Some of you may remember when we were growing up - ages 8-16, all the guys whose parents could afford it either had Converse All Stars or Keds rubber (tennis) shoes. I had neither so a couple days ago I finally bought my first Converse All Star shoes. Walked out with the shoes on and a dumb smile on my face. So it made me start thinking about the other things most kids had growing up that I didn't. One was a Paper Mate pen in school. That was as much a status symbol as well as a smooth writing pen. I never did own one. Other things were Hostess Cupcakes and Twinkies with their lunches. We had to wear uniforms so I didn't have to worry about lack of style points. Those were the days my friends. Edit: Post should say Converse All Stars - left handed keying
Where I grew up it was Adidas with the 3 stripes. Pity the poor kid that had some off brand with 2 or 4 stripes. They were a marked man. If your jeans were not Levis that was also a very bad thing. My parents would not let me grow my hair long so I "could be different like everybody else". I had to run away from home over the hair issue. I lost that battle. Now I'd be happy with long hair, short hair or any hair. Ahh memories. :-) :-)
Blue suede shoes, white bucks, Flag Flyers. I had to buy my own with my paper route money. My dad would only pay for plain brown shoes from Buster Brown. Levis with pegged legs and a pink shirt with cuff links. Talk about cool. And with a DA hairstyle with waterfalls.
"No Fear" shirts were a thing to have for awhile....until a kid somewhere realized that the word queer rhymed with fear making anyone wearing those shirts a "No Fear Queer". Nike Air Jordan's were the shoe to have back then but I played basketball and the school supplied the shoes, Converse All Stars, so I was just SOL because "it wouldn't look right for the athletic director's son to have Jordans after ordering the basketball teams Converse All Stars". (Which was an excuse I correctly called BS on....and then got grounded for a month. )
I like the way the converse canvas breathe. As a kid I wore the converse suede because they didn't make my feet break out and while not cheap, were about the cheapest leather shoes we could find at the time.
Lincoln Logs, Girls, Erector Set, Girls, Fort Apache, Girls, Pick-Up Sticks, Girls. Sally , Marilyn, Barbara, Mandy, Pam, Sheryl, Jennifer, another Pam, Jill, Sandy, Nancy :o) :o), good ole Nancy. :o) :o). Well Pat O., you sure stirred up a lot of memories.
