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The Real History of TIDDIES - as told by Kevin Bruce Brown - May 2005
Or The Making of a PIRATE

TIDDIES Sandals were born in 1973 in my father's boat barn in Pasadena Texas. My brother Dwight and I made the soft shoes to stand on while helping our father build the Nirvana, a 50 foot long catamaran sailboat that took us 9 years to build. Our father was a doctor, and we had taken some soft foam and strapped it to our feet with stethoscope tubing from our Dad's office, and TIDDIES were suddenly something people were lining up for us to make for them.

TIDDIES Sandals became extremely popular in the 70's and Dwight and I worked hard to build the business. We successfully marketed and sold TIDDIES all over the world.

Since we were only teenagers when TIDDIES began, by 1980, although very successful, we were wondering what else was out in the world. We were both divorced, and our ex wives wanted to buy TIDIES from us, so we sold the business to them and set out to expand our knowledge of the world ( and do a little surfing).

My ex wife was named Jo Ellen, and sadly she died from cancer in 1982, which left my brother's ex, Margo, in charge of the TIDDIES sandal business. Jo Ellen was the accounting division of the business, and the one who made sure the bills were paid and the suppliers happy. Margo however, was more inclined to go shopping at Neiman's or hop over to Hawaii than to pay bills or make sandals.

It was due to neglect on Margo Hoague's part, that TIDDIES Sandals began to fail in the late 1980's and by the early 90' s no one could find a new pair of TIDDIES. Her factory buildings were demolished by the City of Pasadena in 2002, due to them being a hazard, as they had become a place for vagrants to stay and drug dealers to meet. It was a sad day when the TIDDIES complex was destroyed, and the very place where people had once lined up to have sandals made in the 70's and 80's in Pasadena Texas was gone forever.

In 1988, due to demand for soft foam sandals, and lack of availability of TIDDIES sandals, my brother and I, along with another partner, started to make UMAN sandals, which were the original TIDDIE design modified to improve the flaws we had seen in TIDDIES through years of hands on experience, making, selling and wearing them ourselves.

Dwight and I bought our partner out in 1995 after we found he was stealing from the company. In 1996, I bought Dwight's share of UMAN sandals and became the sole proprietor of that sandal making business.

Not a day went by that I wasn't asked about TIDDIES. What happened to TIDDIES Sandals?? They were no where to be found.

In 1999, while making UMAN sandals, I was advised by an attorney, that since TIDDIES had disappeared from the market, and it had been at least 3 years since anyone had been able to purchase a pair of TIDDIES sandals, I should start the company back up , based on Trademark abandonment. You see, if a trademark is not used for 3 years, it is considered abandoned, and anyone can pick it up and claim it for their own.

I worked to start TIDDIES sandals back up from scratch, using the improved strap system Dwight and I developed for UMAN sandals, and the artwork I had originally drawn when we had started TIDDIES.

TIDDIES began to grow, and I worked with my family to make and sell product, doing a great deal of the work myself.

In 1999, Margo Hoague, after realizing that I had successfully resurrected the dead trademark of TIDDIES, and begun to make a little money, decided to announce that she had not been out of business, and sued me for trademark infringement in the fall of 2002 (3 years after I had begun to make TIDDIES Sandals again!). Although it was common knowledge to everyone I spoke to that Margo had been out of business for many years, I found that she was willing to lie and present false testimony and false invoices in court to get what she wanted, which was obviously my hard earned money. It was unfortunate and sad that the judge was swayed by her lies and found in her favor. Thus the trademark was given to Margo, although she had no factory, product, website, or even a phone listing for TIDDIES or any other product.

This is the simple but true version of why I am now a PIRATE SANDAL MAKER.
I continue to hand make soft foam sandals, true to the original TIDDIES sandal theme, here in Texas, along with my family who have become Pirates too.

I am proud to be a Pirate, and feel that people who are looking for comfortable, squishy, soft foam sandals, will quickly realize that PIRATE SANDALS are the ones for them. I am also proud to be able to offer a product that is NOT IMPORTED FROM OVERSEAS. You see, when you are standing on a pair of Pirates, they can be TIDDIES or whatever you want them to be, because YOUR FEET CAN"T READ !!!

So PIRATES HO !! I hope you will come aboard and see what wonderful products we have to offer, always being true to our TIDDIES roots of making quality sandals and the best can coolers in the world right here in the great state of TEXAS. When you purchase Pirate products, you are helping to support me, THE TIDDIEMAN, my family, and the whole PIRATE CREW (previously know as the whole TIDDIE crew).

Thank you for your support.