# Behind the Scenes Minis: Shoes, Shoes, Shoes!

An episode of [Stuff You Missed in History Class](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/283605519), 17 Jul 2026, 30 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/cfb428ef-eafc-44d0-9d09-ae2701747e6f/3c956f66-a3ee-4469-ae61-b4850075a0b6/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=fb626e1f-112c-4246-a40d-ae2701747e7d

Holly and Tracy discuss how frustrating Charles Goodyear could be. Then Holly talks a lot about shoes and how much she loves them. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class, A production
[0:04] Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio, Hello and Happy Friday. I'm Holly Frye and
[0:14] Speaker 1: I'm Tracy V. Wilson. Oh lordie. We talked about Charles
[0:17] Speaker 1: Goodyear this this week. We did, dude. Yeah, So if
[0:25] Speaker 1: he had made all the decisions he made and it
[0:27] Speaker 1: were just him, if it was just him, yeah, fine,
[0:31] Speaker 1: maybe going to debtor's prison, maybe being in a like
[0:36] Speaker 1: rented room, eating beans with no money and in debt,
[0:41] Speaker 1: I would not have found him very frustrating. But the
[0:44] Speaker 1: fact you are a man who loves your work. Yeah,
[0:47] Speaker 1: the fact that he had a wife and a bajillion
[0:50] Speaker 1: children and parents that he was trying to also take
[0:54] Speaker 1: care of. And we can make a whole argument about
[0:57] Speaker 1: how like it was not okay that society made it
[1:01] Speaker 1: so that he was the one responsible and that the
[1:04] Speaker 1: other people in his life did not have the same
[1:07] Speaker 1: power to earn money or whatever. That was a society
[1:11] Speaker 1: he was living in. It was his job. He was
[1:14] Speaker 1: not to write the job. Yeah, to pursue to pursue
[1:19] Speaker 1: his dreams of rubber well. And it's weird, right, There's
[1:24] Speaker 1: something psychological that's very puzzling to me. Like I found.
[1:31] Speaker 1: The more research I did about, the more like angry
[1:34] Speaker 1: and frustrated I became. By the At one point my
[1:38] Speaker 1: husband had walked into my office and I was just like,
[1:42] Speaker 1: I'm just so tired. Yeah, just because it's really frustrating
[1:47] Speaker 1: to Like, it's like if you have a friend that
[1:49] Speaker 1: keeps making bad choices and it's painful to watch them
[1:53] Speaker 1: make bad choices over and over. I was like, you
[1:58] Speaker 1: you willfully kept making bad choices when like someone would
[2:02] Speaker 1: be like, here's your escape hatch, and you'd be like, no, dude,
[2:05] Speaker 1: I'm gonna keep struggling. Yeah, and again. It was all
[2:10] Speaker 1: trial and error, so it wasn't like he was like, well,
[2:12] Speaker 1: my formulas have gotten me. I really think I've worked
[2:15] Speaker 1: it out. I just need to make it. He was
[2:17] Speaker 1: just like, I'm gonna try something else. Yeah. Yeah. I
[2:23] Speaker 1: also understand the friends that helped him out with money
[2:27] Speaker 1: feeling deeply frustrated by him. Yes, but I also advocate
[2:33] Speaker 1: if someone in your life needs help and you help them,
[2:39] Speaker 1: you have helped. Let's put this out of your mind,
[2:43] Speaker 1: right right, right, Like you can focus on the fact
[2:47] Speaker 1: that that person owes you money forever, or you consider
[2:50] Speaker 1: that this was a gift that you gave that person
[2:53] Speaker 1: to help them. Yeah. Yeah, And I think I think
[2:56] Speaker 1: some of his friends were like that. They were like, yeah,
[2:58] Speaker 1: I give you a gift. But the we mentioned that
[3:01] Speaker 1: he got that like seven bucks from a friend that
[3:05] Speaker 1: came with a letter that was pretty chastising. But it
[3:08] Speaker 1: sounded like I did not read that letter. I only
[3:10] Speaker 1: have it literally from Good Years writings and another biographer,
[3:15] Speaker 1: and even they make it sound like the guy was like,
[3:18] Speaker 1: I'm only doing this because I care about your wife
[3:20] Speaker 1: and your kids. You gotta like get your act together, dude. Yeah. Yeah,
[3:28] Speaker 1: And it wasn't like that one, you know, in that
[3:30] Speaker 1: case is alone. That one is literally like a I'm
[3:34] Speaker 1: trying to help you, but also you also have to
[3:37] Speaker 1: help you. Which I would love to read that letter
