Remembering Simple Joys – When There Were No Shoes

Reflections by Annie McBurrows

Our minds are the reservoirs that store the subconscious, present, and past events of our lives.  [pullquote-left] “I have heard it said that we get weak and wiser.” [/pullquote-left] There are simple sights that bring back memories of my life from long ago.  Memories that take me back to my childhood.  Whenever I see vast fields of cultivated farmland, that has been plowed and harrowed to perfection, my mind takes me back to  the joy of walking barefoot a mile to the field, with a jug of water in one hand and a bowl of breakfast in the other. 

When there were no shoes.

In those days, you only had one pair of shoes and when the soles of those were worn through you went barefoot until the next year.  [pullquote-left] “Daddy wore no shoes either when plowing the mule.” [/pullquote-left]  My father worked in the fields as a share cropper. He would see me coming as he plowed the two mules. The softness of the soil between my toes felt heavenly. Daddy would stop the mules and lean between the handle of the plow. I was always amazed at the sound of his hand as I poured water over them before he took his handkerchief out to dry them. He would unwrap the bowl filled with fried ham, eggs, biscuits, and cane syrup. I had eaten before I left the house, but he would always share with me. The simple joy of the late forties is my treasure stored in my mind when I see plowed grain.