Phil Taylor's Blog: The Phil Factor, page 168
November 25, 2013
The Last Shoe Tree Post
That’s right! This is the last post I’ll put here with a picture and story of another shoe tree. This is the tree, or rather trees that started all this, and after posting this today, tonight I’ll post the answer to why I’ve been telling you about the shoe trees.
About an hour east of Buffalo, very near to the shore of Lake Ontario in upstate Amish country is a copse of four trees covered in shoes. Some are hanging by their laces in the high branches and some nailed to the trunks. They are act...
November 24, 2013
A Video Clue to the Shoe Tree stories
For the past week I’ve been posting stories about all the mysterious trees festooned with shoes all over the United States (and one in England). The stories are fascinating, but I’ve got a point. I’ve promised to let you in on why I keep posting these stories. Well, we’re getting very close to the big reveal. Here is a video clue:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1NZcH2haIM
Feel free to comment with guesses about why I’ve allowed trees full of old shoes to hijack my otherwise humorous blog.
Tagg...
November 23, 2013
The Walled Lake Killer and the Shoe Tree
Four children were murdered in Oakland County, Michigan in 1976-1977. The small rural county was paralyzed with fear as a killer preyed upon their children.Folklore has that in the 1970′s the Walled Lake Child Killer would kidnap children from the Walled Lake Amusement park pictured above.
He or she then allegedly took the children to the tree at night where he murdered them, tossed their shoes up in the tree, and buried the bodies in a nearby field. The tale is reportedly an urban legend, but...
Two Odd and Humorous Stories from the News
It’s a nice day for a white wedding, or is it? Chicks dig the bad boys right? In aRolling Stoneinterview a twenty-five year old woman named Star, who has been visiting Charles Manson for the last six years, announced that she and Chuck are betrothed. Personally I’m glad they took their time and didn’t rush into anything.
In lieu of an engagement ring the woman carved an X into her forehead to match Charlie’s swastika. Hmmm…she didn’t go full swastika? That says ‘lack of commitment’ to me. I’d...
November 22, 2013
Book Review: Stephen King’s 11/22/63
In honor of the anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy I thought I would re-post an amended version of my review from earlier this year. Yes, I realize thatStephen Kingdoesn’t need my review to help his sales, but every once in awhile you read a book that captures your imagination so much that you want to tell everyone to read it.11/22/63is one of those books.
When it first came out in November of 2011 I had no interest in reading the book. I hated the title and the cove...
November 21, 2013
The Kinmount Shoe Tree Legend
The Kinmount, Ontario Shoe Tree was reportedly started in the 1940′s by a gentleman named Bill Boland who retired to Kinmount and built a home there because of his love for the beautiful, unspoiled woods and terrain. Bill was familiar with an ancient native Indian tradition that said that if you hung a pair of moccasins on a sacred tree it would bring you good luck. Bill started his own shoe tree on a white pine near the front of his property with one pair of shoes. Soon thereafter other pair...
November 20, 2013
Sexiest Man Alive: Adam Levine or Maroon Phil?
In the photo above Adam is obviously fearful that his new title will be rescinded because of the backlash from all of my fans. Although Adam has done many, many interviews, there is one story he has yet to tell. Our story. No, not you and me. Me and Adam!
Adam and I have quite a history. In my younger days as a musician, Adam, me, and four of our friends would get together to jam after school. After we got a few original songs down we decided that we needed a band name. The others and I wanted...
November 19, 2013
The Shoe Tree of Middlegate, Nevada
Fredda Stevenson sized up the despondent young man who’d slunk into her remote watering hole on U.S. Highway 50. He was thirsting for beer and, as Stevenson learned, advice.His new bride, he grumbled, had blown all their cash on slot machines in Reno. Then they’d sped east through 100 miles of sagebrush and hills as dark and lumpy as mud pies. They camped down the road from Stevenson’s bar, near a large cottonwood tree that had inexplicably thrived in Nevada’s badlands. The couple started qua...
The Rob Ford Interview
Is Toronto Mayor Rob Ford winning? Since his first DUI arrest in Miami fourteen years ago he has still been partying like it’s 1999. In his three years as Mayor of Toronto he has “earned” over $170,000 a year in salary while engaging in a drug binge/manic episode that would make Charlie Sheen say, “Yo, uh..Rob, dude, you might want to mix in a Xanax now and then. Seriously, give it a rest. I’m done. I gotta call it a night.” Being the intrepid writer that I am I thought Rob Ford might make fo...
November 18, 2013
The Tree of Lost Soles
After posting about the mysterious Shoe Tree in Slab City, CA yesterday I received a comment on my Facebook wall from Lindsey Rice Hodges of Helen, Georgia telling me about The Tree of Lost Soles which is pictured below.
The tree sits along the Chattahoochee River where locals and tourists like to go “tubing”. The tree is allegedly the repository for all the footwear lost while folks floated leisurely down the river. Unfortunately, not all floats down the river were so pleasant. Considering th...
