We lived on a stone beach in upstate New York, where layers of shale, rounded by the wave action of many thousands of years, produced perfect skipping stones. Every spring, the first step into the freezing water, with smooth, forgiving rock layers shifting under your weight, felt like real freedom. All summer long, my brothers and I played frisbee and football barefoot in the waves, and only occasionally ran into sharp pieces of the old common dock. Locals told how a barge sank back in the 30’s, during a sudden violent storm, but not before it crashed into the then-new concrete dock repeatedly. While the barge broke up and sank, the dock stood, riddled with cracks. Over the years, after each winter thaw, new pieces of concrete would slough away under the water, with the shore community helpless to prevent its slow-motion demise. This was not the only summer hazard we encountered.
The yard at the lake looked plush, green, and inviting. Although a nettle or hornet or pricker bush could always be hiding in your path. Even that risk did not stop us from going barefoot. We went without shoes, walking along the road, too, its cracked edges filled with stones and broken glass. Littering was rampant in our area at that time, mostly bottle caps and detachable aluminum pull tabs discarded by passing drivers without a second thought. As a result, even our “hardened” summer souls needed tending now and then by Mom’s tweezers and stinging Merthiolate.
In August every year, the family spent a day together in Watertown back-to-school shopping. If we had a list of supplies, those could be found at one of the new box stores springing up on the edge of town. Shoes held a higher status, though. We kids tumbled through the tall racks in “real” stores downtown, Penney’s or Sears, pulling our chosen shoes from displays for clerks who disappeared to find the sizes somewhere way out back. Then there were always dodgy “try on” socks, that looked like ladies’ stockings, required so that our summer feet didn’t get the store’s new shoes dirty. Next, in the days before sneakers became an acceptable choice for any occasion, there was that bone-breaking ache of forcing your foot into an unforgiving cast. A compromise would have to be reached with our parents between cost, style, and comfort, before the clerk could tie my shoebox with white string, ready to carry home.
Over the next couple weeks, I would wear the new shoes around, admiring them while trying to get used to the weird feeling of confined digits or raised heels. Some years, my choices, based on fashion over fit, were deeply regretted. But it was comforting to know that when I decided it was time, the new shoes could go back in their box.
At least for a few more days.
Penny Nolte creates gentle narratives of family and place. After a decades-long pause from storytelling, her newest work appears or is upcoming in Four Tulips, Memoir Monday, Paddler Press, Hoot, and The Green Silk Journal, among others. Originally from upstate New York, with a fortifying decade in Colorado, Penny now calls the Green Mountains of Vermont home.
The Orange Rose 