Shoe tossing - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Shoe tossing, the act of using shoes as improvised projectile

Projectile

A projectile is any object projected into space by the exertion of a force. Although a thrown baseball is technically a projectile too, the term more commonly refers to a weapon....

s or weapon

Weapon

A weapon, arm, or armament is a tool or instrument used with the aim of causing damage or harm to living beings or artificial structures or systems...

s, is a constituent of a number of folk

Folklore

Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...

sport

Sport

A Sport is all forms of physical activity which, through casual or organised participation, aim to use, maintain or improve physical fitness and provide entertainment to participants. Sport may be competitive, where a winner or winners can be identified by objective means, and may require a degree...

s and practices. Today, it is commonly the act of throwing a pair of shoes onto telephone wires, powerlines, or other raised wires. A related practice is shoe tossing onto tree

Tree

A tree is a perennial woody plant. It is most often defined as a woody plant that has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground on a single main stem or trunk with clear apical dominance. A minimum height specification at maturity is cited by some authors, varying from 3 m to...

s or fence

Fence

A fence is a freestanding structure designed to restrict or prevent movement across a boundary. It is generally distinguished from a wall by the lightness of its construction: a wall is usually restricted to such barriers made from solid brick or concrete, blocking vision as well as passage .Fences...

Shoes hung from overhead wires ("shoefiti")

Shoe flinging or "shoefiti" is the practice of throwing shoes whose shoelaces have been tied together so that they hang from overhead wire

Wire

A wire is a single, usually cylindrical, flexible strand or rod of metal. Wires are used to bear mechanical loads and to carry electricity and telecommunications signals. Wire is commonly formed by drawing the metal through a hole in a die or draw plate. Standard sizes are determined by various...

s such as power line

Electric power transmission

Electric-power transmission is the bulk transfer of electrical energy, from generating power plants to Electrical substations located near demand centers...

s or telephone

Telephone

The telephone , colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that transmits and receives sounds, usually the human voice. Telephones are a point-to-point communication system whose most basic function is to allow two people separated by large distances to talk to each other...

cables. The shoes are tied together by their laces, and the pair is then thrown at the wires as a sort of bolas

Bolas

Bolas are a throwing weapon superficially similar to the surujin, made of weights on the ends of interconnected cords, designed to capture animals by entangling their legs...

. This practice plays a widespread, though mysterious, role in adolescent folklore

Folklore

in the United States. Shoe flinging has also been reported in many other countries.

Shoe flinging occurs throughout the United States, in rural as well as in urban areas. Usually, the shoes flung at the wires are sneakers; elsewhere, especially in rural areas, many different varieties of shoes, including leather

Leather

Leather is a durable and flexible material created via the tanning of putrescible animal rawhide and skin, primarily cattlehide. It can be produced through different manufacturing processes, ranging from cottage industry to heavy industry.-Forms:...

shoes and boot

Boot

A boot is a type of footwear but they are not shoes. Most boots mainly cover the foot and the ankle and extend up the leg, sometimes as far as the knee or even the hip. Most boots have a heel that is clearly distinguishable from the rest of the sole, even if the two are made of one piece....

s, also are thrown.

Soldiers leaving the military often paint a pair of combat boots yellow or orange and toss them over a power line or telephone wire near the barracks or unit to which they were assigned.

A number of sinister explanations have been proposed as to why this is done. The foremost is bullying in which a bully steals a pair of shoes and puts in a position where the victim cannot reach it. Some also say that shoes hanging from the wires advertise a local crack house where crack cocaine

Crack cocaine

Crack cocaine is the freebase form of cocaine that can be smoked. It may also be termed rock, hard, iron, cavvy, base, or just crack; it is the most addictive form of cocaine. Crack rocks offer a short but intense high to smokers...

is used and sold (in which case the shoes are sometimes referred to as "Crack Tennies"). It can also relate to a place where heroin is sold to symbolize the fact that once you take heroin you can never 'leave': a reference to the addictive nature of the drug. Others claim that the shoes so thrown commemorate a gang

Gang

A gang is a group of people who, through the organization, formation, and establishment of an assemblage, share a common identity. In current usage it typically denotes a criminal organization or else a criminal affiliation. In early usage, the word gang referred to a group of workmen...

-related murder

Murder

Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...

, or the death of a gang member, or as a way of marking gang turf. A newsletter from the mayor of Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...

cites fears of many Los Angeles residents that "these shoes indicate sites at which drugs are sold or worse yet, gang turf," and that city and utility employees had launched a program to remove the shoes. However, the practice also occurs along relatively remote stretches of rural highways that are unlikely scenes for gang murders, and have no structures at all to be crack houses.
Other less sinister explanations have been ventured for the practice. Some claim that shoes are flung to commemorate the end of a school

School

A school is an institution designed for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is commonly compulsory. In these systems, students progress through a series of schools...

year, or a forthcoming marriage

Marriage

Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...

as part of a rite of passage

Rite of passage

A rite of passage is a ritual event that marks a person's progress from one status to another. It is a universal phenomenon which can show anthropologists what social hierarchies, values and beliefs are important in specific cultures....

. In Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

, it has been said that when a young man has lost his virginity he tosses his shoes over telephone wires to announce this to his peers. It has been suggested that the custom may have originated with members of the military

Military

A military is an organization authorized by its greater society to use lethal force, usually including use of weapons, in defending its country by combating actual or perceived threats. The military may have additional functions of use to its greater society, such as advancing a political agenda e.g...