[3:40] Speaker 1: because if you know I wrote that letter today, it
[3:42] Speaker 1: would be very strongly worded. But I think in a
[3:45] Speaker 1: lot of the cases when people were like when he
[3:48] Speaker 1: was having his debts called in, most of those are
[3:51] Speaker 1: people he had made business deals with that they were like,
[3:54] Speaker 1: I want to invest in you. You're right, rubber is
[3:56] Speaker 1: the future great? Right? Oh crap, you don't, Oh, but
[4:00] Speaker 1: you're doing right. That's a very different situation and probably
[4:05] Speaker 1: or possibly one that involved written out terms of how
[4:09] Speaker 1: this financial arrangement was gonna work and when payment was
[4:13] Speaker 1: due and all of that. Yeah. Probably, I uh yeah,
[4:19] Speaker 1: he was such a billy dreamer, and I in many
[4:22] Speaker 1: ways I love people like that. I love people that
[4:24] Speaker 1: have these ideas that they just become obsessed with. Like,
[4:28] Speaker 1: I love that concept, but again, not when you're actively
[4:33] Speaker 1: hurting people because you are ignoring the needs of those
[4:37] Speaker 1: you're supposed to care for. Yeah, Like, I feel like
[4:40] Speaker 1: the coda of his life kind of has a similar moment. Right,
[4:45] Speaker 1: he had a five day old child when he left
[4:50] Speaker 1: to go to Connecticut. Now that's not to say that
[4:53] Speaker 1: he shouldn't have gone to his dying daughter, but also
[4:57] Speaker 1: he's leaving his wife behind and who is postpartum to
[5:04] Speaker 1: do that, And she ended up having to travel not
[5:07] Speaker 1: long after while she was still physically probably recovering from
[5:11] Speaker 1: having a kid. Right. I don't know where the baby
[5:16] Speaker 1: was in this, if the baby stayed behind in DC,
[5:19] Speaker 1: or if she took the baby with her, But like,
[5:23] Speaker 1: I don't know if they had a discussion where he's like,
[5:26] Speaker 1: I hate to do this, but I gotta go because
[5:28] Speaker 1: of the things he did throughout his life. I suspect
[5:31] Speaker 1: he just said that I gotta go part and then what, Yeah,
[5:35] Speaker 1: I didn't mean to do a smear campaign against Charles Goodyear,
[5:38] Speaker 1: but it's a little bit tricky not to. Sometimes, you know,
[5:43] Speaker 1: we there's this tendency and a lot of writing about
[5:47] Speaker 1: inventors to assume that if they invented something important, they
[5:53] Speaker 1: were great men, okay, And often that leads to like
[5:58] Speaker 1: some whitewashing of their real truth, including I mean it
[6:01] Speaker 1: goes right too, like oh, and then his father's hardware
[6:04] Speaker 1: store had to close. No, it was his harved store, right,
[6:10] Speaker 1: He went out on his own and screwed up on
[6:12] Speaker 1: his own by his own self, Like I just there's
[6:16] Speaker 1: a lot of stuff that often softens kind of the
[6:20] Speaker 1: poor decision making that it was prote. It also reminds
[6:26] Speaker 1: me in some ways of the way that a lot
[6:29] Speaker 1: of people talk about writers and artists and other people
[6:33] Speaker 1: who are working in some kind of creative field and
[6:38] Speaker 1: really romanticizing that and making the act of creativity seem
[6:45] Speaker 1: like an otherworldly situation, when a lot of this is
[6:49] Speaker 1: really like, that's someone's job, and of course he's temperamental,
[6:54] Speaker 1: he's a creator, right, And like he said, sure, there's
[7:01] Speaker 1: many many layers that I find incredibly frustrating in that
[7:06] Speaker 1: kind of discussion that I think is connected to the
[7:10] Speaker 1: fact that he he tried all of these different things
[7:14] Speaker 1: and came up with a really important invention that kind
[7:18] Speaker 1: of makes it seem like a romantic ideal rather than Yeah,
[7:24] Speaker 1: a disaster financially for his family that went on for years. Yeah,
[7:29] Speaker 1: and often when he had options that could have saved
[7:33] Speaker 1: them and kept himself afloat, he turned them down. That's
[7:38] Speaker 1: the thing that I always get. I do want to
[7:40] Speaker 1: end this on a more fun note, though, Okay, because
[7:43] Speaker 1: there was no is the sneakers are probably still coming
[7:47] Speaker 1: because you know, I love me some shoes. There is
[7:51] Speaker 1: a fun part in my opinion of his obsessive inventiveness,
