Mochey, My Steve Madden

This, I think, is the simplest pair of shoes I have and still wear to this day. It was given, again, by the same brother-in-law who gave me Doc Marten's shoes.

By now, you might have already concluded that Jay is a generous person; well, right you are. Aside from being kind and soft-spoken—Jay is generous. Not only shoes and other stuff did I receive from him but also a Swatch and a Fossil watch, my favorite brands of watches. Before I left the Philippines, to another brother-in-law of mine I gave the Fossil; the Swatch I bequeathed to a former office friend, whose timely referral, in a period I was desperately looking for any decent job, had led me to a high-paying and self-fulfilling position as an editor at Diwa Scholastic Press Inc.

Of course, in my youth I also had my share of the more common types of shoes like espadrilles, rubber shoes, topsiders, and even moccasins and kung-fu shoes in elementary; but having introduced to and owned, in the '80s, fashionable or unconventional footwear like penny loafers, Ninja hi-top tabbi shoes, and creepers, I seemed to have developed a fancy for, in the words of a stranger, "'screaming' type of shoes."

Now, only Mochey remains to be the simplest type of shoes I wear. Rubber shoes—Grandfather's favorite? Oh, they just wouldn't fit on my feet.

But I wouldn't say no to anyone who would give me a pair of hi-cut Nike.