malvern, Ia., on February 25: "We’ve got tulips 3 to 4 inches tall right outside the front of our house. Of course, nearby there’s 2 to 3 feet of snow, but still, tulips!" Carla Offenburger made me write back to Hall and ask if he’d stuck plastic tulips in the ground. He denied doing that. "They’re real," he said. |