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Golf shoes: Learning to let go

They say moving is one of the three most stressful things in life (the other two being marriage and death), and I'm inclined to agree. I just went through this process while working and trying to take care of two kids (one of whom is practically a newborn), and the anxiety level was off the charts. From surprise termite swarms to broken furniture, we faced unpredictable setbacks at every turn. But throughout the whole ordeal, nothing brought me more stress than having to cut my golf-shoe collection in half.

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I didn't end up staging a ceremonious golf-shoe bonfire the way I really wanted to (something in the local fire code put the kibosh on that). It would have been a nice way to give each shoe a proper send-off, reliving memories of faraway shoots in Scotland and Australia (the purple-flowered Adidas pair and the all-white FootJoys), never-ending Hot List testing (the saddle Callaways) and honeymoon rounds (the shiny black Nikes) as they literally went up in smoke. But cleaning them off and stuffing them in garbage bags for charity still turned into a sentimental journey. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out where the grass stuck in the cleats on some of the shoes came from. And when I dropped off the garbage bags at Goodwill, I made sure the man who collected them knew their valuable contents. He asked if I wanted a receipt, but I told him no. There's no way I could have put a price on all those memories.

I'm not at four pairs yet, but I'm down to 10. I eventually kept those shiny black Nikes from 2001, even though they leak and have stripped spike receptacles. They still look good in videos.

--Stina Sternberg*(Photo courtesy of finegardening.com)*