Feeling a heel in my fancy fake vellies
IWAS IN the checkout queue in our local supermarket recently when a grey-haired gentleman approached me and pointed to my very battered old shoes. “Where did you get those velskoens?” he asked and I told him. He told me to keep them as long as possible, because “they don’t make them like that any more. The new ones are not nearly as good”.
Unfortunately my velskoens did eventually wear out and developed a split on the one side. The shoemaker sadly told me they were beyond help. I trotted off to the velskoen supplier in Wynberg and found the man’s advice correct. They don’t make them like that any more.
The uppers on my old shoes consisted of just two pieces of well-tanned kudu skin held together by simple stitching and two rivets. The new ones are made up of four pieces of hide with a couple of rows of completely unnecessary stitching.
At first glance they look like real velskoens, but they’re not. I think they’re factory-made imitations designed for city-dwelling wannabe farmers of the kind who drive big 4x4 vehicles spattered with designer mud.
There’s an old American saying: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, and I wonder why the shoemakers decided to prettify anything as honest and practical as a pair of velskoens.
The original design was simple. It had served South Africans for centuries. Nobody pretended it was pretty; that wasn’t the point. It was comfortable and tough. Silver buckles and diamond soles would not have added any value to it. Neither would fancy stitching and tiger-striped laces.
I’m sure the new ones will soften in time and become as comfortable as the old ones, but I’ll always feel a bit apologetic about them and tell people it wasn’t my idea to add decoration to my shoes. They just came like that.
So if you see me shuffling along muddy pathways and dragging my feet through puddles, pay no attention. I’m just trying to gather enough dirt on my fake vellies to hide the fancy trimmings.
Ecobrick
I am happy to see an increasing number of collection points for plastic “ecobricks”. Several local shopping centres now have them.
The bricks, in case you don’t know, are made of two-litre plastic cooldrink bottles stuffed tightly with any kind of waste plastic materials, from cling-wrap to plastic packaging.
The end product can be used in all kinds of building projects and – most important – they remove plastic waste from the environment. I am tempted to buy myself two litres of Coke simply to get the bottle and start my own ecobrick. Now let’s see, two litres of Coke would require about half a bottle of Klippies… Yes, it sounds like a worthwhile project.
Last Laugh
The divorce judge said to the man in front of him: “I’ve reviewed your case and decided to award your ex-wife R5 000 a month.”
“That’s very generous of Your Honour, thank you. And I’ll try to send her a couple of rands myself from time to time.”