How to Tie Your Shoes

For quite a while this has been on my mind, and I’ve wanted to write a few words about something we do everyday--and perhaps even bring some enlightenment to a mundane subject.  Yes, I know, you’ve been tying your shoes ever since kindergarten, so why waste time reading about it.  No problem, keep scrolling and read some more opinions about Trump or Clinton, or maybe watch some funny cat videos on YouTube.  Better yet, go for a walk or read a good book.  But wait, before you go, let me ask you a question.  How many times do you need to retie your shoes during the day?  Or do you double-knot them, and then fight with the knot the next time you want to put them on?  How many of you have simply given up, and gone to slip-on shoes, slip-on boots, or velcro straps.  If that’s you, listen up.

There is a better way.

I know.  There have been articles and videos about this,  so I’m certainly not the first to address it.  And some of you have had a good teacher who taught you the correct method, and your shoes stay tied.   But a few of you may find this helpful.

About twenty years ago, our family was planning a canoe trip to the Boundary Waters of Minnesota and Canada.  The thing is, the Boundary Area is not all about canoeing.  There are portages (some of them long and hilly, or muddy, or stony) between the lakes and rivers, and one must hike those trails while carrying a canoe and/or a large backpack.  The last thing you want is a shoelace coming undone.  And more than that, you want good shoes appropriate for the journey.

So we went to an outfitter-type store somewhere north of Wayne County, (can’t remember exactly where) to the shoe section.  I had in mind to buy a good pair of waterproof hiking boots, and began perusing the offerings.  Presently, a large man (that’s putting it kindly, God bless him--he was morbidly obese) ambled over to help.  This wasn’t Walmart.  At this store, the personnel still help with the fitting.  We chose a boot to try on, and he shuffled off to get the correct size.  Soon he was back and with great effort, got to his knees to help me put on the boot.  I slipped my foot into it and he proceeded to instruct me how to lace it up.

Allow me to confess what I was feeling at this point (and shame on me.)  This fellow was about forty-five years old, and looked as if even a short hike might do him in.  So how would he know how to advise me?  What could he possibly know about lacing up boots for hiking?  Truth be told--more than me.  I’ve been grateful ever since that day, and have been ashamed of my quick judgement.  Perhaps as a younger man, this fellow had been an avid hiker, and somehow things had gotten away from him.  Perhaps he had a health condition.  We should never judge a book by it’s cover.  We’ve heard that a thousand times, and it’s still a hard lesson.

Now back to the lacing of the boot.  The man taught me that if I were going to be primarily climbing uphill, there is a different method of lacing and tying than if I were primarily hiking down hill.  And although I’ve used those methods, and they work wonderfully, we won’t get into that right here.  What he taught me of most significance (and you will thank me for this) is how to tie my shoes--you know, the simple knot at the top, the one with bows that we learned how to do when we were five years old.

Most of us have never given a second thought how we do it.  We simply make the first half of a knot, and then the second half.  The second half includes loops of string so the shoe will be easy to untie at the end of the day.  And that’s that.   For a lot of us, the result is a knot that slips, and within a relatively short time, we will be tying our shoes again.

Take a look at your shoe right now.  Do the bows go across your foot or pretty much line up with your toes and ankles?  That’s the test.  If the bows line up with your toes and ankles, you are doing one of two things.  You are tying them several times a day because they come loose, or you’ve resorted to a double knot.  I know this because that was my life until I met the big man at the outdoor sports store.

He watched me tie the boot, and then with a very wide smile he asked the question--actually it was more of a statement.

“Your boots come untied, don’t they.”  

“Yes, they usually do,”  I answered, “so I double-knot them.”

He looked at me knowingly--nodding as he spoke.  “Let me teach you how to tie them so they don’t come loose.”

I was almost offended by his offer, but again, shame on me.

“Do you see how the bows are lining up with your toes and the top of the boot?”

“Yes.”

“That’s a knot that will come loose.”

(Yeah, I already knew that.)

“It’s called a ‘granny’ knot.  What you really want is a ‘square’ knot.  They don’t come loose nearly as easily.”

“What you want to do,” he went on, “is start your knot by doing the first half of it backwards from what you normally do, and then finish the knot the way you normally do it.”

