QUINCY VALLEY POST-REGISTER |
PARTNERS |
AFFILIATED SITES |
|||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Copyright 2008 World Publishing Company. All rights reserved. |
|||||
About the shoe that's a real all-star
Isn’t it strange how some things never change?
I was mulling this over the other day after I tripped over one of my kid’s sneakers.
It was a Converse All-Star. Now, if you would have told me 30 years ago that a simple pair of Chuck Taylors would be the shoe of choice for kids in the 2010s, I would have told you that you were crazy. After all, I’m from the generation that did incredible things with shoes.
For the first few years of my conscious life, we only had two types of sneakers, the basic low-top Keds that came in blue and white, with the canvas upper, rubber soles and fat, white laces. If we really wanted to get fancy, we had high-top Converse All-Stars, made of the same stuff as Keds, which came in black or white and had the really cool label on the side with the blue star and Chuck Taylor’s name. (Aside from selling shoes, Taylor’s greatest contribution to sports was likely his invention of the “stitchless” basketball. Bet you didn’t know that.)
Then in the next 10 years, shoe innovations blew up. We had shoes with zip-up pockets called Roos. I don’t know why they thought we needed to have pockets in our shoes, but it was fun to run around with change jingling in the pockets like bells on Santa’s sleigh.
Then advances in sneakers came flying at us from all directions. There were shoes with air pumps, shoes with air pockets in the soles, shoes with zippers instead of laces, shoes with Velcro straps and shoes with no laces (Vans). Of course, we still had Keds and Converse, but they seemed to be barely hanging on, considering all of the other cool shoes.
I would have figured that by the 2010s we’d have shoes that would allow us to hover instead of walk and shoes that would be made out of special, lightweight synthetic material that would repel all odors, liquids and dog poo. Did that happen? Nope. Like other timeless classics — including T-shirts and blue jeans — the footwear of choice for children of the new millennium is still the same shoe that has been worn by kids since 1917.
Go figure.
