The Leahy Lounge

Many years ago, in a hauntingly debauched place known as the Glass Slipper, I encountered a man who helped change the course of my life. At the time, I was board certified podiatrist, swimming in cash and enjoying the finer things in life. From time to time, the shoemaking industry would woo us with drug and alcohol fueled junkets to the most exotic locations in the United States. Biloxi, Nashville, Wilkes-Barre, and eventually, Baltimore. Which is where this story begins.

The conference organizers realized that Baltimore, being a slightly less desirable destination than the aforementioned tourist havens, required a special touch to make attractive. Thus they scheduled untold recreational activities for the 22 hours a day we spent outside the convention hall. Honestly, how many presentations can you witness on the efficacy of wide soled shoes in treating galactically infected bunions? One night they filled us full of absinthe and amyl nitrate and poured us into a party van en route to the Slipper, the finest gentleman's club in the city. As I sat at the bar and bathed in the warm haze of my hallucinogenic reverie, I noticed a particularly swinging gentleman commanding the attention of a half dozen ladies in a leather backed booth. Sauntering over to the table, I laid my cards down for all to see. "I bet I know your shoe size without looking at your feet", I boasted to the assembled talent (this line had worked without fail for a number of years). The small, mole-like man shot me a withering gaze and I knew right then I'd made a horrible mistake. A mistake I've paid for until this day. This man was in the business....


Now, BA's version:

Keep in mind this was the mid seventies, when every Tom, Dick and Raoul was coming into the shoe business. This was way before Al Bundy and those hacks at Fox did all they could to sully America's oldest (it's true, look it up) and most proud industry. Everyone in the foot industry thought they were a rock star.

For a guy like me, who came into the business in the fifties and mentored under someone like the legendary Jack Hesselson, young turks like this Jack Tripper wannabe were as distasteful as the Tab and Tanqueray they were sipping on. I had to strike a blow for every ill dressed man in a brown suit who'd had the door shut on his corn encrusted feet at a haughty Dr.'s office. In response to his challenge, I slowly drained the rest of my Jack, narrowed my eyes, and picked up the gauntlet "I tell you what son. Let's make it interesting. I bet the company of these six lovely ladies for the remainder of the conference that I can name the last ten pairs of shoes you bought. All the details: size, style, color, the whole shebang."

He paused, taken a little back by my confidence, but then that sly smile of his that I came to love over the next 30 years slowly curled in. "What's in it for you?" he said. Check and mate I thought. "I win, you come work for me." It was a deal. 15 minutes later, the Coach wore the puzzled look of someone who just heard a complete stranger tell him about a pair of running shoes he had bought in 1971 and I had a new apprentice.