Writing Memories: Just an ordinary pair of shoes

Daily writing practice prompt for Sunday, June 21, 2009 is “Write about a pair of shoes.”

They were just an ordinary old pair of shoes my grandfather's clodhoppers. However, for me at the age of five or six, they were magical. They were my grandfather's work shoes and he wore them five days a week. He put them on each weekday morning and took them off eight hours later when he got off work.

Grandpa Newland worked at a zinc smelter in Blackwell, Oklahoma. Every morning he would get up, make a pot of coffee, get ready for work, and eat breakfast. Grandma always packed him a lunch and put it in a metal lunch box. Every morning Grandpa would put on his clodhoppers and go to work.

Every afternoon he would come home and remove his clodhoppers. He placed them just inside the kitchen door and put on another pair of shoes, which he wore around the house. Grandpa only had three pairs of shoes. He had a Sunday pair of shoes, which he wore to church and on other social occasions. He had the clodhoppers, which he wore to work, and the pair he wore around the house.