Sock Monkey Shoe Box by Carol Duvall

By Carol Duvall

No, the Shoebox itself did not look like a sock monkey, but all of the items in it that were featured on today’s show had to do with sock monkeys.

The first item out of the box was really many items. They were all note cards that featured a photograph of a sock monkey on the front. But these were not just your ordinary pictures of a sock monkey. There was a sock monkey on his back in the snow making a snow angel. There was a photograph featuring many, many sock monkeys, which no doubt taken at a sock monkey family reunion.

There was a sock monkey Christmas card and a sock monkey dressed in outdoor gear with his tongue stuck to a metal pole. All of them were excellent photographs, and all of them brought a smile to our faces. The viewer who makes the monkeys, takes the pictures, and makes the cards is Dee Lindner of Stone Lake, Wis.

She says she is often called The Sock Monkey Lady and it’s easy to see why. In addition to the note cards, Dee sent in a photograph of one of the cards framed to hang on the wall, and the most outrageous of all was a picture of a quilt she made using many of the same photographs!

The second sock monkey items out of the Shoebox were also photographs. These taken in the entrance to the office of one of HGTV’s executives. Some time ago you may recall there were stories of the Monkey Pox in the papers and on the news. It came and went rather quickly, but at the time it was another of those mysterious illnesses that seemed to come out of nowhere. Fortunately it apparently disappeared into nowhere as well, but in the meantime one of the employees at HGTV thought it was a perfect time to play a little joke.

In the entrance to the gentleman’s office is a bench where a 4-foot-tall tall sock monkey sits along with several standard-sized monkeys. On this particular morning when the photograph was taken, "someone" had slipped into the office, put surgical masks on the monkeys, and laid the large one down as if he was a patient with one of the smaller monkey "doctors" taking care of him. The area was blocked off with the kind of yellow tape that policemen and construction people use to keep people away. Printed on the tape was the word CAUTION.

It gave everyone who saw it a laugh for the day...as did the photograph sent to us. And speaking of laughs, the next picture in the Shoebox gave us an even bigger one. Brandie Benington of Toledo, Ohio, wrote to tell the story of her daughter Gabriella. Brandie wrote that by the time the little girl was 15 months old, she had become a master in climbing.Brandie realized this when, one night while in the kitchen fixing dinner, she turned around to see her daughter standing in the middle of the kitchen table.

It was this particular incident that made her think of a sock monkey outfit for her Halloween costume. The photograph of little Ellie was adorable. Only her face was visible...her body and head were covered with sock monkey fabric that looked exactly like the Rockport socks fabric, and her tail was wired then curved upward and tied to hold in that position.