Blue Butter

Call me crazy, but I’m feeling especially “Christmas-y” today.  I’m terribly sentimental and still have love letters from my high school sweetheart.  Granted, they’re at my parents home, much to Mom’s displeasure since my sentimental nature affects her life in that she can’t clean out that one closet due to any mention of it sends me into an automatic, “Why can’t you just leave that closet alone?  You know how much my stuff means to me!”  Guilt buys me time. Because of my unexplainable sentimental nature (God only knows where that came from - because my mom and sister have bizarre looks reserved for any conversation regarding my need to keep everything), I have all of my pictures organized beautifully in an elaborate electronic library.  Not only that, but I have them backed up on two memory sticks, strategically placed in areas that I can get to quickly if, say, the house burns down or a hurricane comes ashore that I wasn’t aware of (fat chance of that!). 

Like I said, I have the Christmas bug and have been plundering through old pictures of my favorite “Santa” gifts.  I came across my all-time favorite shoes from 1976.  Black patent leather with these clunky heals.  Not to be confused with my “Olivia Newton John ‘Grease’ shoes”, these are closed-toe beauties that I only wish I still had, since my foot hasn’t grown since I was a kid.  I’d definitely be stylin’ if I had them today.  I remember begging Mom to buy those shoes for me.  I think we were in either TG&Y or Gibson Brothers.  Y’all remember those stores?  I do.  I can even remember passing by those stores, asking Mom to stop, her telling me no because she had no cash on her only to have me offer a solution of, “Well, just write a check.”  That usually evoked her mumbling something along the lines of, “oh, you poor naïve child.”  Anyway, I begged for those shoes from Halloween up until Christmas Eve.  I figured I simply wasn’t getting them.  I was never told to wait for Santa or that it was too close to Christmas to buy anything unnecessary, instead, I was always told, “No, mam. You’ll kill yourself in those things! Absolutely not and I don’t want to hear another word about it!”  Here’s where it gets good: I watched those shoes, week after week, slowly dwindle down in the available numbers.  I just knew my size wouldn’t be there should I manage to convince someone to buy them for me, whether it was my Maw Maw Nellie, Mom or Dad.  So, I concocted this plan to hide the last pair of size sixes.  I confessed to Santa in hopes he’d swoop in, grab them and ensure they landed under our Christmas tree.  Well, it worked because sure enough, those shoes were under the tree on Christmas morning.  This picture still causes us to laugh because I was such a clumsy child - hell, I’m a clumsy adult!  My guess is even if I did still have them, I’d be no more graceful now than I was then.