Wooden shoes

By Christine Tailer
HCP columnist

A dear friend is cleaning out her barn. What a wonderful feeling it is to clear out old accumulated things that we no longer need. She showed me her various piles of give-away things, and I easily found several items that I thankfully brought back to our barn for storage and potential use: two wooden spools of wire, several lengths of metal strapping, and several rolls of chicken wire. 

I have no immediate plans to put these treasures to use, but I gladly added them to the appropriate storage areas in our barn. I wonder if maybe someday they will make their way to yet another barn.

My friend then showed me her crafts room, off to the side of the barn. She asked if I could use anything there. I stood gazing at wooden shelves stacked tall with all sorts of wonderful things waiting to be fashioned into something else even more wonderful. Two mismatched wooden shoes caught my eye. I picked one up and turned it over in my hands. I told her how I am always in search of wooden shoes that I often wear them around the farm.

I keep them right beside the outside door. It is so easy to slip my feet into their solid form. I can step through mud puddles, piles of leaves, and even drifting snow to bring in firewood, let the dog out, or check on the animals, and every time I slide my feet into my wooden shoes, I am again reminded of my father. 

As long as I can remember he had a pair of Dutch wooden shoes. He wore them to take out the trash, or sweep the front stoop. I remember the sound of his steps clacking across the city pavement. He even wore them to take the mail down to the mailbox at the corner of Second Avenue. I never saw anyone else, in the city, or anywhere for that matter, wearing wooden shoes, but my father always exclaimed how perfect they were for brief excursions outside. He was quite right. No matter what the weather, his feet stayed warm and dry.

So, the years passed, and one day as Greg and I explored an antique store of forgotten treasures, I saw a pair of old wooden shoes. They were almost hidden under a chair. I sat down, took off my own shoes and tried them on. They fit perfectly, and I brought them home and placed them by the door.

The next morning after breakfast, when I stepped outside to take out the garbage, I slid them on.  After I securely placed the lid back on the metal garbage can and started to walk across the upper field towards the goat yard, I knew that I was somehow walking in my father's footsteps. The wooden shoes were perfectly right. That was now over fifteen years ago, and I have since walked my way through four pairs of wonderful wooden shoes.

Just the other day I slid my feet into my fifth pair of wooden shoes for the very first time. I usually try to have my next pair ready and waiting for use, but this time, my fourth pair wore out before I had found another pair. One evening, as I was walking across the gravel drive, I felt a sharp stone poking through the bottom of the shoe and into my right foot.  I sighed, knowing that I had no ready replacement. 

For several days I did my chores in my rubber boots, but they felt too hot and cumbersome. I was sad, and then it occurred to me to search to the internet. After only a query, I found the perfect pair of new wooden shoes. I confess that it was all I could do to not pay the extra money for a speedy delivery, but I was frugal. As I tromped about doing my farm chores in my rubber boots, it occurred to me that my frugality was testing to my patience, but I sighed. I knew that the shoes were on their way. 

And then they came. As I slid my feet into what were assuredly the fanciest wooden shoes I have ever owned, a broad grin spread across my face. They fit perfectly. My farm feet were home. With great ceremony, I carried my old wooden shoes out to the burn pile, just as I had their predecessors. There is something poetic about placing my old shoes in this pile. In time we will light it, and my shoes really will become a part of the creek valley where they have walked and worked so well for the past several years.

But I did not have the heart to buy two pairs of fancy wooden shoes on-line. My frugality prevailed, but then I stopped by my friend’s barn. She explained that she believed she had the single shoe’s match somewhere inside her house. She had used it to hold her thread, and told me with a smile, that I was more than welcome to have it. I could not have been more happy. 

After a warm cup of lemon ginger tea, I headed back to the creek. Greg was thrilled with the wire and metal straps. It had been a wonderful afternoon, and I could hardly wait to hear from my friend that she had found the mate to the lone wooden shoe. I knew that my father would be very proud to see his daughter, still walking in his footsteps.

Christine Tailer is an attorney and former city dweller who moved several years ago, with her husband, Greg, to an off-grid farm in south-central Ohio. Visit them on the web at straightcreekvalleyfarm.com.