, who are said to have thrown military boots, often painted orange or some other conspicuous color, at overhead wires as a part of a rite of passage upon completing basic training

Basic Training

Basic Training may refer to:* Basic Training, a 1971 American documentary directed by Frederick Wiseman* Basic Training , an American sex comedy* Recruit training...

or on leaving the service. In the 1997 film

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

Wag the Dog
Wag the Dog
Wag the Dog is a 1997 black comedy film starring Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro, co-starring Anne Heche, Denis Leary and William H. Macy about a Washington spin doctor who, merely days before a presidential election, distracts the electorate from a sex scandal by hiring a Hollywood film producer...

, shoe tossing features as an allegedly spontaneous cultural manifestation of tribute to Sgt. William Schumann, played by Woody Harrelson

Woody Harrelson

Woodrow Tracy "Woody" Harrelson is an American actor.Harrelson's breakthrough role came in the television sitcom Cheers as bartender Woody Boyd...

, who has purportedly been “shot down behind enemy lines” in Albania

Albania

Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...

.

Others claim that the shoes are stolen from other people and tossed over the wires as a sort of bullying tactic, or as a practical joke

Practical joke

A practical joke is a mischievous trick played on someone, typically causing the victim to experience embarrassment, indignity, or discomfort. Practical jokes differ from confidence tricks in that the victim finds out, or is let in on the joke, rather than being fooled into handing over money or...

played on drunkards

Drunkenness

Alcohol intoxication is a physiological state that occurs when a person has a high level of ethanol in his or her blood....

. Others simply say that shoe flinging is a way to get rid of shoes that are no longer wanted, are uncomfortable, or do not fit. It may also be another manifestation of the human instinct to leave their mark on, and decorate, their surroundings. It has been reported that workmen often throw shoes if they are not paid for waxing floors.

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.
Another superstition holds that the tossing of shoes over the power lines outside of a house is a way to keep the property safe from ghosts. Yet another legend involves that shoes hanging from telephone wires signals someone leaving the neighborhood onto bigger and better things. Of course, only each individual shoe-thrower knows why his/her pair of shoes now hangs from a wire.

Shoe tree

A shoe tree, not to be confused with the shoe-preservation device of the same name

Shoe tree

A shoe tree is a device approximating the shape of a foot that is placed inside a shoe to preserve its shape, stop it from developing creases and thereby extend the life of the shoe....

, is a tree

Tree

(or, occasionally, a powerline pole or other wooden object) that has been festooned with old shoes. Shoe trees are generally located alongside a major local thoroughfare, and may have a theme (such as high-heeled shoe

High-heeled shoe

High-heeled footwear is footwear that raises the heel of the wearer's foot significantly higher than the toes. When both the heel and the toes are raised equal amounts, as in a platform shoe, it is technically not considered to be a high heel; however, there are also high-heeled platform shoes...

s). There are currently at least seventy-six such shoe trees in the United States, and an undetermined number elsewhere.

A cottonwood tree in Middlegate, Nevada

Middlegate, Nevada

Middlegate is an unincorporated community in Churchill County, Nevada, United States.The local bar, gas station and restaurant of Middlegate were the location for Black Road, Gregory Hutton's award-winning 2002 short film starring William Nilon....

, about 100 miles east of Reno

Reno, Nevada

Reno is the county seat of Washoe County, Nevada, United States. The city has a population of about 220,500 and is the most populous Nevada city outside of the Las Vegas metropolitan area...

, said to be the largest shoe tree in the world, was cut down by vandals late December 2010.

In summer 2010, a well-known shoe tree in Idaho burned to the ground. Located just outside of Nordman, Idaho.

A shoe tree in Eureka Springs AR was recently cut down across from a KOA, where it was believed that a group of teenagers went into the campground, stole everyone's shoes and started their own tree. This tree was a landmark in the little town.

Competitive boot throwing

Boot throwing has been a competitive sport in New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

for many years, although not one that is taken very seriously. Gumboots or Wellington boots are the heavy rubber boots worn by most farm workers and many other outdoor workers. A competition to see who can throw a gumboot the farthest is a feature of many Agricultural Field Days in the rural communities. The town of Taihape

Taihape

Taihape is the Northern gateway town of the Rangitikei District, located near the middle of the North Island of New Zealand. It services a large rural community and lies on State Highway 1, which runs through the centre of the North Island.- Economy :...

in the central North Island

North Island

The North Island is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, separated from the much less populous South Island by Cook Strait. The island is in area, making it the world's 14th-largest island...

is particularly identified with this sport; they claim to be the Gum Boot Throwing Capital of New Zealand. They hold an annual competition in the main street and award a Golden Gumboot as the trophy; see Wellie wanging

Wellie wanging

Wellie wanging, or wellie throwing, is a sport that originated in Britain in Upperthong, Holmfirth. Competitors are required to hurl a Wellington boot as far as possible within boundary lines, from a standing or running start. A variation requires participants to launch the wellie from the end of...

.

Since 2003 the sport has been practiced competitively in Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...

. The 2004 World Championship Competition was won by Germany who is hosting the 2005 Competition at Döbeln

Döbeln

Döbeln is a town in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, part of the Mittelsachsen district, located at both banks of the river Freiberger Mulde.-History:It was founded in the 10th century, the first written proof of its existence dates back to the year 981....

. Teams were also expected from Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

and Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

. Boot throwing has been a popular sport in Finland

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

since 1976 when the first Finnish Championships of boot throwing has been organized.

External links

New Zealand shoe throwing
Shoe Tree in Armstrong Park, Newcastle in its post council cut down state
Shoes in Santa Barbara
Bootthrowers' House
Close-Up: New York's hanging sneakers – BBC News
BBC News
BBC News is the department of the British Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs. The department is the world's largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, as well as online...

report looking at the phenomenon

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Shoes hung from overhead wires ("shoefiti")

Shoe tree

Competitive boot throwing

See also

External links