Sneakers

Lately, I’ve been on a big sneaker kick, big enough to corrupt and/or taint my morals.  My newfound interest in footwear has sparked a lot of questions from friends and loved ones.   How much did this pair cost?  Did you really wait in line for those?  Why?   The first two answers are a lot and yes respectively but the third is more complicated and I’ve been giving it plenty of thought. 

A few years back after I quit my full time job to start my own company I was working from home most days and with that I needed background noise while I was working.  I plowed through the sitcoms and comedies in my collection until I hit upon on the few Pixar movies I had.  I watched all of them in succession, all the special features, and the commentaries.  During the early run of Toy Story, A Bug’s Life and Toy Story 2, I was at the theater opening day and buying the DVDs the first day of release but at some point before Monsters Inc. I either lost interest or something changed.  This thing that I was truly passionate about fell by the waste side.  Which got me thinking about things that defined us as individuals and how &why those things change or disappear from our lives. 

Growing up in Astoria, on the weekends and most certainly during the summers we’d walk up to Steinway Street starting from 30^th Avenue we’d hit ever sneaker store until Broadway.  There were five or six different shops, some were Army & Navy stores, other dedicated shoe stores.  Looking back on it now, they were all mom & pop shops.  In this weekly pilgrimage we’d ogle ever pair of new Nikes and Reeboks.  Keep in mind this was in the late 80’s to ear 90’s; and with no way of getting any information about release dates or even models, you had to continually go to each and every shop to see what was out.  Sneakers were making huge strides (sorry for the terrible pun) at that point with Michael Jordan and even Run DMC drawing fans to brands. 

Nike was definitely the true brand of choice for our neighborhood.  I can’t pin point the day but I can definitely pin point the year and more importantly the shoe that started me on this path.  It was 1988 and it was the first pair of Air Max 1s in red.  Others share my belief in the wow factor of this particular show, http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1111890347/max100-the-book-project I don’t know if it was the shape, the use of red and grey or a combination of everything but I was floored.  If I remember correctly a pair cost between $80-$90, which given the time was a significant amount of money, somewhere around $170 in today’s dollars when adjusted for inflation.  I think our monthly rent on a two bedroom apartment in Astoria was about $500-$600 a month for some better perspective on how expensive they were.  I begged and begged for a pair and ended up getting a pair for my birthday.  I distinctly remember my mom’s unhappiness about the price when she gave them to me and recited an anecdote about overhearing another mother telling a son that the $35 pair was too expensive and to put them back.  The thing that both of these moms didn’t get was that sneakers weren’t just shoes.  They were everything.  Everything!  Sneakers were to the street as suits were to Wall Street.  With the burgeoning ad dollars and cultural significance, what you were wearing had a direct correlation with your coolness.  The latest pair of sneakers garnered immediate attention from friends and even strangers.  The peer pressure and jealously lead to the “game” of stepping on someone’s new shoes in an effort to dirty them up.  Given the low to middle class neighborhood that we grew up in, that pair had to last you a year, so getting the latest and greatest was imperative or you’d left behind.  Another aspect of it was that certain shoes’ desirability were enhanced not by those who were marketing them but the people who would wear them around the neighborhood. 

I think when we all reach a certain point, we spend our disposable income on the things that we wanted so desperately as kids but couldn’t afford at the time.  Reliving our childhoods one pair at a time, least in my case.