[7:56] Speaker 1: which is, okay, you know, it all started for him
[8:00] Speaker 1: his pursuit of perfecting rubber because he had bought a
[8:05] Speaker 1: life preserver and it needed some tweaking to really work
[8:12] Speaker 1: as well as it could. I found myself in that
[8:15] Speaker 1: moment wondering, why is this man buying a life preserver
[8:18] Speaker 1: like he didn't that he have a boat. He's literally
[8:20] Speaker 1: like already struggling financially, I never saw anything about a boat,
[8:24] Speaker 1: but he really wanted a life preserver. And then there's
[8:27] Speaker 1: a portion of his book where he talks about how
[8:31] Speaker 1: important life preservers are, Like I don't know if he
[8:34] Speaker 1: had a formative experience that made him afraid of the
[8:37] Speaker 1: water or afraid of drowning, but he had this vision
[8:42] Speaker 1: of really like creating just literal boatloads of safety equipment
[8:49] Speaker 1: for ships. He thought, not only should they all have
[8:53] Speaker 1: like the latest and greatest life preservers at all times,
[8:56] Speaker 1: he thought that even like furnish should have like recessed
[9:02] Speaker 1: pockets where inflatable things would pop out of and you
[9:05] Speaker 1: can inflate them, and people could like use a table
[9:08] Speaker 1: as a life preserver essentially, if you know, they had
[9:12] Speaker 1: these rubber balloons that would come out and that they
[9:14] Speaker 1: can inflate. Like every piece of furniture should also have
[9:18] Speaker 1: this dual function of being potentially like a not just
[9:21] Speaker 1: a like oh I can float on this piece of wood,
[9:24] Speaker 1: but like a custom made form of life preserver functionality,
[9:29] Speaker 1: which is actually pretty fascinating to me. But nobody really
[9:34] Speaker 1: got as excited about that as was the case many
[9:39] Speaker 1: times with them. But I can't imagine if you're around
[9:41] Speaker 1: somebody who keeps going I have a great idea and
[9:44] Speaker 1: they keep kind of messing up, or like they don't.
[9:47] Speaker 1: They have the idea, they've developed it, and then they
[9:50] Speaker 1: don't like get it to the finish line because they're
[9:53] Speaker 1: busy with another idea. We don't like to diagnose, but
[9:56] Speaker 1: I do recognize game recognizes game. There may have been
[9:59] Speaker 1: some MEDHD in that mix, but like how people would
[10:04] Speaker 1: be like mm hm cool Charles, Yeah, everything's a life
[10:07] Speaker 1: preserver yep, yep, yep. Like I could see why he
[10:09] Speaker 1: didn't get a lot of buy in from the people
[10:13] Speaker 1: a wrapt But from a creativity standpoint, I think those
[10:16] Speaker 1: are kind of fascinating ideas. Yeah, I'm talking about one
[10:28] Speaker 1: of my favorite things this week. It was HeSE shoes. Listen,
[10:34] Speaker 1: I love the shoes. We all we all know. It's
[10:36] Speaker 1: not a secret. I did want to mention for people
[10:41] Speaker 1: that are interested in the more modern stuff that I
[10:45] Speaker 1: said we were not getting into, Like we kind of
[10:47] Speaker 1: took any of the modern companies up to basically the
[10:50] Speaker 1: point where they kind of became really established, and then
[10:52] Speaker 1: we left off. But there is a great series of
[10:56] Speaker 1: books called All Gone that started in two thousand and
[10:59] Speaker 1: six by Michael Dupoi, and it basically, you know, catalogs
[11:05] Speaker 1: like limited edition sneakers and stuff, and you can watch
[11:09] Speaker 1: like the way different designs get you know, these short
[11:14] Speaker 1: burst runs or like collaborations, et cetera. And I just
[11:18] Speaker 1: love it. To me, that's a really interesting way to
[11:20] Speaker 1: look at like the way fashion is evolving in relation
[11:23] Speaker 1: to shoes. Love it, love it, love it. I just
[11:26] Speaker 1: want to mention that there are a lot out there
[11:27] Speaker 1: as well, of other books about modern shoe culture and
[11:34] Speaker 1: sneaker heads. Here's why I don't consider myself a sneakerhead.
[11:38] Speaker 1: I love sneakers, I don't have Holy Grail shoes. Generally,
[11:43] Speaker 1: I'm more like, oh my god, this came out and
[11:45] Speaker 1: I'm in love with it. I'll buy it, but I
[11:46] Speaker 1: don't collect in any kind of ordered manner, and I
[11:51] Speaker 1: wear mine, which I know a lot of people don't.
