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Students at Chancellor Middle left behind enough shoes, clothes and other items to fill 22 large trash bags. |
EXCEPT FOR the unbearably hot temperature, last Thurs- day seemed like an ordinary day. Little did anyone suspect that I would stumble across the answer to one of the great mysteries of the universe.
It may have been Erma Bombeck who first documented the question people had pondered for years: Where do lost socks go?
Last week I discovered the black hole where all those missing socks, shoes and clothes migrate: a school's Lost and Found.
I realized I had encountered a strange phenomenon as soon as I stepped into Chancellor Middle School and saw metal shelves filled with 45 stray shoes. There were vagrant Adidas, Nike, Reebok and Rockport athletic shoes. I saw dress shoes, loafers, boots and sandals. They were brown, orange, white, black and plaid. There was even a fuzzy blue slipper that sparkled.
It looked like a Cinderella story gone bad.
The find raised my curiosity, not to mention my olfactory sense, and I soon tracked down the story behind the orphan shoes.
The school's head custodian, Tracy Maddox, said the shoes were just a fraction of the things students had left behind at the school as summer holidays began. She and the other custodians stuffed 22 oversized garbage bags with lunch boxes, water bottles, clothes, socks, shirts, underwear, jackets, glasses, shoes, notebooks, bras, hats, belts, sweatpants, sweatshirts and other items. They had not yet cleaned out the lockers, which undoubtedly would reveal countless other odds and ends.
"We find any types of things students bring to school," said Principal Alan Jacobs. "If they bring it, somebody will leave it."
Like all Spotsylvania County schools, Chancellor Middle donates all the items to help people in need in the area, Jacobs said.
"Somebody somewhere is happy those jackets were left behind," Jacobs said.
By the time students reach high school, the mysterious sock-eating, shoe-consuming nova seems to shrink. At Massaponax High School, a mere nine or 10 bags of lost belongings were accumulated, said Assistant Principal Sandra Holland.
The collection is similar to that at the middle school, except the heap of shoes, glasses, underwear and clothing also includes Bibles, CD players and basketballs.
"We find a lot of weird things," Holland said. "Sometimes weird, smelly things."
Students don't always realize they've lost something--and occasionally underestimate its value.
"A young lady came in one day because she had lost a jacket," Holland said. "We found some pictures and checks in a pocket that she didn't even know she had lost."
The good news is now I know where to search for my son's missing white sock and lucky pencil.
I'd drive up to his school to check, if I could just find my car keys.
Spotsylvania & City EXTRA Editor ANNE TRAUTNER can be reached at: The Free Lance-Star, 616 Amelia St., Fredericksburg, Va. 22401; telephone, 540/374-5000, extension 5604; fax, 540/373-8455; or e-mail, atrautner@freelance star.com.
