Presidents and First Ladies Trivia

[L Verge]

Jim - I thought the exact same thing! I prefer going barefoot to this day, and I suspect that those high-topped shoes led to my dislike of footwear - that and having to stumble around on high heels for most of my life to satisfy the fashionistas.

My mother-in-law almost had apoplexy when she realized that I was letting our daughter go barefoot around the house once she learned to walk. Our pediatrician was a young female who kept up with things. When I told her of the beating I was taking from grandma, she told me to tell grandma that American Indians went barefoot or wore moccasins and had the strongest feet and legs possible.

[Jim Page]

Hi, Laurie--

As a kid, I went barefoot from Spring to Fall and that did me no harm. My feet are about the only parts on me that're still worth a darn.

Being barefoot and shirtless meant Summer to us back in the days when we kids roamed free. I'll never forget one summer afternoon in Pascagoula, Mississippi, when my brother and I and a couple of others were playing in the woods. I stepped on a big indigo snake and felt it squirm under my foot.

You've never seen four kids--barefoot--run down a red dirt path so fast! Another time on the same path we were chased by a black racer snake, and we may have made even better time on that run. All this was in 1959 or so.

--Jim

[Eva Elisabeth]

For some reason, that quote reminds me of the silly, expensive, and probably worthless orthopedic shoes (and sometimes even braces!) that toddlers and young kids used to have to wear when I was young. I was lucky enough not to be subjected to those.

I'm willing to bet that 98% of the kids wearing them didn't need them and didn't benefit from them, but it was a health fad of the early-to-mid 1950s.

--Jim

Going barefoot is what humans' feet are made for. (Also everyone in childhood undergoes a bow-legged and a knock-knees stage.) I loved going barefoot until I stepped into a sea urchin, and since my absolute favorite footwear have been flipflops (and the only I am thrilled to buy).

[Jim Page]

my absolute favorite footwear have been flipflops (and the only I am thrilled to buy).

Eva, my wife (a Florida girl) is the same way.

I stepped on a sea urchin once in college and that was horrible. One of the many perils of going to school in Boca Raton.

--Jim

[Eva Elisabeth]

What are the other perils (I think you were blessed to live there)?

[Jim Page]

Well, Eva, there were many incompletes on my college transcript. Sometimes I blame the women; sometimes I put the blame on me.

Extra points to anyone who can identify the song that last sentence was stolen from!

Actually, I had a lot of fun at school and was lucky to skip two years and get a full ride for the rest.

--Jim

[LincolnToddFan]

The only time I ever wear shoes is when I have to...like when I leave the house. I hate wearing shoes!

[Eva Elisabeth]

Jim - sorry, I just meant the blame you put on Boca Raton as I like FL (and had no intention to investigate private life).

[Jim Page]

Ha! Eva, you are so funny. I wasn't really serious, as you know, about Boca or private lives, or anything else. Boca was then a lovely town, not too large and not too different from Naples, where I had been living. Glad you like Florida; our family has been there since the Spanish days.

Boca Raton had three kinds of animals that were unusual, I thought: Little monkeys in the trees (escapees from labs, I heard), burrowing owls (little cuties who live in the ground), and walking catfish (which came out of the water and creeped me out).

Lovely weather and the lure of the beach was always there.

For those who like rockabilly, the song-lyric swipe in my post was from Dave Alvin and the Blaster's "Long White Cadillac."

--Jim

[Eva Elisabeth]

Naples is very nice (anyway the Gulf coast is). Re.: "escapees from labs" - wasn't that the way the hamsters spread in the US in the 1920s?

[Jim Page]

Naples is very nice (anyway the Gulf coast is). Re.: "escapees from labs" - wasn't that the way the hamsters spread in the US in the 1920s?

Yes; Naples is nice, indeed. We moved there in 1967 and my brother and his wife are still down there. He was the director of EMS services in Collier County for many years, retired, and is now giving history boat tours of the Glades and is a fire commissioner for Naples. I wrote a mystery set in the Naples of the late 1960s.

Other nice Florida places I know of:
Amelia Island, where I was born and partly raised, on the upper Atlantic coast; Marathon, in the Florida Keys, which was great for fishing and diving; and Apalachicola, in the Gulf panhandle, which is quiet and non-touristy, or was when we lived there in the early 1960s.

Tampa, on the other hand, I did not like, though St. Pete, where I worked, was nice and had the best bookstore I've ever seen. Haslem's was its name and it was a wonderful place to get lost in, and had a great staff, too.

--Jim

[L Verge]

I actually ate fried alligator tail in a great restaurant somewhere around Tampa - and loved it - even ate it again some years later in a D.C. suburb in Virginia.

Our Florida escapade was thanks to Betty O having a speaking engagement on her book when it was first released in the 1980s (?). We met with Powell descendants, and they are the ones who treated us to this really nice restaurant.

[Jim Page]

Laurie, Patty and I also had fried alligator tail in a restaurant outside Tampa. If I remember correctly, which is not a given, it was in a place called Crawdaddy's out on the causeway between Tampa and St. Pete/Clearwater. This was in the mid-1970s, I think.

It wasn't bad, but I've never had it again.

My main recollection of that experience was that we were dining with friends named Lane and Debbie Gay, and when the PA announcement was made that the table was ready for "Gay party of four," every eye in the place was on us as we walked to our table.

--Jim

[Eva Elisabeth]

St. Pete, where I worked, was nice and had the best bookstore I've ever seen. Haslem's was its name and it was a wonderful place to get lost in, and had a great staff, too.

--Jim

...and not to forget the Dali Museum (with his XXL pixeled Lincoln painting). First time I saw paintings of his impressionistic beginnings.

[Jim Page]

The Dali Museum wasn't open yet when we lived there, so I had to travel to NYC to see them. Of course, it was worth the trip. I was surprised by the large size of his canvases.

You are lucky to have been able to visit that museum!

--Jim