My oldest brother purchased me a pair of Converse running shoes when I was 10yrs old. They were blue with a red logo on the side of them. To a 10yr old kid these shoes were to be cherished and shown off to all of my friends.

I had these shoes for about 3 weeks when one day it had began to rain, not heavy at first, so I rushed to get inside and in doing that I cut across our front yard since it was the shortest path to the front porch. I was pretty much successful in not getting my shoes wet.

Once inside my brother, who had purchased the shoes, noticed that the front of the shoes were wet and had some grass on the tips from cutting through the front yard. He told me to take them off and give them to him. I was a little worried that he would be upset but thought I was just going to get a “talking” to.

He inspected the shoes and noticed the grass on the shoes and wanted me to see it up close. He held the shoe in front of me and told to look closely at how the tips of the shoes were getting ruined because of my stupidity. I looked closer.

What happened next has affected my life ever since. As I looked closer he hit me in the mouth with the part of the shoe that had grass on it and then threw it at me while screaming about how stupid I was and that he would never buy me anything again. Bleeding from my lip and tears running down my face I apologized and took my once prized possession which had quickly gone from being prized to something I was unworthy of and was a thing to be feared.

The other day I was talking with my daughter and the discussion came up about not walking on the grass. While I don’t really care if anyone else walks on the grass, I have an aversion to it. I try not to do it and will walk several feet out of the way if needed. She found this interesting and so we discussed the why and how of it which leads to this blog.

Though this blog is not about getting a split lip or an aversion to not walking on the proper path it does bring to light how we develop certain odd habits and quirks that we carry with us from our childhoods. I am sure we all recognize these things in ourselves and we can often look back into our childhood and see what the events were that affected us.

I often look around me and try to see if I am creating these events in those that are close to me. I check to make sure that my wife and daughters don’t avoid certain things with me, whether they be conversations or daily interactions. I am a little sad to say I can see some things that I have done that have “trained” them in how to act around me but for the most part I am caring and watchful of my actions.

We can often teach our families around us to not ask certain questions by our reactions or to not attempt certain feats, whether they be adventurous one or ones they just don’t have the skill for, because of our reactions in the aftermath of a failure. Words such as “I told you so” or “You should know better” are often our training tools as adults and parents.

Take a look around and see if your kids don’t wear Converse tennis shoes or walk on the grass so to speak. I certainly don’t have any Converse running shoes nor do I stray from the proper path. I learned a lesson a long time ago… and it is a tough one to forget. My family has it own oddities but most of them are self inflicted ones…:-)

Lin