This is the Moth Radio Hour.
I'm Jennifer Hickson.
In this hour, stories about what you wear on your feet.
How sad the world would be if all the shoes were sensible?
Think about all the different kinds.
Mary Janes, wingtips, clogs, cleats, Birkenstocks, loafers, stilettos.
You can tell a lot about a person and where they've been and even sometimes where they're going by what they're wearing on their feet.
Our first story takes us from the Bronx to Puerto Rico and then back again.
Here's Edgar Ruiz Jr.
live from a show in Detroit, Michigan,
where we partner with the Music Hall Center for the Performing Arts and Michigan Radio.
Back in the summer of 1993, I was 12 years old living with my mom in the Bronx, New York.
And she decided that she was going to send me back to Puerto Rico to live with my dad for the entire summer.
You see, when wealthy kids act up, they probably get sent to boarding schools.
When New York Americans act up, they sent us back to the island.
I wasn't a delinquent or anything like that,
but let's just say puberty was hitting me really hard, and my mama wasn't feeling me.
She divorced my dad when I was two and we left Puerto Rico shortly after for New York leaving him behind As a child I barely remember my pops Like the earliest memories I have of him are long distance phone calls for my birthday and sometimes on Christmas Now you can say that the summer of 1992 started off on the wrong foot literally The only pair of sneakers I took with me to Puerto Rico were stolen out my suitcase at the airport.
So I had to wear flip-flops in the mountains for a few days until my mom,
who was in New York, forced my dad to get me some sneakers.