It Must Be Some Kind Of Hillbilly Signal

They taunt us. The ne'er-do-wells who frequent our private road down by the low water bridge. The area where EmBee resides with her mail-condominium cronies.

Look what The Pony and I saw Thursday when we returned from my new-used-car ride:

Yes, sitting on a rock, right there for law-abiding passers-by to see, was a pair of shoes. No car. No person. Shoes. Was it a trap? Did they want us to say, "LOOK! FREE SHOES!" and then cruelly yank them away from us with unseen fishing line when we got out of T-Hoe to claim our keepers that we found? Was somebody depressed, and left their shoes as a cry for help as they strode barefoot onto the flat rocks in the two inches of water flowing placidly down the creek? Was someone hiding behind that rock, ready to slit our tender, shoe-stealing throats?

Those shoes were still there this afternoon when I stopped for the mail. I took a picture to document the occasion. Just in case, you know, I disappeared while walking back past those shoes to reach my forearm into EmBee's gullet and pull forth her hidden entrails. And then I took another picture, because I noticed what I perceive as, perhaps, irony.

Those shoes were perched on a rock right under our first NO TRESPASSING SIGN. Did one of our residents put them there? As a signal, perhaps, that if you trespass on our road, you might just disappear?

I don't have the answers. All I know is that those city people flinging sneakers over power lines ain't got nothin' on the residents of Hillmomba!