I have a reoccurring corn on the on the side of my left foot just under the little toe.
I have removed it numerous times using corn pads and ointments, but after a few weeks, it returns, a little angry that I am so eager to get rid of it. My wife says it’s the shoes I choose to wear almost everyday; but I apparently like the shoes more than I hate the corn.
The funny thing about the corn is that it never hurts while I am actually walking for standing but only after I sit down after walking for standing. Last night I was sitting on the couch whining to my wife about being out of both corn pads and ointment. She quietly suggested I go to the office in the rear of the house and look for the backbone I had apparently left there under a pile of junk mail I never seem to discard. It was then I reminded her that I have very sensitive feet because of the damage I did to them in the summer of 1968.
Although she has heard the story enough times to be able to tell it herself, I haven’t told it here… until today.
In late June of 1968, a month after I had turned 17, some of the men in our ward invited some of the young men on an adventure; an 80 mile hike to Elk Meadows which was located at the base of Mount Olympus on the Olympic Peninsula, and back again.
Most of those invited were between 14 and 15, with one deacon just shy of 13 and my friend Don Sampson and me who were both approaching our senior year in high school.
My invitation came late – just a week and a half before the scheduled departure – so I had to rush to get ready.
Each of the 4 men and Don and I would be carrying backpacks weighing over 50 lbs. The 14 and 15 year-olds would carry between 30 and 40 while the lone deacon would carry 25-30. I did not own a backpack what would handle that kind of weight nor did I own hiking boots appropriate for hard, uphill, backpacking, even if the trails were well trod and readily marked. I had a job and, therefore, a few bucks. When I told my boss I was going away for a week, I lost the job and later spent the few bucks on a large, external framed pack and a brand new pair of heavy-duty Vasque hiking boots, a straw cowboy hat that matched the one my friend Don bought and the freeze-dried meals recommended by the organizers whose names, with the exception of Don’s dad, Brother Sampson, I do not remember.
I did not mention to my parents that I had lost my job at Sambos, where I was the fastest cook on their staff… at least I had been the fastest cook on their staff.
My father, always the soldier, suggested I wear the hiking boots everywhere for the week before we left, just to break them in. I do remember considering his advice but rejecting it because there was no way those boots looked cool to girls.
We loaded the vehicles on a Sunday evening and headed for the Olympic National Forest where we camped at a family park at the base of the trail that lead to the park’s namesake mountain and Elk Meadows at its base. We have no tents because of the weight it would add. This was not a real problem because there were lean-to shelters with stacked cot frames for camping.
Shelter was, of course, important when camping in North America’s only official rain forest.
Early Monday morning we arose and ate the last real breakfast of the trip, packed up and shouldered the packs and headed up the trail… The next day at about 10 in the morning and forty miles later, we arrived at our base camp.
There was a small glacier lake in the meadow that, I had been told, held voracious trout.
I am convinced that one of the reasons I was invited at all was my ability to catch fish when others cannot. I didn’t care, however, because there is little I like more than catching fish.
In fact, I would have been in heaven on earth were it not for my aching feet. I clearly should have listened to my father.
By the time we had reached the meadow, I had gone through all the moleskin in the 1st Aid Kit and still had developed 17 major blisters. The bottoms of both feet looked like nothing but a big blister and they hurt like hell with every step.
Fortunately, I had packed some of those rubber flip-flops we used to call thongs before thongs came to mean something else. I wore them the entire time at camp except when I wore no shoes at all.
I found a little relief when I fished, so I fished a lot. I would wade out into the lake a little and let the ice water numb my feet. When I couldn’t feel them at all and they were blue, I stepped out and continued casting until the pain returned and I repeated the ritual.
On the first afternoon in the meadow, I caught at least 40 trout and everyone feasted at dinner. I continued feeding the group for two days as I soaked my feet in the lake.
My socks, which had become red with blood during the hike, were washed and hung to dry in one of the shelters. They never lost the bloodstains, however. I kept them for a long time as a reminder of my stupidity then I threw them away when I realized I had all kinds of other evidence that wasn’t bloodstained.
By the time we were ready to descend and return home, some of the blisters had begun to heal but, despite the bacitracin ointment, several had become infected.
