If the Shoe fits...

Once when I was in high school, living in California, I convinced my dad to buy me a pair of brown wingtip shoes. The shoes were a ridiculous purchase since I didn't have any dress clothes, but I'm pretty sure someone told me that the really cool guys wore wing tips, so I coveted them. They also cost $22 and believe me when I say that the Sneeds did not normally wear $22 shoes. My dad's idea of good footwear was black military oxfords that could be purchased at the military clothing supply for $5. Anything more expensive cut into the beer money, which made it an unacceptable frivolity. You may recall from an earlier lesson that, using the offical Sneed currency converter, a=4b where a equals the number of beers and b equals the total dollars available. So in this case a=4*22 or 88 beers. This is serious dough. My mom, God bless her, was always on the lookout for good hand-me-down shoes. In fact, when I was going into the 8th grade, she scored a pair of brand new size 8, black loafers from one of the neighbors. They were the best shoes that I had ever seen. I think the neighbor's teenage son had purchased them and then wouldn't wear them. I tried them on and I told Mom that they were too tight. She assured me that they would stretch out. My mother always believed whatever was wrong would magically clear up if you gave it enough time. I wore the shoes to the first day of 8th-grade, and the second day and by the third day, I could barely walk. About day four I dug out the black military oxfords, much to the relief of my aching feet. When my mom noticed and asked me what was wrong, I told her that the shoes were too small. She assured me that I wore a size 8 and there was no reason that they would be too small. What is a guy to believe, his mom or his lying feet? Miraculously she relented and took me to the store on Saturday, where the shoe clerk measured my feet and pronounced them a size ten and a half. No wonder they hurt so much. I got a pair of white canvas slip-ons that cost around 3 bucks and was glad to have them, although my dad still insisted that the black military jobs were fine. Anyway, back to the wingtips. I wore them everywhere for the first few days I had them. I even wore them to school with my jeans. these were the greatest shoes I had ever owned, by far. One afternoon, I was hanging out in a park near home with a bunch of kids and someone got the bright idea to take this older kid's 1957 Chevrolet convertible and fill it with watermelons from a farm not too far away. Since I was always trying hard to be one of the cool guys, I jumped right in. As soon as it was dark, we took off for the melons and filled the backseat to overflowing. We returned to the park and began eating and throwing watermelon all over the place. What we didn't know was that the farmer had seen us in the act and had called the sheriff. The park was soon surrounded by sheriff's cars. They illuminated the area we were in with their car lights, flash lights and spot lights mounted on the cars. Someone on a bullhorn ordered us to stay where we were. Needless to say, we scattered like rats. My friend Bob and I ran into a vineyard, where we laid down in the dark hoping to escape detection. After a bit, the cops came into our field looking for suspects. We ran in the opposite direction as fast as we could. Fortunately, becasue a vineyard is planted in long rows of plants on wooden frames, they couldn't get to us from the adjoining rows. We ran and ran, eventually getting away across a highway. Unfortunately, in the melee, I cut a slice in the side of one of my new shoes. The old man made me wear them like that. I tried to fix the tear with some craft glue, but it looked worse after than before. Fortunately, my dad never stuck to stuff and after a couple of weeks he forgot about the shoes. I eventually threw them away, having worn them only a handful of times. What a waste. This is illustrative of why poor people remain poor. Only a poor kid would wear his new dress shoes to a watermelon fight. Merle. Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgemental and cranky Tag: Daily Life Personal Finance Humor