Whenever you watch those shows about people who live in jungles or warm wild places, do you ever marvel about how the denizens of those areas run around in bare feet? Me, too. They shinny up trees, dance on dirt and sticks and stones, run silently about poison-darting dinner, clamber over big rocks and sometimes even over coral. No shoes ever, and it doesn’t seem to hurt them.
Can the human foot ever really be that tough? Apparently, it can. Those hardy folks must have foot soles like steel-threaded rubber on the tires of 18 wheelers. So, it kinda makes one wonder about shoes, right? I mean if we can develop the bottoms of our feet to such a thickness, why would we ever wear shoes? OK, husband “Mongo” and I live in Maine, so let’s face reality; even if the soles of our feet were 5 inches thick and hard as tungsten, we’d be stumping around on blocks of clouded ice up to our thighs were we to decide to take a nice brisk barefoot walk in January.
Umm — no. No, thanks. When did we humans start wearing shoes? And how on Earth did something so utilitarian morph into the enormously expensive, 5-inch-high, stiletto-heeled, sexy, bone-bending, dangerous articles of footwear we have now? And why? Well folks, I’ll tell you.
After much research, I’ve discovered there is one really old shoe in existence, thought to be the oldest ever. A sandal. Definitely pre-Prada.
In an Egyptian tomb. Made of woven papyrus, and it was woven probably around 2000 B.C.
Boy, they sure don’.