Orthopedic shoes:
As a kid in the early sixties, I wore Buster Brown orthopedic shoes because my ankles rolled inward and my feet were flat as pancakes. The shoes had padding around a stiff heel cup to keep your foot from rolling. And it worked, too.
Buster Brown shoes were constructed of the thickest, toughest leather imaginable. They took weeks to break in.
Parents wanted their kid’s shoes to allow for room to grow, too. This meant, at the start of the school year, we tripped a lot, since we were clopping around in stiff, new shoes much longer than our feet.
As an adult, I now say don’t ever buy shoes that need breaking in.
Shoe shopping
When I was a first grader, I liked the attention that the shoe salesman (never a woman) gave me. I’d put my stockinged foot on the sliver measuring form and watch as he adjusted the sliders to find the right fit, while my mother stood nearby, smiling, possibly flirting.
The salesman would disappear into the back, and then bring out four or five boxes of different styled shoes. He would help me put them on, one at a time, buckle or lace them (always tightly on my narrow feet), and then watch me walk in them. “Hmm,” he’d say, hand on his chin. “How do those feel, missy?” He’d push down on the front to feel for my big toe. He’d check the back to be sure the shoe didn’t rub my heels. I felt special. Pampered.
I liked the buckled shoes the best. I liked that a sticker of Buster and his dog were inside the shoe.
Until I didn’t.
Loathing Buster
By the time I reached middle school, I rebelled against orthopedic shoes. I loathed Buster and his weirdly grinning dog. To my delight, my mother relented. I promptly picked out a pair of penny loafers. Fashionable, yes. A good choice, no. Not for me. My feet were narrow. I had to shuffle when I walked or they’d fly right off my feet. My math teacher, a cranky bald guy we called Mr. Z, would holler at me to “pick up your feet!” whenever I clomped into his class.
Ask me if I cared. I was never so happy.
Now when I see an image of Buster and Tige’, I have a fond, visceral reaction that takes me back to childhood. I can almost smell the shoe leather.
The Brown Shoe Company is still one of the largest shoe companies in the world, with annual sales of $2.5 billion.
Thank you for visiting! Linda K. Sienkiewicz is a wrangler of words and big messy feelings in fiction and poetry.
Her second novel, Love and Other Incurable Ailments, is coming October 27, 2026, from Regal House Publishing: When love letters from a despondent stranger land in her lap, an anxious overthinker becomes convinced she’s the cure, and sets off to save him, and herself, blissfully armed with nothing but magical thinking.
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