© 2010 Aaron Atkinson

Lucky Socks

A throwback to an article I wrote about Graceland traditions…

At Graceland, intramurals are a grand tradition. On the playing field boys grow into men, and sometimes girls do to. Some folks think that practice and the team make the player; this could not be further from the truth. What makes a player is the uniform. And the uniform that made me the player I was was accented by my socks. The socks extended to the bottom of my knees, they were white with purple stirrups. Not only did they add an accent of charm, fashion and intimidation, but when I pulled up those socks I believed I was unbeatable.

In flag football I wore those every single game, unwashed. And although I wore my unbeatable socks for each game, we lost them all.

Spring came around and brought with it intramural softball. Unfortunately for the socks, football had been very hard on them. They didn’t just have holes in the bottoms, the bottoms were holes. Refusing to let them die, I practiced the best stitch work ever performed. Putting the socks on my feet I wrapped layer upon layer of duct tape around the soles of the socks until a cast of my foot was formed. I wore these new and improved lucky socks for every softball game and we went undefeated en route to the championship.

After that season I was forced to let go of those socks. I could have felt very depressed over my loss, but instead I realized that it wasn’t the socks that were lucky, it was the duct tape. Yes, I discarded those socks with a smile. And I smiled in the knowledge that I still had a whole roll of that lucky tape.

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