jerry6061
TMF Poster
- Joined
- Nov 14, 2004
- Messages
- 92
- Points
- 0
I meant to get this over to this site earlier to see what other people thought, but I'm terrible with forgetting. So without further a due I give you a charming little story about a certain shoetree that its best to not pass. Enjoy 🙂
It was a beautiful autumn day when Alyssa and Carrie set out on their 24 hour hike into the the Ozark mountains. As Carrie drove down the last dirt road before they left the brand new Toyota tundra for rougher ground. Alyssa stared out the window into the dusky look of the forest. She had never been up to "Hill Country" before and had heard a lot of crazy stories about wild hillbillies and their moonshine. But I say heard, more like she had read and watched deliverance the other day. Not what you would really consider educated on the subject. She was a college girl in 4th year biology, not the typical hiker type like her friend Carrie, but a firm build you would consider worked out religiously. What the guys all called "hot to trot", and her being one of the only girls in her class it wasn't uncommon for whistles when she tested experiments either. Her hair a dark brown almost black, eyes blue as the ocean and about 5'4 in height.
"Here we are, finally" said Carrie relieved.
The journey was about to begin and she was siked for the time away from her city life, and her shitty boyfriend. They had talks of breakup the last time she could stand to look at him. From a friends point of view, it was sinking if not sunk. A Brittania of relationships, but she had come to terms with it on the long drive up. Unlike Alyssa, Carrie was a little sportier but they had only slightly different colored hair. Her eyes a pale green, and taller by a bit at 5'9.
"So how far are we going exactly?"Alyssa jested.
"Oh, not too far. We'll walk a half day in, than make camp, and walk back in the morning" replied Carrie.
As they continued to talk, Carrie unpacked their hiking apparel and got it ready for the road ahead. It was not as bright as it had been in the truck, the leaves were hanging low and the wind nipped at the tops of the trees. A faint sound of laughter could be heard in the distance. Looking at each other both girls shook it off as the wind and started into the woods.
A silence had come over the 2 girls as they seeped further and further into the forest. Alyssa finally broke it up by bringing her much needed knowledge to the table.
"You know there are hillbillies out here. Making their moonshine and strumming their banjos (they both burst out laughing)..... How do you suppose one goes about living a life such as that.
"Their simple folk, they be living with 11 toes and 3 ears" Carrie shot back in her best yokled voice.
Both girls continued to laugh and joke as they hiked over rocks, under cliffs, through tunnels and boggy ground. Eventually it started to get kind of dark and since they had been hiking so long, they thought it through and had finally agreed to one climb over one more cliff and they would camp under it encase it rained the next morning. Both Carrie and Alyssa reached the top with ease. Suddenly Alyssa noticed Carrie staring off into the distance at what she would later describe an entranced gaze.
"What do you see?" she asked.
"If I'm not mistaken..."she paused and took a closer look."Is that a set of shoes hanging over that branch?"
Both girls walked toward what looked to be a crab apple tree. The closer they went, the more sets of shoes they saw. Must have been at least 30 different sets, from hiking boots, to sneakers, even a could sets of older ones that were hard to tell what they might have been.
"What would you call this?" inquired Alyssa.
"A shoe tree, hard to say why ones out here, especially all of the different types, and these aren't what the locals are wearing. Look timberlands, roclite, adidas, asolo, its just doesn't make sense.
"Damn Carrie, did you do a project on hiking shoes as a child?" joked Alyssa
"Nah, McLean's article or something, can't remember. But it is kind of creepy out here. Lets take a walk down towards the cliff more and set up camp before it gets too dark". They walked to the cliffs edge and started to make camp. Like the adventurer she was Carrie voted herself to grab some fire wood, and Alyssa was to construct the tent since Carrie had lugged it such a distance. Not to say they didn't argue about it for a bit.
Alyssa since her arguing with Carrie had most of the tent up, she had placed rocks for the fire pit, opened the can of beef stew with her Swiss army knife, yet in all of her time spent preparing she had lost all thought as to where Carrie might be.Without warning a stiff gust of wind and the sounds of plucking banjo strings was all it took to realize how alone she felt at that very moment. What had it been, and hour, hour and a half since the last time she had even spoken to anyone.Too long, and it was darkness and panic that flooded her fears. Her flashlight had been on when she was collecting rocks, how long ago had that been. Thoughts kept racing in her mind until she spoke.
