(Anonymous)
One day while we were at my mother's friend Paula's beach house in Snug Harbor, I met an old woman, who used a walker and could barely speak. When we got home that night, my mother told me that the woman was Paula's mother, Mrs. B. and she had gone to elementary school with my grandfather around 1915.
Mrs. B. came from a wealthy Protestant family and she rode a horse and buggy to school. She used to make fun of my grandfather because he was an Italian immigrant who didn't have much money. Mrs. B. particularly made fun of his worn shoes.
My grandfather became a United States citizen in the 1920s and graduated with a degree in architecture from the Rhode Island School of Design. He became a registered architect and a contractor.
My grandfather was always polite to Mrs. B. even after she became senile and didn't know her own name. And he never mentioned anything to me about her insulting his worn shoes. But, it always stuck in my mind because even today, people are judged by their appearance. Shoes are something that people tend to notice first. However, when my grandfather was a kid, it was a pretty serious thing.
Today, at work, a leather strap snapped off a pair of my high heel shoes. Since, I love them, I thought I'd take the to a cobbler. Then, I decided I'd buy a new pair at lunch.
One might say, I was multi-tasking in the car because I also called my optometrist to make an appointment for later in the afternoon. For the past couple of days, my eyes have been burning.
Not that my day was so exciting, because I just doing mundane things. Yet, I did discover something pretty cool that makes it easy for me to tie in my days activities. There is a patron saint of cobblers and shoemakers who is also a patron saint against eye problems and eye disease.
His name is St. Erhard of Regensburg. It is thought that he was born in Ireland in the 7th century, then moved to Germany. He was a missionary bishop. St. Erhard of Regensburg died c.686 and his feast day is January .
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