So I tried it.  Sure enough, the bows now went across my foot.

“That’s a square knot,” he said, smiling widely again.  “You’ll like it because your shoes will stay tied.”

And yes, I do like it.  For the last twenty years I have liked it, and never looked back.  If you care to try it, you will like it too.  It might also be good to include here that there are other creative ways to tie a shoe.  I searched the internet last evening, and found several of them.  If you are a long distance runner, you’ve probably  already found some of those methods, but for the rest of us who just want a shoe that stays tied for the day, and is easy to untie at the end of the day, try the method we’ve just described.

Granny knot.  This one will come loose.

Square knot

There’s a lesson in this story too.  Just because we’ve always done something a certain way, doesn’t mean it’s the best way.  Let’s not be afraid to try something new.

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Went for a drive again today.  It was nice outside, and people were out working, so we put the camera into action.  Amish farmers are still bringing in corn shocks, and spreading manure.



One Amish fellow rode his bicycle to the filling station at Mt. Eaton for some gasoline.  He was pulling a trailer with two little children in it.

Took a picture of a very poor Swartzentruber homestead.  Most of the Swartzentrubers look a little poor, but this one looks really poor.

Stopped at John Miller’s for some pecan pie and homemade bread.  It’s fun to stop there.  The boys pop out from everywhere.  I asked one of the older boys, William, how many boys are in the family.  “Seven boys and seven girls,” he said. Then I went to the shop to visit with John a little.  He was building a buggy (that’s what he does for a living), and he thought I might like to see a new hack that was sitting outside. (A hack is an Amish truck).  Anyway, the hack had torsion-bar springs for suspension.  He said it will ride nicer and be more stable going down the road.  I told him that was pretty fancy for a Swartzentruber, and he just laughed.  That was a new one for me.  Maybe there are a lot of springs out there like that, I don’t know, but most buggies have leaf springs.  

This is a typical Swartzentruber Amish hack. Looks like the cows are milking pretty good. These are ten-gallon cans, and every drop of milk in them was squeezed out by hand.

And that’s about it for today.  Looks like the weather is going to turn cold next week, and then on Saturday we’re planning to tap the maple trees.  It’s that time again.  Son Mike and I are putting together a reverse osmosis system this year to remove a lot of the water from the sap before cooking it down.  Should speed things up considerably.  We’ll see.

From Kidron, Ohio; where the men are homely but hard-working;  where the women are beautiful, and patient with their men; and fortunately, where the happy, energetic children look a lot like their mothers.  Have a wonderful weekend.  So long.

The Earl I knew. A friend. A mentor. A flower.

I’ve been thinking about my old friend Earl a lot in the last days and weeks.   He passed away last week at the age of eighty-five after a short illness.  Our friendship began when I was a shy eighteen-year-old and Earl was around forty years old, a busy father of seven, with number eight on the way.  Earl was a Mennonite too, but of the Conservative branch.

Meeting Earl.  We lived in Hartville, Ohio, in those days, where Dad was the pastor at the Hartville Mennonite Church.  I had just graduated from High School and was looking for my first full time job.  Dad thought I should apply for work at the F. E. Shumacher Mfg. plant.  I did, and they hired me, putting me with Earl to assemble aluminum storm doors.  I was nervous, beginning a new job, but Earl made it easy for me.  Outgoing and friendly, and generous with instructions, we soon fell into a workable pattern of door production - a team that enjoyed competing to see who could get their side finished the quickest.  

Music.  It didn't take long to figure out that here was a man who loved music.  He loved to listen to it, and he loved to sing.  His tenor rang clear and true as we worked together and harmonized on old hymns.  He also loved to trumpet songs with his lips.  With his eyebrows raised high, and a grin on his face, he produced a sound that clearly rivaled the brass instrument.  Not as much volume, but just as pretty.  It took imagination and practice to do that, and since he didn’t own a real trumpet, he made do with the instruments that God gave him.

Earl soon invited me to his home.  There I met his wife Maggie and their delightful and happy brood, and was sometimes even treated to an excellent impromptu girls trio made up of his three oldest children.

