Open Writing

It is sometimes strange what stirs the silent forest of memory whose canopy is so dense that it admits but little light. Today the bumbershoot of my personal weald parted enough to let a sprig of remembrance from times past fly into the brilliance of a perception that oftimes is overshadowed by the murkiness laid over it by Annie Domino. And it was brought about by a tree!

As I was removing the tree from my shoe it reminded me of the primitive method used in childhood to do to tight fitting shoes what I was doing to my Dog Park shoes. It was like being struck by a bolt of lightning only not as dramatic.

Having said that, I must confess that anything that opens the flood gate holding back memories of former times is relatively dramatic, although this was more like a twelve inch sluice gate rising than the bursting of a dam.

A few days ago, I found blood on the side of the great toes on my left-hand foot. There was a flesh tear that I could not remember getting, and a handsome flow of the dark red stuff.

After the flow was staunched, the wound cleaned, and an inadequate Elastoplast patch applied the inquiry into how I came by the injury was opened. It was closed soon afterwards because there were no clues, no mystery man, no strange ravenous black dog, no signs of alien spacecraft in the garden, and no one eager to confess to the mischief and be shriven. An open verdict was returned, and life returned to normal.

The next morning as I slipped my left foot, sockless, into the appropriate shoe, I felt a pain on said toe at the exact spot where the hæmorrhage, still leaking like the oil well in the Gulf of Mexico, was located. Said foot was summarily withdrawn from said shoe and said wound was found to be weeping the stuff of life in minute quantities.

Not wanting to bleed to death in the Dog Park I went to Dog Park Shoes pair number two, and slipped them on. I distinctly heard by great toe heave a sigh of relief as it entered the dark but roomy habitation. There is would suffer no further insult and life could continue as before, pleasant, uneventful, routine, and with no clear or present danger of further blood loss, septicæmia, gangrene, or digital amputation. The toe was not the only one relieved.

Days passed and I kept promising myself that I would get the shoe stretched so that there would be no friction 'twixt digit and cowhide wherein the cowhide would come off conqueror time after time.

I remembered the life-changing company, Headquarters and General Stores, that sold everything from life-jackets for rabbits to kits with which to turn Zebras’ vertical stripes to horizontal, and all manner of things in between, one of which was a modified carpenters’ G cramp that fitted inside and force a huge dimple in the shoe at the site where bunions bulge so that no contact could render the grossly expanded joint raw and bleeding. This device had, claimed the advertisement on the back page of the News of the World, enabled millions of bunion sufferers to lead normal lives again.

I regretted that I had not bought one when I had the chance in 1951 and kept it safe until the day when it could, like Arthur the sleeping monarch, be brought out in triumph to save Old England. In this case, that would have been my non-bunioned toe! However, I hadn’t, so I couldn’t, and, therefore, didn’t, and so the problem remained.

And then I remembered what I had seen veterans of the Boer War do when faced with similar problems in order to avoid trench foot and related evils. They rendered several pages of Huddersfield’s historic broadsheet, The Daily Examiner, into the penultimate stage of papier-mâché and forced it into the far end of the shoe or boot with enthusiastic violence using the wrong end of the fire poker.

Those that share my years and culture will recognise that standard pokers were steel spinning spindles that might or might not have reached the end of their useful lives in the massive spinning sheds with which Huddersfield was both surrounded and permeated in the first half of the twentieth century.

The footwear was then left in a warm dry place to dry out thoroughly, and when it did, it was wearable, comfortable, and no longer inclined to harm the wearer. These were ‘Aaaaah!’ moments.

I had the Arizona Republic to hand but no poker. Pokers of any kind are as rare as worm’s teeth in the Sonoran desert, and so are spinning mills. That is when the tree saved the situation.

I did have a pair of shoe trees that I kept in my Sunday best Florsheim shoes. At this point I would normally go straight into a ringing endorsement of this companies footwear products but in the interests of time and space I will merely refer you to my story, "Don’t Try Them On," and press on with the tale in hand.

I wrapped several pages of the local newspaper around the foot part of the shoe trees, well wetted them, and forced them into the shrinking shoes. That was last night. This morning I removed the trees with their now parched paper pages and put them on before setting out for the canine playground. My toe breathed a sigh of relief and I joined it when it went into its second chorus.

Had I been raised to wealth, I would have bought a new pair of shoes and chucked out the renegades. I saved myself a hundred and more dollars, which is a week’s old age pension, and enjoyed revisiting times, places, artefacts, and techniques that were part of my early life.

It is wonderful to me that a small chink in the dark windows of memory can unfold so much that is pleasing. By this means the darkest days of old age can be illuminated by bringing to mind so much that seemed forgotten, and in doing so brings both smiles and gratitude to help ease our passage through some of life’s most troubled waters.

Wordsworth said as much when he wrote of his daffodils,

" … oft when on my couch I lie,
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inner eye
That is the bliss of solitude…?

Longfellow had similar thoughts when he penned,

"Nor deem the irrevocable past
As wholly wasted,
As wholly vain,
If rising on its wrecks,
At last, to something nobler we attain."

Everyone’s past holds memories that can change our lives for the better, regardless of how ancient we grow. Even when our memories are hedged about by a darkness that seems impenetrable, we can be blessed to revisit some matter seemingly lost to us that will not only brighten our lives by its recollection, and the unexpected visitors that are revived with it, but will oftentimes help us solve today’s ills.

If you don’t believe me, then have a word with my toe!

© 2010 – Ronnie Bray

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