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MEMPHIS, TN. - This week was slow...very slow. I only got one e-mail from any of you with something for the site. There were no guesses on the Mystery Photo, no Branson memories, and not much else except for the note from Aaron saying that he survived the hurricane. Perhaps this week will be better.Please include your class year with your e-mails.
I had a busy Saturday, starting with a golf tournament in the morning sponsored by our church. Following that, I rushed home and Sue and I hurried down to the Liberty Bowl to catch the second half of the Memphis – Arkansas State football game. Since the Mid-South Fair is going on at the same place where the ballgame was being played, we had to park and walk about a half mile to get there. Following the game, we could use our ball ticket stub for free admission to the fair – so we did. We walked all over the grounds looking at the exhibits and the attractions.I thought I might find something there to write about this week, but we’ve already talked about the Madison County Fair so much that there was not much new to say about it. After walking back to the car and coming home to watch the Alabama – Georgia game on TV, I was just plain ready to sit down and relax.That was when I went to my closet to find my comfortable lounge pants and shirt. My feet were so sore (perhaps the beginning signs of plantar fasciitis) I wanted something comfortable for them. Therefore, I got out my pair of sheepskin-lined moccasins. There’s just something comfortable about moccasin house shoes. They are defined in the dictionary as a heelless shoe made entirely of soft leather, as deerskin, with the sole brought up and attached to a piece of u-shaped leather on top of the foot, worn originally by the American Indians.I started thinking about the reasons I have always liked them so much. I decided that it goes back to my Boy Scout days, and the fun and satisfaction gained from sitting around at Camp Westmoreland and sewing together my first pair of moccasins from a Boy Scout Moccasin kit. It was done as an Indian lore project, but that was just the simple reason to sell them. The truth is, they were fun to make.I remember the kit was expensive then – probably taking over half the money I had taken to camp, but when they were finished, I proudly put them on and wore them to show them off. I don’t know how long they lasted, but I do know they were patched together several times and it was probably when I went off to college and someone gave me a pair of good leather house shoes as a graduation present that they were thrown out. About 15 years ago I got another pair – two pair actually. One has a hard sole that I can wear outside to get the paper, and the other one is soft soled and are the warm, comfy ones that give me comfort in the winter cold.Even though I don’t need another pair, I had to go online to see if they still sell these kits of my youthful days. I was surprised to find that they not only still sell them, but that they are really not that expensive – relative to what they cost back in the Sixties. Though I am not going to buy a kit right now, I won’t swear that I won’t buy one some day in the future. It might be one of the things I do in my retirement…sit around and sew myself a new pair of moccasins. Sounds honorable to me.Hurricane Ike
