Roadside Attractions

As my job inside the Beltway is waning, I am beginning to wax nostalgic about my commute. Not to the extent that I'm reconsidering my choice, but I do recognize there are certain roadside mysteries that have plucked at my imagination. Here are a few of them:

1) The Leaf Man
On the stretch of Route 50 that morphs into New York Avenue, under the Brentwood Parkway overpass, you will find the leaf man. Much like the U.S. Postal Service, he's there through rain, sleet, and snow. He's a grizzled black man who stands next to the guardrail and fans a frond at passing traffic. I don't know where he gets his switches, because the leaves don't match any of the wild weedy flora and fauna growing around the overpass. The National Arboretum is a hop, skip and a jump away, so he may actually scale the fences there to snatch exotic samples of horticulture. I appreciate the effort he makes, so whenever I zoom into the District via this artery, I give him a little wave.

2) Mateless Shoes
Most of us have heard comedic riffs on the old "lone shoe on the side of the road" scenario during "sophisticated" open mic nights, but I still wonder how they get there. But the sheer number of them on DC's streets begs thoughtful discourse on the topic. Are they suicidal spouses of socks that have gone missing in the laundry? Or are there that many people who either (a) dangle their feet out of car windows, or (b) pack loose shoes in the back of pick-up trucks? Another possibility is that these shoes have the fallen from power lines on drug dealing corners...

3) Bumpers
Okay, so I get that if you notice one of your hubcaps has made a break for it in rush hour traffic, you're not necessarily going to stop to retrieve it. Hubcaps are emininently, cheaply, replaceable. But a bumper? Cruising in on 16th Street last week, there was a big old hunk of fiberglass bumper neatly placed on the median. Wha-huh? Isn't it going to save you a bucket of ducats if you have the bumper when you go to the body shop? Maybe the driver decided that the bumper isn't salvagable, and couldn't be bothered to pick up after herself. But that means that some Good Samaritan saw the risk to other drivers' cars and moved the debris out of the road. If you're willing to go to that extreme, though, why not put the bumper on the side of the road where it's unlikely to drift back into the roadway?

I'll add more as I think of them...