And then the hand saw.  Earl pulled the saw out from somewhere one day when I was at his home, pinched it between his knees, and proceeded to wail out a tune on it.  From that day on, I wanted to do the same.

Faith.  Earl’s faith was front and center.  That was good for me, a young man who was beginning to test the waters.  Having been raised in the Mennonite Church and taught the same Christian faith from a Mennonite perspective, we had a lot in common.  Our branch of Mennonites was less conservative in appearance than Earl’s, and I appreciated that he didn’t try to convince me that I should be a Conservative Mennonite.  He accepted me the way I was, with the faith that I had, and helped build on that by sharing his own life and faith in a way that was transparent and refreshing - a truly childlike faith.  There has never been another person who has been that open with me, not before and not since.  Earl was an open book, and for a shy young man to hear his stories of life, his hard times, his good times, his deep love for his wife Maggie, and his love and concern for his children… that was a gift.  A true gift.

Jokes.  One of the most delightful features about Earl was his considerable appreciation for (clean) jokes and riddles.  It was always great fun to hear a good one and then to share it with Earl.  His immediate and full-blown laughter was a sight to behold - a mirth so complete, so enjoyable to observe and hear, that it often eclipsed the joke itself.  For the last forty-some years, every time I've heard a good one, I've thought of Earl and wished I could tell it to him - often writing them down in the hopes that I might be able to share them with him sometime.

A couple summers ago I bumped into Earl and his daughter Marjorie at the Mennonite Relief Sale in Dalton, Ohio on a Friday evening.  Earl was in his eighties now, and had lost his dear wife Maggie a year earlier.  His walking wasn’t very steady, so we borrowed a wheelchair for him.  While Marjorie headed out for some food, I rolled Earl to the spot where he wanted to sit for the program - the front row on the right - then went to grab a bite for myself too.  It was nearly time for the program to start when I returned to sit next to Earl, and to my surprise, he was sitting there, already having a one-man program of his own, belting out some tunes on his harmonica.  He grinned widely and chuckled as the instrument found its way back into the inner pocket of his straight-cut coat.

“Yes,” I said to myself, “this delightful man is still the same Earl, and in another day or another time, he could well have been one of those sharing his talents on stage.”  It was a pleasure to sit with him while John Schmid entertained the audience with stories and songs of faith.   Earl thoroughly enjoyed music, and his joy still shone through his smiling face and clear blue eyes.

Wallpaper.  There are many ways to decorate the walls of a house and make it home.  For some, the simplicity of plain pastels are the best choice.  For others, nothing less than beautiful wall paper will do.

In the large dining room of the old farmhouse we occupied for twenty years while our children were growing up, the walls were covered with floral paper.  The background was a light buttery yellow, and the patterns were mauve-colored flowers and gently creeping vines.  There were many times when I'd lay on the soft carpet of the old dining room, worn out from work, or needing a rest from the heat.  A pillow would be tucked under my head, and I'd lay there and think.  The floor is a good place to do that.  Barely comfortable enough to sleep, but good enough to rest while the mind churns with thoughts about life and reflections of days gone by.  While I was staring at the wallpaper one day, it occurred to me that most of us are like the background, and a few are like the flowers.  We need each other to complete the picture, but the flowers are what bring beauty to a space.  And that brought to mind individuals I have known who have brought color and beauty into my life.  Earl was one of them.  He was one of the flowers.  A rare one whose transparent love and hospitality shone like the bright yellow daffodils of springtime, glistening in the morning sunshine.  He bloomed where he was planted in a drab world, making it a better place.  He will not be forgotten.

So long, old friend.

Earl and Maggie.  Together again.

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As I was out and about today, I observed my Amish neighbors doing some January work.  Some were gathering and chopping corn shocks for bedding, and others were cleaning out the barns and spreading manure.  It was a very mild day today - reaching into the 50’s.  Won’t be long until we’ll be tapping the maple trees.  And then spring time.  

The family dog is following along.  Look behind the right rear wheel.

Gathering in the shocks.  These will be chopped up for bedding in the barn.

A load coming in, heading for the chopper.  The ears of corn were shucked last fall.  These are just the stalks.

From Kidron, Ohio, have a wonderful weekend.