NEED MORE CLOSET SPACE? REMOVE A PLASTIC BAG

Before the Camel of Apparel Accouterments noses me out of my tent, I decided to tackle the shoe closet. My accumulation of shoes is light years away from Imelda's, still the shoes do pile up when you've got a don't-throw-it-away-you-may-need-it-someday complex.

Years ago I thought it would keep things more orderly if I made a shoe closet of a little-used clothes closet. I asked Bill, my architectural consultant who builds houses and all sorts of great things, if he could make me a shoe closet with shelves. He replied that, yes, he thought he could build shelves.

In went the shelves, clear up to the ceiling. Then the shoes, heretofore reposing on floors of various closets, under beds, etc., two by two, took their places pumps, flats, laced, buckled, toe-less, heelless, slings, softies, canvas, boots, Nikes, Voits, etc. Not all at one time. Gee, some high heeled, blond pumps rested on a shelf long before Nikes or Reeboks came into existence.

Several years ago, in a moment of nostalgia, I bought these blond, high heeled pumps. This make of shoe was a sort of rite of passage when a high school junior girl of my circa became a senior. They were just as important as your high school ring, yea, diploma. We wobbled a little at first, but before long established our balance and announced, foot first, that we were grown up.

Our mothers, if they had retained them, had our baby shoes hardened and bronzed. I wonder why they didn't do the same with those first pairs of blond kid pumps? I don't wonder long though. Babies and high school seniors are light years apart too.

First, I secured a big plastic bag to hold the shoes for which I was going to find a new home. Then I fetched a small stepladder which is an euphemistic name for a kitchen chair. No, that wasn't really first, or second. This particular closet seems to be the handiest one for my big, old, heavy, vacuum cleaner. So I pulled it out first, hateful old thing. Then there was a little cane-bottomed dressing table stool, such a handy place to hold accumulated Afghans (five!) and pillows that are not in current use. Out all that came. Behind the Afghan stool were four, folded card tables, leaning against the wall. Where else in the world could I store those card tables? I really don't use but two, the ones that replaced the old, worn ones, but I can't throw the old ones away. Who-knows-but-that-I'll-need-them-some-day?

Hanging on a nail, slightly in the way of the chair-ladder, was a flight bag, gift of some local bank. It just hangs there, ready and waiting. Who-knows-but-that-I-might-take-flight-one-of-these-days?

Hanging on the same nail is Grandpa Bell's ancient fox hunting horn. I take it out about once a year to test my lung power. It takes a lot of such power to get a proper noise out of it. A few years ago I could scare the local non-hounds to death with it. But it is out of tune now, I guess, or mellowed, or something or other. Hardly even scares the spiders! What's it doing in the shoe closet? Same thing as the pillows, Afghans, flight bag, vacuum cleaner, spotlight with cord, heat lamp with cord, assorted empty boxes to put gifts in someday, two paint-by-number pictures, a box of shotgun shells Oh, you'll think I'm making this up, so I'll get on with the shoes.

Shoes have a way of having mixing parties when you aren't looking. Maybe that's what I hear sometimes in the dead of night. I found a red one sitting by a blue one whose blue mate was two shelves down beside a brown suede, whose mate was on the fourth shelf up, by the black and whites, etc.

For the better part of an hour I worked getting them paired up. Some shoes I found inside of shoes. Really. My long lost fuzzy house slippers were down inside a pair of gray boots.

It was satisfying and curiously pleasant getting them all back together. Order in the Universe! Somehow I thought of all the little republics of eastern Europe getting back in place like they were when I first learned the map.

Among other pairs, I dangled over the plastic bag a pair of brown, unscuffed, leather shoes. They had huge, shiny buckles, large square heels; Cuban heels, I believe they called them, although the shoes were manufactured in America about 1965. They had leather soles, rubber tapped heels, blunt toes. After all the straightening up, there was some shelf room left, so I put them back on a high up shelf. Who-knows-but-that-I-may-get-invited-to-a-Sixties-Party-someday-and-will-be-sorry-if-I-threw-them-away.

I took out the chair-ladder, put all the other stuff back in since there seemed to be more room, especially after I took out the empty plastic bag.

REJOICE!