Couples

It seems like couples are one or the other: a “no-shoes-no-problem-I-love-it!” person marries a “going-barefoot-is-gross-stupid-and-unsafe” person. My wife Beth doesn’t share my fondness for such adventures, other than indulging me when we took walks; when we visited the very hilly Bisbee, AZ one year, I walked shoeless and we held hands. I’ve seldom seen a barefoot couple, except on the beach. Shopping at the supermarket one day, however, I noticed a young couple padding along, close and hand-in-hand as they shopped. They could’ve been walking along the in-coming tide.

Seated outside at a fast food place, back in the 70s, I noticed a family pile out of their car. Everyone had shoes on but the slim, tan mother, who walked beside her husband behind the two hungry kids into the restaurant.

A young woman stood among the crowd in a Maryland shopping mall in the early 80s. She and her family were watching some sort of performance near the food court. She really was barefoot and pregnant…

And just to take these cheerful memories into the 90s… At a grocery we frequented, two young men were doing their weekly shopping, and one of them was shoeless.