I am a Podiatrist and this is a letter from one of my favorite, long-time Patients:
During our visit to your office Thursday, you commented that I should replace my aging sandals. I failed to tell you how old they really are. Back in my college days in the 1950s, when archaeology began to rage, I spent two weeks on a college-sponsored dig on the north side of the Bay of Naples (Baie di Napoli). We centered on the place of the Sibyl of Cumae. On the first day of the dig, I came upon the remains of perhaps a Roman-era soldier, though the site went further back into antiquity than AD 1. The skeleton still wore a pair of heavily-used sandals, the source of their leather later found to be of shark skin, though one of the archaeologists speculated it might be skin from a reptile, such as a dinosaur.
Long story short, I’m still wearing these ancient sandals and don’t intend to give them up for anything modern. I’d go barefoot first. (Maybe that’s a good idea. No athletes foot fungus?) Thought you’d enjoy an explanation of why some people just can’t give up old shoes.
How can I argue with that?
C. Mack Lewis. Author of The Fallen Angels Series. 
Okay, C. Mack, your writer conveniently left out one important element. Smell, odor. Those Roman dinosaur-skin sandals brought centuries of Italia’s finest, a hint of olive oil, a touch of ros maris (rosemary), a little dot of blood remaining from a knife thrust in a battle. And years of soaking in wine kept the bacteria-bugs away.
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