So we were meandering across Alligator Alley (if 80 mph can be called meandering), on our way from Naples to Homestead before basing ourselves in Key West for a while. Suddenly, we whiz past a line of shoes tossed over the power line crossing the highway.
Stop, I scream. I mean say. What was that? Did you see those shoes on the power line? Cute keeps driving, paying me as much attention as usual. I keep saying I want to take a picture. Finally, about two miles down the road, he sighs mightily and does a very fast U-turn. Yep, still there. Why, say I. And in his patient (or was that condescending?) way, he looks at me and says you don't know what those are?
No, I say. Well I know they're shoes, but why are they strung across the highway on a power line?
He mansplains, with all the confidence in the world which is what that verb means, that those shoes indicate a drug site. People know that they can come to the approximate location to buy drugs. Afraid to ask him how he knows that, I simply say it seems like cops might know that too, and I didn't think drug dealers advertised their locations. He assures me that this is what those shoes indicate. Maybe people are so excited about their drug score that they they toss their shoes up and walk or drive barefoot for the next hundred miles.
Of course, as always, I believed him, even as I looked it up in my ever-trusty Google encyclopedia where his conclusions are pretty much rapidly demolished. One policeman called it an urban myth. But close to his explanation is that they may mark gang territory. Few gang members have corroborated this, however. Neither have police.
Another explanation is shoes as memorials. As one Brooklyn resident pointed out in a YouTube series he calls "Decoding the Streets," the shoes symbolized that the deceased individual is now "walking in heaven."
If you know the REAL reason, by all means let us know. In the meantime, I was reminded that driving for hours can really be entertaining.
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