If you want to get the most out of the investment you have made in your leather shoes you need to take good care of them and do the maintenance that they require to keeping them looking good. Your feet produce over a 1/4 of a cup of moisture in a day and can produce up to a 1/2 cup if you are very active. By putting cedar shoe trees in your shoes you can expect your shoes to last up to three times longer. Cedar shoe trees will draw the moisture out of the leather and will maintain the shape of your shoes. Cedar shoe trees will neutralize any foot odor and leave the scent of aromatic cedar. Rotate your shoes so they will dry out and use a shoe horn when you put your shoes on because this will save the heel counter from wear. Keep your leather shoes clean on a regular basis by using saddle soap and water to remove dirt and grime from the leather. Make sure and rinse the residue from the saddle soap and then apply a leather conditioner. Set your leather shoes or boots aside after cleaning them for 24 hours to dry out and make sure you put your cedar shoe trees in them. Apply a good quality shoe polish like Kelly’s or a shoe cream and then polish the leather. A good quality polish or cream will moisturize the leather keeping your shoes flexible and will soak into the leather allowing the leather to breathe. A wax polish will shine the leather better than a cream will but will seal the leather causing the leather to dry out. When you have applied the polish let your shoes set for about 10 minute to dry then buff the leather with a horsehair shoe brush. Apply a second coat of polish or cream and repeat the first step. Use a soft cloth to bring out the shine on the leather. Use shoe bags when traveling to keep from soiling or touching your clothing. Taking good care of your leather shoes will make them last a long time and you will be money ahead. Our internet store www.lionfootweardirect.com offers Free Shipping for leather hand made shoes from Sandro Moscoloni. Rockport men’s Margin, Rockport men’s Encounter, Rockport dressport 2, and Dansko women’s Professional, all fine leather shoes that are nice looking, durable comfortable, high quality shoes at low prices. We have the best price on the internet for Birko balance arch supports.

Dave Clark

Diabetes affects up to 6% of the population but it is a lot higher in older people. The hormone insulin helps your body assimilate sugar that’s in your diet. Diabetes causes you not to produce enough insulin and you have type 1 diabetes. If you have type 2 diabetes the higher levels of glucose in your blood is what causes damage to your bodie’s tissues and organs. Diabetes damages your nerves and it can happen to your feet without you knowing it. This is known as peripheral neuropathy. Diabetes can cause poor circulation that leads to your feet not being able to heal up when you have a foot injury. Poor fitting shoes are a leading cause of foot injuries and if your shoes rub a sore on your toe it could lead to an infection that is hard to heal up from. Foot ulcers are a problem for people with diabetes and this can allow your feet to become infected. If you have diabetes it is important to do the following to stop problems before they can develop:
– Use a mild soap and wash your feet daily and be sure to dry your feet completely.
– Reduce moisture by dusting your feet with talcum powder.
– Check your feet daily for sores, cuts, bruises, and any changes in your toenails.
– Take good care of your feet. Cut your toenails straight across but do not cut the corners. Use an emery board or file the round off the corners of your toenails.
– If you have any problems with corns or callouses be sure to see the Podiatrist to have them removed.
– Don’t go barefoot. This will help you avoid any foot injuries.
– Use a a moisturizer if your feet are dry but do not apply it between your toes.
– Make sure the footwear you buy fits your feet or you risk having poor fitting shoes damage your feet.
– It is extremely important to take good care of yourself by not smoking, lose weight if needed, exercise at least 5 days a week, and reduce your alcohol intake.
_ See a Podiatrist at least once a year and see him immediatley if you have any problems with you feet.

Our website www.lionfootweardirect.com offers Khepra Foot Balm, Pedifix Deep Healing Cream, and Pedifix Fungi Soap at our Foot Care section. These special products will help you care for your feet.

