Running Barefoot Through The Heart of Summer

Most of the days felt like summer in the hot, tropical islands of the Philippines where my family spent the early part of my childhood. Many of our locations were near the coast often surrounded by rice fields. Two elder brothers, ages nine and eleven, plus a couple of missionary pals their age and me around the age of six would frequently run together down the local paths. We ran because we were blessed with good health and the freedom that existed in a time where parents did their grownup work and elder siblings loosely watched their charges. Our engines were set to run, run, run and we ran everywhere seeking something more interesting than school lessons and chapel services.

Our feet bare and running at a steady gait through tall sea grass swaying in the breezes. The rice frogs, no longer polliwogs jumped freely, and we chased them. But we didn’t pick them up yet. They were too small. Months later we would chase them again and bag a few to take to the campus cook Nita, who would transform our muddy gift into crunchy fried frog legs. In our summer kitchen, we dined eagerly from tin plates with no silverware, sitting on empty rice bags leftover from our frog foraging.

As an adult in the U.S., frog legs crossed my path again as part of an upscale brunch buffet. They did not taste as scrumptious as they had in childhood. The island atmosphere was missing along with the continuous running which worked up a ravenous appetite. A pristine china plate did not hold frog legs as finely as a tin plate had. And the empty rice bags to sit upon? Missing.

The stateside frog legs did not taste like chicken as some liked to claim, but just as froggy as one may imagine.

When we ran barefoot through the tall grass, we did not consider there might be snakes in the grass, because we relied on our snake map Richard had drawn and thought we kept track of their whereabouts. The cobras preferred to nest under the mission home and lurk in the bamboo grove, the sugar cane field by the wall, or in Mom’s poinsettia shrubs. We occasionally encountered snakes in our living quarters, but never in theirs. Thankfully, we never did get snake bites despite our lack of care or thought to snakes in the tall grass. Groups of birds flew up and we spread ourselves out in the grass. We longed to rise as high as they did way up into the clouds and fly on tidal winds to unseen places.

Once we caught our breath after stretching out and looking up, we raced over the cliffs onto the swaying bridge, clinging to the ropes tied to bamboo sections. The bridge shook on both sides, while each of us took a turn in the middle of the bridge. The object of the bridge game was to hold on tightly and not be shaken off and cast down into the rocky riverbed. None of us fell onto the rocks or into the shallow river below. We managed to hang on and the ropes stayed attached to the bamboo as we squealed, closed our eyes and clung to the ropes with great, glorious fear.

Arriving in the States, off the long flight from the Islands, we rested for a few days at Aunt Clara’s house in Pasadena, California. We wanted to swim, but immediately ran too fast and were hollered at to sit and endure a series of twitchy time-outs meant to slow us down and stop us from continuously running around the slippery edges of the pool.

We drove east and were soon living in Indiana where my brothers, neighbors and I ran through the adjoining yards and alley playing army. When my brothers discovered “Star Trek,” from watching the program on a neighbor’s TV set, all the intergalactic plot lines were absorbed and outdoor army games changed to, “Beam me up, Scotty.” Pretend army guns became phasers. And I was cast as an alien with no phaser in our backyard play. The neighbor showed me comics of the alien I was to be which led to complaints of not wanting to be that icky, alien creature with the alligator face. Shortly after the game commenced, my brother Bill with a mere glance from two yards away commanded me to freeze, “You are now a prisoner of the Federation!” he declared.

No one had tagged or caught me, so I took off running. He pursued and called out accusations of how I ruined everything; and if I didn’t follow the new rules I’d never get to play with the big kids. I didn’t like being an alien; even less being “frozen” and “caught” from two adjacent backyards away. No, to the phasers and all the new Trekkie lingo and how serious my brothers were about it. It was not real, and they were acting like it was; and that was more frightening than being shaken on the bamboo bridge above the stony river. I ran indoors into neutral territory where I would be caught in a lecture from two elder sisters and Mother about washing face, hands and feet and being more ladylike. It was a different kind of prison, but it felt a little safer than playing sci-fi games outdoors.

