What is it with all the lost gloves on the W&OD Trail? I’ve already written about the Hailing Hand near Milepost 13; today I walked eastbound on a different section of the Trail and happened across two more. Unfortunately, I was without my camera so a description will have to suffice.

The first was a vivid blue and gray glove that had been stuck on a shrub. Since the glove was made out of some kind of insulated material, the fingers were thrust out stiffly. The glove stuck out at about a sixty degree angle, giving the uncomfortable impression that it was giving a Nazi salute. So – you guessed it – I dubbed it the Heiling Hand and moved on.

About a mile down I happened across a fuzzy, electric blue glove with a multicolored cuff, which had been placed on a bench. The glove was lying palm up, the fingers outstretched, lax and hopeless. It looked like a glove that had seen better times, a glove that had been flung from its soft life and, despairing, had laid down to sob its life away. I named it the Hopeless Hand.

On my trek back west, the Heiling Hand looked a little less rigid and forbidding. It actually leaned toward the trail, as if begging succor. From this approach, it appeared to be a Drowning Not Waving Hand, and I felt a little pity for it.

I’ve had a couple of people ask me if I’ve seen the Random Ball of the Woods again. I haven’t walked that particular stretch of the Trail since I first posted about it, but will probably go that way tomorrow. I’ll look for it – although a friend of mine observed that, given the winds we’ve had over the past couple of days, the Ball is probably in Kansas by now.