[11:54] Speaker 1: There was a thing, gosh, I'm really like the memory
[11:58] Speaker 1: banks just kind of spat this one out just now.
[12:00] Speaker 1: I remember seeing, you know, one of those viral videos
[12:04] Speaker 1: of a guy proposing to his beloved courtside at a
[12:10] Speaker 1: basketball game, and when he got down on one need
[12:13] Speaker 1: there were a lot of people in the comments going,
[12:15] Speaker 1: oh my gosh, he's going to crease those Jordans, and
[12:18] Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, because they're sneakers are supposed to
[12:20] Speaker 1: wear them. But I know for a lot of people
[12:21] Speaker 1: that is the end of their value. Yeah, and I'm
[12:25] Speaker 1: not like that, which is why I don't think of
[12:27] Speaker 1: myself as being part of that culture. It's like the
[12:29] Speaker 1: never removed from box dolls. I have some of those,
[12:32] Speaker 1: but my thing is not about their value. It's that
[12:36] Speaker 1: usually the way they are put in the box for
[12:40] Speaker 1: merchandizing purposes looks prettier than anything that's going to happen
[12:44] Speaker 1: once I get it out. Oh sure, because a lot
[12:46] Speaker 1: of times box design is also its own art. So
[12:50] Speaker 1: I do have a lot of toys that are still
[12:51] Speaker 1: in their boxes, but it's usually for that reason or
[12:54] Speaker 1: I'm like scared a cat will bite it if it
[12:56] Speaker 1: has very appealing looking for something. But yeah, that's why
[13:02] Speaker 1: I can't. I can't ever be in it. I just
[13:04] Speaker 1: want fun shoes, and I like, yeah, I'd love having
[13:08] Speaker 1: shoes custom printed when I can. There are a lot
[13:10] Speaker 1: of services that do that. Now it's a problem. I'm
[13:13] Speaker 1: just saying I love shoes I'm going to reference several
[13:17] Speaker 1: things that you're not gonna remember, but please come with
[13:19] Speaker 1: me on this journey. Okay, I'll try one, and it's
[13:24] Speaker 1: going to keep happening because, as you said, there's a
[13:29] Speaker 1: guarantee that we'll have Samuel Plimsol talk coming up soon.
[13:33] Speaker 1: But the whole time I was working on this, I
[13:35] Speaker 1: could not get the song a million miles away out
[13:38] Speaker 1: of my head. Do you remember this song? I would
[13:41] Speaker 1: probably recognize that if I heard it, but I'm it's
[13:43] Speaker 1: throwing it to mind the early nineteen eighties. It's from
[13:46] Speaker 1: a band called the plim Soles Okay p L I
[13:50] Speaker 1: ms so u L. Although they pulled that name from
[13:54] Speaker 1: the shoe and they were very popular in the early
[13:59] Speaker 1: nineteen eighties' la scene. But they were in the movie
[14:03] Speaker 1: Valley Girl that came out in nineteen eighty three starring
[14:05] Speaker 1: Nicholas Cage. They actually performed like in the club in
[14:08] Speaker 1: that movie, and I that song is emblazoned on my
[14:11] Speaker 1: memory forever. So every time Samuel Plimsel's name comes up,
[14:15] Speaker 1: it just starts with your singing funny, just starts it again,
[14:19] Speaker 1: and it's a good song. So I'm had for it.
[14:21] Speaker 1: There's no problem. That's no problem the other And if
[14:25] Speaker 1: anybody else knows about this one, I feel like I
[14:28] Speaker 1: keep referencing things I saw in magazines growing up that
[14:31] Speaker 1: I am like, where did this go? There was a
[14:34] Speaker 1: time and I first saw it in a magazine where
[14:37] Speaker 1: Vans was doing this program where if you sent them
[14:40] Speaker 1: a yard of fabric and like money, they would make
[14:43] Speaker 1: you a custom pair of shoes with it. WHOA. And
[14:46] Speaker 1: I was obsessed with this concept, and I saved up money,
[14:50] Speaker 1: and I saved up money and I saved up money,
[14:52] Speaker 1: and when I had enough money, the program had ended,
[14:54] Speaker 1: and I was like, Oh, the saddest sad of sad town.
