I was driving along the Earhart Expressway the other day and something on the shoulder caught my eye. I kept looking and saw another.

Sonya was with me.

"Saddle shoes," I said, "by the side of the road."

"What?" she asked, but she looked to the side of the road, too.

"Hey, saddle shoes!" she exclaimed.

"There's some more," I told her.

"There's another one," she pointed out.

Saddle shoes. Scattered along the side of the Earhart Expressway, all the way from the Orleans/Jefferson Parish line to the Clearview exit.

We speculated that it might be some sort of ritual for private school girls; a symbolic casting-away of their hated little-girl saddle shoes.

Alternately, a shoe truck could have sprung a leak.

Anyone out there got a sensible explanation for this?