Students of today luckier than many

School clothes and shoes are a big item at this time of year. Children can be heard declaring their wants in no uncertain terms. They want the shoes that are the in brand, sometimes costing more than a hundred dollars per pair or they throw a fit!

I look way back to hard times of the 1930s and remember we wore any shoes we could get. Shoes were "passed down." My brother's shoes were passed down to me and from me to my sister unless by then they were completely unwearable. We wore discards from wherever we could find them.

One such pair I recall was a pair of high fashioned shoes with long, pointed toes. They were an ugly, putrid yellow color. I hated those shoes with a passion, but I wore them anyway. I played kick the can with enthusiasm and kicked rocks and whatever else I could find in a useless attempt to destroy them and make them unwearable. They lasted out the entire school term.

Another time, someone had the bright idea to distribute old shoes that had been stored in the basement of the Weaverville Supply Store for half a century. My sister, Barry, received a pair of high topped shoes that buttoned almost to her knee.

I was a little luckier. At least mine laced and tied.

Many mornings Barry wept as she struggled with the button hook to fasten those many buttons.

When we wore the soles out, Daddy got out his shoe last, an iron stand with a shoe-shaped top to hold a shoe so it could be worked on. With that, he resoled the shoes with pieces cut from a stacker belt the dredge left behind when they dredged the river for gold. Many times, tacks came through the bottom and gouged our feet before we got them hammered down.

We almost never had new shoes. Yep, today's kids know not how lucky they are.