New Shoes

I think that new shoes have a fondness for me unlike anyone else.  I’m pretty sure that new shoes are an enjoyable experience for most people, but the novelty of new shoes comes with a happy memory for me.
I pulled a new pair of boots out of the box this morning, and as I imagine most people do, I went to put the shoe on and then I remembered about the tissue paper stuck in the toe.  As I pulled the paper out, I smiled as I always do.

My grandpa was what may have been called in his day a “lovable rapscallion,” as he was always playing some kind of practical joke or another. He would play checkers with me, and if I happened to be winning, he would point to a jar behind him and tell me if I guessed how many marbles were in it, he’s give me 5 bucks.  As I stared intently at the jar, he would take some checkers off my side to even out the game a little, which I didn’t always notice, and sometimes he would spin the board around completely and try to convince me that I was playing red the whole time.

Before one trip to visit my grandparents, my mom took me out to buy some new shoes.  I wasn’t in full growth spurt mode at the time, but I was definitely growing pretty quickly.  Well, we flew in to Pennsylvania, hung out with Grandma and Grandpa and went to bed.  When I woke up in the morning, I went to put my shoes on, and my toes were cramped and it hurt to wear them. They had fit fine the day before, I didn’t know why they didn’t fit now, I figured that my feet had grown a little overnight. I told my mom that my shoes didn’t fit anymore, and she was incredulous.  There was no way that my feet had grown overnight. We argued back and forth a little, and I insisted that I couldn’t wear them anymore and that I needed new shoes.  She was pretty angry about this, and had me take them off so she could inspect them.  When she looked inside my shoes, she realized that my Grandpa had stuffed tissue paper into the toes as a prank.

We came downstairs, and he had a huge grin on his face, and was probably chuckling during the entire argument.  We all laughed about it and went on with the trip, and after that, anytime I stayed there, I always checked my shoes for paper.

And now, 20 or so years later, everytime I pull the tissue paper out of the toes of a new pair of shoes, I smile to myself and think of my Grandpa.