Last Tuesday I saw something I’ve never seen before, and that’s sayin’ a lot, given how many years I’ve been around to see things.
It was a tree. A tree about four miles outside of Cherokee, Alabama, just sittin’ beside the road, mindin’ its own business. Now, lest you think I should be contacting the Guinness Book of Records or Ripley’s Believe It or Not (because obviously, I’m a rarity if this was my first ever tree sighting), please allow me to clarify.
This tree was covered in shoes.
Yes, you read that correctly. Covered in shoes. Pairs of shoes, actually. Hundreds of them.
It seems that over the years people, for whatever reason, have brought their cast-off shoes as an offering to the tree. Tying their laces together, they toss them skyward, hoping to catch one of the limbs until now the lower ones are covered in all kinds of footwear. All. Kinds. There are tennis shoes (backless, standard, and hightops . . . Nikes, Adidas, and Keds, just to name a few . . .), hiking boots, house shoes . . . even a pair of hot pink crocs (that were stuck onto one of the more reachable branches instead of being flung up into the tree while tied together . . . since crocs don’t have laces . . .).
Of course, I turned around. Of course, I made pictures. There were a few T-shirts wrapped around the trunk and a sign tacked to it that said something about Vonda B. Turner with a message I couldn’t read. And since I would have to cross a ditch and navigate an incline while my poor van sat helplessly on the shoulder of the road, a sitting duck for anyone paying more attention to their phone than their driving, I left without getting a closer look. I did get a picture of it which, when enlarged, says something to the effect of “Put your ___________ and have good luck in ______________” maybe followed by some dollar signs?
Once the opportunity presented itself, I asked my good friend Google why there was a tree covered in shoes on the side of Highway 72 four miles outside of Cherokee, Alabama. And, believe it or not, Goggle knew. Well, kinda. He (or she? I’m not sure how to refer to Goggle, but as much as we converse, “it” doesn’t seem personal enough) couldn’t give me a reason as to why this particular tree was covered in shoes, but could tell me that, according to Roadside America, there are 32 such trees scattered about the United States, including the Cowboy Boot Tree in Vega, Texas, the Shoe Totem in Boulder, Colorado, and the Tree of Lost Soles (I do so love that name . . .) in Townsend, Tennessee. I may actually try to visit that one next time we head east. They even provide a map showing the locations of these historical shoe trees.
And what, you may ask, makes them historical? Why don’t we let the nice people at Roadside America explain it?
“A shoe tree starts with one dreamer, tossing his or her footwear-of-old high into the sky, to catch on an out-of-reach branch. It usually ends there, unseen and neglected by others. But on rare occasions, that first pair of shoes triggers a shoe tossing cascade. Soon, teens are gathering up their old Adidas and Sauconys, families are driving out after church with Dad’s Reeboks and grandma’s Keds. Many inscribe messages on the sneakers in permanent marker—greetings, love poems, and life accomplishments. The shoe tree blooms with polymer beauty. A work of art like this may last for generations, tracing our history by our sneakers.”
That explains a lot, don’t you think? Everyone, no matter who they may be or the position they have occupied in life, wants to be remembered. Granted, sometimes it may seem so far from the realm of possibility they don’t consciously acknowledge the desire. But the desire is still there. For good or evil, everyone is remembered by someone for at least a generation. And as silly as it may sound, tossing your shoes into a tree by the side of the road—a tree that has served as a repository of history since 2008—assures there will be at least some record of your having passed that way. Especially if you write on them in permanent marker.
Everyone leaves a legacy. If it’s a pair of shoes hanging from a tree limb, so be it. Hopefully for most of us, there’ll be something more . . . but I’m pretty sure the next time I pass that way, I’ll have some old sneakers with me, just in case.
About the author: Lisa Shackelford Thomas is a fourth-generation member of a family that’s been in funeral service since 1926 and has worked with Shackelford Funeral Directors in Savannah, Tennessee for over 45 years. Any opinions expressed here are hers and hers alone and may or may not reflect the opinions of other Shackelford family members or staff.
