Checkers

(In some attempt to maintain balance here's a more positive entry:)

i remember the first time i saw the original black and white checkered slip on Vans. i was in the 4th or 5th grade and a group of us had spent the morning building a make-shift halfpipe out of wood scraps at a friend's house. Our friend's older sister spent the afternoon pulling splinters out of one of the crew's upper thigh after he had fallen and slid down the 'shouldn't have been used' unsanded wood.

Back in these times of antiquity no one even knew what pads were and there was no 'skate' clothing. You just wore the basketball sneakers and clothing that was pretty standard issue at the time. As our friend was getting through the pain of his injury by telling those of us not related what it was like to have our other friends hot sister touch his upper thigh (he probably would have moistened his pants if he would have been physically able to) we were graced by a visitor.

One of the older kids of this neighborhood came over to test our ramp. Of course he was tall and skinny and as he approached he was wearing what looked like clown shoes. We all gave each other looks of 'check out the goofy shoes on this one'. As he approached he was losing more and more of our admiration, that admiration that older kids in the neighborhood just naturally get. And then he spoke:

"Check this out boys. These shoes are from California and they are made just for skateboarding."

Those things went from clown shoes to the coolest thing we had ever seen in our young lives, all in a matter of 0.2 seconds. That kid, he suddenly reached neighborhood hero status (well, for a couple of hours at least). Shoes made just for skateboarding? We had never seen the likes of this. Where were the laces? What's this, shoes with a pattern?

Despite the fact that they looked like slippers and that the canvas material selection seemed to defy out east coast logic we knew these were some of the coolest shoes ever. He could have had dried cow manure wrapping his feet like moccasins, but the fact that they were made just for skating would have made them a distinguishing landmark in our path of skateboarding.

As those Vans have come back into style i see more and more of them around and every time i see a pair memories of that day come flooding back as if it were yesterday.