"Fine, I'll go look for you Carrie! Miss Carrie Oakley!".
Her yells were followed by that plucking sound again, it had to be a banjo. Or was deliverance last night a bad idea. Either way, she had spent too much time thinking upon it, and it was time to act. She picked up her flashlight, and walked into the dark shadows of the forest in search of Carrie. Alyssa wondered on such a beautiful day how she was roped into such a predicament, and than coming upon the conclusion it was all Carrie. Her boyfriend, her previous bad days at work. All of this stewed in her mind making her angrier and angrier as she walked. Thoughts were disrupted by the branches that started to get more and more narrow catching her hair. She shook her head to put her hands up, her boots starting to sink in the bogged out forest. It seemed as though she was lost until she saw in the distance a light that had to be from Carries flashlight. Who else could be out in such a place on such a night. These girls just had no idea that the ozarks isn't a place to mess around in.
The banjo music of before was in full volume now and Alyssa came to the glowing fire in a the cleared circular area of the forest. There were banjos and wash boards, brown bottles marked with XXX's, fangled guitars and teeth alike. Alyssa seeing all of this ducked into the bush to see if they were friend or foe. She sulked past the washboard players and ducked into another bush by a tent. There two men sat arguing over what looked like hiking boots and socks. The socks were familiar, and certainly not the style of such a folk.
"Nah Jethro, I's can emagine ya gotts a perrty little girl out in thems woods, but why can'ts ya shar her, bring her out for the fellas".
A dirty haired man, looking no older than a boy with bad teeth sniffed at a sock as his brother Walthum complained of his greed towards the ultimate find.
"Cose thems the way we plays it, finds ems keeps ems. Foot wrappings and all, I give you a sock, than gots to give melvin a smell, or wilbur, or jessup, even old reginald will crawl over. Nah, but she did say as I wus tastin the goods she had a friend by our shoe tree. Tickliss girls say bout anythin you wanna."
They both laughed at this fact as Alyssa listened in the bush. She saw as Walthum tried to take another sniff of Carries pink socks, But Jethro's right hook sent him back a bit. They started to wrestle in fact (or wrastle as they put it) into the banjo players knocking them into the wash boarders causing a chain reaction of cluster-fucks in their chain around the fire eventually putting a brown jug into the fire. Those that saw ran, those who didn't ran in spite of the others into the woods. Alyssa saw this as her opportunity (if any) to creep into the tent and see what might be left of her once hillbillies free friend. Carrie was passed out in the back when Alyssa finally found her. Her hands were tied with rope to a pole in the tent, and her clothes scattered in amongst empty brown bottles, other tattered clothing and mats that looked overslept on or older than both girls combined.
"Carrie, we have to go, those hillbillies are coming back...Carrie!" As Alyssa shook her friend Carrie had not moved more than an inch or so. She was out cold whatever they had done to her, and with her only option being get the hell out of there before she was hick-bait, Alyssa started to race for the door in hopes she would find help tonight or early tomorrow. She ran by the fire when all of the sudden the brown bottle long since forgotten blew up right beside her.
She awoke a few minutes later with many buck toothed men both standing or hunched if not crouching to get a better look from their squinted eyes. She thought it best to move as little as possible and maybe they'd leave her alone for another moment and she might have an escape route in store, but Walthum who had been looking forward to his own girl started grabbing at her shoes.
"I tells ya, uhya uhya, oh boy. Wait, how did you get these here ropes untied?"
Jethro did no more than throw a knife in the ground, and Walthum went to work cutting through the laces of her first boot.
"Wait, wait, I'm awake, can't we talk this out like civilized folk? interjected Alyssa.
Jethro put his hand to his face, scratched his head and spoke. "Ok, I thought it out.....Duh, you come to this here part of the woods, That's pertty good odds, like a jackpot we won. You didn't we'd nar a seen ya. But we did, so....
"So I gots some of those fancy smells foot wrappins" said Walthum as he pulled off Alyssa's first sock wiffing in deeply first to the sock and than Alyssas bare foot. "Wait a sec, is this foot jewelery? I's rich too"cried Walthum as he pulled her second and third toe ring right off her polished pedicured feet and into his ratty pocket.
His beard tickled a bit as he sniffed up and down. "You smells so pertty, better than any of my sisters linnens, and they's washes once a month".