[14:57] Speaker 1: That is how bad, Which is probably why I I
[15:00] Speaker 1: am so obsessed with designing shoe prints today and getting
[15:04] Speaker 1: them printed because I love that biz. I love a
[15:07] Speaker 1: custom shoe. Oh, I love a custom shoe. I will
[15:10] Speaker 1: customize them myself if I have to just shoes anyway,
[15:15] Speaker 1: the Van's mail in the dream. I want to know
[15:18] Speaker 1: if anybody did that, how it came out, if they
[15:21] Speaker 1: still have those shoes, I hope they do. Like I
[15:24] Speaker 1: just think that's a fraught concept. And I first saw
[15:27] Speaker 1: it in a magazine like you know, one of those
[15:30] Speaker 1: like fashion and lifestyle magazines for like teens and young women. Sure,
[15:36] Speaker 1: I don't remember which one, but I sure do remember
[15:39] Speaker 1: seeing it and going yeah, because I want it all
[15:43] Speaker 1: part of it. I can't type the word tennis without
[15:48] Speaker 1: typing tennish it. I tried to catch them all. I
[15:52] Speaker 1: did not in this episode, as you no doubt noticed.
[15:55] Speaker 1: I just could not do it. I only noticed because
[15:59] Speaker 1: it's it tripped you up. It didn't trip me up. Oh,
[16:06] Speaker 1: it's tish tennish. One of the other things that came
[16:11] Speaker 1: up a lot in research, particularly when I was trying
[16:15] Speaker 1: to identify as much information as I could about sand shoes,
[16:20] Speaker 1: and I was looking at old newspapers, story after story.
[16:25] Speaker 1: At first I thought they were all talking about the
[16:26] Speaker 1: same story. No, it kept happening. Theft of sand shoes.
[16:30] Speaker 1: Apparently this was a real problem in the eighteen eighties
[16:34] Speaker 1: and nineties, where people would go to the beach and
[16:38] Speaker 1: they wouldn't like they weren't like aqua shoes where you
[16:40] Speaker 1: might wear them right into the water. It seemed like
[16:42] Speaker 1: people would leave their shoes on the beach and then
[16:45] Speaker 1: go into the water, and little hoodlums would come and
[16:48] Speaker 1: steal those shoes, and there was just notice after notice
[16:51] Speaker 1: of like so and so sandish sand shoes were stolen
[16:55] Speaker 1: from this beach. At this time, investigators are on it,
[16:58] Speaker 1: and I'm just like, oh, my lord, can you imagine
[17:03] Speaker 1: being the detective who gets another theft of They're just
[17:08] Speaker 1: like time to your wrist or something. Guys. This is
[17:12] Speaker 1: I have other stuff. The Dassler Brothers, that whole story
[17:17] Speaker 1: is a lot. There are a lot of books written
[17:18] Speaker 1: about it. There are a lot of news pieces written
[17:23] Speaker 1: about it because it really changed their town where they
[17:27] Speaker 1: grew up, because they kind of divided the town. There
[17:30] Speaker 1: was one article I was reading, and I don't remember
[17:32] Speaker 1: which one it was, but it is in our sources
[17:35] Speaker 1: that was about how like for a lot of people,
[17:40] Speaker 1: it was like, are you an Adidas person or are
[17:43] Speaker 1: you a Pumas person? Where do your parents work? Which
[17:45] Speaker 1: factory do they work at? What are you like? That's
[17:48] Speaker 1: all you would be wearing? There was no crossover. It
[17:51] Speaker 1: was very wild. The whole wild thing with the war
[17:57] Speaker 1: is really fascinating because apparently, and don't anybody quote me
[18:02] Speaker 1: on this, because I did a very fast read because
[18:03] Speaker 1: I wasn't getting deep into all of this. Apparently Rudy,
[18:08] Speaker 1: who had been called up in nineteen forty three, deserted
[18:11] Speaker 1: in nineteen forty five. Woh, and he was captured and
[18:17] Speaker 1: was imprisoned for this, and he always blamed his brother,
[18:22] Speaker 1: saying that his brother had turned him in. Oh but again,
[18:26] Speaker 1: a lot of this is kind of like pieced together,
[18:29] Speaker 1: and we don't know the accuracy of it either. Apparently. Also,
[18:32] Speaker 1: their two wives really did not get along, and they
[18:36] Speaker 1: had continued to live in the family house with their
[18:39] Speaker 1: parents and their new wives and families, so it was
[18:42] Speaker 1: just like a bunch of people getting angrier and angrier
[18:44] Speaker 1: at each other for a while, and this once they
[18:48] Speaker 1: split in eighteen forty eight, it was a complete severing
[18:53] Speaker 1: of their relationship, to the point that when those two
[18:57] Speaker 1: men died many years later, they were buried on opposite
[19:02] Speaker 1: sides of the cemetery, so they wouldn't even be close
[19:04] Speaker 1: to each other, and the families would not see each
[19:06] Speaker 1: other if they happened to visit at the same time.
