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Today I learned about shoes tossed over power lines. There is currently a pair hanging over 270 W near the 71ish area. One morning I was thinking to myself, how the hell did those get there? They are RIGHT in the middle of the road. Somebody had to stand smack dab in the middle of 270 and toss those bitches up there till they stuck. Surely said person would get hit by a car. And then a remembered hearing on the news a couple weeks ago that some guy was hit and killed by a car after jumping over the dividing wall right in that area and running out into the road. Could the 2 be connected? Was he running out into the road in order to try and throw a pair of shoes up there? Was he killed for some other reason, and the shoes went up later as a memorial?

So I hit me up some Google, and found out...there is no for-sure answer. Several crime-related theories exist: the shoes signal an area where you can buy drugs; they mark gang territory; they are tossed up to memorialize a fallen homie. A second popular theory is more harmless and, I think, not necessarily exclusive of the other: bullies steal shoes from other kids and fling them up there to be mean. My feeling is that there probably is a sort of accepted meaning in drug/gang culture, but that it's also just a funny and assy thing to do, so kids picked up the habit as well.