Wednesday, June 12, 2013

A birthday

I see I failed to mark Carl's birthday in February:


Shoeless

Summer vacation begins for my children next week, which prompted this conversation.

Carl: You know how you knew it was summer when I was a kid? Shoes. You took them off when school ended, and you didn't put them on again, except to go into town or to Sunday school. We ran around barefoot all summer.

Ellen: Ugh. I bet you all had worms.

Carl: Probably had all sorts of stuff. But that's how it was, all summer long.

Ellen: I suppose there weren't any cheap shoe stores back then.

Carl: Right, the only shoe store was Hofheimer's, downtown. And shoes were expensive. So in the summer... *makes expansive gesture and quotes John Greenleaf Whittier wryly* "Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan."