The Silly Shoe Story

Our family loves to enter things in the county fair. Each year, our daughters gather homemade goodies, artwork, sewing projects, and drawings and see what ribbons they can earn for their time, effort, and creativity.

Two years ago, unbeknownst to him, I entered my husband's amazing steel cutout of an elk. I had been so impressed with what he had done out of a piece of steel, that I just knew that the judges would be impressed too. Being humble, Lon would never enter his project on his own, so I'd decided to enter it for him and suprise him. Imagine his shock when we were walking through the exhibit hall and he saw his project on the table with a blue ribbon --the elk was an incredible work of art. Large and polished to a sheen, it's metal glowed against the woodworking projects that surrounded it. Lon took one look at it and exclaimed, "That looks like that elk cutout I made. Hey, wait, that is the elk cutout I made!"

Well not to be outdone by entering the elk project, a year ago I decided to do something very zany. Lon and I enjoy photography and taking pictures with our digital camera. We had rationalized that it would save us money over paying for the film to be developed from our 35 mm camera. Not so. We've spent quite a bit more money on downloading and printing photos. But we've also had a lot of fun taking those photos.

One day, Lon decided to take a picture of a shoe. Yes, a shoe. Not any shoe, mind you, but HIS shoe. His size 13 tennis shoe that had seen better days - his shoe that was posing all by itself, laces tied on the tile floor. Wondering what I would enter in the fair that year, I found my answer when I found this picture on our digital camera. Wasting no time, I rushed to the store and had the photo enlarged to 5x7, enhanced the color, and printed it off. Then, finding a matching frame, I displayed this lovely piece of "art." Buffing the glass of the frame to a sheen, the shoe picture was ready to enter in our county fair.

In today's world, just look around and you'll see so many varieties of "art" that I thought for sure this would be a hit at the fair with the judges. So, with framed shoe in hand, our daughters and I entered the door of the exhibit hall with our entries. It was very difficult not to laugh while unloading the entries. All the rest of them were tasteful photos - pictures the kids had drawn or pictures of animals or scenery that Lon and I had taken. And then...there was the silly shoe photo.

I watched the entry coordinator's face as she filled out the entry card for the shoe picture. I began to snort and struggled to keep my laughter under control. After all, who really enters a photo of a beat up tennis shoe in the local fair? The woman looked up at me, then back down at the shoe picture, then back up at me, and finally one last time at the shoe picture. She picked up the frame and with a look of concern mixed with disgust, added it to the pile of entered fair projects. I had somehow hoped she'd be a little more appreciative of this fine piece of art.

The following day, our family once again embarked on a trip to the exhibit hall. The girls excitedly looked around to see what the judges had awarded their hard work. I saw my entries and Lon saw the shoe picture. "Pen is that? No, it can't be...Pen!" I thought I would die of laughter. Then Lon began to laugh and together we gazed at the unlikely winner of a high-placing ribbon.

The moral of the story? In a world so full of busyness, it's good to take some time out to truly laugh at the sillier side of life. God gave us the ability to laugh and the ability to take joy in even the most mundane things like a framed picture of a tennis shoe.

Yep, Lon and I still talk of the shoe entry and the ribbon it garnered. The only problem? How will I ever be able to beat that entry next year?!