"put on some shoes--you'll get worms!"

hookworms --- i never had them, but i remember:

While all the neighborhood kids ran barefoot in the summer, for example, my mother did her best to intersect my sister and me as we bee-lined for the door, ready with pair of shoes and a warning: “You’ll get worms!” Our feet were not the only appendages she shielded from infection, however; fingernails underwent weekly clippings and cleanings to eliminate a potential conduit for eggs or larvae....“You had an entire class of Southern society—including whites, blacks, and Native Americans—that was looked upon as shiftless, lazy good-for-nothings who can’t do a day’s work,” my mom explained to me. “Hookworms tainted the nation’s picture of what a Southerner looked and acted like.