[19:09] Speaker 1: That's a feud. That's a yeah, that's a feud. I
[19:24] Speaker 1: mentioned at the top of the episode that you know,
[19:28] Speaker 1: their ethics issues to consider when buying things, and it's
[19:31] Speaker 1: something I think about a lot because I am a listen,
[19:34] Speaker 1: I'm a consumer in my soul. I love stuff. It's
[19:37] Speaker 1: not even it's not even like a thing where I
[19:42] Speaker 1: need the stuff. I just want one. I want to
[19:45] Speaker 1: support the creation of beautiful things, and two like I
[19:49] Speaker 1: just they're magical little things. I love them. But it
[19:55] Speaker 1: is harder, you know, when you realize how dicey these
[20:00] Speaker 1: some practices are. You have to start looking really really
[20:03] Speaker 1: closely at them, and it becomes a little bit weird.
[20:08] Speaker 1: So I just encourage everyone to do as as much
[20:11] Speaker 1: digging as you can on how companies run. Like I said,
[20:14] Speaker 1: there are still opaque parts of the supply chain though
[20:16] Speaker 1: it's hard as a consumer to get the whole picture.
[20:18] Speaker 1: But more and more watchdog groups are always trying more,
[20:22] Speaker 1: and our companies do seem to be trying, but there's
[20:24] Speaker 1: always that level of suspicion of like, are you really
[20:27] Speaker 1: disclosing everything? But sure, anyway, trying to be an ethical
[20:30] Speaker 1: consumer is its own job in many ways. I do
[20:34] Speaker 1: also want to reference something else that I loved and
[20:36] Speaker 1: is gone but lives on in a weird way. Going
[20:39] Speaker 1: back to that custom shoe thing, there was a company
[20:42] Speaker 1: briefly named custom Attics, and Customatics was magical because they
[20:49] Speaker 1: it was started. I forget what companies they worked for.
[20:52] Speaker 1: It was started by a couple two or three guys
[20:55] Speaker 1: that had worked for some of the big sneaker manufacturers
[20:59] Speaker 1: and had kind of all felt like they hit the
[21:01] Speaker 1: ceiling and they wanted to do something new for themselves,
[21:03] Speaker 1: and they basically put together this site where you could
[21:06] Speaker 1: kind of design your own shoes and like they would
[21:10] Speaker 1: have a model, but they had a very wide range
[21:13] Speaker 1: of like finishes you could pick. They had a wide
[21:17] Speaker 1: range of shoes, like I have some very cute silver
[21:19] Speaker 1: boots that I got from them. Still, I got a
[21:23] Speaker 1: lot of sneakers from them. They did like skate shoes.
[21:26] Speaker 1: They did all the stuff, and then you could do
[21:28] Speaker 1: additional things like have various embroidered motifs on it. Like
[21:31] Speaker 1: I just it was a terrific, terrific site, and they
[21:35] Speaker 1: also were very much in the hey, the shoe industry
[21:39] Speaker 1: needs to change. They were very forthcoming about here is
[21:43] Speaker 1: the factory that we're using, here's what we did to
[21:45] Speaker 1: set it up. Here's how we're trying to compete with
[21:48] Speaker 1: other factories in the area and make sure that like
[21:50] Speaker 1: our employees are getting better treatment. Again, I want to say,
[21:54] Speaker 1: it's not like I'm boots on the ground. I'm going
[21:56] Speaker 1: by what they said, so there's always possibility. But what's
[22:00] Speaker 1: interesting is that they eventually had to shudder. However, Converse,
[22:06] Speaker 1: which is now owned by Nike, bought their customization software.
[22:10] Speaker 1: So if you go to the Converse site now and
[22:13] Speaker 1: you build yourself a pair of Chucks, you're essentially using
[22:15] Speaker 1: the software and the whole back end that they built.
[22:19] Speaker 1: And this was years ago. This was in the late nineties.
[22:23] Speaker 1: I think that they were making this maybe early two thousands,
[22:26] Speaker 1: but it's the function is still very similar to how
[22:30] Speaker 1: it was on those old customatics. Anyway, sneaker people, rise up.
[22:38] Speaker 1: I live I live for it. I live for it.
[22:41] Speaker 1: I'm sorry to bore you a shoe talk talk shit talk.
[22:46] Speaker 1: I just love it. I love seeing I love seeing design.
