# where can you see shoes hanging and sticking out their tongues?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-can-you-see-shoes-hanging-and-sticking-out-their-tongues/21118>\
**Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\
**Created:** [June 1, 2000, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-can-you-see-shoes-hanging-and-sticking-out-their-tongues/21118 "2000-06-01T15:21:05Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\
**Post date:** [June 1, 2000, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-can-you-see-shoes-hanging-and-sticking-out-their-tongues/21118/1 "2000-06-01T15:21:05Z")

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While leafing through Cecil’s books, I read an article that caught my eye. In his column discussing shoes hanging from wires, Cecil didn’t mention the shoe tree phenomenon. I saw one when I was in vacation in Arkansas, near Eureka Springs. You can see a picture of it, and other similar arboreal manifestations, here:  
[Shoe Trees](http://www.roadsideamerica.com/set/shoetrees.html)

What other manifestations of the hanging shoe phenomenon have been witnessed by the Teeming Millions?

As far as the explanation of the mystery, I think this was the best answer:

> [@](#):
>
> The fact about the shoes hanging across the overhead wire is: my wife won’t let me bring them into the house after I walked across the barnyard. This is a certified true fact.

Cecil’s column can be found on-line at this link:  
[Why are tied-together pairs of shoes often hung over wires? (02-Aug-96 )](http://straightdope.com/columns/960802.html)

The column can also be found on pages 274-276 of Cecil Adams’ book “[_Triumph of the Straight Dope_](http://www.straightdope.com/otheroutlets/books.html)”.

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**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\
**Post date:** [June 1, 2000, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-can-you-see-shoes-hanging-and-sticking-out-their-tongues/21118/2 "2000-06-01T17:12:10Z")

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I saw a shoe car once. It was an oldish (early 80s) Japanese import the sides of which the owner had covered with old shoes, mostly Chuck Taylor high tops (epoxied 'em by the sole right onto the paint). He told me he spent most of his time in the Southwest, and they tended to stay dry enough that mildew wasn’t much of a problem, but he occasionally had to hit them with a few shots of bleach or air freshener. And as we were in DC in summer, they were quite fragrant and just turning a bit green.

But then, I spoke with him in the parking lot of RFK stadium shortly before a Grateful Dead show. So I suppose I could have, er, imagined the whole thing.