The Angels Wanna Wear My Red Shoes...Screw Them.

This past weekend, I bought a pair of old school red Converse sneakers. I have a black pair that I got at Target, the best store in the universe, and found the red ones on sale at Hot Topic. At the risk of sounding totally "Sex and the City" gay, I had to have them. In just three short days, they have become my favorite footwear.

Currently, Converse are hot, so naturally, they're overpriced. So getting my red pair on sale at half the regular price was a real coup. I wore them to work this morning, proud to show off my red Converse, with their blinding white laces. And people noticed. A woman I didn't know commented that she liked my sneakers because they reminded her of the Keds she used to wear as a kid. She had to be around my age. I know that because most of the people wearing Converse today didn't wear them as a kid. When they were kids, their sneakers had silhouettes of Michael Jordan on them, or the famous swoosh that told them to "Just do it." Now, Converse All-stars and Chuck Taylors are fashion statements, worn by the creative community and pissed-off rockers who give the finger to paparazzi. I'm not wearing them for any of that. I have no plans to flip off any cameras pointed in my direction, or to show that I am a card-carrying member of the "creative community." I've always wanted a pair, but they were hard to find. But like that woman this morning, I like them because they remind me of my past.

They feel like my childhood, running around the streets of South Philly in my awesome new sneaks. Playing stickball, riding my bike with the banana seat, butterfly handlebars and sissy bar in the back, and chasing the Mr. Softee truck. Of course, back then, we called similar sneakers "bobos." There was even a song, sung to the tune of "The River Kwai March" that went: Bobos, they make your feet feel fine. Bobos, they cost a dollar ninety-nine. Bobos, they're worn by hobos, so get your bobos, your bobos today." What a shining moment in music history.

You actually could buy them in five and dime stores. Yes, we had five and dime stores when I was younger. If you don't know what they are, picture a smaller, homegrown version of Wal-Mart, where you would ride over on your sweet Huffy, walk around in your canvas and rubber sneakers and buy cheap candy, cool Six-Million Dollar Man t-shirts, the latest 45 RPM singles, a new goldfish, and Revell monster models, all for the change in your pockets.

The sneakers remind me of summer days when it was a daily occurrence to disappear from the front of your house until lunch, then again until dinner, then once more until curfew. And never once did my mother call the police to report a missing kid or worry about strangers leading us off to our doom. They were on my feet when it was perfectly acceptable to play with toy guns and shoot imaginary bad guys, like Nazis and VietCong, not in a video game, but out in the street. I used to have sneakers like this when I would ride over to Annamarie Martino's house to see if she was outside playing. I remember attaching those metal skates to the bottom of my Converse, using that key that you always managed to lose, and rolling on metal wheels up and down Colorado Street. In fact, by the end of the summer, my pair usually bore the scars of those metal skate grips up at the front. I was wearing them the first time I snuck a peek at one of my dad's Playboy magazines. And when I first discovered Mad Magazine and Archie and Batman comics. All of these things helped shape who I am today and why I do what I do. So, I might consider these sneakers my personal time machine, leading me through the path of how I got here.

I pity the people who see these sneakers and just don't get it. I understand if they're just not your style. But some people just consider themselves too mature, too sophisticated, too conservative to wear them. And they consider anyone my age wearing them to be too old and immature to be wearing such frivolous things. They chuckle when they see people like me still wearing them, as if I must be crazy. But, let's think about it: if we lose those slivers of fun and creativity and simplicity we had in our youth, it's time to hang it up. If you can't get up and dance around your house to a song you loved as a kid, even when you're alone, or name a toy you loved as a child, then you probably have a little soul-searching to do. I'm not trying to recapture my youth, just embrace it. I'm comfortable being different, moving away from the mainstream white sneakers that scream "Corporate America!" Hell, mainstream isn't just boring, but it saps the youthful innocence out of the world.

Oh yeah, you could say that they're just a pair of sneakers I got on sale. But they will keep me dancing to cheesy hits from the '60s and '70s. In them, I'm once again roller skating on my street, running home to get there in time for Prince Spaghetti night, and checking out my dad's Playboys. Okay, that last one has changed somewhat thanks to the Internet. But, I'll enjoy my time in red Converse without flipping the bird to any paparazzi. Because, after all, I am constantly being pursued by the gossip rags. I'll save that for another posting.

By the way, this is a first for my Live Musings Nightly. The photo is an actual shot taken by me, not some stock image downloaded from the Internet. Wow, technology doesn't always suck.