SHOES

"Mom, there's a knife in one of them." Sure enough, the calf-length winter shoes had an outside pocket sown on one leg and in that pocket was a shiny knife. Wow!

During the Great Depression years, shoes had to last a long, long time as a major item in the family budget. Broken laces? No problem, Mom sewed them together. Hole in the sole? No problem, Dad glued a 25 cent rubber replacement. So, dear reader, you can see why new shoes WITH A POCKET KNIFE were a big deal to me.

Speaking of big deals, did you read a recent Washington Post National Weekly article about President Lincoln's boots? On the bicentennial of his birth, the examiner, M. A Caranacchi, said, "No other garment that we wear retains such an imprint of the person who wore it."

Another recent article quoted a woman who had just received a $600 bonus and said, "I'm going to spend it all on shoes!!" What is it that drives people (women?) to excess when it comes to shoes? The late president of the Philippines, Imelda Marcus, had SEVERAL THOUSAND PAIRS OF SHOES and bragged about it, while the majority of her people were going shoeless.

Want shoes to be a big deal in your life? Let your next shoe purchase be for a person in need of same.

More, later.