Barefoot Days are Almost Here Again

Photo Courtesy of Anita Peppers

May 26, 1965
Jocie Brooke reporting from Hollyhill, Kentucky. A very excited Jocie Brooke because in three days - three short days!! - school's out for the summer. Yay!! It's not that I don't like school. At least most of the time, but in May, I hate school! 

Nobody should have to spend all of May in a classroom looking out at the sun instead of being in said sun. I mean, it's time to take off your shoes and feel dandelions between your toes. Maybe find a 4-leaf clover so luck will come your way.

Dad says that's silly. He says a Christian doesn't depend on lucky charms. A Christian should depend on the Lord and on his fellow Christians for his or her good fortune. But it's still sort of neat finding a 4-leaf clover. Or it would be if I could ever find one. Tabitha, my sister, she can step out in the grass, look down and see a lucky clover without moving another step. Right where I was just searching. I think she's half leprechaun. Don't tell Dad I said that. He'll be giving me a lecture about how it's okay to pretend, but a person shouldn't get carried away with silly stuff. 

But I like making up silly stuff, don't you? Wait, I'll tell you a secret if you promise not to tell anybody. I'm going to write a book! Not just a little five page story, but a book with chapters and everything. Do you think you'd like to read it? I might write it on here - if it turns out to be any good. You know, it's easier to think about doing something rather than actually doing it. Right now, I'm just thinking about it. But I can't wait to actually get started. I'm going to let a dog be the main character. I think a dog makes a great character. A dog did in The Incredible Journey by Sheila Burnford. That story was so much fun. My book will be something like that, but I'm not sure how much. I've got to think up a lot of things before I can get it written. 

One good thing, I'll be able to write barefoot. I love to lose my shoes when it's summertime, but in our yard, that's not always a good idea. Or sometimes even in the house where you're liable to step on one of Stephen's metal cars or a stray block. Outside, it's not all clover and dandelions either. We have a few locust trees. Remember, they're dad's favorite because of the sweet smelling flowers. The flowers are okay, but the little thorns on their branches are no fun at all when they step on one. Bits of those branches are always falling off to lay little traps in the grass for unsuspecting feet. But the blooms do smell fantastic. Worth getting a few stuck feet from time to time. I'm just glad we don't have chickens. You go barefoot out at Miss Sally's and sometimes you get squishy chicken poop up between your toes. Now that's no fun at all.

Did you go barefoot when you were a kid? Did you have to always wash your feet before you went to bed? Every night?

Barefoot Ben Wilson on Main Street

Ben Wilson

February 3, 1964

 Jocie Brooke here reporting from Main Street, Hollyhill. Snow fell yesterday. At least three inches. Plenty to make the county roads slick and so no school. Yaaayy! It's always especially cool when snow happens on a Monday. 


Everybody hates getting up on Monday morning even if they have their homework done already. And I did. I had that science report all written with a carefully drawn illustration of pistils. But why in the world are we studying plant pistils in the middle of winter? We should be studying snowflakes. Do you really believe that no two snowflakes look alike? There are millions of snowflakes. Nobody has looked at them all. Somewhere in the hundreds of years that those millions of flakes have fallen, two could be alike. Don't you think?

Okay, back to Main Street reporting. It turns out that strange does happen in Hollyhill. But sometimes you're so used to that strange you don't pay it much attention. That's how Ben Wilson is. Definitely strange. Or maybe it would be nicer to say different. Dad says Mr. Wilson marches to a different drummer than the ordinary Hollyhiller. But most of us average Hollyhillers are so used to seeing Ben that we just think of him as - well, as Ben.

But I've been trying to do what Wes said and be on the lookout for strange. So when I spotted Ben walking up the street barefoot in the snow, it hit me as to how that might be a little strange. I don't know how old he is. He's not much of a talker at least to kids like me. They say he has a way with horses. And Dad says he went off and had an important job once. I guess he didn't like it because he came home to Holly County and put on his bib overalls and took off his shoes. I've seen him wear rubber boots in the summertime, but never in the snow or cold. His feet bleed sometimes and you can hear him grumbling at them when that happens. "Bleed, darn you, bleed." Well, he doesn't say darn, but Dad would take my pen and notebook away if I wrote what he really said. 

Old Ben carries a walking stick almost as tall as he is and lets his beard and hair grow however they want to. He walks everywhere and takes off to Louisville every year when it's State Fair time. He's made some friends down there among the newspaper folks. Guess you have to get away from home for people to properly appreciate your oddness. Around Hollyhill, we just say there's goes Ben and think he ought to put on boots and a coat when it's snowy and cold like today. 

When I showed this to Wes, he laughed and said he didn't know what planet Mr. Wilson might be from, but that it's one he wouldn't mind visiting. But he doesn't plan to go barefoot in the snow to get there.

So I guess I've found something strange for my Hollyhill Book of the Strange afer all. If I get started on the people here in Hollyhill, then I might have to write two books of the strange. 

Thanks for stopping by, and remember if you leave a comment, you might win Scent of Lilacs. Then you'll know all our secrets, the ordinary ones and strange ones too.