Dave Clark

There are misconceptions about the arches in our feet as being solid stuctures that do not move. The arches of your feet are always moving up and down when we are walking or running. If you have fallen arches it may not be the problem it is how your foot functions when walking or running. It is not the height of the arch that is the problem since a lot of people have low or high arches that have no problem with their feet. It is the function of the foot that can cause the problem. If you foot is pronated and lowers the arch by the rolling of your ankle can cause this problem. If you use a foot orthotic to help support the foot arch support itself you can restore your own arch. If your foot is pronated and rolls inward at the ankle your symptoms can vary from mild pain in your arch or you may have a heel spur. Many other things can cause the same symptoms so if arch supports do not seem to help with your foot problems you need to consult with a foot doctor. There is no evidence that foot orthotics weaken the foot. We have several doctors that send us clients that order Birko balance arch supports for their foot problems. It is important to wear supportive footwear especially running shoes for most cases that are not severe. Foot orthotics are the main treatment for “fallen arches” and we offer Birko balance, childrens orthotics, and other arch supports at our Lion Foot Care section at our website www.lionfootweardirect.com.

Dave Clark

Cracked heels are a condtion that can be annoying and painful if left untreated. If you have a cracked heel condition we recommend seeing a podiatrist for all foot problems. This article should not be relied on for a medical diagnosis or treatment for feet problems. Cracked heels or heel fissures are mostly caused by dry skin and if the skin is thick around the rim of the heel of your foot. Cracked heels are a common foot problem but when the cracks or fissures are deep they can cause pain and the skin can bleed. It can become painful when standing on your feet for long periods of time especially if you stand on hard floors. In severe cases it can cause an infection in your heels. The skin on your heels may develop a thick callous and appear as a yellow or brown discoloration along the side of your heel. Some causes of cracked heels include:
- Standing on your feet for long periods of time.
- If you are overweight it will increase the pressure on the heels causing the pad under the heel to expand sideways.
-Wearing open backed shoes allows the heel to expand out and increase the pressure on your heel.
- Dry skin caused by some medical conditions.
- Psoriasis and eczema can be causes.
There are some things you can do to help cracked heel conditions. Twice a day apply an oil based moisturizing cream to you heels. Use a pumice stone to reduce the thickness of the hard skin and do not wear open backed shoes or thin soled shoes. Our website www.lionfootweardirect.com offers a foot cream and heel cups that will help with cracked heels.

Dave Clark

When I was young growing up in Oelwein, Iowa I spent almost every day in the summer at our local swimming pool. Lion Footwear has the best price on the internet for Birko balance, Birko sport, Birko motion and children’s orthotics. The pool was about 12 blocks from our house and I would ride my bike there arriving at 1:00pm when they opened in the afternoon. You were supposed to take a shower before entering the pool but I did not like a cold blast of water on me. If the life guard saw that you had not taken a shower he would make you return to the shower room before letting you in the pool. I enjoyed swimming on hot summer days and I went to the pool every day of the week, plus, I went to the pool a lot in the evenings with my brother and dad. We would race across the pool trying to beat our dad but he always won. Some days I would get tired of swimming so I would do a can opener off the low diving board splashing the life guard who was sitting in the chair near the diving board. The life guard would kick me out of the pool for the day but I enjoyed giving him a shower. As I got older I spent more time going off the diving boards and I learned how to do a one and a half dive off the 10′ diving board. By the end of the summer my skin was dark brown from the sun and my hair was almost blond. Sometimes I would get sinus headaches from diving and I would end up in bed till the pain would go away. I live in Red Oak, Iowa now and we have a large indoor pool at our local Y.M.C.A. and a large outdoor pool for summer use. The outdoor pool is old and needs to be replaced since it leaks a lot of water. Swimming pools are needed in a community because they suppply kids a place to have fun and get some good exercise. I hope they replace our pool as it would be a shame if we didn’t have a pool in town. I believe it is important for everyone to know how to swim and it is a great sport for the kids. Red Oak has had great swim teams in the past and we will in the future if we have a good working swiming pool. Our website www.lionfootweardirect.com offers Free Shipping for Dansko shoes, Dansko women’s Professional, Rockport women’s World Tour, Rockport men’s Encounter, Rockport men’s Margin, Rockport Allander, Super Birki clogs, Birkenstock Tokyo, Birkenstock chef shoes, Ryka Studio Flex mid, Sandro Moscoloni, and Predator Ultimate Protein.

