My daughter just got home from a short shopping excursion she talked Celeste (my lovely wife) into taking with her. She's been hell-bent on getting a pair of Chuck Taylors and so she took her hard earned babysitting money and plopped over $40 on a pair of black Chucks. My reaction was, "Huh?"
When I was a kid we wore Chucks only because that was the only option we had. Buying shoes was kind of like buying a car back in the 1920s. You know, "Would you like your car in black or very black?" In our case it was "Would you prefer the black or white canvas Chucks?" That changed in the mid to late 70's and I can distinctly remember wearing a pair of red suede Puma's my Mom let me get and I also vividly remember all my socks turning pink when it rained. (This is the same woman, by the way, who dressed me in a peach denim leisure suit and my brother in a lime green leisure suit). Chucks became what you wore when your parents were intent on torturing you or simply refused to pony up the cash for some Nikes or Adidas.
I have to take my hat off to the marketing geniuses at Converse who somehow made the Chucks cool again. It probably began when they introduced various colors all those years ago. For me personally those colors will always seem un-cool because I had a kid in my class my senior year of high school who wore a different color of Chucks every day of the week. They matched the color of his corduroy pants and long sleeve button down shirt. If I remember correctly on Mondays he wore blue, on Tuesday green, on Wednesday red, on Thursday purple and Friday was black. I used to think of Thursday as "Grape Day" and Friday as "Johnny Cash Day." Miraculously he made it through the entire year without getting hassled once. Quite frankly we all thought he was nuttier than a fruit cake and we figured he was just the type who would hunt us down and kill us slowly with a pair of tweezers and Super Glue so we didn't mess with him. That's also why I'm not naming him. I really don't feel like being hunted down and slaughtered by a middle-aged monochromatic-Chuck's-wearing wacko.
All of this is just to explain why I'm absolutely befuddled that my daughter just dropped so much coin on a pair of shoes that in my mind are the ultimate in dork-fare. Of course this also explains why the large gap that used to separate me from cool has now grown into a bottomless chasm of un-cool. Hell I'm starting to ask the kids to interpret things I hear on TV! Next thing you know I'll be saying "Boffo!"
