Thursday, December 24, 2009
3:29 PM
Just A FEW of the Sneaks I Owned
The shoe above is one of the three really cool pair of shoes I got for Christmas of my senior year. Ask me if I love them. YES!!!!
My very first Nike. I noticed them on the feet of some guy as I made my way out of a pep assembly one day and I knew I had to find it and make it mine. My cousin, Benny found them before I did at Penney's and got a pair. Because I wanted them so, SO badly, his mom gave me $20 to put toward a pair of my own. They were $29 at that time and that was pretty much an unheard of price for athletic shoes. I had bought my Adidas before that and they were almost $30 but not quite. I remember my mom just being blown away by the fact that I wanted her to spend $30 for a pair of sneakers. LOL So I took the money that Mary gave to me and put a pair on lay-a-way. Fortunately, my mom gave in before too long and paid the rest so I could get them out. I was so excited and proud of those shoes that I didn't know what to do with myself. As far as I was concerned, they were the coolest shoes in the world and owning a pair made me cool by association. After I wore that first pair out (they weren't actually worn but they did get dirty as even a shoe freak like me has trouble keeping a predominantly white sneaker from getting smudged from time to time, lol) I got another pair and kept them for years until my dad did another dump of my valuables as he had done years before with my toys, etc. I lost these shoes and probably at least 20 or 30 more that I was never able to replace because they were no longer available. I miss every one of them and still hang on to the hope that they'll either be re-released OR I'll find some in my size in a vintage online store. Some shoes just never go out of style and this Nike is definitely one of those timeless shoes.
By the way, Nike used a different grade of leather on subsequent releases of this shoe and designed the toe slightly different. I liked the second version much better than the first. It looked classier and it had a crinkly leather which looked much more expensive than the dry, dull, smooth leather they used on the original design.
My very first Adidas, which I wrote about in a previous post. I was SOOOOO proud to own this shoe! Everyone in the world was in love with this shoe. It was THE athletic shoe to have when I was in jr. high and early high school and no matter how good looking or rich you were, you were still nothing if you didn't have a pair of these. Forget the jeans or the cool shirts, etc. It's the SHOES that really matter. Everything else you wear is just incidental ornamentation. : )
My Spotbilt shoes had a different sole which I liked much better than this one. This was a very popular shoe amongst coaches during the late 70's so we sneaker heads had to have them, of course. They were uber expensive. They made my first Nike and my first Adidas look inexpensive. These retailed for $40-ish which was outrageous back then but a few of us managed to talk our parents into buying them for us. Technically, I didn't have to do that because my cousin, Benny had a pair that he gladly shared with me. I have never been one to share shoes with anyone but Benny loved shoes as much as I did and we wore the same size through most of our high school years so when my mom refused to buy these for me, Benny let me wear his. I wore them quite often, as a matter of fact. You've got to love a cousin who will trust you with his expensive sneakers long-term. Benny is awesome.
I had a chance to get a pair of my own during Christmas of my senior year in high school. My mom would pay that kind of price at Christmas even when she wouldn't at any other time. But because I got to wear Benny's so often, I asked for other shoes instead. I got two really nice pair of shoes AND a very expensive pair of hiking boots for Christmas of my senior year. Woot! I was in shoe heaven!
Bought the shoe above while I was living in Dallas. One of the guys in my Sunday School class had a pair and his was the first I had ever seen at that time. He had gorgeous, athletic feet (I've always been obsessed with the desire to have long, flowing, athletic-looking toes, etc. which look SO good in shoes, unlike my fat, stubby toes, lol) and he filled this particular design out perfectly so I was convinced that if I got a pair of these, the shoe would help me create the illusion of graceful, athletic feet and toes. But alas, as is always the case, my stubby toes, just looked like stubby toes and left a crease in the end of the shoe because my toes weren't long enough to fill out the whole shoe. This shoe calls for four of five toes to be the same, long length. My toes are stair-stepped, meaning that by the time you get to my middle toe, there is nothing but empty space at the toe box of my shoes. I have always HATED that!!!
And yes, I DO study feet and toes. In fact, whenever I meet someone new, the first thing I do is try to figure out the shape and length of their feet and toes. Fingers come next because I've also always wanted long, flowing, graceful fingers and so envy those of you who actually have them. Some people long for a particular kind of hair, or a specific waste size, etc. Of course, if it were possible, I'd like to have perfection from head to toe, including my hair, waste, facial shape, etc. BUT the two things I've always most wanted to be able to change are my feet/hands and then, that one other thing that I don't talk about because after all these years, it still humiliates me.
I probably also should clarify that there is nothing s*xual attached to my obsession with feet. In fact, I didn't even know that such freaky fetishes existed until a few years ago when I googled Garth's name to see if there were any pics of his feet online (because I'm curious about all people's feet, not because I get some warped, s*xual charge from looking at them, blech) and noticed that there are a few websites dedicated to the celebrity feet. Because I never feel as though I know someone until I've seen their feet, I was so excited to find the websites. That is, until I spent 10 minutes looking at them and discovered the awful truth that feet pics were being collected and showcased there because there are sickos in this world who apparently think feet are er*tic. It took me several days to get past that particularly traumatizing revelation. I just like to look at feet because I hate my own and wish I could change them. The other angle never, ever crossed my mind. And for this, I am truly thankful. lol
An example of the long, slender toes and feet I'll never have. Notice how the shoes don't look too big for the person wearing them because all of their toes actually reach the top? Yeah. That's a shoe event I've yet to experience. Don't judge me. The heart wants what the heart wants. LOL