Dave Clark

I was playing drums for Bobby Hankins band The Blue Boys in the early 60’s when Bobby hired Bookie Moudin to play steel guitar with the band. Our website www.lionfootweardirect.com has the best price on the internet for Birko balance, Birko sport, Birko motion, and children’s orthotics. Bookie moved to Oelwein, Iowa from Montana and he was a dedicated pipe smoker. I was already a cigarette smoker and thought smoking a pipe was a cool idea so Bookie started teaching me what he knew about pipes and how to smoke them. Bookie had some very nice briar pipes in his collection. He had a Barling pipe that was his favorite pipe that came from England and he said it was a “real gasser!” . Bookie had a 4 dot Sasieni briar pipe that, along with the Barling, was an expensive pipe to own. I ordered a moderately priced pipe from a catalog and Bookie started teaching me how to load and smoke it. Bookie liked Hayward tobacco and he smoked it most of the time along with another exotic brand he enjoyed smoking. Bookie showed me how to fill the pipe bowl about half full with tobacco and then use your fingers to tamp the tobacco down in the pipe bowl, but not too tight or the pipe would not draw right. Then add more tobacco to the bowl and again tamp it down with your fingers a little looser than the first load. Add the last tobacco to the bowl and tamp it down even looser than the second load. The pipe was now ready to smoke and he showed me how to move the lit match around the top of the pipe bowl igniting the tobacco. The fragrance from burning tobacco can be quite pleasant unlike the stale smell that comes from cigarette smoke. The tobacco will raise up when lit so then you use a pipe tamper to tamp the tobacco down even in the pipe bowl and relight the tobacco. If you have packed the pipe bowl correctly the tobacco will burn slow and even as you smoke your pipe. The tobacco will burn as a white ash all the way to the bottom of the pipe bowl. You have to tamp the burning tobacco as you smoke to help the pipe draw correctly. A good quaity briar pipe has no metal filter in the stem and if it comes with one in it you should pull it out and throw it away. Run a pipe cleaner through the stem as you are smoking to keep the pipe stem clean. Take small puffs but do not inhale when smoking your pipe so it does not get hot and burn your tounge. When you have finished smoking all the tobacco, you need to clean out the pipe bowl with your pipe tool and leave a pipe cleaner in the stem to collect any moisture left in the stem and bottom of the pipe’s bowl. A pipe needs to rest after smoking it and you need at least several pipes in your collection so you can rotate smoking them. It took some practice but I learned how to load, pack, and enjoy smoking a pipe. I added 5 other pipes to my collection including a meerchaum pipe carved with a claw around the bowl. It is a good idea to have a cloth in your hand when holding and smoking a meerchaum pipe. This will keep the oil and finger prints from ending up on the pipe bowl as the pipe bowl will develop an amber color from smoking it. I quit smoking cigarettes and a pipe over 20 years ago but I still have my pipe collection. It is said “a good pipe is better than a quiet wife.” Lion Footwear offers Free Shipping for Dansko shoes, Dansko women’s Professional, Rockport women’s World Tour, Rockport men’s Margin, Rockport men’s Encounter, Rockport dressport 2, Birkenstock Tokyo, Super Birki clog, Birkenstock chef shoes, Ryka Studio Flex mid, Sandro Moscoloni, and Predator Ultimate Protein.

