Dog Days Stories: Who Needs A Machine Gun?

[NOTE: This is the first in a series of “summer reading” posts, for the “dog days” of August. Taking a break from current politics, religion, and other disasters, most are personal reminiscences, mainly true.]

When I was a boy, it seemed like I was always outgrowing things, especially shoes and pants.  Even though I was pretty hard on clothes, scuffing up shoes and wearing holes in the knees of my jeans, sometimes there was still some wear in the clothes when I outgrew them. 

Then my mother would sigh and say, “Well, at least we can still get some use out of them,” and hand the shirt or the pants down to one of my brothers.  

Since I was the oldest, though, there was no one to hand clothes down to me.  I liked that.  It meant my new clothes would really be new.

Often enough, when I needed new clothes my mother would bring out a thick catalog from Sears of Montgomery Ward and order them by mail.  To do this she unrolled the measuring tape from her sewing box and measured my arm and chest and the length of my leg.  To figure out my new shoe size, she had me stand with one foot on a piece of paper, while she placed the side of a knife against my big toe, my heel and on both sides where my foot was widest, and then made a mark at each spot with a pencil. Continue reading Dog Days Stories: Who Needs A Machine Gun? →