THESE OLD SHOES

As a poor youngster growing up in the South, one thing I never had to worry about was shoes. From March until late September, shoes simply did not exist. For most of us the very thought of having to wear shoes would often evoke a loud chorus of 'Aw-Shucks! Do we really have to?'

There's something about the feeling of that primordial muck squirting through your toes that simply makes you feel alive. To feel the gritty sand pushing against every inch of your sole and the rough gravel digging into your leathery skin was akin to perfect bliss.

Not only that, the childish pride I took in being able to run on sharp gravel often gave me a sense of supreme power. I knew that the grown-ups, with their amazingly tender feet, could never equal my endurance, fortitude or tenacity. (Grown-up words I later learned.)

Another reason that going without shoes was so wonderful, was that social standing never came into play because everyone was barefoot. We all knew who the rich kids were and the spoiled brats, but when it came to lowering our blistered dogs into that soothing muck of a cold creek bed, we were all equal in the eyes of the world and to each other.

Unfortunately, all this wonderful bliss would evaporate when the winter season inexorably rolled around. Naturally we had to wear shoes in school; however, until the cold set in we'd take them off the instant we walked out the school door.

The best part was the certainty that no one really knew if the dog-eared shoes we had on were our 'comfortable' summer left-overs and we were saving our 'new store bought' shoes for winter.

All that changed though when bitter winter weather decreed that, 'thou shalt wear shoes,' or else.
We weren't too poor to have shoes, but we were poor enough that the new shoes we did get had to last quite a spell. To top it off, being the Mississippi mud rat that I was, within a few weeks - perhaps days - of getting my brand new shoes, they would look as if they had been through some very serious combat.

There was no mud hole too deep, no cliff too steep, no tree too tall, and no swamp too mucky for my 'new shoes' to traverse. Those shoes were made for walking, and until they were properly broken in, they simply did not fit in with mycharacter. The fact that those brand new shoes would have to last me a year or possibly two never even crossed my mind.

Therefore, when old man winter came knocking, I'd drag out my old/new shoes that hadn't seen my feet since Easter, and look at them with dismay and an ominous sense of foreboding. Because, I knew for a genuine fact that the well to do kids were going to tease me about being, 'poor white trash.'

The awful truth was, there was nothing I could do about it. I was poor, and I was white, but I sure wasn't trash. You might say I trashed a few of those rich kids or got trashed by some of the bigger ones I tore into, but my pride wouldn't stand for being ridiculed or badgered.

The odd thing about it was that during the summer no one could tell the rich kids from the poor kids and we all acted as if wealth didn't matter. For a fact, the rich kids often came up with the loot for moon pies and root beer that they shared with gusto.

I guess it's the environment and age that changes people, because the older we get the more susceptible to status and image we seem to become.

Later on in life I learned that it's not the shoes you wear or fill, it's the footprints that you leave behind that truly count.