When I was growing up, we put our shoes in the closet the last
day of school at the beginning of summer. We didn't put them
on again until school started again on Labor Day. We didn't
need any shoes and to wear them in the summer would just wear
them out that much sooner. We walked through mud, creeks,
chicken poop, and even some yucky stuff, but we didn't care.
Nothing feels better to a young boy than to feel the soft,
cool grass beneath his feet. It must be some chromosome thing.
The feel of our bare feet on the ground was like becoming
one with nature.
One day when I was about 8 or so, I was walking through the woods and accidently stepped on an old Phillips Milk Of Magnesia bottle someone had thrown away. What happened was, the bottle broke. I felt it breaking under my foot and tried to leap off of it. I wasn't fast enough. I felt it bite me. Bad. I looked down and blood was gushing. I then did what any normal 8 year old boy would do while staring at his blood. I panicked. I freaked out. I hollered and ran home.
Mamma laid me down on the sofa and inspected the crime scene
on the bottom of my foot. I had gashed my foot quite well. For
some strange reason I felt no pain other than a slight burning.
Maybe it's because it had cut the nerve. I don't know.
Mamma cleaned it up with Methiolate, Mecurachrome, soap, and mamma spit. Normally what county people did back then when you got a cut was cover it with mayonnaise. Mayonnaise had some sort of magical healing power, I think. She didn't do that this time. Maybe we were out of it, or she used it she wouldn't have enough to make potato salad. She then tore a pillow case into strips and wrapped it around my foot and tied it in a knot on top. It looked precious.
I would still go outside barefoot after that, and within an
hour that strip of cloth was dirty as a pig in mud. It didn't
slow me down one bit. She changed it every day but it still
got messed up with mud, dirt, and chicken poop when I went outside.
A couple of times over the next few weeks the wound would open
back up again and we'd have to start all over with a fresh bandage.
After I grew up and learned about diseases and bacteria and
stuff like that, I wonder how in the world I survived that
without some kind of infection. I did, though, and the only
thing that reminds me of it now is every once in awhile I
feel a slight twinge where it had cut the nerve.
When my doctor told me the other day that I couldn't ever
go barefoot again because of the issues of diabetes on my feet and how a tiny cut could develop into something severe, it kinda made me sad. As I was driving
home I thought about all the summers I walked around barefoot,
feeling the cool cushion of grass underneath my bare feet.
And feeling the cool water of the creek as I dipped my toes
into it on a hot day.
I'm gonna sit outside and watch the grass grow and remember when I ran through it barefoot. I wonder if just once I could take my shoes off and run. Just once.