I have heard, and at some time read, that some of your body continues to grow larger as you age. I can relate to some of that theory. For instance, my waist has gone from 28 inches in high school to 34-plus inches today. That is a gain of six inches over the years. Some photos of older individuals seem to get bigger ears. I thought the fact that mine got about one inch thicker from high school days is because of all those years of wrestling and getting cauliflower ears. So I am a good example of having some parts of my body grow in stature.
The one body part I started to question is when reports say that your feet also get a few sizes larger as you get older. Having recalled my shoe sizes over the years I thought this was a true statement. I can’t count my first pair of shoes as I am still trying to grow into them. In the ninth grade, I bought a hand-me-down pair of football cleats from a friend. They were a nice size 12 for my size-7 foot. I don’t think the front three cleats ever hit the turf that year. I look back and can imagine an elf with those curly-toed shoes with a football helmet on trying to run fast.
In the Army in 1963, I was given a nice pair of size-8 black boots. I walked many miles in those boots. I put so much polish on them that I can still see the shine on them in my closet. This week I happened to wear one of my first cowboy boots from 1974 and saw the size 8.5 D on the inside. I was slowly moving up in size with my feet. I guess I started running when the first Capital 10K was starting back in 1979 and I had a size 8.5 shoe. As I put in more miles a size 9-9.5 was more comfortable. Then as I neared the end of my running days I had a pair of running shoes that were size 10. That statement that your feet continue to grow seemed to be correct.
