I
distinctly remember my last semester in high school and a pair of red Converse "Chuck Taylor" All
Star sneakers. Over Christmas vacation in 1972, I was getting ready for my last
semester in high school, and I needed a new pair of gym shoes. (I did have the adidas GYM I mentioned earlier, but they were incredibly
thin-soled... no shock absorptive capacity to speak of.) I was at J. C. Penney, and they had huge racks filled with
Chucks in their sporting goods department.
Our standard gym uniform was based on the school colors: a white T-shirt and red shorts (and, of course, the mandatory Baby Boomer Boy athletic supporter). I thought a pair of red low-top Chucks would go nicely with all the above.
Well, when I got back to school in 1973, those red Chucks got major attention. particularly among my classmates that were more athletically inclined than I. I think the major reason was our basketball team also wore red low-top Chucks. From what I remember, I was the only non-basketball player to dare to break the red Chuck color barrier! A lot of my classmates had white pairs, however; and a few had black ones.
That time of my life
was probably the most "low-top" oriented I've
been. If I remember right, I got my next pair of high-top sneakers (the always classic unbleached white Converse "Chuck Taylor" All
Star shoe) I was in college. (The University of
Missouri basketball team also wore them at the same time.) One night, I got tired of
studying and went out to run off some of the stress. Much to my surprise, three young
ladies were watching me and made their presence known by cheering me on. But that's
another story.....
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Last Updated: 29 March 2008 21:59
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copyright 1995-2009 by Charles L. Perrin.
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