Homemade Sandals

and a dive into the 1964 photo album

He started by tracing our feet out on the back step. A detail I had forgotten until the first line of a Michael Bazzett poem caught my fancy. “Let’s put on our childhood clothes…”. As soon as I started writing, I could feel the tickle of the pencil as it shimmied around my toes. One set of prints for each one in the family. The slabs of leather laid out. The red shoe polish I insisted on for my own pair rather than the plain tanned leather my brothers favored.

Good Leather Soles
by Laura L. Hansen

“Let’s put on our childhood clothes...” 
  	 - Michael Bazzett

Let's put on our childhood clothes,
the three pairs of leather sandals
Uncle John made for us,
and our checkered summer shorts,

and clatter down 
the long run of concrete stairs 
to the river, squealing
in three-part sibling harmony,

hear how the smart smack 
of the slick leather soles 
of our new sandals 
on worn concrete echoes

the slap of waves
against the river's shore,
remember how we raced
to be the first one to jump in

forgetting our new sandals
and Uncle John's long day of work
cutting and gluing and shaping
the now-wet leather into fins. 

Here is the link to the wonderful Michael Bazzett poem, Kalsarikanni.

And here are the real deal pics of Uncle John’s homemade sandals from 1964 when he and Uncle Bernhart drove from California to Minnesota in a little Karmann Ghia convertible with poodles Baba and Punch.

Yup. That’s me in the middle!

Tomorrow, a little nod to moon shots and astronauts.