Shoefiti Makes Fuel For A Wood Burning Stove...

Photo and blog post by John Hoff

Some weeks ago I was driving around with Hawthorne Neighborhood Housing Director Jeff Skrenes (the Hawthorne Hawkman) in his car and Jeff had a pair of tied-together shoes kicking around on the floor, which I recognized as the "ground score" shoefiti shoes he picked up while digging into the facts about slumlord Paul Bertelson, click here for Jeff's blog post and look for the picture of the snowy shoes.

So I was all, like, hey, what are you going to do with the shoes? And Jeff was all, like, nothing...you can have them.

So, as is my habit with shoes I obtain from power lines or, in this case, shoes that didn't make it up to the power line or possibly fell off, I tossed the shoes in my car and, when I got around to visiting my prolific and well-armed country mouse relatives way out in the sticks, I brought the shoes with me to see if they might be of any use to the many, many little Hofflings who occupy that part of Minnesota...

Turns out the shoes were moldy and worn out, but the laces were still good. So the laces were saved because we are, honestly, THAT frugal. The shoes themselves went into one of the wood burning stoves which Hoffs greatly prefer as heating systems, but you can't always do exactly what you want in the big city. I hope that shoe sole was made of RUBBER and not some plastic compound, because dioxins are the devil and are created every time you burn plastic.

Here sits one of the shoes on the wood pile, moments before it met its fate, just like its twin.

Shoes are not going to stay on power lines very long in North Minneapolis, not with decent citizens staying on top of this issue and taking action on their own initiative.

Congratulations to Peter Teachout - U.S. Army Officer Candidate

Photo by Me

Word comes via Facebook that award winning north Minneapolis good citizen Peter Teachout has graduated from U.S. Army Basic Training Boot Camp and is headed on to Officer Candidate School (OCS).


I know Johnny Northside himself would want to shout "Congratulations!" and "Thank you for your service" to Peter and his family, but it will have to be a message delivered through me, for now.


JNS regulars should be well familiar with Peter and the whole Teachout family. Their trials and victories have been well documented here, most notably a flaming truck, a new baby, an army swearing in ceremony and a tear-jerking city council ceremony with an official "thank you" and "good luck" from several city council members and the Mayor.


Before Peter shipped off to boot camp neighbors bid him farewell at a cook-out send off, where the night was capped with one last Shoe Patrol*, removing dangling shoes from overhead power lines.  The photo above displays the evening's catch with Peter on the left, an honorary northsider, Johnny Northside himself, Peter's son Peter in the red and John's son Alex on the right. (*Note, one last show patrol doesn't mean they will never venture out on that mission, but the handy dandy white truck that was so useful was traded in for a minivan for the army family)

And this blog post dedicated to the Teachouts wouldn't be complete without some love to Joyanne, Peter's wife, who is holding down the family of four children back home in NoMi, enduring the separation and taking on the role of Army soldier's wife. Joy, thank you for the sacrifices you and your family are making. You are loved.

Peter, good luck in OCS, we are thinking of you and your family. We know the separation is hard and boot camp is no picnic - but THANK YOU!  You'll make a fine Army Officer.
(Do Not Click "Read More")

Video Footage of the Elite Shoe Patrol Unit!

Post and video by the Hawthorne Hawkman

After Peter Teachout's send-off party, we celebrated further by going on one final shoe patrol run. For some odd reason, this particular video (the only one taken by yours truly, I might add) was the only one with sound. But it does a pretty good job of demonstrating the difficulties inherent in shoe removal.

Unfortunately, in this video clip, Peter didn't even get the shoes down. What happened was...

...They were tangled up so much that for a while we weren't sure HOW they'd come down. This pair was right in front of a Pamiko house and 619 26th Ave N, a now vacant, but notorious problem property. We were so determined to keep the block clean that I walked home to grab a knife and some tape to affix to the end of one of the boards and cut the shoelaces.

It turns out the only tape I could find was scotch tape I use to seal my comic book covers. Yes, I am a geek. So it was probably a good thing that Peter Teachout is so skilled with the chopstick-and-stilt dexterity needed to remove shoes, and these were down by the time I got back. I did have a respectable knife, though.

After a few other shoes were removed, I departed and missed the most interesting episode of the night due to a pre-existing appointment to do some LED night hula hooping. (Video footage of THAT exists and can be found, but I'm going to get better at filming night hooping before putting direct links here or elsewhere.)

We'll miss you, Peter, but we'll find some way to continue the Elite Shoe Patrol!

One Last Successful Shoe Patrol Mission! (Summer Visitation, 2010)

Photo and blog post by John Hoff

For weeks, Peter Teachout was saying to me, "We've got make ONE LAST SHOE PATROL. WE'VE JUST GOTTA!"

Peter is going off to military training, but the elite "shoe patrol unit" has been near and dear to his heart ever since Peter single-handedly organized our volunteer efforts to go around and take shoes off power lines, standing on the roof of his truck and using two long boards like chopsticks to gingerly untangle laces then--at a key moment when the laces are untangled--boost one of the shoes over the line, so they both fall down.

So I was all, like, yeah, let's do that...

So it was the night of Peter's big going-away-but-hopefully-coming-back party, when a bunch of us went shoe-patrolling. All sorts of different people were involved at different points: Jordan Super Citizen Megan Goodmundson, Megan's brother Alex who was visiting from out of state, my own son Alex, Peter's son "little Peter," and even Jeff Skrenes (the Hawthorne Hawkman) joined us for a while. We managed to take down eight pairs of shoes, but there's always "the one that got away" which is the one you really remember.

Actually, it wasn't just ONE but two pairs on a power line near the Emerson Avenue Market, in a "decency dead zone" where loitering and drug dealing appears to happen all the time, but nobody is right there constantly calling it in. A domestic disturbance started to spill out on the lawn in front of us and, really, it was time to go.

Readers might be wondering where did all those captured shoes end up? Well, that's another tale for another blog post. But I should go out of my way to give special mention to my son, Alex, who put himself in the spotter position and was unwavering in his task of watching for shoes out the window of Peter's truck, then drawing the shoes to our attention. These were shoes we would have missed.

The only downside of the evening came on Penn Ave. N., when we drove by a hooker who was really strutting her stuff. (This particular hooker has been known to flash her breasts at cars, including--at least once--a car with a small child) I leaned out the truck window with a video camera and used a few choice words on this hooker as we sped past, forgetting for a moment that Peter is, um, RELIGIOUS and this was stuff I really shouldn't say in front of Peter's kid, even though (I would like to point out) the word "WHORE" is definitely in the Bible, see the Book of Revelations.

But I apologized, and Peter forgave me.

Hurry back, Peter, and be safe in your travels.

Standards Are Slipping For Shoes On Power Lines...

Photo By John Hoff

Yesterday, Jeff Skrenes (the Hawthorne Hawkman) and I went out and took a bunch of illegal signs off utility poles, which resulted in a festival of bloggy videography. (And when I say "festival," you better believe there's a pinata involved)

While going after the signs, we came upon a pair of shoes kind of, sort of hanging on a power line. The shoes were actually...

...on the power pole "guy wire," and not the power line itself. They weren't very high up, so it was a relatively easy matter to push them down with a broomstick and undo the laces.

I didn't know whether to be happy or a little sad to see the standards for "shoefiti" slipping so much.