This got me thinking about all the times I've come across a single, vacant shoe lying in the road. Why would a single shoe be lying there like that? It's not as if anyone purposely pitches one shoe out into the road never to return - do they?And it doesn't seem that many of the scenarios for how this could happen are good. I'm not aware of anyone ever saying, "Gee, I'm really sick of my left shoe; the right one, not so much, but this left one has got to go. I'll throw it out my car window." The window goes down, the shoe flies out and car and driver continue on their way, one shoe lighter.
I just mentioned that I can't imagine "many" of the scenarios being good, but truth be told, I can't imagine any scenario that is. On the flip side, I can imagine all manner of scenarios that are bad.
"Shoeless Joe" Jackson was a professional baseball player born in the late 1800s. According to what I read, he had an impressive .356 batting average. Allegedly Jackson got his nickname when he discarded the cleats that were hurting his feet and without benefit of shoes, knocked out a triple that cleared the bases. That is one of the few scenarios where my imaginings of abandoned shoes doesn't have some nefarious possibility attached to it. But this example doesn't apply to our quandary because Jackson left both his shoes, not just one, and he probably went back to retrieve them. It's the notion of one truly abandoned shoe that makes my skin crawl.
Then there's the multitude of instances where I've strolled by, minding my own business only to look up and see a pair of shoes that have been tied together by their laces and tossed up onto overhead wires. Seeing that has always stymied me so I've done a little research on why shoes are left to hang from wires and it turns out there can be a number of reasons, again, none of them all that good.
According to UrbanDictionary.com, shoes on wires indicate the close proximity of a drug house. Somewhere else I read that they indicate gang presence and marked territory. But urban settings aren't the only places you can find these shoes; often they're found in rural areas. Curiouser and curiouser.
Still other sources say that shoes on wires act as markers for murdered or otherwise fallen gang members and according to some people, they have to do with ghosts. Finally, one source said that shoes are thrown up there like that by men on the eve of their weddings as a last act of defiance. Now that one is good.
There are other possible reasons depending on what you read. Bullying is one. Shoes taken from a hapless victim and tossed into overhead wires aren't easy to retrieve, and when the person de-shoed is also drunk, even less so.
So, now I know more about the possible whys of shoes on wires but I'm still totally stumped by empty shoes by the side of the road.
At least I think they're empty.