The thought of what these people did for living made Alyssa cringe a bit, but she couldn't help but laugh at the tickling Walthums beard was doing as he sniffed and started to lick. As she began to laugh it dawned on her all of the other men still stood looking at her. Their looks grew hungrier as Walthum raised her foot and licked the toes all the way down to her heels.
Jethro spoke up again "Nah i didn tell ya I gots a girl in the tent, shes mine. Buh this'un, shes all yalls".
The old and young grew rowdy and loud as they clang their brown bottle and played another song. It seemed all of the sudden, but soon Alyssa had knives cutting and thrashing, pants grew to shorts, sweaters shrank to a bra which lasted as long as the liquor in a place such as this. Calloused hands searched all over her body finding ticklish places she had never knew existed. As the last pieces of her clothes were thrown about or put right in the fire the men stopped and backed away. A huge "T" was erected of solid oak and placed at the entrance of the tent. Alyssa was than carried over and tied by her hands to the top of the "T". Once there, she found her toes could just barely touch the damp rocky ground.
"Are you sure we can't come to an agreement, I have money, a dental plan, anything, common........Hahhahaahhahahahahha!!!"
Some Hillbillies had run off, chickens were heard cocking , followed by their swift return with stiff feathers. It seemed like they all had feathers, and their numbers seemed to be growing by the minute. Where were they coming from? why were they doing this?
The feathers hit every part of her body and her feet were lifted into the nearest mans gummed mouth. Her laughter seemed endless and her efforts worthless. Out of the corner of her squinted eyes she saw Walthum still sniffing her purple socks much like Jethro had Carries pink ones. She knew now why the tree was there. And why it was shoes in the tree not socks. Her socks weren't coming back anytime soon.
"Oh plplplease gggod, some, hahahah one helppppp me..ohhahahahhaha".
That was all Alyssa could remember until she woke up the next day. She was wearing a potato sack for clothing, as was Carrie who still seemed very passed out. To her utmost pleasure the locals had since departed and Alyssa and Carrie were back at their campsite. Both girl barefoot, feet and bodies red from over tickling.
Jethro was standing by the rocks, how long he had been there she didn't know, but he had but few words to leave her with.
"Y'all come back now ya here, you tastes good, n' make sure you bringun' lots a perrty girls too"
Alyssa got up and ran, ran as fast as she could until she got to the old tree she had seen the other day. There on the top branch sat two new pairs of hiking boots.
It was a beautiful autumn day when Alyssa and Carrie set out on their 24 hour hike into the the Ozark mountains. As Carrie drove down the last dirt road before they left the brand new Toyota tundra for rougher ground. Alyssa stared out the window into the dusky look of the forest. She had never been up to "Hill Country" before and had heard a lot of crazy stories about wild hillbillies and their moonshine. But I say heard, more like she had read and watched deliverance the other day. Not what you would really consider educated on the subject. She was a college girl in 4th year biology, not the typical hiker type like her friend Carrie, but a firm build you would consider worked out religiously. What the guys all called "hot to trot", and her being one of the only girls in her class it wasn't uncommon for whistles when she tested experiments either. Her hair a dark brown almost black, eyes blue as the ocean and about 5'4 in height.
"Here we are, finally" said Carrie relieved.
The journey was about to begin and she was siked for the time away from her city life, and her shitty boyfriend. They had talks of breakup the last time she could stand to look at him. From a friends point of view, it was sinking if not sunk. A Brittania of relationships, but she had come to terms with it on the long drive up. Unlike Alyssa, Carrie was a little sportier but they had only slightly different colored hair. Her eyes a pale green, and taller by a bit at 5'9.
"So how far are we going exactly?"Alyssa jested.
"Oh, not too far. We'll walk a half day in, than make camp, and walk back in the morning" replied Carrie.
As they continued to talk, Carrie unpacked their hiking apparel and got it ready for the road ahead. It was not as bright as it had been in the truck, the leaves were hanging low and the wind nipped at the tops of the trees. A faint sound of laughter could be heard in the distance. Looking at each other both girls shook it off as the wind and started into the woods.
A silence had come over the 2 girls as they seeped further and further into the forest. Alyssa finally broke it up by bringing her much needed knowledge to the table.
"You know there are hillbillies out here. Making their moonshine and strumming their banjos (they both burst out laughing)..... How do you suppose one goes about living a life such as that.
"Their simple folk, they be living with 11 toes and 3 ears" Carrie shot back in her best yokled voice.
Both girls continued to laugh and joke as they hiked over rocks, under cliffs, through tunnels and boggy ground. Eventually it started to get kind of dark and since they had been hiking so long, they thought it through and had finally agreed to one climb over one more cliff and they would camp under it encase it rained the next morning. Both Carrie and Alyssa reached the top with ease. Suddenly Alyssa noticed Carrie staring off into the distance at what she would later describe an entranced gaze.
"What do you see?" she asked.
"If I'm not mistaken..."she paused and took a closer look."Is that a set of shoes hanging over that branch?"
Both girls walked toward what looked to be a crab apple tree. The closer they went, the more sets of shoes they saw. Must have been at least 30 different sets, from hiking boots, to sneakers, even a could sets of older ones that were hard to tell what they might have been.
"What would you call this?" inquired Alyssa.
"A shoe tree, hard to say why ones out here, especially all of the different types, and these aren't what the locals are wearing. Look timberlands, roclite, adidas, asolo, its just doesn't make sense.
"Damn Carrie, did you do a project on hiking shoes as a child?" joked Alyssa
"Nah, McLean's article or something, can't remember. But it is kind of creepy out here. Lets take a walk down towards the cliff more and set up camp before it gets too dark". They walked to the cliffs edge and started to make camp. Like the adventurer she was Carrie voted herself to grab some fire wood, and Alyssa was to construct the tent since Carrie had lugged it such a distance. Not to say they didn't argue about it for a bit.
Alyssa since her arguing with Carrie had most of the tent up, she had placed rocks for the fire pit, opened the can of beef stew with her Swiss army knife, yet in all of her time spent preparing she had lost all thought as to where Carrie might be.Without warning a stiff gust of wind and the sounds of plucking banjo strings was all it took to realize how alone she felt at that very moment. What had it been, and hour, hour and a half since the last time she had even spoken to anyone.Too long, and it was darkness and panic that flooded her fears. Her flashlight had been on when she was collecting rocks, how long ago had that been. Thoughts kept racing in her mind until she spoke.
"Fine, I'll go look for you Carrie! Miss Carrie Oakley!".
Her yells were followed by that plucking sound again, it had to be a banjo. Or was deliverance last night a bad idea. Either way, she had spent too much time thinking upon it, and it was time to act. She picked up her flashlight, and walked into the dark shadows of the forest in search of Carrie. Alyssa wondered on such a beautiful day how she was roped into such a predicament, and than coming upon the conclusion it was all Carrie. Her boyfriend, her previous bad days at work. All of this stewed in her mind making her angrier and angrier as she walked. Thoughts were disrupted by the branches that started to get more and more narrow catching her hair. She shook her head to put her hands up, her boots starting to sink in the bogged out forest. It seemed as though she was lost until she saw in the distance a light that had to be from Carries flashlight. Who else could be out in such a place on such a night. These girls just had no idea that the ozarks isn't a place to mess around in.
The banjo music of before was in full volume now and Alyssa came to the glowing fire in a the cleared circular area of the forest. There were banjos and wash boards, brown bottles marked with XXX's, fangled guitars and teeth alike. Alyssa seeing all of this ducked into the bush to see if they were friend or foe. She sulked past the washboard players and ducked into another bush by a tent. There two men sat arguing over what looked like hiking boots and socks. The socks were familiar, and certainly not the style of such a folk.
"Nah Jethro, I's can emagine ya gotts a perrty little girl out in thems woods, but why can'ts ya shar her, bring her out for the fellas".
A dirty haired man, looking no older than a boy with bad teeth sniffed at a sock as his brother Walthum complained of his greed towards the ultimate find.
"Cose thems the way we plays it, finds ems keeps ems. Foot wrappings and all, I give you a sock, than gots to give melvin a smell, or wilbur, or jessup, even old reginald will crawl over. Nah, but she did say as I wus tastin the goods she had a friend by our shoe tree. Tickliss girls say bout anythin you wanna."
They both laughed at this fact as Alyssa listened in the bush. She saw as Walthum tried to take another sniff of Carries pink socks, But Jethro's right hook sent him back a bit. They started to wrestle in fact (or wrastle as they put it) into the banjo players knocking them into the wash boarders causing a chain reaction of cluster-fucks in their chain around the fire eventually putting a brown jug into the fire. Those that saw ran, those who didn't ran in spite of the others into the woods. Alyssa saw this as her opportunity (if any) to creep into the tent and see what might be left of her once hillbillies free friend. Carrie was passed out in the back when Alyssa finally found her. Her hands were tied with rope to a pole in the tent, and her clothes scattered in amongst empty brown bottles, other tattered clothing and mats that looked overslept on or older than both girls combined.
