Appalachia

Ours was a middle-class neighborhood, but our parents were collectively part of the "Depression generation." Perhaps more importantly, that generation was more rural. We never saw it as a stigma at the time, nor did the practice have a racial implication since black kids did the same thing.

I remember getting home from school and gleefully pulling off my shoes so I could run in the grass and soft sand. At times, I would walk along side U.S. 441 a half mile to the lake culvert to wade in the mud and fish.