From the Memory Box - "Lost Shoes"

"I remember losing our shoes at someone's house in the neighborhood and you had to call around in the morning to find them."

Now this is one I don't remember at all! Most of the time all the neighborhood kids were playing at our house, so it is a surprise to me that you lost your shoes elsewhere. You probably had to pull them off to go in someone else's house.

The neighborhood was quite small, so calling around was not a big deal. Calling before you had to leave for school might have been bad timing. The bus stopped right in front of our house and would wait a minute or two for you if you were running late. Later, after the neighborhood had built up a little more, the bus stopped at more centrally located spots. When you missed the bus (the driver no longer waited), you had to run to the end of the street ( we lived near the beginning of a loop) and flag the bus down and get on. I think the other kids gave you a hard time about that, so it didn't happen more than one time for each one of you. "It was so embarrassing!"

If you completely missed the bus, I would take you one time. If you missed it again, you had to stay home and take a note to school the next day stating that you were absent because you had missed the bus. That did not happen more than once. Fortunately, all of you learned valuable lessons from these simple acts, but I was not voted "Mother of the Year."