During a recent spring snowstorm, I was walking along the main street in Prague, Czech Republic where I was spending 5 days trying to get in touch with my grandparent''s cultural aura.  The weather was brisk and the snowflakes were the size of feathers.

Window shopping as I walked along the street, I spotted a pink neon sign, "Bata Shoes".  Growing up, I had heard about Bata Shoes, particularly when my Uncle Val made one of his rare trips to the United States.  However, it had never really registered that "Bata Shoes" meant real shoes.

My Uncle Val spent most of the early part of his career in Pakistan and Indonesia where he was one of the managers of the third world shoe factories of this Czech company.  I remembered this as I looked at the "made in" labels of all the shoes displayed in the store.

Valerian Samek was an old world gentleman.  He was not much taller than 5''6" and had the blackest hair that I had ever seen.  Even in his 80s, his hair was black as shiny coal.  There was not a strand of grey to be seen.  On his visits, he almost always dressed in suits and was unfailingly polite.  His first wife, Slavka, was petite and had the blondest hair that I had ever seen.  Yet they were both born in Czechoslovakia.

It was quite common for him to talk about being an executive -- quite a contrast from his family''s farming origins in Stara Tura.  He traveled and entertained extensively.  When visiting him in Australia, I recognized the furniture and art that had alway been present in his holiday postcards.

So 90 years after he was born, I was poking around in a Bata Shoe store in Prague -- family lore made real.  What else could I do -- I bought a pair of Bata Shoes in the shiniest brown, irridescent leather that I had ever seen.  Every time I put on my Bata shoes, I think of my uncle and wish I had been able to spend more time with him.