Have you ever felt sentimentally attached to a pair of shoes?

I was not ready to part with my pink Nikes that hurt my feet and were likely the source of my shin splits. Two years past their prime, I still wore them every day. Why? Because Oprah gave them to my dad.

Let’s rewind. The Oprah Winfrey Show ended in 2011, and my dad was a special guest on the second to last episode. He was nominated as a hometown hero for several non-profits that he founded, but the one that was being highlighted was his work in brining Haitian students to the United States after hurricanes and earthquakes devastated the country. Every audience member in the crowd that day was a hometown hero from their own region.

My dad knew nothing about Oprah, so when she told the audience to look under their seats, followed by an eruption of screaming, crying, and jumping up and down, my dad looked for the exit. But his business partner told him to stay. He explained that Oprah was surprising them with her famous twenty five favorite things.

When I got home from school, my dad was sitting in the living room wearing a Santa hat.

“It’s Christmas!” he shouted, but it wasn’t even the month of December.

He explained to us that Oprah gifted him and everyone in the crowd twenty five of her favorite things, as a thank you for their service. The gifts ranged from a perfect brownie pan, where every brownie has a crispy edge instead of a gooey middle, all the way to a full on cruise for my mom and dad. (I don’t know why my dad chose to take her instead of me, since they left for the cruise on my birthday!)

Back to the sentimental shoes. Oprah gifted four pairs of Nikes to each family, and I picked the hot pink ones. My dad was so excited to share his gifts. All I really remember from the gifts was the look on his face when I walked in the door. He looked so happy in that Santa hat, wearing a mischievous smile that said I have a secret I’m about to tell you and you’re gonna wanna hear this one!

When Christmas rolled around that year, my siblings and I used a lot of printer ink to print pictures of Oprah that we taped to the top of our Christmas tree. “She’s our angel this year,” we said, picking the most ridiculous photo we could find of her. Both our parents laughed, didn’t complain about how much color ink we used, and let the photo stay on the top of the tree.

These memories flashed through my mind as the highway miles ticked by. In less than twenty minutes I’d cross the border into Oregon, leaving Idaho behind. Wind rattled my car in the open desert. Two hands on the wheel for the sudden gusts that threatened to knock me out of my lane. Bare feet on the gas pedal, my pink Nikes cast aside in the passenger seat. Socks nowhere to be found.

Those stupid shoes outlived my dad.

Those once hot pink sneakers were now a dull pastel from years of dust and dirt.

Those silly sentimental shoes hurt my feet every damn day.

Why did I hold on to them? Wearing them wouldn’t bring my dad back. Of course I didn’t think that, but still. I passed thousands of shoe stores across the country and never once stopped to browse.

At last I passed a sun washed green “Welcome to Oregon” sign and let out a holler. Rolling down the window to breathe in that fresh, completely different than Idaho, air.

“Ahhh,” I said, hanging my arm out the window. Driving and dreaming of the new life I could build for myself here, far away from my east coast roots. Big trees, big mountains, and the Pacific Ocean – oh my! How I could get lost in these desert hills that slope up to volcanoes, dormant and active- how exciting!

What was that?!

Slamming on my brakes, checking the rearview mirror to make sure I don’t die, I whipped the wheel to the left and pulled a u-turn all within the time it took for Britney Spears to sing, “Oops I did it again!”

Turning the music off, I slowed to a stop on the side of the road under the canopy of a big tree. Craning my neck out the window, I looked up to the far reaching branches, weighed down by hundreds of dangling shoes.

A shoe tree, in the middle of nowhere. Huh.

My eyes locked in on the pink Nikes. Suddenly enraged with myself, I wondered what the point of keeping shoes that actively hurt to wear was. Without a second thought, I reached for them and got out of the car, looking up at the various sneakers and cleats dangling from this big tree.

While tying the frayed laces together, I calculated how far off the ground the lowest branch must be. At least ten feet above me, I decided an underhand toss would likely do the trick.

Looking down at the pink Nikes, I made a promise to them: if I miss, then I’ll keep you.

Winding up, I hucked the shoes up into the air over my head and let out a wild scream as they flew in the air. I smiled at the satisfying thunk! sound as the shoe made contact with the branch. A perfect shot. The pink Nikes were now dangling from the branch of this tree that held at least a dozen more shoes.

Well. That’s that I suppose.

Without a single goodbye, I got back into the car that I left running and continued down the highway. Feeling exuberant for getting rid of some symbolic shoe that sucked, I blasted Britney Spears and sang at the top of my lungs with the windows down until the wind threatened to blow me over and I had to roll them up, for safety.

It wasn’t until a few miles had passed that I realized something rather ridiculous.

I don’t have any shoes in here. Not even sandals…shit!

Laughing hysterically now, I failed the most basic Leave No Trace principle that I spent all summer teaching kids: plan ahead. Hell, I never planned ahead.

When I got to Bend I looked up the first shoe store, but a big sign on the door deterred me from going in: NO SHIRT, NO SHOES, NO SERVICE. Seems a bit silly, since they let you take your shoes off once you’re inside the store.

Doubling back to my car, I checked the trunk real good, hoping there might be at least a forgotten flip flop somewhere. All I found were the perfect white roller skates I bought six months ago but never learned how to ride. My plan was to practice once I got to Venice Beach in a few weeks. Though I suppose it would be more hot-girl-summer-babe style to look good skating in Venice Beach rather than eat shit every day as I learned.

I added “learn how to roller skate” on my mental to-do list, right after “buy new shoes.”

Sitting on the edge of my trunk, I tied the laces of my sleek white roller skates and shuffled my way toward the entrance again, touching every car along the way for balance. No employee said anything when I opened the door and scuttled along the rows in my skates, looking for a new pair of shoes.

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