They’re baaaaaack…

I thought Earth Shoes were lost to the distant past, a relic of the 1970s (disregard the idiotic apostrophe in the picture I found on the Internet).
They were a mandatory part of the “uniform” of people in the Transcendental Meditation movement. The guys wore these clownish bulbous shoes and the women wore similarly bulbous clogs. Some of the guys of questionable masculinity wore clogs too. A Swiss Army pocket knife was also part of the uniform, since Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was training TM teachers in Switzerland in those days.
I have the curious distinction of having bought the first pair of Earth Shoes sold in Indiana. Lots of people in Indiana had them before me, but they got them from out of state, either from distant stores or by mail order. I bought the first pair sold by Dan and Carol Bolling’s Earth Shoe store on Kirkwood Avenue in Bloomington.
Earth Shoes are built with the heel lower than the toe, a configuration that’s supposed to be good for your posture because it makes you stand up straighter. They can be damned painful for the first week or so until the muscles and ligaments in the backs of your calves stretch to accommodate the new regime.
Anyhow, I haven’t seen a pair of Earth Shoes in decades.
So imagine my surprise when I found the Home Shopping Network hawking several new styles of Earth Shoes last night. Curiously, they cost twice as much from the HSN as they do on Amazon.com.
I’ll bet most of their audience thinks this is a brand new thing.
I still carry a Swiss Army knife, but I’ll pass on the Earth Shoes this time around.