How the Storx started

[Flu]

This is my story.
What about yours?

Strange Things happened during a Boys Childhood

I can still remember very well.
It was more than thirty-five years ago, one a cold winter evening. I was about 6 years old and sitting with my parents and grandparents in our small kitchen.
We had attendance that late. Our neighbour Mrs. Wesseling, a very attractive woman of thirty sat with us at the desk and smoked a cigarette in a silver cigarette point.
She worked in an expensive liquor shop in the city, was dressed always fashionable and used marvellous Perfume. This evening she had a large cardboard thereby, which she could hardly carry. When she opened it, it was full of lady shoes. My mother was totally surprised.
Mrs. Wesseling said in a bored manner, that she would wear from now on the fashionable flat pumps with block heels and could not wear the unfashionable high heels anymore. My mother may wear them or give them away, if she wants.
There were silver and black sandals, pumps, a pair of red pumps with black heels and toes and even Mrs. Wesselings white weddingshoes. Altogether more than one dozen pair of shoes. All shoes looked beautiful. My mother thanked her for the gift and our neighbour left. I was fascinated by the multiform and delicate shoes, which I partially already know from Mrs. Wesselings frequent attendance.
My mother tried on immediately all the shoes and noticed disappointedly that not one of them fitted her correctly. The shoes were a size too small.
My father was furious about that old shoes, and said:
"She has probably her garbage can already full and drags her muck now to us".
?I will ask my friends whether someone with the right size will wear the shoes?.
answered my mother.
Thus the cardboard with the shoes of Mrs. Wesseling disappeared in the storage chamber beside my children's room and was soon forgotten.
At the first opportunity I went into the chamber and opened the cardboard. Now I tried on each pair. I sank with my small feet into the shoes. After a wile, I managed to go in that heels. I bound the straps of the sandals together and put a handkerchief into the pumps. I walked in always new shoe variations back and forth, or admired simply the marvellous forms and colours of the heels.
In my shoe hit parade, the delicate black sandals were the number ones and were followed by a pair of red pumps with pointed black heels and the almost new white weddingshoes. They had a strap around the ankle and a peeping hole in the toebox.
One of the best things however was the smell of the shoes, which I can hardly describe. It was a mixture from leather, Mrs. Wesselings heavy Perfume and this new, indescribable smell.
Knowing that I did somewhat forbidden, I paid fearfully attention not to be caught playing with the shoes. I put all the shoes back, always embarrassingly, exactly to the place in the cardboard, from which I had taken them and everything was stowed away again, carefully, before my parents came back. Nobody ever got me.
Thus a half year passes by, up to that day as I came home from school and found my father cleaning out the storage chamber.
The box with the heels was gone. I dare not to ask my father about the shoes. I should regain them soon.
I found the box with the shoes in the boiler room near the work bench. It was summer, our old coal boiler was not in operation, and I could play now with the shoes untroubled. Still nobody got me.
If someone opened the cellar door, I shoved the pair, which I had taken from the box, under the workbench, and played with my father tools.
As the winters came the boiler was ignited. That was exciting, and I was mad about throwing coal or wood into the old boiler. Often if I played in the cellar. I opened the hatch to observe the glow or throw a piece of wood or paper into the fire, which burned then sizzling, with bright flame.
One day however, when I was with my father in the cellar, he remembered the
carton with the old lady shoes, which was up to then apparently forgotten in the corner. He opened it, poured all the shoes into the coal crate and picked out indiscriminately one. "well" he said, "Do you want to throw that old rubbish into the boiler?" Rigidly before fright, I stood stiff. "No fear? he said ? we can burn that old shoes?. ?They do not fit mummy?. My father gave me a wine-red, high heeled pumps with a ribbon and a small opening for the toes, opened the fire hatch and said: "What are you waiting for?? ?Throw that old shoe inside!" I touched the soft leather and the slim, pointed heel for the last time. I was despaired and did not dare to speak against my father. My father became impatient and with trembling hand I put the shoe finally into the glow.
My stomach cramped together and I felt a strange pulling in my abdomen.
I heard a quiet, hissing noise and saw the lady shoe in the enormous heat bent and turning. Suddenly, almost like an explosion the shoe was on bright fire. Fast the shoe was gone. It stank of sweet burned leather and it remained only a flat, red-hot sheet of metal, which gave formerly the stability to the high heel.
"that was a short pleasure." my father said " these unpractical shoes are not even worth for heating." and laughed. I hated my father and had to howl as I was alone in the boiler room again.
It was for sure that sooner or later all my shoes would end in such a way.
One day, i was wearing a pair of beautiful, black sandals, when I heard the cellar door was opened. Fast I loosened the delicate buckles and could throw the shoes still in time to the others into the coal crate. My father came in, took a shovel full of coals and poured it into the boiler. However the glow was already too weak to inflame the coal fire again. He considered one moment, took then one of the black sandals from the coal crate and stuffed it carefully with old an newspapers page. I stared helplessly at the stuffed shoe. Then he hold the slim, high heel like a grasp, opened the Fire hatch and stacked the elegant shoe with the toe in front deeply into the glowing coals. I felt a dull impact in the gastric region. "in such a way, the old shoe pays for it self.? He laughed and waited until the paper between the thin straps had ignited. Then he left the room. Fast I tried to save the shoe from the flames. But until I had opened the fire hatch and found a thing suitable as a fishing rod to rescue the sandal from the heat, the paper was burned completely and with it the delicate straps of the sandal. Deeply shocked and at the same time fascinated I stared into the flames. Again I felt this pulling feeling in my abdomen. The thin inner sole became detached from the shoe in the heat and burned fast with a bright, blue flame. Then the fire ate slowly the leather sole and left a bizarre, grey ash stand of which the former form of the shoe could only suspected. The high stiletto heel burned last. The plastic melted and dripped burning into the glow. The sweet smell of burned leather mixed with the smell from burning plastics. Except flashing ash, remained finally only a few glowing heel nails, a small metal buckle and the curved metal spring. I closed the fire hatch and took the second, still intact sandal out of the coal crate, smelled at it and shifted my small foot slowly inside. With only one shoe I walked around silently crying. The thin straps cut into my foot and I heard the bright clicking of the heel on the hard cement floor of the cellar.
It was terrible!.
My father burned the shoes not as complete pairs. Finally only the remained single shoes were scattered in the coal crate.
As he wanted to burn a red heel I protested carefully
"I would like to play with that old shoe" I said quietly and looked down to the floor. "what?" did my father say "Playing with that stupid high heels?" He laughed! "Lets leave this to the ladies, they play much better with that kind of shoes" and throw the shoe deep into the fire hatch causing sparks.
Except for a pair half-open black pumps, with late
ral straps, all shoes were burned. I took heart and hid this last, complete pair under the work bench behind old, rusty iron profiles.
A little later Mrs Wesselings gift was burned to ash. However I had saved that pair of black pumps!
Everything went well, until that day I came home from school and found my father welding a new hand rail for the stairway. Full of panic, I ran down to the boiler room. The iron profiles under the workbench had disappeared and with them my last pair of black pumps. I searched the whole coal crate. Without success.
The glow in the boiler lit up blood-red as always and heated my face up.
Finally I recognised a few pieces of metal in the glow, left by the fire.

