ski shoes in an alley behind a strip club

i discovered this "scene" walking down an alley behind a strip club here in the biggest little city. the two shoes are the kind that clip into skis. the stick the american flag was originally on is placed under the metal loop the shoes are on either side of. the shirt on the ground looked like it was either meticulously or haphazardly placed.

scenes like this one are not uncommon in RNO. i'm starting to think there's a system of some kind for leaving items of clothing for others. i've seen jackets, shirts, shoes and pants laid out for someone to find. they are not tossed aside to be forgotten. they are carefully placed (not always, though. see: the shirt in the photo above) for someone to pick up and use. i don't know if these items are left to be gathered up by the same person later or if it's a signal of something or if it's just a "pay it forward" kind of thing, but it's definitely something. it's intriguing, that's for sure.

the gentleman who was intrigued by me and my camera (who, on a sidenote, kept saying i was for sure a member of a C.S.I. team and was documenting some kind of crime scene) speculated that these particular items were carefully placed in order to keep track of some kind of stash. "if one was to decode these clues," he said, "he could find where this person hid their stash." he really couldn't get his head around why i was walking around taking pictures of things like abandoned items of clothing. i'll admit i spent a few moments trying to decode this scene, but as i stood facing this concrete block, my back was to a huge open parking lot. not a lot of hiding places.

anyway. people are leaving each other clues all over this city. you just have to stop and pay attention to them.