MOULTRIE, Ga. —  There’s this thing that I’ve noticed for many years, and I’ve never really given it deep thought until now. I call it the “one-shoe phenomenon.”

Through my many years of traveling, I’ve often seen just one shoe lying in the road. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a pair of shoes in the road.

So just the other day I was traveling down the Quitman Highway and there in my lane of traffic was a single shoe. Some people would probably think I’m a little weird, but I pulled over and examined the shoe. Now it wasn’t that I needed another shoe like this one. It was a Nike jogging-type shoe, and it looked almost brand new. No sock. Just a shoe. Also, no foot so I immediately ruled out chainsaw massacre.

Now being a long-time newsman I’m curious about these kinds of things. There has to be a story behind this one shoe.

Since it’s almost a new shoe, hardly worn it seems, I ruled out that the owner just didn’t want it anymore and threw it out the window. And I think there’s little chance that a jogger lost a shoe and  just didn’t notice it.

It might have been that a family had their car packed down with clothes and stuff and an unruly child just tossed it out the window. But surely the parents would have noticed the window being rolled down. Or maybe a wife got mad at her husband and threw a shoe at him. But it looked like a man’s shoe so that scenario just doesn’t fit. It could be that she got mad at him and started throwing his stuff out the window, and they made up before she got to the second shoe.

I posed these observations about “one shoe in the road” to my friend, The Earl of Stumpworth by the Ochlocknee. He, too, had seen shoes in the road through the years but had never pondered these occurrences. The Earl’s wife, The Earlene, agreed that there must be stories behind these discarded shoes.

She said maybe these people were yanked up so fast by space aliens that they got jerked out of one shoe. The Earl sensed her sarcasm and politely admonished her for making light of an otherwise intelligent thought process.

There was a time when I would notice a pair of shoes tossed over power lines around our town. I was told by a non-expert  that this had to do with gangs. I’m not sure about that, but I don’t think those events and what I’m talking about with a single shoe in the road are related.

Now I didn’t keep the shoe I found. I did move it out of traffic. Who knows, blind squirrels find acorns so it could be that someone may need that size shoe to replace the one that got run over by the lawn mower.  I laid the shoe on the white line on the edge of the pavement and turned it over so rain wouldn’t collect in it just in case the twain shall meet.

Now I know The Earlene was being facetious with her comments about aliens, but since I have not come up with a good scenario for these occurrences I didn’t laugh at her. There are things we just can’t explain. What if somewhere there’s a barn full of  “one shoes” that match all of these I’ve seen on the road. Some force in the cosmos may be involved. I read one theory that the rings around Saturn are made up of lost socks and lost airline luggage.

Now before you question my deep thinking, keep in mind Cinderella. One-shoe stories are out there.

My guess is, when you see a single shoe in the road now, it will give you and your wife something to talk about.

(Dwain Walden is editor/publisher of The Moultrie Observer, 985-4545. Email: dwain.walden@gaflnews.com)