OK, this is weird.  Yesterday I related how a small iridescent beetle landed on my arm for a brief stay as I sat in the sun in a somnolent state.  I glibly noted I probably wouldn’t be seeing it again.  Well, same time, same chair, the same beetle, or its twin, landed on the same arm today, circled just below the elbow and flew off again.  Careful with glib assessments of random occurrence.

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It’s officially spring here on Skinny Island.  I have gone all day without shoes: beach, house, and garden.  We find shoes to be a necessary evil at all times of the year, but anathema when temperature is not an issue.  We will wear flip-flops when some sort of footwear is a legal requirement, but we frequent those places less and less these days.  Care even less for socks, of course, (except when hiking; don’t think we could have done a rim-to-rim of the Grand Canyon without socks.)  This a life-time commitment.  I think I may have had two pair of socks, total, from first grade through eighth.  In high school, Mr. Irv Cole, the Assistant Principal, made it something of a personal crusade to see that I wore socks with my Bass Weejuns.  He regularly appeared as I was standing in lunch line and politely but firmly asserted I find some socks.  I took to carrying some in my pocket, of course, and would put them on then and there, pick up my fish sticks, then remove them after Mr. Cole had finished the rest of his police work in the cafeteria.  Never wore socks running track either.  Socks are exceedingly geeky with track shoes.  The coolest thing I ever saw was David Jumper, a Seminole from South Florida, who took things a step further, if you will. At the state cross country meet my junior year, he ran the entire 5-mile course barefoot, over pavement and through the woods, and won going away.

Sand spurs, the occasional nail, and scorched soles from pavement and hot sand notwithstanding, shoes are restrictive, binding, and completely unnatural. We like to think we have developed a strong, broad base by going barefoot throughout most of the year, and I do not mean that entirely physically.

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