The Sights we See on our Travels - Urban Legends

Walking through Melbourne and also in many other city destinations I have come across this little phenomenon.

AN URBAN MYTH, URBAN LEGEND OR URBAN FOLKLORE!!
This term describes stories told and circulated by persons believing them to be factual accounts. These stories are not always untrue, but they get changed, over-exaggerated and more sensational as they are passed on. A typical urban legend does not necessarily originate in an urban setting, the term is just used to differentiate modern legend from traditional folklore. Recently the preferred term by the academics is "contemporary legend". The legends are sometimes repeated in news stories and distributed by email. People pass on the story told to them by a “friend of a friend”.

“Shoefiti” or “Shoe Flinging”

The question: WHY ARE SHOES HANGING BY THE LACES FROM POWER LINES?
Shoe flinging or shoefiti has become a term to describe the now worldwide practice of throwing shoes whose shoelaces have been tied together so that they hang from overhead wires such as power lines or telephone cables. This practice has a widespread, mysterious, role in adolescent folklore in the US and is being reported more often in many other countries. Shoe flinging occurs in rural as well as in urban areas and is believed to have started with sneakers. Now different varieties of shoes are thrown.

Melbourne Laneway 2009

I had a look on the web and these were some of the things suggested to explain the practice of shoe flinging.

'It marks the end of a school year'; or 'a time honoured tradition on the last day of school', or even 'the commemoration of a forthcoming marriage'.

Legend has it that in Scotland, 'when a young man has lost his virginity he tosses his shoes over telephone wires to announce this to his peers'.

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

Shoes are stolen from other people and tossed over the wires as 'a sort of bullying tactic'; or as 'a practical joke played on drunkards'.

It could be just 'a good way to get rid of shoes that are no longer wanted, are uncomfortable, or do not fit or when you get a new pair', what do you do with the old ones otherwise?

Other suggestions are:

'Part of human instinct, to leave a mark on or decorate their surroundings'; 'Workmen often throw shoes if they are not paid for waxing floors'; 'someone has died and the shoes belong to the dead person, when the dead person's spirit returns, it will walk that high above the ground, that much closer to heaven'.

If the shoes are flung on the powerlines of a house 'it's a way to keep the property safe from ghosts; and if they are flung on telephone wires 'it signals someone leaving the neighbourhood onto bigger and better things'.

Truly sad and sinisted are the suggestions that 'there is a drug dealer nearby'; 'done as a reminder or warning of a nearby murder'; 'designates or marks gang turf'; 'advertises a local crack house'; 'relates to a place where Heroin is sold to symbolise the fact that once you take Heroin you can never 'leave': a reference to the addictive nature of the drug'; or commemorates 'a gang-related murder; 'the death of a gang member'. It even prompted the Mayor of LA, California to release a newsletter citing the fears of many Los Angeles residents that "these shoes indicate sites at which drugs are sold or worse yet, gang turf," and that the City and Utility employees had launched a program to remove the shoes.

These suggestions seem unfounded as gang related only, as the shoe flinging is seen also in relatively remote stretches of rural highways unlikely to be used by gangs and in countries where there are no gangs.

I think once you see them, you probably want to see if you can get a pair up there to.

Just like a competition with no winners.

But then again, you'll never know why the last person did it, would you?

Yarra River 2009

I'm sure that there are many more myths and legends out there that we have passed on surreptiously changing them.

Haven't you heard, or even told, some of these legends to other people, perhaps hearing them change a little as they pass through the years?

Some I've remembered and I bet others have heard in varying ways are:

'the woman killed by spiders nesting in her hair'; or

'the woman was bitten in Bali and came home with an ulcer and had it operated on and all the little spiders jumped out'?

Or the scary stories like the one about:

'a couple are driving along and then the car stops in the middle of nowhere, just near an asylum for the insane, and the boyfriend says 'lock the car and don't get out, no matter what happens' and he's gone for ages and then there's something banging on the roof of the car ' it's bad, bad bad - on a stick I think!

These legends will no dobut go on forever. Amusing. Folklore. True. False. Doesn't matter. Good stories.!!!! I love 'em.