[22:51] Speaker 1: I also have that problem. I think we've talked about
[22:53] Speaker 1: this on the show before. I don't like having the
[22:55] Speaker 1: same stuff as other people. Yeah, I just don't. It's
[22:59] Speaker 1: fine if you do, but I never have since I
[23:02] Speaker 1: was very small, which is why I started making my
[23:04] Speaker 1: own clothes, which is why there's a workshop. I want
[23:06] Speaker 1: to go to where you make your own sneakers. Yeah,
[23:10] Speaker 1: I just need to little rally a couple of people
[23:13] Speaker 1: to go with me so we can all have like
[23:14] Speaker 1: a sneaker getaway. But then they're going to be like, wow,
[23:18] Speaker 1: you're weird about this, So we'll see what the success
[23:22] Speaker 1: level is. There are also kids you can do, and
[23:24] Speaker 1: I might. I might invest in one or two of
[23:26] Speaker 1: those because the problem is that I'm going to want
[23:28] Speaker 1: to make two bazillion pair and I have, as you mentioned,
[23:31] Speaker 1: a lot of shoes. How many I don't know. We
[23:34] Speaker 1: don't do that kind of reckoning in our house. Once
[23:36] Speaker 1: it passes a certain threshold. I'm like, like the rugaroo,
[23:42] Speaker 1: I can't count past a certain number and I refuse
[23:44] Speaker 1: to do it. I won't do it the number is
[23:46] Speaker 1: more than thirteen. But yeah, I don't know the numbreak. Yeah,
[23:54] Speaker 1: now I'm thinking about what shoes I'm going to pack
[23:56] Speaker 1: for an upcoming trip. Anyway, Do you have any other
[23:59] Speaker 1: thoughts on shoes? No, you're like, no, you I tapped
[24:03] Speaker 1: out it did the ee. I do not have the
[24:08] Speaker 1: same love for shoes, and I also have wide toes
[24:14] Speaker 1: in a narrow heel, and I have a hard time
[24:18] Speaker 1: finding shoes that fit me well, because at the stage
[24:22] Speaker 1: of my life, I am unwilling to cram my toes
[24:25] Speaker 1: into shoes that do not have enough room for them
[24:29] Speaker 1: me either, So I tend to find a shoe that
[24:33] Speaker 1: I like, that fits me well, that holds up to
[24:36] Speaker 1: the long distances that I like to walk around, and
[24:40] Speaker 1: then I will buy that is just the shoe that
[24:42] Speaker 1: I will buy uever until they change the last, until
[24:46] Speaker 1: they change the last, and then I will I will
[24:48] Speaker 1: walk in them until either the internal support breaks down
[24:53] Speaker 1: or until the soles are worn out, and then I
[24:55] Speaker 1: will put them in the shoe recycling thing and get
[24:58] Speaker 1: a new one. Usually, if mine start to get to
[25:01] Speaker 1: the point where they're breaking down, with a few exceptions,
[25:05] Speaker 1: they kind of get semi retired where they're on the
[25:08] Speaker 1: shelf and I love them and they might come out
[25:11] Speaker 1: for like a brunch once in a while. Yeah, they
[25:15] Speaker 1: don't stay in regular use after that point in time,
[25:19] Speaker 1: but you never know. You never know, and I do.
[25:22] Speaker 1: I have a lot of the pandemic caused this little
[25:26] Speaker 1: problem with both shoes and clothes, which is leading up
[25:31] Speaker 1: to when the pandemic started, I was traveling a lot
[25:34] Speaker 1: for work, we were doing some more live shows. I
[25:39] Speaker 1: was bolstering up my wardrobe of like nice shoes, heels,
[25:43] Speaker 1: and like cute suits and stuff that I would wear
[25:46] Speaker 1: for things like that. And now I still have them all,
[25:49] Speaker 1: but I don't have many occasions to wear them, right,
[25:52] Speaker 1: But I don't. I don't know where I would ever
[25:55] Speaker 1: want to put them. Yeah, I mean I know I
[26:00] Speaker 1: know where they're going when I'm gone, which is that
[26:02] Speaker 1: I have a person who will receive them all, who
[26:05] Speaker 1: wears my same size, and who I love very dearly,
[26:08] Speaker 1: and who knows that this is her legacy. So she's
[26:11] Speaker 1: going to get all the shoes. Yeah. But yeah, I
[26:16] Speaker 1: do have a lot that I just love, and some
[26:18] Speaker 1: of them are at this point I kind of go
[26:19] Speaker 1: in and visit and say I love you. I'm sorry
[26:21] Speaker 1: I haven't warn you. In a minute. Yeah, you'll have
[26:24] Speaker 1: your day again at some point, I promise. Insummation shoes, love, love, love,
[26:34] Speaker 1: Sorry if anyone finds that superficial, but to me, they
[26:37] Speaker 1: are marvels of design and architecture and engineering. Yeah. I
[26:43] Speaker 1: often see you when I see you in person, and
[26:46] Speaker 1: you will have great shoes on, and I admire the
[26:50] Speaker 1: great shoes that you have on. I just do not
[26:53] Speaker 1: put that kind of effort into my own shoes. There's
[26:57] Speaker 1: nothing better than a good shoe. Another thing about a
[26:59] Speaker 1: shoe is it as an investment as part of your wardrobe.