As our neighbour Mrs. Wesseling, even my mother had a shoe-tick and bought a pair of High heels after the other in my aunts shoe store.
Mother had the habit to distribute her shoes in the whole house. There was neither a shoe cabinet nor a shoe shelf. Her shoes were almost in each angle of the house. My father was annoyed because of the unpractical high heels, which lie about everywhere in the house and could cause someone stumble.
He solved the problem his way.
If my mother did not wear a pair of her heels for a short time, he collected it and added it to the big carton which was in the boiler room beside the coal crate.
If the shoes were not missed for a certain time, he took them out of the carton and burned the them in the boiler.
If my mother noticed that she missed a pair of her shoes, my father said: "oh, those old shoes which you had not worn anymore?? ?I got rid of them" ?Look, they had been totally out of fashion?.
My father did not make himself the trouble to burn the shoes in complete pairs. If only an individual unnecessary shoe was noticeable to him, he did not look for the second one. That led sometimes to the fact that my mother searched for a right or left missing high heel which was already burned in the boiler. She gave up the search usually fast and my father burned the residual shoe in the boiler, immediately.
My mother bought again and again new shoes, which my father burned after more or less short time. The more lavish the shoes were and the more rarely my mother put them on her feet, the faster the shoes ended in the flames. Often not more than once worn.
Sometimes I tried to rescue a pretty pair from the flames. However it never succeeded to me. My father was too smart. He discovered sooner or later all my hiding places and threw the shoes immediately into the fire.
However If the boiler was not in operation, I was allowed to play a whole summer with the beautiful high heels. The cardboard beside the coal crate was filled fat with shoes at the end of the summer. Pumps and high heeled sandals in all colours and forms were stuffed into the carton.
A shoe after the other disappeared in the first days of the heating season in the boiler and the whole cellar was filled with the smell of burned leather.

