Old Lady Shoes

Last week, my grandmother asked me to help her out with the Founder’s Day parade.  Did I already tell you this?  As I’m typing, I’m getting the feeling that I did.

In any case, she asked me to dress up as my great grandma and pretend to make soap on a flat bed trailer with my trusty brother, Steve, at my side pretending to be our great grandpa.  My great grandparents used to save their grease up for an entire year and then they’d spend a few days making homemade soap.  The soap they made over those few days lasted an entire year.  On Sunday, my blessed aunt (I’m starting to think I overuse adjectives.  Trusty brother.  Blessed aunt…) gave me a DVD of a home video someone took of my great grandparents making soap.  I haven’t watched it yet, but I’m planning on it!

We went to Saver’s on Saturday and I went with one goal in mind: old lady shoes.  We got there thirty minutes before they closed and while I scanned the shoe shelves for a golden find, my son wriggled away, climbed on a stool, and fell off.  His screams permeated the pleasant hum of background noise, and we did our best to GET THE HECK OUT OF THERE.  And we did.

Right after I found these:

They are perfect! What’s more: they are brand spanking new! What’s EVEN MORE: they have rubber soles.

I wore them all day yesterday. They were a perfect match to my brown polyester pants I love so much, and every step I took was bliss. Okay, that may be overdoing it a very little.

I also snagged up three yards of cotton/poly pink fabric to make pants out of and a clashing pink striped shirt. I think they’ll be a perfect match. My great grandmother always used to wear a brilliant hat that Aunt Minnie made. She took empty bleach bottles and cut them just so, popped holes around the edges and then crocheted them together.

See her tucked behind the burn barrel? That’s my Dad stirring the soap. I’m obviously nowhere near as small a woman as my great grandmother, but I’m off in a few minutes to go find THAT hat. THE hat. The original crocheted by Aunt Minnie Hat.
I’m going to figure out how it was made and try my hand at it.

And you can bet I’m going to wear my old lady shoes all the way to Aunt Sarah May’s house to get a peek at that hat. I’m only sad my brown polyester pants are dirty. They really completed the look.
(PS: Steve, I’m counting on you to say “Nice shoes, Alicia. Perfect match for the dress” next time you see me. Maybe we could watch “Rigoletto” too.)

Comments

  1. Kourtney says:

    I catch myself singing the theme song to Rigoletto everywhere I go. “I love the part in fairytales, it’s very near the end….” comes up in the shower, driving to work, whistling in the garden backyard which will one day become a garden, watching Daisy run around and bark at every moving thing. Love that movie, we should most assuredly live closer…..sigh.

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