[27:04] Speaker 1: For the most part, you can retain their use longer
[27:09] Speaker 1: than like a pair of clothes. Right, you gain fifteen pounds,
[27:12] Speaker 1: your pants might not fit, but your shoes are probably
[27:14] Speaker 1: still gonna fit. And so like, they just don't suffer
[27:18] Speaker 1: the same sort of danger of investment as other wardrobe
[27:22] Speaker 1: pieces might. So they're great cute, and then they're hello,
[27:26] Speaker 1: kitty shoes, and then you gotta have your Star Wars shoes.
[27:29] Speaker 1: It's a company called Posu I was in love with
[27:31] Speaker 1: for a while that was making Star Wars shoes. I'll
[27:35] Speaker 1: tell this story and then I swear we're out. They
[27:38] Speaker 1: had made this very cute boot that when The Force
[27:42] Speaker 1: Awakens was being made. Their wardrobe group, whether I don't
[27:46] Speaker 1: know if it was a costume designer or someone else,
[27:48] Speaker 1: found this boot and used it. And it's the boots
[27:50] Speaker 1: that Ray wears in that movie and subsequent films. And
[27:53] Speaker 1: so then they entered into a deal with Lucasfilm to
[27:57] Speaker 1: produce those as like Ray boot and then they started
[28:01] Speaker 1: making these amazing like high tops and like low tops
[28:04] Speaker 1: and their whole thing. The reason I really fell in
[28:06] Speaker 1: love with them other than they were Star Wars shoes,
[28:08] Speaker 1: which I love, is that they were really based, like
[28:12] Speaker 1: entirely in sustainable shoemaking, and it was the first brand
[28:16] Speaker 1: that I knew that was really doing that. Like they
[28:18] Speaker 1: would literally have tons of information on their site about
[28:21] Speaker 1: how they made their bouncy souls, like their insuls from
[28:25] Speaker 1: coconut fiber, and how like the way that they ran
[28:30] Speaker 1: the rubber plantations and how they made sure that you know,
[28:34] Speaker 1: no one was exploited and everything was sustainable. And I
[28:37] Speaker 1: loved them for that reason. And then they had some
[28:40] Speaker 1: financial problems. They got bought out by some of the employees,
[28:46] Speaker 1: and I think they may have shut down because they
[28:50] Speaker 1: never quite got the same lineup going. But they were amazing,
[28:55] Speaker 1: and if you find any poseus on the secondary market,
[28:59] Speaker 1: highly recommend because they're great and you know they were
[29:02] Speaker 1: made with care. Okay, now I'm done for the moment
[29:06] Speaker 1: until we talked about Samuel Plimsel, But we won't talk
[29:08] Speaker 1: about shoes that day, I promise. If this is your
[29:13] Speaker 1: weekend coming up, listen. I hope you are the cutest
[29:16] Speaker 1: shoes to brunch. If you do that, I hope wherever
[29:19] Speaker 1: you go you wear whatever shoes make you feel the happiest.
[29:21] Speaker 1: If they're not cute, but they're so comfortable, they just
[29:23] Speaker 1: make you feel at ease. Those are the right shoes
[29:26] Speaker 1: whatever it takes to make you have the best weekend possible.
[29:30] Speaker 1: If you are working, I hope your shoes are so
[29:32] Speaker 1: comfortable they feel like walking on clouds that hug your
[29:35] Speaker 1: feet with just the right amount of bounced support. If
[29:39] Speaker 1: you are not working, I still hope your feet are
[29:41] Speaker 1: comfortable and that you are kind to them and you
[29:43] Speaker 1: take care of your feet because they're holding you up
[29:46] Speaker 1: and we need you. We are going to be back
[29:50] Speaker 1: here on Monday with a brand new episode. We will
[29:53] Speaker 1: also be back here tomorrow with a classic Stuff you
[30:01] Speaker 1: missed in History. Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For
[30:04] Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
[30:08] Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them.