The blue shoes

While I was doing my military service (I was already drill-corporal) I noticed that my shoes (a kind of shoes we call ‘clark’ and which were blue) were worn-out and it was time to change them.

Even though I needed a new pair of shoes, I did not want to say to my parents to buy me a new pair of shoes. One day, since the soldiers of my company left for their destinations, I and the other corporals were ordered to go into the dormitories to do the cleaning, for every time the soldiers went away they always left much rubbish we had to pick up and throw away in order to prepare the dormitories for the new group of recruits (at the Recruit Training Center of Orvieto, the barracks housed about 1000 recruits, who were divided into four companies, and I was in the first company).

I went into one of the big rooms of the company and I began to do the cleaning. When I arrived near the end of that big room, I put my broom under a locker to draw out possible bottles, papers, magazines, and other things which usually were under the lockers; but to my great surprise I drew out a pair of shoes (‘clark shoes’), they were blue, they were new. It seemed that the soles of those shoes had never touched the ground, and that they had just come out of a shoe shop. I picked them up and I looked at them, I was astonished. They seemed to be my size, so I decided to try on those shoes. They fitted me perfectly. I took them and thanked God for giving me the shoes I needed.

I wore those shoes for many years.

To God be the glory now and forever. Amen.

Giacinto Butindaro

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