Shoe Challenge

As I grew up I found it very difficult to find shoes to fit me. My feet were long and narrow. My heel was very narrow, too. In St. Joseph, Missouri, my hometown, I could find shoes only at Royal College or Steve's. I was in Royal College once having a hard time finding a good fit. The shoe salesman commented, "You are built just like a race horse."

I remember the day she first saw me. I knew she was imaging us together and all we would do. I made her feel feminine; as she walked she seemed to glide just as a model on the runway. Her legs felt long and slender and her confidence was over the top. When we danced I would make her feet look amazing and move in sequence.

About 30 years ago I attended a school board meeting when our town's population sign stated little more than 3,000 residents. (It's over 8,000 now). The school board had just raised taxes and many citizens appeared at the local school board meeting, which was held in the meeting room of the "administration building," a small metal building with an unpaved parking lot. 

In September 1939 a young woman signed on for her first teaching job in Presidio, a dusty border town not too far from Marfa, Texas.  She had gotten her college degree without help from her father, who did not see any need for women to go to college. With money earned from sewing, ironing, and doing manicures, she did get that degree, and she started a job a month after graduation, living with two girlfriends.

I couldn't imagine why my Grandmother would have saved every shoe of mine from birth to the age of nine. Today I might have thought she was a compulsive hoarder. Then, I simply thought she had forgotten to throw or give them away. My first memory was seeing this pile of shoes in a decorative box in the closet.

I've always been a shoe person. Take me into any store to shop for anything and chances are whatever else I come away with, I will come out with a new pair of shoes.

The shoe fetish goes back to my early childhood.

In 2009, I began having health problems. I refer to the episode as my "double whammy!" I had been feeling very fatigued all the time, falling asleep around 3 or 4 PM daily, feeling faint upon standing and almost falling asleep while driving a couple of times. I chalked it up to burning the candle at both ends and shrugged it off...I know...insane, right?

My name is Lisa Hurka Covington, my husband called me Mrs. Marcos who left  behind 3,000 pairs of shoes, I trailed at 1,000, wearing many over a short period of time. Actually, I never met a pair of shoes I didn't like until the day I opened the shoe card that walked into my life, changing it forever. Shoes have always fascinated me, my mother was a fashion artist who loved to dress.

To speak on a single pair of "favorite" shoes reduces my life to a single incident. My shoes and the shoes I've worn have all represented many stages of maturity and experience. The shoes of my earliest remembrance were my Sears brand sneakers. They were called "The Winner".

I want to brag on my little black boots!  Who knew that shoes (boots in my case) could actually become a close friend.  Seems odd to transfer my caring heart for family, friends and people in general to that of an inanimate object.  But it happened!

Considering I've shrunk half a foot and now wear flats, my altitudinal view has dropped a notch since the days I slipped into heels, or danced en pointe.

But traveling low has linked me with the earth. Strong ties, like family roots, keep me grounded. But I bloom. My garden shoes sift with sand as I walk out my back door.

"I can't tell you my story," she screamed at me through tears. I had begged my mother for years to tell me who she was, who she is, and what she wanted to become, because I couldn't figure her out. She was always a mystery to me. At 87, she is still a woman of unique style. But, she is also a woman with nine closets, clothes hanging in them with original retail tags affixed and shoes in boxes, never worn.

Sure, I was fond of the fairytale Cinderella as was any red-blooded American girl, but hadn't obsessed about it until 8-years-old or so.  You see, I could never wear a tiny glass slipper - no tiny shoe period. I was already wearing a ladies' size 8. 

Melanie's story, Statement Shoes, is the winner of the second of round of voting in our Good News Girlz Shoe Challenge. Our first round winner was Suzanne's story, The Single Greatest Pair of Shoes in Beverly Hills. Suzanne and Melanie will receive $25 gift certificates to Nordstrom. We bet they'll use them for shoes!

We love our shoes, spend a lot of time shopping for just the right pair for a given outfit, and are aware of how every shoe feels. How can it be then that the most common shoe story we've all heard and experienced has to do with two different shoes being worn at the same time?

Mary Lee wore a blue shoe and a black shoe of the same style to a job interview. She got the job and no one was the wiser. Judy got to her hotel in Washington D.C. for a huge gala featuring Tommy Tune only to realize she had one peep toe black shoe and one peep toe brown shoe. The heels were more or less the same height, the ballroom was dark, and if anyone noticed, no one said a word.