"Carrie, we have to go, those hillbillies are coming back...Carrie!" As Alyssa shook her friend Carrie had not moved more than an inch or so. She was out cold whatever they had done to her, and with her only option being get the hell out of there before she was hick-bait, Alyssa started to race for the door in hopes she would find help tonight or early tomorrow. She ran by the fire when all of the sudden the brown bottle long since forgotten blew up right beside her.
She awoke a few minutes later with many buck toothed men both standing or hunched if not crouching to get a better look from their squinted eyes. She thought it best to move as little as possible and maybe they'd leave her alone for another moment and she might have an escape route in store, but Walthum who had been looking forward to his own girl started grabbing at her shoes.
"I tells ya, uhya uhya, oh boy. Wait, how did you get these here ropes untied?"
Jethro did no more than throw a knife in the ground, and Walthum went to work cutting through the laces of her first boot.
"Wait, wait, I'm awake, can't we talk this out like civilized folk? interjected Alyssa.
Jethro put his hand to his face, scratched his head and spoke. "Ok, I thought it out.....Duh, you come to this here part of the woods, That's pertty good odds, like a jackpot we won. You didn't we'd nar a seen ya. But we did, so....
"So I gots some of those fancy smells foot wrappins" said Walthum as he pulled off Alyssa's first sock wiffing in deeply first to the sock and than Alyssas bare foot. "Wait a sec, is this foot jewelery? I's rich too"cried Walthum as he pulled her second and third toe ring right off her polished pedicured feet and into his ratty pocket.
His beard tickled a bit as he sniffed up and down. "You smells so pertty, better than any of my sisters linnens, and they's washes once a month".
The thought of what these people did for living made Alyssa cringe a bit, but she couldn't help but laugh at the tickling Walthums beard was doing as he sniffed and started to lick. As she began to laugh it dawned on her all of the other men still stood looking at her. Their looks grew hungrier as Walthum raised her foot and licked the toes all the way down to her heels.
Jethro spoke up again "Nah i didn tell ya I gots a girl in the tent, shes mine. Buh this'un, shes all yalls".
The old and young grew rowdy and loud as they clang their brown bottle and played another song. It seemed all of the sudden, but soon Alyssa had knives cutting and thrashing, pants grew to shorts, sweaters shrank to a bra which lasted as long as the liquor in a place such as this. Calloused hands searched all over her body finding ticklish places she had never knew existed. As the last pieces of her clothes were thrown about or put right in the fire the men stopped and backed away. A huge "T" was erected of solid oak and placed at the entrance of the tent. Alyssa was than carried over and tied by her hands to the top of the "T". Once there, she found her toes could just barely touch the damp rocky ground.
"Are you sure we can't come to an agreement, I have money, a dental plan, anything, common........Hahhahaahhahahahahha!!!"
Some Hillbillies had run off, chickens were heard cocking , followed by their swift return with stiff feathers. It seemed like they all had feathers, and their numbers seemed to be growing by the minute. Where were they coming from? why were they doing this?
The feathers hit every part of her body and her feet were lifted into the nearest mans gummed mouth. Her laughter seemed endless and her efforts worthless. Out of the corner of her squinted eyes she saw Walthum still sniffing her purple socks much like Jethro had Carries pink ones. She knew now why the tree was there. And why it was shoes in the tree not socks. Her socks weren't coming back anytime soon.
"Oh plplplease gggod, some, hahahah one helppppp me..ohhahahahhaha".
That was all Alyssa could remember until she woke up the next day. She was wearing a potato sack for clothing, as was Carrie who still seemed very passed out. To her utmost pleasure the locals had since departed and Alyssa and Carrie were back at their campsite. Both girl barefoot, feet and bodies red from over tickling.
Jethro was standing by the rocks, how long he had been there she didn't know, but he had but few words to leave her with.
"Y'all come back now ya here, you tastes good, n' make sure you bringun' lots a perrty girls too"
Alyssa got up and ran, ran as fast as she could until she got to the old tree she had seen the other day. There on the top branch sat two new pairs of hiking boots.
