The Boots

A little experience I want us to remember happened yesterday.  The 5th graders at South Elementary earned a workers holiday recently and were planning on enjoying a snow day with a little field trip over to the little hill at the High School by Cal Ranch.  They actually went today and Jack had quite the time.  Anyhow, students were required to wear proper snow gear which would not have been a problem but Jack managed to leave his snow boots up in Alaska. I am not a real wealthy fellow and the idea of having to go buy more snow boots when I had purchased a very nice pair for him didn't make me all that happy.  They are being sent down but we would not get them in time and thus we had a bit of a dilemma.  I was at Walmart for work reasons and decided I would just look and see if there was a real cheap pair I could pick up for him so he could go.  Incidentally, it was snowing outside at the very moment I was in the store looking for snow boots.  No snow boots!  Seriously none.  It is January.  Perhaps winter has passed.  There were some work boots that were his size but I didn't think they were waterproof.  At $15 I almost picked them up but had visions of water seeping into them and Jack being miserable and angry with me so I decided to hold off.  Yesterday evening I had the boys with me and we were going to head out of work and over to see if we could find some snow boots at the Cal Ranch store actually.  Jack suggested that we go to that thrift store where you can get used clothes.  Maybe they would have some snow boots.  I hadn't even thought of it.  We went and got there roughly 9 minutes before they closed, they being Deseret Industries.  We went over to where the shoes are.  Not all the shoes look real great and it can be a bit scary.  I wasn't seeing anything.  There was an area where I saw some ski boots and I was going to look closer over there and then it was like the heavens opened... okay not quite that dramatic but right there in front of us was a nice pair of snow boots.  They look like they had hardly been worn.  The soles were in good shape, the shoes themselves looked good, the laces were strong.  The only thing missing was the liner on the insole.  There was still padding, just padding without the neat clean liner.  Jack put them on and said the fit great and felt great.  These boots would do the trick and they were only $4.  Wonderful!  The report from Jack after school today was that the boots did do the trick.  They were sturdy and Jack liked them.  That is pretty dang fantastic stuff.  Sure am glad that Jack was listening.  It certainly made something, well an unnecessary expense, seem a lot easier to swallow and felt like a bit of a tender mercy on our behalf when finances are so tight.