Sockless Summers

It was the last day of school and every one of us could hardly wait for the final bell and the beginning of summer holidays! School was done for another year. As soon as I got home the first thing done was to kick off my shoes and rip off my socks.

The sockless summer had officially begun. 

It was 1973 and back in those days shoes and socks were strictly taboo in the summer. We spent a lot of time in the back alley as kids and in those days it was a gravel alley. It took the whole summer to toughen up the soles of our feet but by the end of summer I could run up and down the alley as easily as on a patch of grass cringing only occasionally if I stepped on a sharp rock.

Ahhhh, summer as a kid. Freedom, fun, and carefree living at it’s best.

For some reason those carefree days slipped away as did our youth being replaced by rules, regulations, and societies imposed standards of how to act, dress, and be.