From time to time I will post a piece short piece of fiction or whimsy. Here is some whimsical fiction
A Birkenstock Betrayal
A few years ago I betrayed my wife.
I bought a pair of Birkenstocks.
You see, she hates Birkenstocks.
There is an explanation for this irrational reaction to this trendy
footwear. She associates it with Berkeley.
That is, the Republic of Berkeley, with its own foreign policy, its aid
programs to the dropouts camped out on Telegraph Avenue, street barriers that
make it impossible to cross town in a direct route, and its middle and upper
middle class gentrified, hippified citizens, pony tailed males ambulating and
braless moms publicly lactating, in—you guessed it—their pricey
Birkenstocks.
In a moment of shameless selfishness, insensitive to
my wife’s disdain for all things Berkeley, I bought a pair of Birkenstocks. Never before had I ventured so far from the
mainstream of conservative dress. On
days that I was not seeing clients, my typically attire was a pair of freshly
pressed khakis, a blue, button down dress shirt, sans tie, and a navy sport
coat with my simple gold oak tree lapel pin signifying my former service on the
Oakland Civil Service Board. When I went
to court my dress was more formal: a nice suit and carefully coordinated shirt
and tie. And of course, the latest in Italian footwear, notwithstanding the
punishment it inflicted upon my hammertoes.
Hammertoes, for those of you spared that often painful
ailment, are toes characterized by the first joint that ignores the established
protocol that toes are to extend straight forward from the end of the foot.
Hammertoes, on the other hand, or foot as the case must be, arrogantly,
proudly, and indeed, self-righteously, thrust their first joint straight up,
defying any stylish shoe to fit comfortably.
In my younger days, as a drug defense lawyer, my LSD
manufacturing clients praised my stylish attire. My hair curled in a flip over the shoulders
of my navy blue, double breasted polyester suit with bell bottom trousers. A
carefully trimmed, reddish brown beard completed the look of the day, the hip
lawyer seeking justice for his hippy drug dealer clients. In those days, Birkenstocks would have been
de rigueur on Mondays through Fridays, the casual days at the office.
Those days are long past. I gave up criminal defense work and hippie
attire to devote myself to more honorable legal pursuits, in the civil arena
suing bad drivers and bad bosses in accident and employment cases.
I repeat-- I am in a quandary. Why, at age 70, did I
purchase my first pair of Birkenstocks?
Why at this late stage of life did I buy a pair of sandals that are
commonly associated with youth and vigor, college students and young singles
and married couples, climbing upward in middle class society in their
Birkenstocks?
Perhaps I have always been a Birkenstock person. I
lived in Berkeley (during a former marriage) for 12 years, raised my kids
there, and drove a VW wagon. I back
packed, snow camped, cross-country skied, represented a neighborhood group
against development of a 7-11 in the Elmwood District of Berkeley, and did all
those
Birkenstock kinds of things. Moreover, I am a liberal Democrat, former
president of the Alameda County Democratic Lawyers’ Club, a civil rights attorney,
many years a Sierra Club member, occasional contributor to the ACLU and other
right minded causes—apparently well qualified to wear Birkenstocks.
Why did I wait until the 17th year of
marriage to a Republican (present wife), did I choose to purchase Birkenstocks,
for goodness sakes?
Was this a passive -aggressive act of defiance, an
expression of my sovereign independence and exercise of my freedom to be shod
as I please, notwithstanding my Republican wife’s disdain for
Birkenstocks? I think not. She and I had enough to discuss given our
political diversity. My choice of sandals is an issue that does not rise,
unlike my hammertoes, to a level deserving debate. Oh, I have paid the price. My wife’s sidelong
glances of imperious disapproval have not gone unnoticed, nor have I been
oblivious to her distancing herself from me when I accompany her shopping at
Saks, which, by the way, does not carry Birkenstocks.
When I buckled on my first pair of Birkenstocks, it
was not an act of rebellion, defiance or infidelity. What I did was an act
completely consistent with my political beliefs and career of fighting for the
underdog. It is all about freedom. It is
civil rights and emancipation of the oppressed.
For years I have hidden my ugly hammertoes, ashamed to display them in
public. On the beach I burrowed them
beneath the sand, and at work I shamefully imprisoned them in cruel, unusual
and uncomfortable positions in painfully narrow and thin Italian shoes, smothering
their cries and anguished yearnings to be free.
Many, many times I had strolled by the Birkenstock
store on College Avenue in Oakland glanced in the window, hesitated, fighting
temptation to enter, but always sighed, turned and walked away, hammertoes
protesting with each step.
I never entered until that fateful day last year.
I am no Abe Lincoln, I am no Rosa Parks, but on that
day I became, in my own small way, an emancipator and freedom fighter. I entered the Birkenstock store. I cast aside
my Ballys, I buckled on my first Birkenstocks and proclaimed the freedom of my
hammertoes.
Now, shod in Birkenstocks, my ten little friends and I
ambulate free and unfettered, free, free at last.
