The (Now) Legendary Jelly Shoes Incident

Meet my father, Gary. He’s a botanist, photographer, biologist, camper, hiker, and explorer extraordinaire. Fashion plate? Not so much. Functional dresser? Absolutely.

When I was in maybe 7th or 8th grade, I signed up to go to an educational conservation camp near the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest in northern Wisconsin for a couple of weeks. I packed everything I needed: hair brush, toothbrush, stamps, swimming suit, paper for writing letters, socks, a sleeping bag, and books. My dad packed it all into the car and we drove about 50 miles before I realized I had only the jelly shoes I was wearing on my feet. Man, did I love my jelly shoes, my cool, new jelly shoes, but jelly shoes are no good for camp…especially conservation camp.  In my dad’s book, anything other than hiking boots or athletic shoes are useless. Wearing sandals (much less jelly shoes) was just short of lunacy in our house. So,wearing jelly shoes and forgetting to pack my functional “real” shoes? Uh-oh. I didn’t pack any hiking shoes or even tennis shoes, for that matter and it was way too late to turn around.

To be honest with you? I wasn’t too upset that I forgot my ‘real’ shoes. My dad clearly was, but I was thinking, ‘Hey! I get a new pair of shoes!’ It was too late to go back for shoes so my dad drove us to the Iron Mountain, MI. When we started to look for shoes at Shopko,  my heart sank. Neither Iron Mountain nor Shopko were known for being on the cutting edge. There were no cool athletic shoes, just white, 80s nursing shoe, look-alikes. I definitely ended up with functional shoes. No danger of being fashionable wearing those new shoes.

My dad did a lot of under his breath grumbling that day as we rode the rest of the way to camp and he never let me forget the time I wore jelly shoes to camp. I had a lot of time at camp to think about my jelly shoes faux pas. I was reminded of it often, looking down at my new athletic shoes while hiking and canoeing. To this day, every time we leave for a trip or a hike, I get to hear, “Terra, are you wearing your jelly shoes?” Wink, wink. Each time “The Legend of the Jelly Shoes” is retold I’m reminded not only of how he rescued me from two weeks of blisters and embarrassment, but also what a fantastic, functional father I have and I how lucky I am to be loved by him.