Don't Look Down

Dear Greg,

What a lovely picture of you and your daughter by the Missouri River. She's what? Six years old now? I shared it with a number of my friends in the medical field due to something I couldn't help but notice in her barefoot pose.

I'm afraid it is obvious from the photograph that your daughter has girl feet. I'm sorry to be the one to pass this news to you but it falls on us poets and Taoists. There is no cure. She faces a life of well, let's be honest, shoes. I checked and there are a number of specialty shops in your state focused on accommodating this affliction. It doesn't necessarily mean a life of isolation and shame. With the new openness and tolerance and Oprah Winfrey (a fellow sufferer) she can find girls who share her challenge and share information (there are even magazines and catalogs), The Girl Scouts has recently lifted their ban on girls with girl feet and women's colleges across the land have opened their enrollment to them. 

Don't waste your time or hope on a cure. I know what you are thinking. We can put man on the Moon. Why does my daughter have to walk around on those for the rest of her life? Why hasn't some plastic surgeon or genius podiatrist devised a way to at least cosmetically if not foundation-ally correct this defect of nature and provide the big, bony, hairy dogs we healthy normal folk tread on?

The technology just isn't there yet. And God isn't big on the idea. 

I attended my younger brother Jim's daughter Chrissy's high school graduation party in Baltimore this last weekend. The weather was glorious and a lot of my family made it. We also had two boys we grew up with and haven't seen in decades show up. I have no idea how my niece located them. My brother John's daughter Kelly also graduated Saturday in North Carolina. I'll give them a call.

Both of my nieces have girl feet and have been living full and productive lives. They have friends and boyfriends and are accepted- even in sandals- into the homes of their friends and neighbors. I want you to know that I love both my nieces and their lower appendages have never in any way diluted or "qualified" my affection for them.

Maybe one day, we can pray, there will be a cure for girl feet but until that day I truly believe that there is enough love and charity in our species to walk with girl and normal feet together on this road of life.

Your ole bald buddy,

Don Arrup

Satire1