Weaver envies youth their rolling shoes

We've all seen it happen.

You'll be out somewhere shopping, walking down an aisle, when a nearby youth will suddenly seem to float across the linoleum.

If you're like me, you stop and stare, and wonder if your eyes are playing tricks on you.

After a moment, you'll think, "Oh, right. That's one of the things shoes are doing now."

Why - we pause for a moment as our hero puts on his best 110-year-old voice - back in my day, we didn't need our footwear to do fancy stuff like glide or light up or defy gravity or balance our checkbooks. We had brightly colored shoelaces, and that was fine for us!

But don't take such curmudgeonly sentiment from me too seriously. This really is a scenario like those ones every parent tells their child after a classmate has been particularly mean-spirited: "They're just jealous."

Darn tootin' I am.

Now, don't get the idea I'm hankering for a pair of roller skates. Weavers, by their very nature, feel most comfortable walking on solid ground. Anything that might throw us off balance is viewed with great distrust.

In middle school, I kept very close to whatever could keep me upright during the week we skated in P.E.

As the rest of the class line-danced to - I kid you not - Billy Ray Cyrus' "Achy Breaky Heart," I was the kid hugging the railing, the stage, the gym teacher on the sidelines.

But there'll come a moment when I'm traversing across a floor on my way to something, like to get coffee, and I'll think, "Boy, a pair of those nifty shoes sure would come in handy. Why, I'd already be there by now, instead of five seconds from now."

And let's not even talk about how important such a thing could come in while I'm at work. When covering the Grant County Economic Development Council annual banquet, something big, important and photogenic could come up at one end of the festivities while I'm all the way down at the other end.

With those shoes with the little wheels built in, I could just take off effortlessly and glide all the way down to the other end, snapping pictures all the way, leaving fellow banquet attendees wondering, too, if their eyes have not just deceived them.

"Say, Myrtle Belle, did it just look like that goofy reporter guy floated across the room to you, too?"

"Yes it did, Horatio. Yes it did."

Hmm, that's probably a check in the box of reasons why Weaver isn't allowed rolling shoes, right alongside "They probably cost too much money" and "They probably don't make them in his size."

"Increases likelihood of causing mischief at work" is a valid concern. This is why I can't have a yo-yo. Or scissors.

So I'll keep on truck - er, um, walking. But if you happen to see a little light in my eyes as I step, step, step, just know that in my imagination and in my heart, I'm ready to soar.