Some thoughts on shoes

This is an article that I wrote for a weekly publication in my neighborhood. I thought today I would post something that I had done in the past. Also, I've had enough of McDonald's for a couple of days. Hope you enjoy:

On a street near my house there is a pair of red and white tennis shoes hanging off a phone line.

I can hear everyone reading that statement thinking, “End of story right. So what? Big deal?”

For the past 11 days these shoes have meant a lot to me.

I am a little obsessed with some of life’s small details.

Concern over finding a spot for everything to comfortably fit into its place is how I view my minor obsession.

Freakish and annoying is how my friends and family like to define my need to put things in appointed places. My garage has specified hooks for every tool and yard toy, and pots and pans hang from strategic positions in my kitchen.

So, you might imagine that the discovery of a pair of tennis shoes dangling from a wire high in the air could send a person like me into a tail-spin.

I first saw the shoes when a group of 3-year-olds I was helping to chaperone at my daughter’s preschool giggled over them dancing in the air. The kids all thought it was so funny, walking through their neighborhood, looking at trees, houses and other local landmarks only to be surprised by a pair of floating shoes. To me the tangle of shoes and telephone wire meant something different. Their placement was absolute anarchy in my mind.

Shoes are meant for feet. And when they are not on feet, they are meant to be placed on a mat, porch, in a shoe box, or neatly under the foot of a bed. But hanging off a telephone wire in my neighborhood is definitely an off-limits spot for a pair of shoes.

The kids, their teachers, other parent chaperones and I walked past the shoes to our destination. As soon as we passed, I could tell the rest of the gang had basically forgotten the shoes. Not me. “How did they get up there?” I kept thinking. Though a fascinating tale of how the shoes were launched and hooked upon the wire may exist, I wasn’t willing to waste energy of pursuing an explanation. My concern was how to get those shoes down and into their rightful place in the world.

The day of our field trip I passed the shoes six times. I recall the exact number of drive or walk-bys because each time I passed, I paused taking several moments out of my day to ponder how to get them down. My first day with the shoes was significant. This would be a labor of love between me and those crazy shoes. I decided that day that I would not really be content until those shoes were relocated to a more fitting place.

But the big question I’ve yet to answer is, “How do I get the shoes off that wire?” I’ve thought of all the things any normal person might think of—a ladder, a call to the phone company, a motorized cherry picker. I’ve also considered the absurd—a human totem pole on my shoulders meant to reach the shoes, a rescue from above with a helicopter drop or finally growing wings and learning to fly. But truth be told, when I think I have the guts to act on my rescue attempt I get a little embarrassed and become inert.

I’m the worst kind of guy with an obsession. I’m stopped in my tracks by moments of clarity and realize that I need to give it a break.

For that reason, the shoes still hang. And I still pass them every day. On day eleven of The Great Shoe Watch I’m almost past caring about the fate of the floating tennis shoes. In fact, my spins down "shoe street" have given me a host of new things to obsess about. There’s that huge and interesting bush in someone’s yard, a neat looking house that I’m hoping will display a “For Sale” sign someday, and a street corner that I think may be in need of a traffic stop.

Those shoes may not be on the right feet, but for now, for a nut like me, they might just be in the right place.

(On a side note, two days after this article was published the shoes disappeared. I'm a little sad about that, I have to admit.)