I found myself recently accompanying Bowden to a crowded Men's Room because he needed to "poop." Upon entering the men's room I instantly noted that all of the toilets were in use, but Bowden wasn't satisfied until he peeked under every door. Finding none available, Bowden started a little dance as he chanted loudly, " I have to go, I have to go, I really have to go" over and over again. Finally an elderly asian man exited stall number two, gave Bowden a knowing smile, and Bowden, ignoring the man, rushed into the stall like the ocean filling a breach.
For a few minutes Bowden was quiet and I stood off to one side listening with a half a mind to the ordinary busy bathroom sounds- water running, flushing, paper towels dispensing and ripping, shoes scuffing over wet tile- then Bowden's inappropriately loud voice shouted from inside his stall,
"Daddy!"
"Yes, son."
"I got poop on my underwear. Lots of poop!"
"Shhhh! Bowden, not so loud. We'll just throw them away."
You could have heard a pen drop. A few men nodded their heads and smiled their silent encouragement to me- fellow fathers I suspected. Then one man, fat and bald with a goatee, bellowed towards Bowden's stall, "It's okay little Dude!" and another chimed in "It's happened to me too, man."
Everyone laughed.
The company of men.
Bowden cracked the door and handed me the soiled power ranger underwear, which I threw away, and a few moments later he emerged himself a celebrity.
"Way to go little Dude!"
On a cold late-winter morning during my junior year of high school my Mother and I drove up to the Dexter shoe store on Rt. 4 between Rutland and Killington and bought this handsome pair of shoes. That was roughly 13 years ago. I remember not liking them at first and they were relegated to 3rd string. For years they rarely saw any action, and most often saw use only when a dressier pair of shoes was called for.
When I went away to college they went with me, and, being a little more broken in, saw increased action, but they were still mostly my go to dress shoes. It was this very pair of shoes that I was wearing when president Daniel Chamberlain handed me my diploma, and also when I interviewed for the St Albans City Police Department.
After many years of patiently waiting unused in the back of the closet "the dexters" have been recently promoted to my first choice in shoes and Captain of the footwear. For many years they have faithfully beared my girth and accompanied me on many diverse outings. There are holes in the soles, and the rubber is thin enough that I feel every pebble, but they are wonderfully contoured to my unique feet.
I am afraid that they are not long for this world, and many folks would have tossed them into the trash years ago, but I intend to wear them until they disintegrate or a well-informed medical opinion argues against their further use.