Dave Clark

In the late 90’s a local factory wanted to remove old sealer from their floors in the factory. Our website www.lionfootweardirect.com has the best price on the internet for Birko balance, Birko sport, Birko motion and childrens orthotics. Back then we sold methalene chloride for stripping old seal on concrete floors. The way you removed most concrete sealers was to pour and spread the methalene chloride on a 8′ x 10′ area of the floor and then sprinkle floor dry on top of it. Then you would mount a steel brush on the bottom of a single disc floor machine and scrub the chemical and floor dry. This would pull the old concrete sealer up into the floor dry so you could sweep it up in a large dust pan and dispose of it. The system works pretty well but you have to have an experienced operator running a single disc floor machine. When you apply the chemical stripper it loosens the sealer up and the floor can becomes very slick to stand on. My plan was to have my 2 man crew demonstrate the system to their maintenance men so they could start stripping their factory floors. The plant manager wanted to buy a bunch of the methalene chloride and turn their factory employees loose with the chemical and floor scrapers to strip the sealer off of their floors. I refused the order because someone could get hurt if they slipped and fell and the chemical will burn your skin if you come in contact with it. Then a new problem came up when the plant was put under chemical audit and they could not have methalene chloride in the building. I found a way around this when I found a company that had a single disc block with sharp blades embedded in the block that would scrape the old concrete seal off the floor without using any chemical. It worked like a charm and soon they were scraping off all the old concrete seal from their factory floors. It took a lot of replacement blades to finish the job and I got an order for many 5gal buckets of moisture-cured urethane finish. Moisture-cured urethane is the toughest, longest wearing concrete sealer and finish available. The floors turned out great and I had a regular customer for urethane finish. We offer Free Shipping at www.lionfootweardirect.com for Dansko shoes, Dansko women’s Professional, Rockport women’s World Tour, Rockport Allander, Rockport men’s Encounter, Rockport men’s Margin, Super Birki clogs, Birkenstock Tokyo, Birkenstock chef shoes, Ryka Studio Flex MD, Sandro Moscoloni, and Ultimate Protein.

Dave Clark

Over the years my wife and I have made several trips to Worlds of Fun amusement park in Kansas City, MO. with our son and twin daughters. We have the best price for Birko balance, Birko sport, Birko motion, and chidren’s orthotic arch supports at www.lionfootweardirect.com. On our first trip to Worlds of Fun in the early 80’s our oldest child Adam who was 8 or 9 at the time kept telling us that he was going to ride on every ride in the park. Adam was real excited about our trip to Worlds of Fun and he couldn’t wait until we got there. It is about a 3 and a half hour trip from Red Oak, Iowa to Kansas City, MO. and he kept asking “Are we there yet?” It was expensive even in those days to get a family into Worlds of Fun but once you were in the park all the rides were included in your entrance fees. We were picked up by a shuttle in the parking lot that took us to the main gate where we paid to get in. We walked around to check out the rides and saw they had wooden cut outs of cute animals that you had to be as tall as in order to get on the ride. The most daring and exciting ride was the Zambizi Zinger roller coaster and Adam was big enough to ride it. But once Adam saw the coaster climbing up high into the trees he froze up and refused to ride it. He ended up riding on some of the tamer rides with our twin daughters who were about 5 or 6 years old. We were unhappy about the high prices they charged for food so if you want to save a lot of money, pack a lunch. The following summer we took our family to Worlds of Fun and Adam rode on every ride in the park and he had a great time. We went to Worlds of Fun on weekends so the park was packed with people and we had to wait in long lines in the heat to get on the rides. I rode the Orient Express roller coaster which had a big drop at the start and turned upside down four times. I thought it was a blast and I talked my wife into riding it. This turned out to be a big mistake since my wife had a problem with dizziness and this ride certainly made her dizzy. We were soon headed back to the hotel so she could lie, down ending our day at Worlds of Fun. On the last trip there we rode an old style roller coster, The Timberwolf. It was fun and exciting to ride but it hurt my back since it jerked us around and was not a very smooth ride. Worlds of Fun adds new and exciting rides every season. My son and his wife visit at least once every summer. We offer Free Shipping for Dansko shoes, Dansko women’s Professional, Rockport men’s Encounter, Rockport Allander, Rockport dressport 2, Rockport women’s World Tour, Ryka Studio Flex, Super Birki clogs, Birkenstock Tokyo, Sandro Moscoloni, and Predator Ultimate Protein at www.lionfootweardirect.com.

