What is the significance of shoes, tied together by the laces, thrown over--and hanging from--a power line?

I asked what it meant having seen shoes and boots thrown over power lines and into a particular tree on the first military installation I was stationed at back in 1984. The answer I was given was that it meant someone was either leaving the installation (shoes) or getting out of the military (boots).

It is like showing that you have your 'walking' papers.

Being as the boots were still needed for the transferring person, the shoes were used.

I have watched this occurring at various places for the past 25 years and it does hold true.

Being as it would be an advertisement for the police to watch the house or stop by for a 'visit', this would make little sense to do in order to show where drugs are available. (However we do know what drugs do to the brain and logical/intelligent thought.)

As for being a symbol or to honor someone who has died, being associated with the military and seeing this all too often, I can say it is not a common practice for military members anywhere I have been. Actually the mentality is the opposite being as soldiers know how important good quality footwear is when they go on a long march so it is more common to refer to being buried with their boots on for their final journey.

The military does tend to have a different mentality and wary of looking at things than the civilian population so this is only from one perspective.

I think people do this for the same reason

they spray graffiti on walls, or have a

Facebook account. Throwing ones shoes

up and over a power line says, "I'm here."

Or, "I was here." The sneakers become

artifacts that people can visit years down

the road. People either ask whose sneakers

they are, or they tell stories about the owner

of the sneakers. What better place for them?

No one can easily remove them, and

sneakers in the air are an arresting, and even

disturbing image. As far as it being a gang

symbol, I doubt it. No gang member worth

the newest sneaker fad would want to be

known for a dirty old pair hanging around.

It's not the coolest thing to duplicate such

an old and corny American idiosyncrasy.

Tying two old shoes together like this is a sign that they will never be lost or parted and as such offers their unity together ... it is also reminiscent of the South American 'Bolas' that is used as a weapon to capture fleeing animals. The act of throwing them onto power lines, apart from a simple act of vandalism or rebuke against a clean and tidy society, is the a need to give these shoes, that have trod many miles with the individual, a final resting place in their life and one that will be 'high' profile and a 'test' against the elements and the ravages of time. All very philosophical but very messy at the same time!

I found this on wikipedia :"In some neighborhoods,shoes tied together and hanging from power lines or tree branches signify that someone has died. The shoes belong to the dead person. The reason they are hanging, legend has it, is that when the dead person's spirit returns, it will walk that high above the ground, that much closer to heaven."

I've always wondered that--but I think it's more like a Greek thing than a gang thing. Anyway, there were always dozens when I was in grad school at IU-Bloomington.

Good question... I dont know

But in the movie "Big Fish" the little girl in the "perfect town" does that to everyone's shoes.....hmmm

Perhaps in memory of the electrician you died there doing his her Job.

Another way to get rid os shoes and not pay the trash fee.

Another way to leave your signature without graffiti.

In larger cities I have always been told it marks where each gang territory begins and ends.

I remember first seeing them in Pittsburgh when I was about 7 years old (1972). My dad caught me trying to get mine up there with about 2 dozen others....my butt was sore.

I heard it was the local Gangs way of marking their Territory ?