John Benz
“The Red Argyle Socks”
I first saw them on a warm, muggy summer evening in 1965. I was visiting at my father-in–law Tony’s sweltering house on a busy street in Appleton, Wisconsin. I offered to walk down to the air-conditioned corner tavern and enjoy a couple of beers with Tony while cooling off. One stipulation, though: he would have to change out of the ugly, unraveling, red argyle socks with holes as big as quarters that he was wearing. He complied and we set out to lower our heat index at the corner pub.
Eighteen months earlier I had married Judy, the second oldest of Tony’s family of six boys and six girls. Having only two brothers myself, I had never encountered a more rollicking, boisterous group under one roof. Christmastime was really something! Presents usually covered the entire living room floor and noisy excitement enveloped the whole house. When Christmas 1965 rolled around, Judy and I exchanged our gifts at home and then hurried over to Tony’s house for another grand “unwrapping session.” There was even a small package for me amongst the myriad of gaily decorated boxes and bags. Lo and behold, my package contained those stupid red socks!
After much laughter and my modeling of the wretched footwear, I silently vowed that the socks would certainly be exchanged again sometime in the future.
The next Christmas, I simply wrapped the annoying socks and clandestinely placed them beneath Tony’s tree. They next magically appeared in my luggage that I was unpacking during a business trip to Atlanta. One year, I froze them into a huge block of clear ice and deposited them in Tony’s front yard as a holiday decoration. Once again, I somehow got the pair back the following year, I had them welded into any expanded metal Christmas wreath hoping that might put an end to the exchange. Wrong! Judy and I had moved to Pennsylvania on a job transfer and upon opening my tool box while getting settled in, Yup, there were those confounded socks.
Not one to be outdone, I thereafter on each trip to the supermarket would buy small cans and bottles of off-beat exotic East Coast foodstuffs. My plan was to wrap each thing individually and then send them to Tony at Christmas along with a few “recognizable” items. One such item was a glass jar of instant coffee from which I had carefully removed the inner seal. I then dumped out some coffee, inserted the socks, surrounded them with instant coffee crystals and carefully replaced the seal. I’ve been told that Tony was somewhat disappointed that Christmas at not finding the socks wrapped up in the box with all the other oddities I had collected. Not to worry though, we received a call late that NewYear’s Eve saying that they had just tried the instant coffee in the company of some friends who had stopped by. Surprise!
Don’t ask me how but once I found those crazy socks in the sock drawer of my clothes dresser: under the liner of a trash can; in the glove compartment of my car; and many other unexpected places. I once put them behind the spare tire in Tony’s ‘Tire-Eating’ Dodge Dart. He never acknowledged finding them but somehow I got them back.
The years have a way of creeping up on us and after 30 years of being the best father-in–law a person could ask for, Tony finished the good fight. At his funeral, I was asked to say a few words and reminisce a bit. As I said my final good-bye to Tony, I gently placed the pair of red, worn out, well traveled, argyle socks into the casket.
Now, if those particular red argyles should ever appear again.