Dave Clark

When I was growing up our family liked to play games. We offer the best price on the internet for Birko balance, Birko sport, Birko motion and children’s orthotics at www.lionfootweardirect.com. My folks liked to play bridge and we played canasta, a card game that used two decks of cards. We even had a card shuffler that made it a lot easier to shuffle two decks of cards. We used to have to teach Grandma how to play canasta when she visted because she was getting forgetful, then she would beat us! We played board games like Polyanna, Parcheesi, and Monopoly. My dad liked to play ping-pong and we had a ping-pong table on the porch in the summer which we moved to the basement in the winter. We were always having ping-pong tournaments and we invited the neighbors to play in them. My father was very competitive and he hated to lose at anything no matter how unimportant the game was. It always seemed he could out swim, out play, or out shoot my brother and me no matter what game we played.
For Christmas my mother found interesting games for us to play to compete with each other and it was always fun when we won no matter how silly the game was. We had a basketball goal set up across the street from our home and we would play endless games of horse. When Dad would go swimming with my brother and me we would have swimming races and Dad almost always won. When we were teenagers Dad bought an old pool table from a pool hall that was closing and he had it moved into the basement. The pool table was a standard 8′ table and had a three piece 1″ slate bed. I could not believe how heavy each piece of the table was. It was quite a job assembling it. The pool table’s cloth was replaced along with most of the rails because they were dead and the pool balls would not bounce off them. We had a beautiful pool table with new balls and it was “Let the games begin!” We played many games of rotation, eight ball, and nine ball with the neighborhood kids joining in for after school tournaments. The pool table was the hit of the neighborhood and we played almost every day. Some kids just walked in the back door and went down and started playing without even asking. They even did this after my brother and I had left home. My folks finally sold the pool table. I have fond memories of the games we played as a family and it filled up a lot of hours of entertainment before we all started being glued to the tv set. Check out www.lionfootweardirect.com for good deals on Dansko shoes, Dansko women’s Professional, Rockport women’s World Tour, Rockport dressport 2, Rockport men’s Margin, Rockport men’s Encounter, Super Birki clogs, Birkenstock Tokyo, Sandro Moscoloni, Ryka studio flex, and Predator Ultimate Protein.

Dave Clark

My wife and I drove 50 miles to the Star Cinema in Council Bluffs, Iowa last Sunday March 7th, 2010 to see the movie Crazy Heart. Our internet store www.lionfootweardirect.com offers the lowest price for Birko balance, Birko sport, Birko motion, and chidren’s orthotic arch supports. The lead actor Jeff Bridges plays an almost has been country singer, Bad Blake, who is traveling the southwest in an old Chevy Suburban truck. He is booked to play in a bowling alley in Santa Fe, NM where he meets a young cute reporter played by Maggie Gyllenhaal. This meeting soon leads to romance. Bad Blake meets her little boy and he becomes attached to both of them. Both Bridges and Gyllenhaal were nominated for Academy Awards with Jeff Bridges winning the best actor award. We used to have a one screen movie theater here in Red Oak, Iowa but it closed over 6 months ago. The woman who owned and ran the theater had to work at the local McDonald’s to make a living and to keep the theater open. The Star Cinema in Council Bluffs has stadium seating with great sound systems and has many screens showing all the latest films. It is designed with a dome that has an Egyptian theme in the dome that has an echo you can hear if you talk loud enough. It’s like all movie theaters of today. They charge you an arm and a leg for any treats you buy but they do offer free refills for popcorn and pop. I grew up in the late 50’s in Oelwein, Iowa and the town had two theaters back then, the Grand Theater and the Ritz. We went to the Ritz on Saturday afternoons to see the latest Roy Rogers, Gene Autry or other western movie stars of the day. I liked watching Abbott and Costello and the Three Stooges movies. I could not understand why my folks thought they were corny since I laughed and enjoyed their slapstick humor. The Ritz was kind of run down compared to the Grand Theater and the better films were played at the Grand. Pop cost a dime a cup. The paper cup would come down out of the machine and then be filled with soda and mix. Sometimes the cup would fall over and the soda and mix would end up going down the drain. In the past the only place you could see movies was at a theater, but now you can rent or buy movies and play them on your dvd at home. We have Mediacom cable that offers On Demand and you can watch The Hurt Locker, the movie that won best picture at this year’s Academy Awards, at home for less than it would cost you to go see it in a theater. Almost everybody likes entertainment and it is still fun to go see a good movie. We offer Free Shipping for Dansko shoes, Dansko women’s Professional, Birkenstock Tokyo, Super Birki, Birkenstock chef shoes, Rockport dressport 2, Rockport men’s Margin, Rockport women’s World Tour, Sandro Moscoloni, Ryka studio flex mid, Rockport Allander, and Predator Ultimate Protein at www.lionfootweardirect.com.

Dave Clark