There was no moleskin left so I clinched my teeth, pulled on the socks and the boots, laced them, shouldered the considerably lighter backpack, and whistled my way through the pain, down the mountain trail.
Descending with light backpacks was easier and quicker than was the assent. Though we had to walk a little in the dark, we made it to the cars that evening and headed for the ferry and then back to Seattle. I arrived home after midnight on a Friday night. My parents were asleep and I didn’t wake them.
On Saturday morning my mother saw my feet and had a hissy fit. My dad took me to the dispensary at Sand Point Naval Air Station where the medic who treated me told me that I would have been court martialed if I had been in the service and allowed my feet to get in that condition. My dad, to his credit, suggested the medic treat the feet and leave the lecturing to him.
Though he could have, and I don’t have a clue as to why he didn’t because it was certainly in his nature, he never said a word that sounded like “I told you so”.
That night there was a tri-stake youth dance at one of the stake centers. My mother told me I would be stupid to go and my dad said that, if I did go, I should not dance. I listen ignored my mother and made a mental note to take my dad’s suggestion seriously… and I did… for awhile.
I sat at one of the tables that bordered the gym floor, with a few friends who didn’t feel all that bad about leaving me alone when they danced. My feet hurt but the pain-killers helped.
An hour or so into the dance a girl I did not know came and sat with me. I suppose one of the stake leaders who didn’t know me sent her my way as I looked lonely and rejected. She was cute enough and seemed genuinely nice. She asked me to dance.
I thought about what my dad said and then considered telling her about my feet. I lost both mental arguments and we danced the rest of the night.
Fortunately it was not unusual for white boys to grimace during dances. She must have thought I was a particularly angry dancer because she gave me a bad phone number at the end of the dance.
It took two weeks for my feet to heal but something was different. Every time it got cold outside, my feet would ache.
Years later I asked a doctor about this after telling him the story and he was convinced I had caused the problem when I soaked my feet for several hours for three days in a glacier lake. Perhaps he is right.
It has now been 40 years since that adventure. I might have forgotten it except for my aching feet. Perhaps it is true that all clouds are lined with silver.
I have removed it numerous times using corn pads and ointments, but after a few weeks, it returns, a little angry that I am so eager to get rid of it. My wife says it’s the shoes I choose to wear almost everyday; but I apparently like the shoes more than I hate the corn.
The funny thing about the corn is that it never hurts while I am actually walking for standing but only after I sit down after walking for standing. Last night I was sitting on the couch whining to my wife about being out of both corn pads and ointment. She quietly suggested I go to the office in the rear of the house and look for the backbone I had apparently left there under a pile of junk mail I never seem to discard. It was then I reminded her that I have very sensitive feet because of the damage I did to them in the summer of 1968.
Although she has heard the story enough times to be able to tell it herself, I haven’t told it here… until today.
In late June of 1968, a month after I had turned 17, some of the men in our ward invited some of the young men on an adventure; an 80 mile hike to Elk Meadows which was located at the base of Mount Olympus on the Olympic Peninsula, and back again.
Most of those invited were between 14 and 15, with one deacon just shy of 13 and my friend Don Sampson and me who were both approaching our senior year in high school.
My invitation came late – just a week and a half before the scheduled departure – so I had to rush to get ready.
Each of the 4 men and Don and I would be carrying backpacks weighing over 50 lbs. The 14 and 15 year-olds would carry between 30 and 40 while the lone deacon would carry 25-30. I did not own a backpack what would handle that kind of weight nor did I own hiking boots appropriate for hard, uphill, backpacking, even if the trails were well trod and readily marked. I had a job and, therefore, a few bucks. When I told my boss I was going away for a week, I lost the job and later spent the few bucks on a large, external framed pack and a brand new pair of heavy-duty Vasque hiking boots, a straw cowboy hat that matched the one my friend Don bought and the freeze-dried meals recommended by the organizers whose names, with the exception of Don’s dad, Brother Sampson, I do not remember.
I did not mention to my parents that I had lost my job at Sambos, where I was the fastest cook on their staff… at least I had been the fastest cook on their staff.
My father, always the soldier, suggested I wear the hiking boots everywhere for the week before we left, just to break them in. I do remember considering his advice but rejecting it because there was no way those boots looked cool to girls.
