Shoes are dangling from utility lines in Salem. Why is that?

This is part of an on-going series answering "Why is that?" questions about Salem and the Mid-Valley.

The question: Why are shoes dangling from overhead utility lines in our community? We try to answer the question, but first, a little history.

The background: Tying together the laces of a pair of shoes and flinging them over a utility line apparently is a worldwide phenomenon.

Urban Dictionary, a crowdsourced online dictionary for slang, has an entry for shoes on a wire, also known as shoefiti or shoe-tossing.

The term shoefiti was coined in 2005 by a Minnesota man who compared the practice to the artistic expression of graffiti with its ability to spark both admiration and outrage.

But why is it done, and what does it symbolize?

Snopes, an internet source for researching urban legends, myths and rumors, addresses whether sneakers hanging from power lines carry a secret message. Theories abound, it says, from the work of gangs to kids just being kids. And there is no one answer.

Shoe-tossing appears to have more celebratory than sinister roots.

In Victorian England, wedding attendees would throw shoes at the bride and groom to wish the couple luck.

The practice may have evolved from a military tradition, where soldiers chucked their boots over power lines to signify the end of their service or retirement.

In Salem, you can spot shoes on overhead lines in neighborhoods or along busy thoroughfares.

Some have been twisting in the wind for months, maybe longer.

Why are shoes dangling from local utility lines?

When you see a pair of lace-tied shoes on a line, it makes you wonder who put them there, why they did it, and how many attempts it took for the shoes to stick.

Some look almost new from 20 to 30 feet below, like a pair of white Nike court shoes dangling in a southeast Salem neighborhood.

Some look well-worn, like a pair of unknown-brand sneakers visible to traffic on Lancaster Drive NE.

Not all are identifiable, even with a long camera lens or binoculars, and not all are sneakers.

A pair of tan hiking books has dangled several months above a street off Commercial Street SE.

Pinpointing why they are there is next to impossible. The short answer is we have no idea.

There is likely a different reason for every pair, and we should not assume they have ties to gangs or drugs, a prevalent theory no matter where you turn during a Google search.

They also could represent the recent death of someone nearby or commemorate the end of a school year. Or, they are just as likely to have been heaved by a bully.

Local police departments say they do not enforce shoe-tossing and declined to speculate why people do it. Officials say it is not prevalent in the community.

Some cities from California to Florida have considered passing ordinances, categorizing shoe-tossing as criminal mischief or littering.

Longtime city of Salem employees cannot remember there ever being such an ordinance discussion.

While shoes on wires can be an eyesore, utility companies say they are generally not a safety risk and not likely to cause service interruption. They say their crews would remove dangling shoes as soon as possible if determined to be dangerous.

Oh, by the way

Figuring out who is responsible for removing shoes from utility lines is as almost as difficult as figuring out why someone would toss them in the first place.

Utility lines and poles are pervasive, distributing electricity and communication cables to our homes and businesses. The poles support a web of hardware for power and telecommunications companies, with high-voltage electrical lines up high and lower-voltage lines for phone, cable TV and internet closest to the ground.

PGE and Salem Electric discourage people from tampering with or throwing anything at or on electrical equipment because it can be dangerous, even though they say shoes almost never land on their lines but on the lower communications lines.

The average resident likely cannot identify which lines carry which services, making it difficult to report shoefiti to the appropriate service provider.

Our best advice, if you want to report shoes on a utility line in your neighborhood, is to contact the customer service team of your provider and let them get to the bottom of who is responsible for removal.

Please do not try to remove shoes from lines yourself.

Capi Lynn is a senior reporter for the Statesman Journal. Email your "Why is that" questions to her at clynn@statesmanjournal.com.

This article originally appeared on Salem Statesman Journal: Shoes on utility lines in Salem. Why is that?