I think it is easily discernible how old I am from these selections. I suppose it is also possible to estimate which social set I ran with in the 80s. Yes, I had very, very big hair, some of which was dyed pink. I once got my foot broken at a punker gig. It was one of these illegal things where the band just rented an empty warehouse for the evening and word of mouth spread the news around (this was before cellphones or Facebook events pages). I was friends with a few bad-kid-bands in those days, and would sometimes lend a hand putting up handbills around town. At one of these I wore the wrong shoes, my beloved scarlet leather ankle boots, which were shredded by the end of the evening.

The actual cracked metatarsal came in the form of a huge punker’s Doc Marten. We were pogo-ing and laughing and having a great time, but one of his jumps landed square on my foot and I went down like a bowling pin on tournament night. It being Victoria, the enormous guy immediately stopped and reached down, lifted me onto my feet and escorted me (with his elbows) out of the crowd, and then bawled over the music into my ear, “I’M SO SORRY!! ARE YOU OK? DO YOU WANT A RIDE HOME?” I told him I was fine and after I got a drink of water, I decided to limp home. The next morning I went to the corner store and it was, step… ouch… step… ouch… step… ouch… It took care of itself after a couple of weeks but I have always regretted the loss of those boots. They were beautiful.

This has nothing to do with the pope or the synod.

~