Deck the Halls

March 11, 2014

When I was ten, I started buying my own clothes, shoes, school supplies and candy. What ten year old doesn’t need wintergreen gum, refreshing breath mints, soothing chocolate bars, and bakery brownies to accompany my  stack of library books to wile the harsh world away, until the sweetness recedes. My mother brought most of the crew of nine to the local five and dime (Woolworth’s) to purchase our school supplies. My list included tennis shoes for gym, the type that didn’t have black soles. Woolworth’s carried deck shoes, those god-awful shapeless, stark white, medicinal foot protectors. Mom decided the tennis shoes at home would suffice. I would have to convince my gym teacher my old shoes pass the non-skid test. Fat chance.

We arrived home loaded with sacks of pencils, subject notebooks, erasers, and no gym shoes. I rode my bike back downtown to buy the damn deck tennis shoes, after scavenging my babysitting earnings for the $2.99 plus tax.

From that day forward, I bought my own apparel. I understood, through osmosis, since it was never discussed openly, that we were poor. If I wanted or needed anything, outside of the basics, I would have to fend for myself. To this day, I have difficulty acknowledging a pair of white deck shoes without a hideous smirk of grown-up disgust.