One Red Ked

In the summer of 1966 Keds came out with a stylish new girls sneaker. I begged my parents for a pair for months or years, it seemed. They had slightly pointed toes and an elastic band over the top and a cute little white rubber sole. Finally for my sixth birthday my parents gave me those coveted red Keds.

A few days after my birthday, my older sister Judy and her friend Kitty Carpenter were going to ride their bikes to the toy store in town. I desperately wanted to join them because I was wearing my new red keds and a pair of peddle pushers with ties up the sides. I had to be seen in town. My brother Scott had taken my bike so my begging them meant that I would ride on the back of my sister's bicycle.

The toy store was in the center of the town of Kimberly and it was one of those old-fashioned mom and pop shops. What I remember about it was row after row of toys stacked from floor to ceiling, and the sour smell of plastic, rubber, and promise.

We stayed a good long while in the store and when we went to leave I saw my brother pull up on my bike. I demanded to ride my own bike home. “How is Scott supposed to get home?” Judy argued. I didn’t care, after all, I protested, he had taken my bike and now I wanted it back. I threw a tantrum, and continued to whine bitterly even as I climbed onto the back of Judy’s bike.

I was sitting on the fender with my heels resting on the rear axle bolts when I felt the most searing pain imaginable. I started to scream. Judy thought I was ramping up my tantrum. My heel had slipped and was being sawed off by the spokes of her bicycle wheel. She continued to peddle, and peddle until finally Kitty Carpenter saw what was happening and shouted "Judy, stop, there's blood everywhere." We were in front of a bar and a man who heard the screaming came out, grabbed me off the back of the bike, and shouted back into the bar for someone to call an ambulance.

Later, after the ambulance ride and the bright lights of the hospital, and after my heel was returned to my foot with Frankenstein-like stitches and wrapped in a big bandage, I obsessed over my little red Ked. I had only worn them that day, and now one was missing and I wondered where it was. Was it on the street at the scene of the accident, torn and covered with blood, laying in the gutter? Or had it been left in the ambulance or removed at the hospital, and discarded in some sanitary waste basket?

While my foot was in bandages, it worked to only have one shoe. Even after my stitches were removed and my foot was healed I continued to wrap my foot in bandages just so I could wear my one red Ked. Asking my parents for another pair was out of the question-I felt I had somehow lost my shoe by my own recklessness and did not dare ask for another pair. Eventually I must have gotten bored with walking around in one shoe, but I never forgot my red Keds.