Red Wings

When I was about to start 4th grade, Mom bought me a pair of Red Wing cordovan lace-up shoes—they were beautiful. And sturdy. And red. Not a little kid color of red—these were a magnificent, dark, grown-up red. No clown-red, or sunburn red, or color-the soles-with-red-ink kind of red. They were divine. They were CORDOVAN red.

We took the bus downtown and walked from the corner to a storefront with only shoes in the window. There were red wings on the packages, and on the big white sign suspended on the front of the store. Every shoe in the store was a Red Wing. Magnificent Red Wings. And every one cost about a hundred thousand dollars.

They measured, and I walked, and I twirled, and I said, “Really, Mom, they fit perfect!” And we bought shoe polish. My own tin of Cordovan and a special cloth. I loved them—my only pair of shoes—my Cordovan shoes.

The day before school started, my shoes and I walked the few blocks to Sugarhouse Park. We ran along the creek bank throwing leaves into the twirl of the current and watched them twist downstream to where the creek meets the pond. My shoes and I ran to keep up. We slipped… and went under… and finally caught a fistful of bank grass. By the time I got us out, one of the three of us was gone. I was frantic. We limped downstream, sloshing through the eddies, trying to find the other. I was positive Mom didn’t have another hundred thousand dollars.

We searched until dark. I remember giving up.

            The rest of the story as requested by a reader…

Not only did Mom not have another hundred thousand dollars, she made $2.11 an hour. We had half of a car because it ran half of the time and we ate pancakes for every meal as the end of the month rolled on to us. But she was gracious and empathic as I sobbed snot through telling her the story. I cried myself to sleep. And I know now that she must have too.

I ended up with fancy slip on shoes that had three chains with a relaxed drape across the top where shoelaces would have been. As I looked through my choices, I thought I’d choose something completely different than the Red Wings. The loss was just too painful to be reminded of them every time I took a step forward. Maybe it was the Red Wings that was the tipping point for Mom, I don’t remember, but the timing would have been the same week. She sought help and her community generously gave. We shopped at the church store for underwear, pants and shoes, and we ate meat again.

The first week of school I wore the shoes with chains. I had pretty feet and the one-inch high plastic black heels clicked on the linoleum tiles in the Girls bathroom. But the pretty shoes failed me in the 100 meter run. At Gymnasium period, the entire 4th Grade lined up on the playground to test for the President’s Fitness award. At the whistle, I leapt, and one shoe stayed in place. Retrieve, then toes curled, I shuffled across the playground toward the stopwatch and my teacher. Last place smelled bad, but it blinded me through tears as my teacher said, “You need to wear different shoes.”

Eventually, I outgrew the need of walking shoes and Mom outgrew our circumstances. She is now the President of the Board of Directors for JCU and I ended up in a wheelchair.

Red Wings, chained shoes, debt, and indebtedness taught me to walk in others’ shoes before judging the limp.