I am not a cowboy, but I do have the boots — or at least I used to.
Here’s the story. For one reason or another, I was late to the game in learning how to tie my shoes. In fact, I was the only kid in my kindergarten class who failed to figure it out. It wasn’t due to a lack of effort on my part. I tried and tried to learn how to tie my shoes. All I ended up doing was tying strings around my fingers. It was frustrating, even for a 5-year-old. I have a similar struggle today with an iron, as I just seem to iron one wrinkle into another. Someday I will figure it out, but back to the shoe-tying dilemma of my youth.
No worries. I had a solution — cowboy boots. Yes, cowboy boots. Simple to put on. Simple to take off. And none of those annoying shoelaces. They weren’t fashion friendly with shorts, but I mostly went barefoot in the summer months anyway. When the school year rolled around, this kid looked like Roy Rogers, sans Trigger, of course.
In case you are wondering, I wasn’t a farm kid. I grew up in town, so I was urban cowboy before urban cowboy was cool. But a trendsetter, I was not. No other kid in my class wore cowboy boots, not even the farm kids. They all knew how to tie their shoes.
I did eventually learn this life skill, sometime in the first grade. I may not remember the exact date, but I know it was a glorious moment. After a few years of others showing me how easy this was, I finally figured it out. Something just clicked, and I then proudly showed everyone how I could tie my shoes. Most didn’t understand my moment of pride, but that’s OK. They also didn’t wear cowboy boots to kindergarten class.
Now if I could just figure out the iron.
Have a fantastic Friday, and thanks for reading.
Shane Goodman
Editor and Publisher
Times Vedette digital editions
shane@gctimesnews.com
641-332-2707