Outside Magazine uses excerpt from Randy’s letter to the editor

by | Feb 26, 2010 | Diary Entries, News and Updates

December 2009, Outside Magazine Cover

December 2009, Outside Magazine Cover

Recently I submitted a letter to the editor after reading an article about shoes washing up in Vancouver with feet still in them. (here is a link to the lost sole blog entry I wrote where I copied the article into the bottom)

Of course it struck a cord with me so I wrote a letter to the editor. To my surprise a neighbor informed me about seeing my name in a magazine recently, and remembered it was Outside Magazine. I immediately went home and searched through my issue and sure enough, there it was. Just a small excerpt, but pretty cool to me nonetheless. Below is the letter I wrote in its entirety.

I just finished reading your article Foot Loose about the washed up shoes with feet in them and it struck a chord with me. This has been one of my greatest fears, that I will one day walk up to a shoe to photograph it and a there would be a foot will be still in it!

I have been engaged in producing a self-created project entitled “The One Shoe Diaries” for over 5 years now. My project has been featured on HLN and many newspapers around the U.S. The project is all about my wife and I’s adventures traveling in a motor home after losing my house to Hurricane Ivan, all the while writing a journal and connecting the stories to all of the lost and abandoned shoes we came across. We have since settled down after traveling full time for 4 years. since we stopped we have experienced the ultimate low and high of human existence. We both lost a child and gained a

Randy's excerpt is in the highlighted area

Randy's excerpt is in the highlighted area

child. Our son Noah died during birth, and just 1 month ago my wife gave birth to our little girl Nora. It brought everything full circle. During all of those journeys I continued to photograph the shoes, or Lost Soles as I like to call them. Many of the Lost Soles then became connected to actual lost souls. For example. I drove by a semi-truck that had obviously just veered off the road and crashed into a tree leaving the cab completely engulfed in flames. There were no emergency vehicles on the scene yet, just passer-bys that stopped to help. Not wanting to be in the way when help does arrive we continued on. Not but 100 yards down the road lie a discarded work boot. I had already had this type of occurrence happen so I knew what I wanted to do, or feel I HAD to do. We got off at the next exit and turned to the news and learned the man had been killed I stopped and got the photo and went home and dedicated that Lost Sole to that man who lost his life. At the time his name was not released by the news media yet so I had him listed as unidentified truck driver who could have been someone’s husband, or father, but at the very least was someone’s son. Within hours I got a comment to my post. “Thanks for the dedication. The man was in fact a husband, a father and of course a son. His name was Jeffrey Pierce Rodgers.” I was stunned. This was just one in a list of amazing connections between my shoes and people passing.

When I read about the feet showing up I got chills. People have always joked about that, and I always just laughed it off. That article took my whole Lost Soles concept to another level. I want to add it was written really well and brought out the mysterious and eerie nature of the findings without being overly macabre.

This is my first letter to an editor, I just felt compelled to write because lost shoes are very personal to me, and has been my life work for 5 years. I have a complete website totally devoted to it, I have two books and done numerous gallery showings.

I hope this letter finds you well and have a great day, Thanks for your time.