I swore I told this story before, but I cannot find it.
For reasons that defy logical explanation, I have long had a grand affection for red Converse sneaker, the Chuck Taylor variety, preferably high tops. I have other colors, but I tend to favor the red ones.
Moreover, it’s the color that gets the most unsolicited, and usually positive, comments, usually along the lines of, “I wish I had the guts to wear them.”
Someone gave us a Christmas ornament some years back that looked like red Chucks.
When I was at the game show JEOPARDY! in 1998, I was wearing my red Chucks through the entire warm-up, then, got all tradition in changing into uncomfortable, relatively new shoes for the actual games. I was convinced that was a fatal error on my part. I might have fared better with the Chucks.
We bought our current house in May 2000, a week before our first wedding anniversary. I was in the backyard, removing some branches. Unfortunately, someone had thrown some used lumber in the pile, not immediately visible. I stepped on a nail, which went through my red Chucks.
I pulled the nail out, and hobbled what felt like an interminable distance to the front of the house, hopped up to the front porch, opened the front door, and yelled to my wife. She replied, “I’m upstairs!” I replied, “Come DOWN!”
She drove me to the urgent care place, 20 minutes before it closed. They numbed my foot, before removing little bits of my red Chuck Taylor sneakers from the hole in my foot.
I may have thrown them away after we got home.
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Note: I have been nominated by my buddy Lisa over at Peripheral Perceptions to participate in the Five Photos, Five Stories meme, which simply says I should post a photo each day for five consecutive days and attach a story to the photo. It can be fiction or non-fiction, a poem or a short paragraph and each day nominate another blogger for the challenge.
The problem is that almost all my posts are stories and have pictures. So I’m cheating and writing only one new post. And I’m nominating YOU!