Oh, my God, if You’ve sent teeny-tiny hints of spring, I haven’t seen them–4 above this morning? Seriously? Yet, OMG, thank You that it’s February. Not November!
“Don’t go outdoors without your boots!”
These January words echo across several decades.
Actually, as a child, I liked my clumping, galumping boots. Despite Mom’s firm faith that I would catch 19 diseases, their podiatric force field protected me when stomping ice-covered gutters.
I wished in vain, though, for thigh-high fishing boots like Dad’s. Such superhero footwear would have rendered me invincible, like him.
Unfortunately for my parents, my feet and my siblings’ grew hourly. While my sister acceded to wearing my hand-me-downs, I drew the line at my brother’s galoshes — unless gutters were way full.
Recycled boots weren’t always an option because we children had honed losing winter wear to a fine art. Sporting only left mittens, we misplaced right boots, too.
The positive side: Lack of sufficient winter garb kept us inside warm classrooms at recess. While friends shivered outdoors, I read books I’d longed to sample.
Some favorite stories featured boots. In Little Women, Jo March’s boots helped her play swashbuckling heroes and villains in homegrown dramas. In Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Farmer Boy, a traveling cobbler designed Almanzo Wilder’s first manly pair. Puss in Boots never would have brought his master fame, fortune and a princess if he hadn’t strutted about in that all-powerful footwear.
Still, boots seemed mostly mundane until go-go boots invaded the fifth-grade fashion scene. Unbelievably, my mother refused to buy me white boots amid the muddy slop season.
I whined. I pined. I promised I wouldn’t lose them, not even one.
She wouldn’t budge. So I languished without the go-go boots every girl on the planet owned, except me — and Becky Andrews, a nonconformist who wore tall black boots like Nancy Sinatra’s when she sang “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’.”
Ten years later, I wore a similar pair that stretched my height well past six feet.
But snow time with my toddlers required sane mommy boots. My little ones readily wore garage sale Strawberry Shortcake and Ninja Turtles boots, even with PJs. They also waded in yucky gutters, despite my warnings.
Years later, they cornered me in a boot discourse similar to my go-go debate with Mom decades before. My children wanted me to spend a gazillion dollars on short-topped “boots” designed to frostbite toes. When I refused, the kids left the row of sensible boots I’d bought to an undisturbed existence in the closet — until I discovered my son’s worked well when I shoveled sidewalks.
A wonderful boot solution because I couldn’t wear the awesome leather boots (my size!) I’d found on a sale table for five bucks. Not in snow that might ruin them. Or sleet. Or rain. Or. …
Your Extraordinary Ordinary: Do you wear your good boots during yucky weather?
This past weekend, when our two-almost-three-year-old grandson was staying with us, an odd November tornado also dropped by our area for a visit.
Thankfully, our little guy slept through much of the storm, then seemed to enjoy the novelty of the accompanying power outage. We cuddled and read stories by the light of a camping lantern and flashlights and sang songs about the wise man who built his house upon a rock.
We comforted him when the thunder and lightning and wind grew too scary. But the scenario reminded me of years ago when my little ones — and a God surprise — comforted me.
Purple-blue clouds raged and roiled in the yellowish sky. Enormous trucks roared around us on the interstate through curtains of blinding rain, shaking my little car like a wet terrier. Tornado warnings crackled on the radio. But my preschooler played contentedly with her Barbie® Dolls in the backseat. My two-year-old munched the crackers I’d given him.
How I envied their serene trust in me! If only I possessed such faith.
“Let’s pray Jesus will take care of us!” I said in the bright mommy-tone I always use when all is lost.
They bowed their heads and folded chubby hands. Their sweet prayer calmed my terrors.
“Look!” I cried.
An exit loomed ahead. We would leave this nightmare and seek shelter!
Even as I pulled into a truck stop and parked, the rain began to diminish.
I turned to my children, almost crying with joy. “Jesus is with us!”
“’Course He is.” The two-year-old stared at me. “I see Him.”
“No, honey,” I patted his little hand. “We can’t see Jesus. But He’s with us all the time.”
My toddler looked at me as if I’d lost my mind. “Jesus is right there, Mommy!”
My stomach, which had quieted, lurched anew. “Wh-where?” The hair on my neck prickled. “Where’s Jesus?”
He pointed an indignant finger. “There!”
Slowly I turned around, quaking.
On a nearby semitrailer, a huge colorful mural of the smiling Savior with wide-open arms offered us a hug.
Your Extraordinary Ordinary: Do you remember when children taught you a thing or two?
“No drought this year!” happy weather experts proclaim.
Thank you for informing us, as people bail out living rooms. Facebook whines and surly crowd mumbles at Walmart — my scientific tools for measuring demographic mood — have reached record levels.
So I share suggestions for coping with April showers until they produce May flowers and golfing hours.
Some hot, dry summers, I feel like a walking raisin. But this spring, I check my arms for sprouting mushrooms — one more thing to do on a rainy April day.
What’s your favorite rainy day activity?