Married to Mr. Rogers

I love Mr. Rogers. I grew up with him in our living room, and then he came back to visit regularly when my son was very small. He's a gem, that Mr. Rogers, a real national treasure.

He's actually an ordained Presbyterian minister who chose to share God's unconditional love through the medium of television. Mr. Rogers' gentle affirmations, exaggerated character voices, and deceptively simple musical compositions live in the minds of countless people in this country and well beyond.

He's awesome.

But I never thought I'd connect him to my marriage.

And then my husband bought these shoes.

I like the shoes a lot. They closely resemble a pair of my own shoes. And a pair of my son's shoes, as well. They're the ultimate spring and early summer footwear: comfortable, casual but not sloppy, fun without being too faddish. I am actually the one who found them in the store and recommended them to my hus.

I didn't realize how much this particular look connotes Fred Rogers' style until I began to trip over these canvas beauties around my own home. Each time I spy them under a dresser or tossed aside by the back door, laces wandering loosely, I think of Mr. Rogers. I have half a mind to find a cardigan sweater of some woodland color, perhaps a vintage style with wide blocks of vertical color on the front, and present it to my guy for Father's Day.

Would you be mine? Could you be mine? Won't you be my husband?

Shoe, fly

Lately, I've become increasingly aware of a strange phenomenon on America's roadways. (Perhaps it also exists on exotic roadways, but since I'm a continental gal, my awareness is decidedly limited.) You may have noticed it, too. It's definitely more prevalent in the warm months, but I've seen it all though the year: Random shoes on the side of the road. Or lying, hapless, on the median.

These lost shoes are not the "pair of sneakers over the wire" stunt. That is a foolish but more traditional shoe folly that I've never attempted, yet it makes at least a little bit of sense to me; apparently, the point of that little trick is to remove the shoes from the owner and cause consternation and frustration in said owner. Like I said, stupid—but meant to achieve an end. Petty, but purposeful.

This is not so with the roadside shoe. In all cases, the shoe is a single footwear item, separated from its mate. It usually appears to be in good repair, and the style of shoe I've seen abandoned in recent months is quite often a heavier, more formal style—sometimes a sneaker, more times an oxford style. (My informal statistics have proven that most often, these orphans appear to be big boys' or men's shoes.)

Now, flip-flops are just an invitation for shoe loss. They don't fit snugly to the foot, there's nothing secure or stable about them, they fly off even as people attempt to walk on level ground sometimes... but oddly, the flip-flop is not a frequent roadside shoe.

I despise waste, and seeing those single shoes makes me sad and angry. It is inarguably wasteful to toss a perfectly good shoe out of a window, thus rendering the other shoe absolutely useless unless the hurler happens to have a peg-leg. (Even prosthetic legs usually sport a matching shoe.)

I try to envision how the loss happened. Was there a battle within a car's confines? Were shoes used as weapons? Was a threat made, a blow delivered before the shoe sailed away? Or were these shoes perhaps someone's favorites that happened to be in the back seat when a cruel passenger flung them so thoughtlessly? Were they meant to be returned to a store and then not accepted, and thus thrown in anger? And if so, why not throw both of them? Or, better yet, donate them to Goodwill so some other unfortunate sod can wear them?

You see what I mean? It doesn't keep me awake, but it bothers me. A small matter, in this big world—but a matter than I cannot let rest.

Keep your shoes on, folks. And if you have insights about this, please feel free to share them.