A Team Effort

            It took a team effort today to buy Mom a new pair of shoes. It was a big event that I’d thought about trying ever since her move to Asheville but I wasn’t sure if we could pull it off.

  Mom has just one pair of slip on brown shoes and one pair of sandals after a lifetime of a closet full of stylish shoes. True… she doesn’t go out anywhere anymore, but looking at her scuffed and worn brown pair makes me sad.  I often asked “are those shoes still comfortable?” remembering how we had bought them at least five years ago. Last week when we were outdoors walking, she said “they feel all lumpy underneath now”.  That was when I decided we needed to take action and get her to the Discount Shoe Store… pronto.

We just happen to live on the southwest side of town near what is the best deal in Asheville - the Discount Shoe Store. It has become not only a place we go to buy shoes, but is now on our “tour” of Asheville when friends and family come to visit.  I didn’t realize this store was so unusual until Jessica went wild last New Year’s and came home with three super stylish pairs of boots and shoes.  A few months later, our friend Brenda stopped by for a few days visit and I found myself taking her to the shoe store after the Biltmore Estate.  She came out with four shoes boxes piled high absolutely delighted with her purchases.

The Discount Shoe store is a large ugly warehouse with concrete floors, rustic shelves that hold hundreds of boxes of name brand shoes.  Between aisles you are lucky if you can find a hard metal chair to sit on and it’s self-service.  People come from neighboring South Carolina, Tennessee and all of Western North Carolina to shop here, and the parking lot is packed on weekends. Whoever owns this store is sitting on a gold mine.

I described the set up to Mom, got Art to agree to go, and figured it was worth a try if we all did it together.  I was the chauffeur and pulled up in front of the handicapped ramp while Art got out, set up the walker and held onto Mom while I parked. Once inside, I lead the way past the athletic shoes, to the women’s dress shoe area.  I grabbed two chairs, parked Mom in one and Art in the other.  I began my foray up and down the aisles piling up the shoeboxes with possibilities and ferrying them over to Art.  He, very efficiently, unpacked each shoe and fitted them on Mom as if he’d been selling shoes all his life.  If Mom did not like the fit before she even stood up she’d take them off and try the next pair.  Some styles seemed to fit and Art would help her up, get her walker and have her walk a few steps.  Then she’d shake her head and say “no”.  Meanwhile, I continued up and down the aisles bringing more shoes as the pile of rejects grew.

On one of my trips back I found Mom staring across the aisle at two teenaged girls trying on black suede platform 6-inch heels and giggling because they could not take a step without pitching forward.  Mom began to laugh right along with the girls and I suddenly remembered playing dress up with my girlfriends trying on Mom’s old high heels.

We had a pretty good relay going but were getting to the bottom of the pile of shoeboxes when I set off in a different direction towards the more expensive European soft leather shoes.  I came back with some German made Riekers, which Mom put on, stood up in, and suddenly declared they were comfortable.  Success!

Mom put on her new shoes as soon as she got back to her room and she had a big grin on her face when we said good-bye.  What had seemed like a daunting task wasn’t as difficult as I had imagined.  It just took a team effort to pull it off.  Somehow it felt like we’d crossed the finish line…Touchdown!

An Evening Walk at Biltmore Lake

After dinner last evening we took a walk in the neighborhood.  From the end of the Black Horse Run townhouses, we crossed the road to a section of Biltmore Lake with more large homes.  These quiet streets meander up and downhill and end in cul-de-sacs every which way. Through the trees and behind houses you catch glimpses of the mountains in the distance. As we strolled along the sidewalk, we admired people's gardens.  Then I spotted a tall slim woman in a wide brimmed straw purple hat wearing a black and white dress with a long straight skirt.  I thought it looked like a silk dress.  Who waters their garden in a silk dress with a purple sunhat hat at 8:30 at night?  

We continued to the end of the cul-de-sac commenting on a house we had seen before that was for sale.  It was very quiet on these back roads.  As we turned around to go back the way we had come, an older man in a beige straw hat and Bermuda shorts was also out for a walk.  As is the custom at Biltmore Lake, people say hello whether they know you or not.  The man stopped us and asked, "Are you the new owners of this house?"  Evidently the house for sale just sold and he was curious as to the new neighbors.  We told him we lived across Lake Drive in the Black Horse Run townhouses. Instead of walking on, he introduced himself as Arnold Brown. He motioned to the woman in the purple hat and walked with us to the brown stucco house.

We were introduced to his wife Marguerite, who by then no longer had on the purple hat.  Exchanging greetings I noticed Marguerite’s smile and her foreign accent.  And her dress was silk. I wondered if she had been out to dinner earlier or perhaps being foreign this was her daily gardening attire. Suddenly I was self consciously aware of my old baggy shorts. I had been comfortable in for my walk but they were not a flattering outfit for someone my age.  

We admired the garden so Marguerite insisted on taking us for a tour.  She is the gardener extraordinaire. We headed straight downhill beside their very large home eyeing a gorgeous herb garden and especially the spectacular lavender bushes. 

Arnold and Marguerite did not seem to want to let us go. Marguerite kept asking if we’d like a glass of wine on the porch. We learned that Arnold is a retired doctor who was Chief of Staff at the VA hospital in Asheville.  But they raised their children in Columbia, S.C. where he was also a doctor and she could have been a  "southern belle" presiding over the Garden Club.  Marguerite told us in her charming French accent that she is Swiss and travels frequently to Switzerland to visit family.  They have a son in Paris.  Dr. Brown said he grew up in Los Angeles. Perhaps that explained the dapper straw hat he was still wearing - a touch of Hollywood? 

After exchanging names several times and spelling Kristina with a "K" and Aaronson with "double a" they asked us to come back again.   We finally said our good bye marveling, as we often do, that you never know whom you might meet at Biltmore Lake.

Just as I said that, we rounded the corner and walked by a house we had admired before. A woman in a sundress (not silk) was watering the grass. She smiled, said hello, and we stopped to tell her how we had always noticed her unusual landscaping.  She has no flowers but many different types of evergreen plants creating an array of greens that is truly eye catching. She told us that evergreens require little maintenance and defy the bugs.  Next thing we knew she was introducing herself with a foreign accent as "Nadia".  We commiserated about the lack of rain and how our grass is turning brown and I finally had to ask where she was from.  "Russia!", she replied.  Here we go again, I thought.  

We listened to Nadia tell of how she and her husband had come to the US from Moscow fifteen years ago because they had a handicapped daughter who is now 18.  They have lived in Biltmore Lake for 3 years and built a very large home.  Nadia has her own interior decorating business.  We could have lingered awhile longer to get more but it was almost dark.

It is continually intriguing to discover neighbors from everywhere in the world all with a life story, and wanting to know ours.  I look forward to our next after-dinner walk to see whom we might meet next at Biltmore Lake.