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THE MYSTERY of the Frog Level Sneakers, which for years dangled from the same utility guide wire along U.S. 301 in a lightly settled stretch of Caroline County, has been solved.
But how those same sneakers recently found their way to the entrance of Lakewood Cemetery in Bowling Green is another story, one that underscores the respect a town felt about one of its own.
I first mentioned the sneakers in a column a month ago.
Mike Long, a truck driver from Colonial Beach, phoned to ask if I had any clues about the shoes. He said he's seen a pair of sneakers dangling from that wire on U.S. 301, south of Bowling Green, for more than 15 years.
Long said that through the years, the shoes had been taken down several times, but always were replaced by a new pair.
After Long called, I traveled
to find the shoes, about 12 miles south of Bowling Green, and couldn't find anyone who knew their history.
I asked readers with information about the shoes to get in touch.
None did until last week, when several Caroline folks contacted me to say the sneakers were a marker of sorts tossed up on
that wire by Kemp Smith, a well-known and respected Bowling Green banker and native who lived there on U.S. 301.
They were sorry to say they'd remembered to call about the sneakers only after hearing of Kemp's death May 5 at his home. The 58-year-old director and vice president at Caroline Savings Bank had cancer.
To get the full story on the sneakers, I talked to Kemp's fiancée, Betty Jo Mitchell of Caroline.
Mitchell, who had been introduced to Kemp at a Caroline High School homecoming game
a few years back by a match-making friend, said the banker and life-long Caroline County resident was a wonderful man, known for his humor and outgoing manner.
His willingness to open up his home to others is what put the sneakers up on the wire in the first place.
Mitchell said one of Kemp's two daughters, Rena Sharpe of Midlothian, said she was in college in Richmond and had invited friends to visit her father's scenic and expansive country home for a picnic.
Because his house is at the end of a long, narrow driveway, difficult to spot while flying by at 55 miles an hour on 301, Kemp knew his daughter's guests would need a landmark to find him.
A pair of white sneakers, with laces tied together and heaved up over a utility guide line, was his answer for the landmark.
"They went out in the road and stood, dodging tractor-trailers by hopping in the ditch when they came along, until Kemp could toss the sneakers up over the wire," Mitchell said.
Through the years, the shoes became less of a directional milepost and more of a fun and familiar part of the landscape,
to the point that Kemp always replaced shoes that fell or were taken down.
"It reached the point where he never threw sneakers away when they got worn," said Mitchell. "He saved them to go up on the wire."
In recent years, rubber bungee cords replaced the quick-to-rot laces, though Kemp's unique over-his-shoulder-and-back toss continued to be the best way to get the shoes up there.
When friends and relatives attended Kemp's funeral in Bowling Green last week, many were moved to tears by the sight that greeted them on Lakewood Drive, the entrance to Lakewood Cemetery.
There, guiding them to Kemp's final resting place, were a pair of dangling, white sneakers.
"The people who knew Kemp and appreciated his sense of humor knew he'd be glad to have them up there," Mitchell said. "He was a light-hearted person with a smile for everyone, the kind of guy whose customers always became his friends."
A huge crowd of those friends turned out for the funeral last week, following that familiar footwear to a final goodbye.