Now in second grade, I refused to play “Star Trek,” from that point forward. I took up jacks, jump rope and hopscotch with any neighbor kids recruited on the midwestern sidewalk. Learning to ride the large, green bicycle with the handlebar basket, found in the garage, occupied some time. A neighborly mom suggested that the bicycle was too big and needed training wheels as she lifted the bicycle off where it had pinned me to the sidewalk. I tried to explain that this was the only “found” bike there was. If it didn’t come with training wheels, there weren’t going to be any training wheels. The neighbor then talked to Mom who nodded in polite agreement about the dangers of me riding that big bicycle. Mom told me to take a break.

Running less that summer provided the time to cultivate a family gang of my own in the twins. Much to my dismay, I had often been tasked with watching them for life, but now, as they turned five they could tag along with me as I had formerly followed my elder brothers. And we quickly learned that our plan to get rich from a lemonade stand was impossible. Between the three of us we lacked the discipline to not drink all the lemonade ourselves.

Moving a lot was a consistent factor of our lives. We moved again the next year and were in another Indiana home with no sidewalks. Our parsonage had acres of mown grass with a tall picket fence around it. We ran and ran through the grass which felt like green velvet on our bare feet. We climbed a ladder to get to the top of the shed and jump onto an old mattress below. Dad had pulled the old mattress out of the house for trash pickup. In those days of intense frugality, the mattress must have been in abhorrent shape or one of us would have slept upon it. Yet outdoors it became a safe landing pad. We dragged it to the edge of the shed and rapidly flapped our wings to fly before landing. We did this only a few times each as it was not a soft landing; yet somehow no one broke a limb. We tired of the shed and ran to the pear tree at the back corner of the yard.

The pear tree was covered in nearly ripe pears and a few neighborhood teens liked to gather in its shade and smoke cigarettes. The twins and I climbed up into the tree and our first act of neighborhood evangelism was to pelt the cigarette smoking teens with pears, yelling that smoking was a sin. Mother brought out cookies and Kool- Aid and invited all the kids to Sunday School. We were ordered down from the tree and sheepishly apologized for throwing pears. Then we were told to run inside with no cookies or Kool-Aid for us and await our punishment. We knew what was coming and the twins were already crying. Spankings and tearful prayers for forgiveness led to a sanction that us three pear throwers were not allowed near the pear tree for a week. We rued that the pears would ripen without us. With time served, the burden of punishment lifted, and we ran again to the pear tree to dine on delightful, ripened pears.

In fourth grade we moved again, and part of each summer day now began with helping Mom in the house and garden and keeping an eye on not two, but three siblings younger than me. At times we ran through the neighborhood finding friends to play backyard games of kickball, spud and steal the bacon.

During the hottest part of August, we spent weeks sweating through old time camp meetings in the big tabernacle. Funeral fans waved in every rough plank pew. It was a time of intense, fiery preaching which included illustrations of what might happen in a traffic accident to one who left the service without being saved that night. The long altar calls begged one to get saved, “Just as I Am,” and “Oh why not tonight? Wilt thou be saved, oh why not tonight?” The question was asked numerous times: “Are you ready to face the judgment of the Lord and all eternity?” It resonated and frightened me so vividly that I ran-walked forward to the altar to receive salvation each of the first three nights. On night four, my sister Mary told me to sit still and hold her hand through the services during altar call. She whispered in my ear that I need not go forward and get saved every day, that I was saved enough for now and we would talk about it later.

Reminiscing as adults, my siblings and I acknowledge there is no human reason we survived the perilous places where we ran barefoot as children. Relatives back in the States and faithful churches prayed countless prayers for us. Unknowingly, we put the words to the test that Jesus spoke in Matthew 18, verse 10, “See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven.” The angels spoken of in Psalm 91:11-13, had charge over us to guard us in all our ways and on their hands, we were borne up, lest we strike our feet against a stone.

We thank our Father in heaven for his care. For his protecting angels who continually ran with us through the summers of our childhood and on throughout our lives. We pray they run with our own beloved children and delightful grandchildren. And with great joy we plan to run and fly with the angels again someday in total freedom barefoot through the summers of eternity.