Reminiscing

Something caught my eye the other day. Hal and I were shopping at Kroger when I saw a young boy, probably eight or nine years old, with his parents. The thing that caught my attention and triggered memories was the boy wore old, beat-up Converse Chuck Taylor high tops. I haven’t seen anyone wear them in years. I knew that Converse still made them, but now they have almost been considered a fashion statement shoe for some people. The last time I saw Chucks in a shoe store, I was stunned that they were fifty dollars! When I was a kid, well, that was a long time ago.

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When I was a kid starting life in the mid-1960s, Chucks were a right of passage as a boy. Every year at the start of summer, my parents took me to the mom-and-pop shoe store in the tiny downtown of the nearest town. I can almost smell the shoes on the shelves because so many were leather shoes back in the day. Mom and Dad told me to pick a pair of Chucks to last me through the summer. Most years, I chose the white Chucks because as they got dirtier, it was like a badge of honor. Some of my friends went for the red Chucks because they aged almost as well.

My Chucks lasted through bike rides, pick-up baseball and basketball games, running, playing soldier, and occasionally wading through the creek. Sometimes Mom would have a fit and throw those shoes in the washer and let them air-dry on the clothesline. For my younger readers, that was where we hung our washed clothes to dry in the sunshine and wind. I couldn’t wait to grab my Chucks from the clothesline even before they were really dry. Mom never said a word because if the Chucks weren’t there, she knew I had swiped them.

Even though Mom washed out most of the dirt, somehow, my Chucks looked even more distinguished to an adventurous boy like me. Some friends refused to let their Chucks get washed, but I couldn’t win that argument with Mom.

By the end of summer, my Chucks had lasted past their expected lifespan. The canvas separated from the sole, no problem. I wore them with duct tape holding the shoe together until school started in mid-August. Then I would get a new pair of shoes for school, but they were never Chucks because Chucks were the summer shoes of my youth.

As I watched the kid with his parents, I secretly hoped that he had the chance to destroy his Chucks by just being a kid. It seems like so many kids are limited in the time to play outside and be a kid. When I was a boy, the idea of staying in the house during summer vacation was an anathema, everyone was out, getting their Chucks dirty and muddy without adult supervision. If we got thirsty, we drank from the hose. We wanted to skip lunch or dinner sometimes, but that never worked out well for any of us.

We were outside, often after dark on those magical summer nights. We didn’t think about the fear of abduction or anything like that. Eventually, we would hear one of our parents calling from the front porch or front door to summon us home. That was when the rest of us would start home as well.

Most evenings I took my Chucks off and left them in the garage rather than listen to Mom yelling about how dirty my Chucks were since she washed them just a day or two ago.