One of these shoes is not like the other
About this time, each day, I try to put down something about my routine that will set it apart from another day. Not always easy, because I do have a mundane existence. There will be no movie version of my life, based on the last couple of years. And so, in the absence of current memorable moments, I have to dig into my trove of memories, from decades past.
Today, we will go back to my first teaching job in a high school. My students must have been comfortable, because they teased me without resorting to open mockery. It would have been easy, I was and am idiosyncratic. Little matter.
Consider life in a classroom. Inner city, with a baby surrounded by wolves. When one of the alpha members (call him Price) came up beside my and in a low voice, asked if I was wearing two very different shoes for a reason.
I was (wearing two very different shoes). Not for a reason, other than low light levels in my cheap apartment, and a bad habit of buying my shoes for comfort, instead of style. I had enough time to leave, go home, change one of my shoes to get back to pairing and return to my place in the classroom before my absence had been noted. These were very distracted young people. And it could have been much worse.
I haven’t forgotten that moment of kindness, and I wonder where Price has ended up. Prison, based on what most people forecast. After all, guns and petty theft on a city bus aren’t markers for societal success.