THE END

[?..Major..?]

Oh I can imagine the pain of seeing those shoes go out of your grasp

The earliest I can recall is a baby sitter round about 1960 would wear pointed toed stiletto shoes when she cam and looked after me ..... I would have been around 6... I used to sit at her fett while watching tv she would hang the shoes from her foot .. I can remember looking as mauch at her shoes as the tv ( Ididnt know why ) I recall an occasion when she had just slipped her shoe off and ran out of the room to answer the door ..I put my little hand into her shoe I dont know what made me do it but I can remember the creases and bumps in them as my hand went right inside.......I remember I felt "funny".......

Maj

[?..Major..?]

apologies for bad spelling/typing

I will write 100 times

I must proof read

Maj

[erv2u]

Flu Thanks for your story. Your fantastic drawings are still on 'WreckingHighHeels' Yahoo group.
I lived in the city and collected shoes from the trash bins in our row house. I hid them in the celler. We also had a coal furnace. Sometimes I would throw a shoe in and watch it burn. I remeber going to a Thanksgiving Parade in the downtown around age 6-8. On our way home from the parade we cut through a city bus parking lot. many old shoes , that riders had left on the bus were on the ground, flattened by the busses. I got very turned on by them. Im sure my mother had to pull me away.
I can relate as to how I was afraid that Father would find my shoe collection. He always got rid of them if he found them!!

[?..Major..?]

Oh being found out .
one day I will tell the story when my mother found my collection and how in later life she found my complete collection af the "high heel" magazine and BURNT them!!!!!!!!!!!!

(if anyone is interested )

[Flu]

Yes, please
I would like to hear your story.
Does your mother burned shoes as well?
Did you ever saw her burning shoes?
Erv, i am glad that the pctures remain on YKK?s webside. It was the only way to get my memories alive.
Is there anyone outside there who suffered the same faith in his / her childhood.
The worst thing about the shoe burning was that i could not rescure the shoes. Ones they were thrown in the ofen, there was no way to fish them out of the fire in time. There is nothing more sad as a single shoe beeing the rest of a pair destined to burn. It makes mad to find a single, sexy shoe and not find the second one.
I remember situations were i could not find the sexy shoes of my Mother anymore. After a fearfull seach i found only one shoe in the coalcradle. The second one was burned already to ashes. I opened the hatch and throw the remaining shoe inside. Shoes made only sense for me as a complete pair. Later i found out that i get excited if i throw a shoe in the oven. But i get even mor excitet, watching another person burning shoes.

Please post your sorys here!