Barefoot Boy

Things were different in the 1960’s. I remember feeling so sorry for one boy. Maybe nowadays, teachers would look into the situation, but back then, as long as there were no obviously visible signs of abuse, they would look the other way.

He came to school every day in the same clothes, with no shoes, even in the winter. Yes, it was in south Texas, but it did get really cold part of the winter, with frost on the ground, sometimes windy with sleet or freezing rain falling. Not good on bare feet.

On those cold days, he wore a thin, threadbare windbreaker. It couldn’t have helped much with the cold. He had no gloves or cap, just that paper thin windbreaker.

At lunch time, I made a point of sitting near him, since nobody else would have anything to do with him. I was too shy to talk, but I always smiled at him, and he would smile back. We never spoke, and I never learned his name.

His lunch was two slices of bread with maybe a tablespoon of peanut butter. That’s all. I know, because if the two slices of bread were crooked, he would carefully pull them apart and line them up straight. That’s when I would see that there was a paper thin smear of peanut butter, barely enough to hold the two slices together.

That thin sandwich was in a small brown paper bag, which he was always careful to fold up and put back in his pocket. It got so wrinkled and worn out, but he would use it until it was falling apart, before he showed up with a new bag.

After he would eat his flimsy sandwich, he would go to the water fountain. He didn’t even bring anything to drink wirh his lunch.

If I had been less shy, I would have happily shared my lunch with him.

I’ve always wondered what his home life was like, and whatever became of him.