Felt.Hot, tough, dry and cracked. Like the hard cracked ground along the canal banks I walked. Cracks that opened up and emitted the hot dry heat of the overly scorched earth. They remained me of the cracks on windshields whose spider like legs splayed out from the small hole in the center. How cool and smooth the stores floor would feel on them. The words "No Shirt, No Shoes, No service" briefly crossed my mind like a ticker tap. I tugged at the denim fabric pulling it down at the thighs. Looking down at my feet to make sure I could pass for having shoes on. My orange converse immitaions lay some where with out shoe laces. The knots having been fastened in ever shorter pieces of string that kept breaking. They would not stay on my feet. The tounge of the shoe flopped about with nothing to restrain them or my foot. Besides the smelled from going sockless. Sprouse Reitze was not known for quality. A lot of hippies went shoeless. I was not a hippie. I did not like tube tops. I liked t-shirt and button ups with floral prints. I did not like pulling stickers from my feet. The excitement of the grocery store and it's offerings spurred me on with each step. I entertained myself by singing my favorite tv shows them songs. First I will stick my head in the freezer compartments that had milk and ice cream stored in them. I would do this several times with out buying anything just to cool my body off from the long hot trek to the store. The smell of damp cardboard and icecream comingle with that distinct freon smell from the silver cooling elements would waft into my nostrils.Then I will pick out the staples we needed before buying the candy bar or hostess pie. I add quickly in my head the cost of those items before I get to the checkout counter. Sometimes a penny shy of the cost to buy that treat, I walked home begrudgingly with the margarine tub and dried white bread. There were times where it was one or the other staple that ended up in the bag in favor of the candy bar. The reward for walking all that way was an important motivator. No car and to big for my brothers bike that lay abandoned in the yard, the only way to get there was to book it. In my neighborhood when you were booken, you were on a mission to go from point A to point B. there was no joy in that. You walked with purpose for a purpose. Like a machine. Sometimes I don't remember walking to my destination. Years later I would get that same auto pilot shock when I drove my car home from work. Where does the mind go? What were my thoughts. What was so deep? So that is the thread that has run through my life how did I get here, when did I get here. Whose wine, what wine where the hell did I dine? Ok that was a Peter frampton song. I mislay a lot of things. My mom used to say tha the house doesn't lose anything. That thought has a sustained me through a lot of anxious and obsessive moments. Momisms their called. Trouble is they aren't things that others find helpful, they just find them odd. Like when I told my friend that some people can smoke and others can't. That's how I rationalized smoking. Some people would be hurt by it and die and others were of another countenance. Somehow stronger and untouchable. We could smoke and be fine. My friend who smoked believed me until she decided to quit because she couldn't hold her head up when seeing her sons freinds in the store if she had any hint hint of smoke on her body. It wasn't because she thought it was something that could kill her. Momisms are powerful magic. I still never can walk with anyone I care about and not walk around the obstacle together with out parting and going around the obstacle separately. Because that's what would happen. Something would come between you and you would part ways. Now when I hold my daughters hand and pull her around the post or flag pole she laughs and says I know what you are doing. I am not ashamed. I will not let that deter me from the Gods' truth of what would happen. Sort of like stepping on a crack or giving someone a knife as a gift. Superstion? I don't think so. There was a time