Week 10: Loafers and Burmese Chickens: Part 1

We set out for Ocala, Florida on Sunday, and spent the night at the Florida Welcome Center on I-75. This would be the first time that I’d been back to Ocala since my family had vacationed there when I was a young boy. We had visited Silver Springs, just east of Ocala. Silver Springs is a 350-acre nature theme park that surrounds the headwaters of the Silver River, the largest artesian spring formation in the world.


After exploring the park and taking a glass-bottom boat ride, my father, mother, sister and myself, returned to our motel room in Ocala. Our family pet was a grouchy toy poodle named, ironically, Ringo. My father put Ringo on a leash, and the whole family went out for an evening stroll. Dad had purchased a new pair of dark brown, suede loafers specifically for this trip. He had been bragging all day about how he felt as if he were “walking on air”.


“These are the most comfortable shoes I’ve ever worn,” he boasted.

My dad was in love with his new loafers.

As we walked, Dad stopped along the way to chat with some other tourists. As he talked, Ringo was incessantly tugging on his leash, as if he harbored a sense of urgency about something. My father was so engaged in his conversation that he seemed oblivious to the imploring yanks of the little dog—he just automatically reeled the animal back in. Even at eight years old, it was obvious to me that the tiny poodle required… something. Then, without pomp or fanfare, we all discovered what that “something” was.

Ringo politely lifted his hind leg, and urinated all over my dad’s dark brown, suede loafers. At first, everyone stood stunned and mute, while my father wore the shocked expression of a man who had just been told that he has 24 hours left to live. My mother was the first to emit a snicker. This provided the permission I needed to release the enormous guffaw, which would have caused me to explode had I held it in any longer. Soon, everyone was laughing… except my dad. He tossed the leash of the offending critter to my mother and stormed back to the motel room, wearing a sour frown, a set of bulging veins in his temples, and a beloved pair of dark brown, suede loafers that were soaked in poodle piss. To this day, the “loafer incident” remains a source of amusement to my family and me.