“Tight Shoes is a Mutha’ (Lover), Jack.  Ain’t nothin’ worse than tight shoes.  You wouldn’t never have to torture me.  Put me in tight shoes, and in twenty minutes I’d confess to anything.”  Richard Pryor

     I enaged in an annual golf ritual over the weekend that I hate above all others: Buying a new pair of golf shoes.  Some of you are wondering, “What’s so tough about that?”  All I can say back is, “You don’t have these dogs.”  They’re 10&1/2-Double E and finding shoes that fit is never much fun. 

    But, over the years, certain models and makes have emerged.  I can walk into a New Balance store and buy their gray running shoes model 900-something and they always fit.  Clark has a shoe called “The Tracker.”  In 10.5-wide, that baby is money.  Golf shoes are different.  Models stay on the market for as long as Tulips flower.  Here today, gone this afternoon.  Of course, I don’t make this any easier by eliminating many possibilities.  I walk the course if at all possible…At the end of the day, at least I can claim to have gotten some exercise.  I won’t buy tennis-type shoes…the usual course has “drainage issues”…ok, it’s a “mudball.”  And, the colors are fairly limited, black, brown, or some combination of the two.  I know white shoes are fairly standard.  But, I can’t help but think they’re best reserved for cute nurses…and, even if, they’d be mudballs on that course.  Then there is the whole genre of white/whatever saddle shoes.  This is where life experiences scar the child for life.  I went to an All-Boys Catholic High School a few miles away from the All-Girls Catholic High School.  Guess what the girls wore?  Oh, yeah, white/black saddle shoes.  We’d go over there when they were dismissed for the day in what was affectionately named, “Cattle Call.”  The Kid?   He ain’t wearin’ no Saddle Shoes!  He ain’t wearin’ no plaid kilt either!

  So, into the store we go.  It’s a ritual.  Grab every model and make in 10&1/2 Wide.  Sales Clerk is staring: “Can I help you?”  “Well, frankly, no…this is a procedure.”  Puzzled look: “Let me know if you need anything.”  Find one that has the least amount of “Hot Spots.”  Nothing fits everywhere on the foot.  Of course, Nike made a shoe for a half an hour that did.  It was the SP-5.  Nike was famous in running circles for making a narrow shoe.  The SP-5 was a mistake that felt like a million bucks right out of the box.  They discontinued it only after making various sequel models that narrowed the shoe right off of my foot.  Had I known…

  After three pairs, I had one on my left foot that felt promising.  It was brown, but the one on my right was a white/black saddle shoe (the store was empty, thank God) that was the right size.  “I could order that baby online if…”  The wife walked around the corner: “That’s an interesting pair.”  “I’m looking for my brighter side.”  New Sales Clerk shows up, “Can I help you?”  “Not unless you’re licensed by the State to practice Psychiatry.”  Concerned stare: “Let me know if you need anything.” 

  Right about then, I remembered Bob the Bootfitter.  In my skiing days, I never had a pair of boots that fit.  I stumbled into Ski Chalet over in Arlington one day and got caught looking wistfully at a pair of boots.  Having usually a set of bruises on the lower legs and feet to show for a day’s skiing, new and shiny boots always had a certain appeal.  A Sales Clerk pounced.  “No, no, I’m sure you have great fitters here in the store.  But, these feet…”  “Sir, we have Bob the Bootfitter…and Bob is a Wizard.”  Well, I’d never even met a certified wizard before.  So, what the heck?  Bob, it turned out was a very nice, bald, bespectacled gentleman who took some measurements on my feet…lots of measurements.  Then he simply took them in his hands one at a time.  Getting a little nervous, “Hey, Bob the Wizard, could you turn those puppies into 11D’s while you’re there?”  He grinned, scratched his head and left.  Out he comes in a few minutes with a sheet of paper: “If you want boots that will fit, you have to go to Salt Lake City, Utah and see the boys out at Daleboot.  They’ll thermoset a boot to your foot.”  “But, I thought you were the wizard.”  “I don’t have enough magic in me to fit those feet.”  The next season, I did what he suggested.  The boys at Daleboot knew what they were doing.  Too bad they don’t make golf shoes.

   So, now I’m on pair number ten.  The one on my left foot has been there an hour.  Nothing is numb yet.  I’m hopeful.  The third Sales Clerk arrives: “Do you need help?”  “Do you have a bottle with a Tax Stamp on the neck you’d be wiling to share?”  Puzzlement: “Call me if you need anything.”  I commit to putting the right shoe of the pair on just in time to see the wife round the corner:

“There’s nothing in here I want.  I’ll be next door when you’re done.” 

“What’s next door?” 

“A furniture store.” 

“You know what?  These shoes are ‘it.’” 

   Maybe they are.  I’ll break them in and hope that the best part of the coming golf days is not the part where I get to take off the golf shoes at the end of the day.  We’ll see.  At least the ritual is over for another year.  Now, if that “Gorilla Glue” will hold on those old SP-5′s for just a little bit…