In My Youth and Long Ago

Old shoes that flap

I must have been about 11 or 12 when my father bought me my last pair of shoes. These were not the fashionable type; in fact they were the so-called high-top style footwear sometimes referred to as hillbilly or farmer shoes. They were durable enough, and were made for boys with the single purpose of lasting longer then the regular kind - which usually wore out or were outgrown within a few months. I wore them everywhere, including long hikes, through wild patches of brush, cactus and thickets, over rugged rocks and cobbles, and while wading knee-deep in muddy swamps and streams. As for leather footwear, they certainly lasted a long time, although I was outgrowing them at a rapid clip. 

The soles on my right shoe were so worn out that the stitching came apart and the shoe would go flap, flap as I walked. My father was too frugal and poor and so couldn't afford to get me another pair of boots. By a stroke of genius, he finally figured out how to fix them. Following one of my constant nags, he took all of thirty seconds to wrap some duct tape around the toe to keep it from flapping and making noise. It worked somewhat, but it didn't keep out any water, and it looked as ugly as a nose wart.

I had a paper route then, delivering the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel in the evenings. In the fall, while nearly finishing my route, I remember driving down a long, gravelly lane that was full of pot holes. It was already dark, and it was all I could do to avoid the bumps in the road. Suddenly some critter ran out in front of me and I plowed into the side of the beast with my front wheel. I couldn't tell what it was at first and together we just tumbled and rolled into a ball as newspapers scattered all over the road. It was some kind of dark animal about the size of a house cat, and it ran off before I got a good look at it. 

For a brief moment I caught the whiff of skunk odor, so I immediately figured that’s what it was, not realizing I had a taken a full blast of spray at point-blank-range. This is not good, and apparently was delivered with such force and volume as to render my sense of smell instantly useless. Anyway, I gathered up my papers and stuffed them into the canvas bag that was draped over the bike’s handlebars.

I continued on and finished the route in about thirty minutes or so. When I pulled into the yard, my mother was waiting for me at the door. Well, she said she had received a number of phone calls in the past half hour from my customers who were complaining about the awful skunk odor all over their evening news. After three of these calls, she put two-and-two together and she figured out what happened. In fact she had a pile of clean clothes lying on the porch and a pan of hot soapy water with a long-handled brush sticking out of it.

With her arms folded in front of her, she looked me over from top to bottom. “Youcan’t come in the house like that.” she said.. “So let’s get those clothes off first.” We stuffed my old cloths in a large paper bag and my mom said that we would have to bury them later. Geeze, I couldn't smell a thing. Then she scrubbed me from head to toe with soapy water. To my surprise she also had the garden hose hooked up and ready and she sprayed me down with cold water, which resulted in a sudden flight of panic across the yard.

She finally rubbed me down with apple cider vinegar, which she said she heard about as a remedy from one of the neighbor ladies. Even though my nose still wasn't working, she said I still smelled like skunk despite all the scrubbing, the applications of soap and the pickling in cider. I put on clean clothes, but my old pair of clod-hoppers had to stay outside on the porch.

Well, well. By morning everyone was complaining about the skunk odor except me. I had to walk to school by myself with a fresh set of clothes on and some of my dad’s aftershave rubbed into my hair and scalp. My old boots were waiting for me on the porch, so I had put them on without a thought before I took off for school.

Just for the record, I should be able to claim innocence for any classroom disruptions which followed since I still couldn't muster up a bit of odor about me. But the teacher soon began to waive her arms in protest and despair right after the doors closed as our lessons started for the day.

“Alright, whoever you are, I’ll find you, you know that, right? So you might as well stand up and come forward at once you skunky-smellin' scoundrel,” she said, “and let’s put you outside immediately before I get a stick.”  It is an embarrassing thing for a young boy to do – it’s like coming forward 

to face a firing squad, not to mention the ultimate humiliation from the verbal jabs from your friends and classmates.

So it was that day when I had to walk home alone with instructions not to return unless all remnants of that ol’ smelly critter had left my person. All in all for me it turned out to be a stroke of luck. In the end, you see, we determined that it was those worn-out pair of farmer shoes that were the most offensive, and therefore had to join my clothes in the paper bag and then buried deep in the ground as well.

No, my father understood right away that I needed something to cover those big, smelly feet, but he couldn't afford to pay for a new pair of shoes. A ten dollar bill probably would have done it, but in truth, it was a pair of fancy cowboy boots that I really wanted in the worst way, a pair of black-leather western-style boots I had set my eyes on at the local western-wear outfitters for several months. So yep, I got ‘em alright. It was a big sacrifice; however, because I had to use the money I saved up from the paper route. It didn’t matter, though, on account of I felt a lot better. And I stood a little taller too because of the thick heels. The main thing was my improved sense of pride since I no longer smelled to high-heaven or walked around makin’ that flappin’ sound.