Feet

  When you're a kid, you do some things that one would think twice before doing as an adult.  Case in point--going barefoot without knowing what was underneath your feet.  Even though I didn't get stung, I have been very close in the ocean to jellyfish.  I have stepped on bees before and gotten stung.  I am very allergic to bee stings.  My Uncle Jim was so allergic that two stings would have killed him.  I did get stung on my hand once which swelled up like a catcher's mitt.  I had to put my swollen hand in ice while watching TV.  That wasn't fun.

 But, back to the feet.  My first encounter was with broken glass in the nearby creek.  I was wading through the knee-deep water one Saturday and felt some pain.  I jumped up and landed on more broken glass.  Apparently, someone had thrown a bottle from a car which hit a rock and broke.  I got the joy of stepping on it.  It cut my right foot in several places.  Blood was all in the water.  It is a good thing there were no sharks in this creek.  I stumbled out of the water and back onto dry land to get tennis shoes.  I struggled to put them on and hobbled back home.  My mother told me of the dangers of it getting infected, so I got stung again with the iodine.  I have a few scars on the bottom of my foot from the glass.  Word to the wise--don't throw glass into a creek.  Some kid might get cut up.

 A year later, I was invited over to my friend Beth's house.  She had a Slip and Slide set up in her backyard, and several of the neighborhood kids went over there.  We were going to have fun.  I watched the other kids slide, some on their backs and some on their fronts.  It looked like the ones on their fronts would slide farther than the ones on their backs.  I opted for the front.  Just off to the side of the wet plastic was a rock in the ground.  I hit the rock with the top of my foot but didn't think much about it.  I went again and hit the same rock.  This time, it tore a gash on the top side of my right foot.  I scream in pain.  Beth called her mother to come out and tend to me.  Iodine seemed to be the choice once again.  She took me home.  My mother impressed on me the need to wear shoes.  I still have a scar on the top of my foot.  Every time I look at it, I think of Beth who has passed away.  A reminder of friendship.