There were lots of choices. Red. Blue. Green. Purple. “Purple,” I said.

Then I thought for a minute. Would purple go with most of what I wear? I do wear mismatched high-tops, not to mention rainbow laces, but I can and do change them everyday.

“Green.” I changed my mind. Green would still be colorful and interesting, not boring, but it would fit in with more of my outfits. Green goes with both blue and brown, right? After all, I wasn’t picking out a shirt or some pants or another pair of high tops. No, I’d be stuck with this for a while.

Who knew that casts were now a fashion accessory, coming in a variety of bright, exciting colors? I remember when they were all white, except when friends painted and signed them. And who knew I would be having a cast put on my right foot, much less being asked what color I wanted it to be? (It actually turned out that my cast is more of a nice, cool coral.)

Maybe this was appropriate, with summer ending and all that. I’m sure there are a few students in Claremont returning to school with a broken foot or arm. Summer is all about adventure, at least for students, and broken bones sometimes come with adventure. Breaking a bone is almost a rite of passage when growing up.  

But I have never broken or fractured a bone, and I’m a long way from being a student. Maybe I still have some growing up to do, even now.

And I wasn’t on an adventure when I broke—actually fractured—my right foot. What’s more, I didn’t know for a while that my foot had a fracture.

I was just out, as usual, and barely a block from my house, when I hit my right foot as I was going up a curb. So much for adventure. My foot hurt for a day or two and then was fine. I thought I had sprained it, as I have more than enough in the past, and that it had gotten better nice and quickly, just in time for a camping trip (now, there’s some adventure, especially since it was the weekend of the freak rain storm). It was not until two weeks later that I found I couldn’t handle pressure on my foot, and it swelled up like a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade float.

It was a few days before I could get this lovely green coral cast put on. It’s much more comfortable and really just more of an inconvenience than anything. Imagine dragging around a five-pound weight. But, although this is probably something a good number of people know about and don’t have to imagine, even if it might not be an unusual part of the end-of-summer/back-to-school experience, breaking (or fracturing) a bone isn’t something I’d recommend. I would rather have lived my life without this experience.

I never thought I’d see school in Claremont start in late August in my lifetime and have returning to school be old news by early September. And even Claremont’s start was late, with schools in Pomona and Los Angeles beginning two weeks earlier. Sure, this has been the case for several years, but this is still a strange new world where Labor Day is just another holiday (and an odd one, with school just underway) and not the “last blast” of summer vacation. 

Labor Day no longer means that it is time to get ready for school to start. And what about white shoes?   Is it now okay to wear them before Labor Day? Or does anyone still wear white shoes?