Not long ago Harry and Penny Johnson came to see us. Many of you know them – they are charter members of this congregation. Harry is working on a profile of the three senior ministers that have preceded Bill Bouknight here at Christ Church. It is a part of a project for the library and the history of the church.

He asked me to recall some of my early boyhood experiences. I shared one of my favorites: springtime and when my mother would give us permission to go barefooted.

During those growing-up years, we had only one pair of shoes – we wore them every day – wherever we were going and whatever we were doing -- we called them brogans. They were heavy, warm, high-top shoes; we would wear them all winter long and into the spring and we just couldn’t wait to begin to go barefooted.

The sign…