For most of you readers you may recall that Ol’ Dutch and Miss Trixie made a southern sojourn in the land of sunshine and pleasure over the winter staying on South Padre Island.
Now if you have never been there it’s a cross somewhere between Gilligan’s Island and Hawaii Five-O. You get the small crowd feeling you had with the Skipper and the rest along with the high-end hotel feeling of Hawaii as you go up island.
It’s warm all winter on the beach there and we live about a block from the water’s edge. So my days were filled with wearing shorts and flips most days while we were there.
All seemed good until about two months into the stay when my feet started to hurt even when just standing. Not one to complain -- and do NOT ask Trixie about that -- I put up with it and continued with the flips and wading shoes thinking my feet were simply going to fall off eventually.
Fast forward to Dallas where our days are filled with grandkids and ranch chores, and all hell broke loose once I switched over to my work boots and tennis shoes. My feet did a resistance to captivity not unlike the Children of Israel trying to escape from the mud pits of Egypt.
Ol’ Dutch soon broke out his usual stoic mode, which is the cross we men must bear of never complaining, and started thinking that death itself was knocking at my door via my poor old dogs.
Trixie ever the Internet phenomenon looked up my symptoms and soon diagnosed me with some dreaded 12th century illness soon to cripple me into old-manhood sooner rather than later.
To her credit she did find an expert to take a gander at the old piggies to verify her diagnosis and thankfully he had his own opinion learned at medical school and not via Google.
It seems that wearing flips for too long a time breaks down a person’s feet and soon you have a full-blown case of plantar fasciitis.
Now Ol’; Dutch always had a garden but never planted any “fasciitis” so this was all new to me but if plants were involved I thought surely there is a cure.
Come to find out, there was. It was as simple as using a rope to pull up on the bottoms of my feet every 30 minutes and soon I was on the mend.
Trixie had other ideas about the use of said rope, which had a noose-like look to it, but I kept it close at hand so that she didn’t get her hands on it.
I had heard that buying some fancy-dancy shoes would alleviate plantar fasciitis. And, in fact the Wicked Witch of the East, aka the ex wife, used to have the same condition and the shoes healed her right up.
Well, they didn’t heal her from being a Wicked Witch but her feet did get better.
So online we went and soon a pair of $150 MBT shoes arrived via the brown bus and became the single most expensive item I have ever worn on my body.
For those of you who are not clued in on MBT shoes these are the kind that have a rounded sole and it’s like walking on rocks each time your instep hits the ground.
Let me tell you something. They don’t warn you about how hard it is to walk in these rocking chairs but it’s definitely a new learning experience for Ol’ Dutch. And you know the old saying about old dogs and new tricks so you can imagine my rolling my way to and from events and doings.
The unforeseen benefit is that if there is music playing, I find myself rocking back and forth on those soles and have discovered a new rock-a-billy dance craze.
All joking aside they really seem to be working well and I would recommend them to anyone planting fasciitis with their feet.
I have to say, though, while I got a lot of things from the ex-wife including two great kids, her cursing me with this foot problem of hers is just over the limit for punishment. I wouldn’t wish this pain on the worst person on the face of the earth.

Kevin Kirkpatrick and his Yorkie, Cooper, fish, hunt, ATV or hike daily. His email is [email protected]. Additional news can be found at www.troutrepublic.com or on Twitter at TroutRepublic.