We loaded the vehicles on a Sunday evening and headed for the Olympic National Forest where we camped at a family park at the base of the trail that lead to the park’s namesake mountain and Elk Meadows at its base. We have no tents because of the weight it would add. This was not a real problem because there were lean-to shelters with stacked cot frames for camping.
Shelter was, of course, important when camping in North America’s only official rain forest.
Early Monday morning we arose and ate the last real breakfast of the trip, packed up and shouldered the packs and headed up the trail… The next day at about 10 in the morning and forty miles later, we arrived at our base camp.
There was a small glacier lake in the meadow that, I had been told, held voracious trout.
I am convinced that one of the reasons I was invited at all was my ability to catch fish when others cannot. I didn’t care, however, because there is little I like more than catching fish.
In fact, I would have been in heaven on earth were it not for my aching feet. I clearly should have listened to my father.
By the time we had reached the meadow, I had gone through all the moleskin in the 1st Aid Kit and still had developed 17 major blisters. The bottoms of both feet looked like nothing but a big blister and they hurt like hell with every step.
Fortunately, I had packed some of those rubber flip-flops we used to call thongs before thongs came to mean something else. I wore them the entire time at camp except when I wore no shoes at all.
I found a little relief when I fished, so I fished a lot. I would wade out into the lake a little and let the ice water numb my feet. When I couldn’t feel them at all and they were blue, I stepped out and continued casting until the pain returned and I repeated the ritual.
On the first afternoon in the meadow, I caught at least 40 trout and everyone feasted at dinner. I continued feeding the group for two days as I soaked my feet in the lake.
My socks, which had become red with blood during the hike, were washed and hung to dry in one of the shelters. They never lost the bloodstains, however. I kept them for a long time as a reminder of my stupidity then I threw them away when I realized I had all kinds of other evidence that wasn’t bloodstained.
By the time we were ready to descend and return home, some of the blisters had begun to heal but, despite the bacitracin ointment, several had become infected.
There was no moleskin left so I clinched my teeth, pulled on the socks and the boots, laced them, shouldered the considerably lighter backpack, and whistled my way through the pain, down the mountain trail.
Descending with light backpacks was easier and quicker than was the assent. Though we had to walk a little in the dark, we made it to the cars that evening and headed for the ferry and then back to Seattle. I arrived home after midnight on a Friday night. My parents were asleep and I didn’t wake them.
On Saturday morning my mother saw my feet and had a hissy fit. My dad took me to the dispensary at Sand Point Naval Air Station where the medic who treated me told me that I would have been court martialed if I had been in the service and allowed my feet to get in that condition. My dad, to his credit, suggested the medic treat the feet and leave the lecturing to him.
Though he could have, and I don’t have a clue as to why he didn’t because it was certainly in his nature, he never said a word that sounded like “I told you so”.
That night there was a tri-stake youth dance at one of the stake centers. My mother told me I would be stupid to go and my dad said that, if I did go, I should not dance. I listen ignored my mother and made a mental note to take my dad’s suggestion seriously… and I did… for awhile.
I sat at one of the tables that bordered the gym floor, with a few friends who didn’t feel all that bad about leaving me alone when they danced. My feet hurt but the pain-killers helped.
An hour or so into the dance a girl I did not know came and sat with me. I suppose one of the stake leaders who didn’t know me sent her my way as I looked lonely and rejected. She was cute enough and seemed genuinely nice. She asked me to dance.
I thought about what my dad said and then considered telling her about my feet. I lost both mental arguments and we danced the rest of the night.
Fortunately it was not unusual for white boys to grimace during dances. She must have thought I was a particularly angry dancer because she gave me a bad phone number at the end of the dance.
It took two weeks for my feet to heal but something was different. Every time it got cold outside, my feet would ache.
Years later I asked a doctor about this after telling him the story and he was convinced I had caused the problem when I soaked my feet for several hours for three days in a glacier lake. Perhaps he is right.
It has now been 40 years since that adventure. I might have forgotten it except for my aching feet. Perhaps it is true that all clouds are lined with silver.
2 comments:
So grandpa never had you write down the id 10 t on a piece of paper when you got back?!
LOL!
It's all right...I refused to wear socks even in the dead of winter, because I am a hippie. I have to wear them now as often as I can. Karma is fun, huh?
uncle scott! happy birthday! i miss and love you! i'll see you saturday.
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