Month: June 2025

Get a group of women together and chances are they will talk about relationships. And shoes. More specifically, relationships with shoes.

The conversations are about shoes somebody loves, shoes somebody used to love (but broke up with due to plantar fasciitis), and shoes somebody dreams of meeting in the future.

These are women in crisis grappling with the reality that they can no longer live in fashionable heels but need to wear comfortable shoes. Transitioning to comfortable shoes is a major life change that aging experts fail to mention.

My closet is a melancholy walk down memory lane. It cradles shoes that I shouldn’t wear, and can’t wear, but can’t let go of. This is known as shoe separation anxiety.

Yesterday, I pulled a dusty box from under the bed to feast my eyes on a beloved pair of boots I can no longer wear. It was sole food.

Sadly, my most comfortable shoes are a pair of well-worn hiking boots. That’s a hard one to pull off at weddings and funerals.

The last shoe convo I had in a group of women went like this:

“I love Hoka. They’re like wearing clouds,” said one.

“I can’t do clouds,” countered another. “I need support.”

“The On tennis shoes are good,” chirped another. “They have so much cushioning on the bottom you could use them for a flotation device.”

If you happen upon a comfortable-shoe conversation, think twice before sticking your toe in the water.

I first noticed my shoes were unbearable at a wedding two years ago. Silver heels. You should see them. You still can—they’re on the closet shelf. I kicked them off under the table during the reception and, when the wedding was over, walked barefoot on gravel to get to the car.

Two weeks later I was in a podiatrist’s office. He said I needed orthotic inserts. I questioned that. He explained in detail how they would help. I said, “OK, I stand corrected.”

Orthotic inserts are so expensive that I keep them in the safe deposit box at night. Comfort comes with a cost.

Costly as they are, comfortable shoes are such a relief to hurting feet that they quickly become both necessity and obsession. The search history on my computer sadly reveals 98 percent of my searches are for shoes with arch support. I toe the line.

I now know why Dorothy in the “Wizard of Oz” kept saying “There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home,” while clicking her ruby slippers together. Home was where her comfortable shoes were.

The morning after a storm that snapped tree branches, sent people scurrying to their basements and trash cans blowing to the curbs, I was sitting in a line of traffic adjacent to a small family-owned garden store.

A woman out front of the garden shop struggled to untangle flagpole ropes twisted in the storm. Hunched over in an awkward position, she couldn’t seem to get a grip on them. I wondered why she wasn’t using both hands when a swatch of red and white peeked out from under her arm. She was holding a folded flag beneath her elbow pressed tightly to her side.

With the flagpole lines finally free, she attached the flag, taking care that it didn’t touch the ground. Old Glory was halfway up the pole when the traffic resumed moving.

The woman who raised the flag has probably done that hundreds of times, but I was glad to be there at that particular time, to see her respectful handling of Old Glory and to watch the stars and stripes reach for the sky.

My dad fought under that flag, as did two of his brothers, one who was killed in combat. I have a total of six uncles who served under that flag. Two made the military their careers. My mother-in-law, brother-in-law and our son-in-law all served under that flag.

“Served” sounds so easy. Bombs, gunfire, tanks, makeshift hospitals, sleeping in tents, land mines, Agent Orange, suicide bombers and open burn pits.

Nobody ever comes home the same.

Some never come home.

The lives of those who serve are upended just like the lives of everyone who loves them, prays for them and waits for them.

June 14th is National Flag Day. We fly the flag from our front porch almost every day. To us, it is a reminder of the long and bloody road to freedom and a nod of gratitude to all who have served.

There is power in that flag. Those red and white stripes, and stars on a field of blue are so powerful they can temporarily unite opposing teams on football fields, baseball fields, soccer fields and basketball courts. That flag can trigger the roar of the crowd at the Indy 500 and NASCAR races.

In rare moments, that flag can even quiet warring political factions at our nation’s capital.

Old Glory represents our shared history as well as our shared hope for the future.

I called the garden shop and told the man who answered the phone that I’d watched someone raise the flag in front of their business that morning and appreciated it.

“You know why we have that done every day?” he asked. “My dad served in World War II.”

I find myself still pondering the surprise announcement from Warren Buffett, age 94 and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, that he is retiring because he was “beginning to feel his age.”

I keep wanting the man to expand. Specifics on “feeling his age” would be helpful and greatly appreciated.

He did say he noticed he was operating at a different speed. Did he try a second cup of coffee?

Was there a day he dropped something on the floor and had to stop and think about which knee to go down on first so he could get back up?

Did he discover he could only sleep on his side, no longer on his stomach or back?

Did he suddenly find he loathed all his pillows? This one was too hard, this one was too soft and not a single one was “just right”?

Were neighbors asking him to turn down the volume on the television?

Was there a day that he was jolted because he needed spreadsheets printed in larger type?

Were there times he planned on telling a group of investors three things, but could only remember two?

Did he turn on the television one night and discover “Antiques Roadshow” was exciting? Did he start building his schedule around the program, “Discovering Your Roots”?

Was music in restaurants so blasted loud that it sometimes made him cranky?

Did he read those snippets on famous people having birthdays, not know most of them and think, “Who cares?”

Did he find himself grunting when moving furniture, hoisting large suitcases or pulling out the wooden cutting board?

Was he finding he often wore a heavy squall jacket when everyone else was in shorts and T-shirts?

Was he gazing out a window for long periods of time wondering if one of those cute little nuthatch birds would stop by? Or maybe a chickadee?

Had he started feeding squirrels and naming them?

Did he get a thrill one day when buying spray paint at Walmart a clerk demanded I.D. for proof of age?

Did someone give him an electric blanket for Christmas, and he later realized his thanks was over-the-top effusive?

I’ll miss Warren Buffett in the investment arena. He was a steady table in a world of three-legged chairs.