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Six hours and four Advil later, my wife and son walked in. He Links of London Sale my predicament and before he could ask any question I asked him one. "How was Show and Tell?" "Fine." "Winnie the Pooh work out OK?" Despite my troubles, at least my son had a good day I hoped. "Yeah, I guess." And then he dropped the bomb on me. "I'd rather have had Eeyore." And then he walked out of the room. And my wife proceeded to laugh at me. I missed two days of work and four games of church league basketball with a severely sprained ankle. Needed crutches for a week. (Try telling your friends you can't play basketball because of a preschool Show and Tell accident and see what kind of response you get.) To this day I am still waiting for someone to acknowledge they saw my self-induced wipeout in the rain, but no one has done so yet. Lord, help me if they had video cameras out there. But guess what? I'd do it again tomorrow if it would help my son out. And this time, I'd bring Eeyore. David Lee is a Wilson resident. Links of London Necklaces column runs each Saturday in The Wilson Times.Pastor George Hutchings, aka The Shoeman, knows the value of a catchy motto for promoting his good works. "I don't want your money; I want your soul -- your shoe soul that is," he frequently says. "A pair of shoes serves two, shoes for those in need and water for those who thirst." Hutchings literally does just that by collecting old shoes to fund water drilling projects in Kenya and, as of this past year, water purification projects in Haiti. The shoes will be sold for pennies per pound, with Hutchings using the proceeds to purchase rigs and to train Kenyans how to use the equipment to drill wells in addition to installing water purification systems for use in Haiti to help combat the spread of cholera. From 3 until 5 p.m. on Friday, shoes piled up in the parking lot behind the Madison County Sheriff's Building in downtown Edwardsville. Representatives from 16 Madison County schools brought the shoes they have been collecting in their schools to help others in need, delivering their collections directly into the Shoeman van. "We started collecting shoes on Nov. 15, America Recycles Day," said Terri Roberds, a fourth grade teacher at Worthen Elementary School in Granite City. "We tell people and students to check their closets, and we Links of London Red Friendship Bracelet George do an assembly that provided a lot of encouragement. Roberds said one of the students was so inspired that he mounted his own show drive in his neighborhood. As a group, the kids at Worthen donated 241 pairs, bringing the total collection for the day to 834 pairs and counting at 4 p.m. Surpassing the one million mark for shoes collected since 2008, Hutchings said that he has collected more than 700,000 pairs this year alone, bringing the total to more than 1.3 million pairs collected since 2008. "This year I've had a 335 percent increase in volume," he said. "I think donations are up in part because Haiti has been in the news so much, I was one of the first people on the ground there and I was recognized as charity of the year by Thrivent magazine." Based out of Manchester, Mo., Hutchings' organization has become known nationwide. He regularly receives shoes from as far away as Pennsylvania through the generosity of a Christian Trucking Ministry, which transports the shoes to him for free. "By selling the shoes through middlemen, we keep the shoes out of a landfill, create jobs here in Illinois and Links of London Red Heart Charm Bracelet as well as in other countries that turns beggars into providers for their families." Hutchings emphasized the importance of both shoes and clean water, noting that mites and parasites enter the body through abrasions and unclean water.