In Other News

I don’t want my (hopefully) loyal readers to think I’m going to post every day. I don’t want you to get tired of me! I do have to share this, though. I’ve been laughing about it for a full day. This little tidbit appeared in the Colombo Sunday Observer yesterday. It was hidden a few paragraphs down in an article about cobblers (who, in Sri Lanka, are street vendors that spread out a blanket on the sidewalk and fix shoes and bags).

Legend has it that shoes of soldiers in the American Army were repaired by the elders of an American tribe, called “Cobblers”. The tribe “Cobblers” was living in the Southern part of America during the early part of the 19th century. They killed animals for their livelihood. The hard skin, they removed from animals was used to produce clothes and slippers. A platoon of the American army during their routine in this tribal village had spotted old men mending clothes out of hard skin of animals. The legend further says that cobblers thereafter gradually practiced the 200 year old art of mending shoes and had done a tremendous service to people by repairing shoes, leather belts, bags and hats.

Now, I am no history major, but the International Man of Intrigue is, and he concurs with my assessment that, if his memory serves him correctly, this is a load of made up craziness. Honestly, the paper here has something laughter inducing every day. I’m going to miss it when we move out of our hotel into a house and it’s not waiting tucked in the doorknob every morning. The story does bring up the deeper theme of perceptions of America and Americans, but I’ll save that for another blog post (or twenty).