New Shoes

I Love Shoes!!

In the past couple of weeks I have been gearing up for this year's 2010 Honey Festival in my hometown of Jackson KY.  In addition to making tote bags, stickers, and a host of other various freebies for my "I Found Me" booth, I had almost forgotten the most important part, Shoes!! If you are like me, I find every excuse I can to purchase some new shoes. Thankfully Payless was having a "buy one, get one half off" sale.  My intent was to get just one pair of comfy shoes since I will being doing lots of walking around the festival. Yet how I could I miss out on a sale like that? My one pair turned into four pair of shoes.  =) Now I am stuck debating which pair to take on my trip back home?


Yet getting a pair of new shoes  was never easy to come by when I was growing up.  Getting a second pair would have been unheard of so I think I am making up for lost time! I always hated school shopping with my mom.  Not only did it mean that the summer was over but I had to be dragged to the thrift store or to Wal-Mart to get clothes.  Plus it really didn't matter what clothing or shoes I liked.  I was stuck with whatever my parents could afford and whatever my mom liked.  Of course there were arguments which I failed miserable at as she would say that when I got my own money, I could buy my own shoes. 

When my dreaded freshman year rolled around I had a few dollars saved up from selling eggs.  Like most early teens, I thought I knew it all! I was going to have a "say so" this year when we went shopping for clothes.  Wal-Mart had just opened up the year before in Jackson.  Everyone flocked to it like a fox in a hen house.  My mom and I went through the same routine just like ever year.  We bickered over the clothes she picked out and I had to try them on anyway.  I hate trying on clothes still to this day!  After coming out of the dressing room, my mom and total strangers would be conversing on whether the clothes fit right or not.  She'd make me turn around several times before I'd  have to do it all over again with another outfit.

My feet had grown quite a bit over the summer so it was hard to find shoes at Wal-Mart.  Somehow we got stuck going to a fancier store in Jackson like Rose Brothers or Dawhar's.  It was there when I first fell in love with shoes.

The year was 1984 and of course Michael Jackson, break dancing, and music videos were HOT!  My cousin Alonzo had a break dancing book and he taught me a few moves.  Naturally, a dancer at heart, I fell in love with break dancing---moon walking, popping and locking and whatever other freaky moves we learned.  Yet in all the videos, the break dancers seem to have "special shoes" that made them look like they were floating.  THOSE shoes were on Sale at the store we were at and I HAD HAD HAD to HAVE them, no matter what!! Unfortunately, the shoes only came in RED.  They had no other colors or styles.  It didn't matter to me! They were break dancing shoes!  I thought they were the most awesome, coolest shoes ever invented!

Unfortunately, even being on sale they were too expensive for my mom's taste. I begged and pleaded with her. I even gave her my egg money, which in all honesty, was probably just about $5.  The shoes were a lot more than that! She reminded me that these were the only pair of shoes I could get for the entire year.  I tuned out everything she said and thought she was mean and dumb for not wanting me to get the shoes.  Unfortunately, I got them--bright Red Cloth shoes.  Cloth shoes.  Not ideal for walking in and out of a holler for a whole year in mud, rain, snow, and ice not to mention that the soles were pretty thin as well.  They also didn't go very well with my school clothes.  I had to wear the RED shoes with Every outfit to school.

Those shoes lasted about a month or two before holes were torn into them from my walking and the rough conditions.  It didn't matter.  They were my break dancing shoes and MJ would be so proud. My pride would not let me complain much either. Thankfully my Grandma felt some sympathy for me and got me some tennis shoes from the Dollar Store later that year .

What's the moral of this story? Never buy red shoes? LOL  Nah...!  Sometimes God gives us what we want even if its not good for us.  Sometimes, like my mom, He's says "Ok...but you will have to live with the consequences."  

Choose carefully the life you want and the things you want, 

as you most often don't get a second chance!