Shoe Trees: part one - how far we've come

  One of the curiosities about having lived all across the country is that it's often challenging to keep the exact origins of an experience straight. A child might say, "I just knowed it" and now that I have more than a few decades behind me, I'm thinking that there is something behind their wisdom. My hope is that readers will practice a liberal amount of forgiveness with these sorts of things.

Sometime in the 80s before social media and during our travels in South Carolina, we came across a tree that had a pair of shoes nailed to it. Other than the shoes, there was seemingly nothing more interesting about the old tree. It was later that I heard about the custom of neighbors nailing shoes to a tee that they figured needed to be taken down.  The reasoning was that shoes would embarrass their neighbor into removing the tree.  I imagine today someone might update their status to the same ends.

Whether it is the popularity of pellet stoves to heat our homes or fewer acres being cleared for pasture and lawns that account for the number of shoe worthy trees in Vernon I can't really say for sure. My hope however, is that it is in part due to increasing awareness of the environmental and wildlife benefits of allowing them to stand until they don't. - Norma Manning