It’s a little known fact that galoshes originated in Holland.*
Interesting? No doubt. But for me, it’s more the question of “why?” which springs to mind. Why didn’t I know this? Why did this tiny little section of the Netherlands decide to create the utmost pinnacle of wet-weather gear? And why didn’t people in the Amazon Rainforest do it first? I may be tilting at windmills here, but I have some theories.
My initial guess is that one quarter of the Netherlands rests below sea level. I mean, that’s just asking for water to come knocking on your door, rise up and turn walking in your hand-crafted clogs into a downright squishy mess. With this view, you simply can’t live without the insurance of high-calf rubber protection.
However, it also could be that Amsterdam has 1,281 bridges. Yes, 1,281. So the odds are pretty good that you’re bound to fall off one of them at some point in your life. I can only guess that one particularly unlucky fella got fed up and invented galoshes so he could fall off completely carefree.
But then again, perhaps it was less about protection and more about pure style. After all, galoshes would perfectly compliment the over 200 Van Gogh paintings found throughout the local museums. I mean, take one look at the Kamik Heather galosh and you’ll be putting it on a pedestal.
But most telling of all is that the Netherlands is the world’s eighth-largest exporter. And since there were only so many tulips to go around, they had to create something new to ship out to the world. And I, for one, couldn’t be happier that they chose galoshes.
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