Straw sandals were popular in my hometown before the sixties and seventies, but they are rare now. At that time, the villagers were particularly poor, and it was a luxury to spend one or two yuan on a pair of rubber shoes. So, every household found straw, peeled off the straw clothes by hand, dried the straw in the sun until it was 70% to 80% dry, and then made a simple windmill-straw shoes with sticks and woven shoes. Every time in the dead of night, the elders light oil lamps, bring bamboo or grass hemp, trip up windmills on the legs of the dining table, smoke spicy leaves (earth smoke), and shake the windmills rhythmically with relish, twisting bamboo and hemp into hemp ropes. At this time, the children moved to the stool and sat next to their father's body, watching the windmill turn rhythmically. The squeaking sound of the windmill, like a hypnotic cicada, sent us to a sweet dream. My father is so absorbed in knitting straw sandals that he often forgets to smoke. As for fireworks, he put his pipe in his mouth. Whenever I am happy, my father will hum two songs from his nostrils, and his face is filled with a leisurely look.
As soon as the hemp rope was twisted, they wound the rope into an "8" shape, tied it round and round, and hung it on the crosspiece under the eaves. When it's time to knit shoes, they put one end of the block for knitting shoes on the table, then put their bellies on the other end of the block, put the rope on the nail on the block, and then slowly tie a knot, which is called shoe ears. Then, the dried straw is staggered up and down in the middle of the rope in bundles, and it is advisable to have four or five in each bundle. It takes about 40 to 50 minutes to knit a pair of sandals. At that time, a pair of straw sandals was worth about 20 cents, which was not a small income, so every household had the habit of weaving straw sandals.
Folks have special feelings for sandals. Although I love to weave straw sandals, I seldom wear them. They often work on the land with a pair of wide and strong feet bare. They only used it once or twice on sunny days, and most of the time they hung it on an iron hook under the eaves for fear of breaking it. This may be the character of the mountain people-less consideration for themselves, more consideration for others, simple as straw sandals, hard-working.
Every time I see sandals, I think of that touching ballad, and I can't help singing "sandals are boats, dad is sails ..."