Measure Your Feet Day?!?

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. You are the guy who'll decide where to go ."

~ Dr. Seuss

"Only a fool tests the dept of the water with Both feet." ~ African proverb

“Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.” ~ Abraham Lincoln

Today is the wild and wacky holiday of Measure your feet day. I spent most of the morning after getting my holiday notification wondering and pondering why a person would want to measure their feet. I can't think of any reason other than if you were buying shoes. Then you could just try the shoes on. It was then that I thought about how My Daddy measured our feet when we were little children.

I guess there were too many of us to carry to the shoe store every time we needed to go. There were certain times of the year that we each got to go and pick out our own shoes. Those two times were Easter and the beginning of each school year. Easter I got patent leather , Sunday school, and any dress occasion shoes. One pair. I better take care of them. That wasn't a problem for me. I hated shoes and only wore them when I was either outside or at school. That meant the dress shoes would last me forever. Somewhere out there, My patent leather shoes are still waiting to be worn. Lost in the closet of a cousin or family friend they were passed on to. For school we got a pair of penny loafers. I liked them alright but still only wore them for school. I wish I could find me a good pair of loafers now. I think the closest you can find are dock-siders.

But when Daddy had to buy shoes and us kids weren't going along. He would come in with his notebook and have every one of us; one at the time; step on a piece of paper. He would take his pencil and draw all around our feet. then mark each paper foot with our names. He never measured the thickness of our foot and yet he would always bring home shoes that fit us. I tried that only once with my children. I had a mess. Anthony's shoes wouldn't go on his foot because his foot was too thick. They would have fit me except that they were three inches to long for my foot. Cooper's shoes wouldn't fit anyone who lived here and Even though Emily's shoes would have fit Cooper he said he wasn't wearing pink cowgirl boots. I even offered to polish them black for him and still he refused.. Can you believe it? So I tossed the paper aside and carried all of them with me to get their shoes.

I could never figure out how it worked for Daddy and Mama but never worked for me. It wasn't that Daddy knew our feet so well because even when they would get brand new foster children and they came in the middle of the night barefooted. Daddy would come stoop shouldered into The Reids store in the middle of the night with his notebook and be trying tennis shoes on the paper feet he had drawn there. They would always fit. The children would wake up the next morning with bright and colorful new tennis shoes. Maybe it was that Daddy had bought so many pairs of shoes that way that he had learned to gauge the thickness of a foot by his own drawings. I don't know how it worked for him. I just know it was not an option for me.

When my children went to the shoe store; they had a rug thing to stand them on and measure their foot, Even that was no good. Cooper would curl his toes up Making it look like he wore a size smaller than he did. Or he would try to make his foot appear to fit the shoes he wanted even if they were way to small or way to large. Once he even stuffed all those half stocking things into the toe of a pair that were big enough for me. They were snakeskin boots for a man and he swore they fit. Emily would want four or five pair at the time and throw herself on the floor crying if she couldn't have them. I finally had to threaten her with the notebook shoes if she couldn't choose just one pair. All Anthony wanted to do was get a pair of some kind and get out of the store. He said the rest of us were hoodlums.


Fun Foot Facts:

1:) There are approximately 250,000 sweat glands in a pair of feet, and they excrete as much as half a pint of moisture each day.

2:)The foot is an intricate structure containing 26 bones. Thirty-three joints, 107 ligaments, 19 muscles, and tendons hold the structure together and allow it to move in a variety of ways.

3:) When you try on shoes, try them on both feet; many people have one foot larger than the other, and it's best to fit the larger one.

4:) The 52 bones in your feet account for one quarter of all the bones in the body.

5:) If you place the heel of your foot in the inside crease of your elbow Joint, the toes of your foot will reach to your wrist.

And a bonus foot fact that My Mom taught me.. When shopping for socks if the sock will wrap around your balled up fist.. It will fit your foot. I have tried this and know it works.


I do wish everyone a Happy measure your foot day.. Even though I can't imagine why you would need to. I know they measured Coopers before putting a cast on it. I know Daddy sorta measured ours with his notebook to buy us shoes. I have tried the heel in the elbow crease many times and my foot still is a perfect fit there. I think when Dave comes home I'll measure his and mine and even Cooper's feet. Who knows when we may need to know that information!? Have a great Day!
Patsy



Feet

Big Feet
Little Feet
Nasty; stinky; scaly feet

Dancing feet
Pacing feet
Her feet; his feet; yours and My feet

Stomping feet
Running feet
Hopping ; skipping; Bare feet.

Feet! Feet! Feet!

Written By: Patricia Sawyer
1-23-2009