A Short Story....By Yours Truly

He was wearing the same shoes that day as he had for many of the other major occasions in his life. They were rugged and tattered and yet still bore a certain luster that set them apart from any others that you might find in the window of any shop that might still be left uptown. 

They had carried him through the birth of his first son and the death of his college roommate. He was wearing them when he was promoted to vice-president of the sales division. He was re-lacing them when the phone rang to inform him that his mother had a tumor. He had just brought them home from the cobbler when he also stopped to pick up the stack of mail that contained the statement that his MasterCard was now going to be cancelled unless he made a payment.

It is hard to find a good pair of shoes. They just don't seem to make them like they used to. His had the stamp of integrity, literally, there was a stamp on the bottom of them that said "Made With Integrity." They would only laugh at the suggestion that they were made somewhere else, like China, by kids in a sweat shop who were only working for $.10/hour on the midnight shift. No, these were hand crafted by his great grandfather in a garage in Poland.