Shoe Fetish

Janet's post about trying to get her city to pick up some rubbish has me reminiscing about a similar event from my childhood.

My mother hated a sweet gum tree in our front yard. (She eventually would come to hate and murder every tree in our yard! But the sweet gum was the first.) She was forever stepping on the spiny balls it dropped in the yard and was sick of the mess.

She petitioned the city to remove it as it had come up through the sidewalk but it was mostly on our land. The city refused because it was a living, healthy tree.

My mom's reply: "I can fix that!"

So she started a small fire at the base of the tree. It was quickly going out and she ran into the house to get more fuel and left me in charge of the dwindling flames. (I was five or six...what could I do if it got out of control???)

Within seconds she was calling for me to come inside and grab some old shoes to throw on the fire. I ran into the house through the living room (don't know why we call it that... we never lived in there!) and around the corner to her bedroom. She handed me five pair of shoes - more than I could hold. I ran to the fire with a few pair and back for the rest... only there were extra shoes in her pile and she was digging in her closet for more!

Back and forth I ran, to the fire with shoes and into the house to get more. And I kept count with each trip. I was amazed that every time I ran back to that bedroom, my mother's pile of shoes had grown. I didn't think I would ever get them on the now blazing fire. (I do think Mom put some gasoline on it as some point because shoes don't really burn all that well.)

When she was finally done, seventy two pair of shoes had been sacrificed on my mother's altar of "getting-the-city-to-do-the-right-thing." SEVENTY TWO! And... it didn't even make a dent in her shoe collection!

The tree died and the city cut it down. But to this day, it always amazes me that my mother will comment on both my sister and I having "too many" shoes! Both of our reply is always the same:

"Too many! Just how many would that be?"

She seems stunned by our reply and grumbles a bit.

"Mother, I certainly don't own 72 pair of shoes I can burn; I don't even have 72 pair shoes period! Until I have that many, I don't have too many."

This is one of the few times my mother will have nothing else to say.

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