Chucks

I Bought some new shoes yesterday. My first ever pair of black Converse All Star Lo Tops. I've had millions of pairs of Chuck Taylor Hi Tops but never the Los. When I started wanting a lower version of the classic I fell in love with the suede Los with the white leather stars and the arrow type thing, either in dark green or grey blue. Even when I started mixing up the height of my Chuck Taylors, I always kept basic black on hand and only in the last year did I finally throw out the pair I bought my senior year in high school. There was a beatnik drawn on the toe courtesy of my friend Colleen.

My first pair were bought with my honor roll money in the 8th grade. I forget why I thought I needed them so desperately, I just knew I did. The store I bought them from only had them in men's sizes and they were too big for me and made me look like I was wearing clown shoes.

As I got older my feet grew into them (sometimes I think my feet stopped growing when my toes hit the white rubber guard because they knew they had found a suitable home) and I began to buy more and more Converse of varying colors.

• Fluorescent Orange Converse (purchased by my Grandma Sadler at a garage sale)


• Tri-colored Converse in pink, pale blue, and pale green from the $5 and $10 shop at the mall


• Pink Converse (again courtesy of Grandma S and worn with dresses)


• Green suede Los


• Blue suede Los


• I think one pair of brown suede Los as well


• I have a vague memory of blue His too but I'm not sure

My friend Laura had yellow and black checkerboard His that were bright as taxi cabs. Heidi had a pair of denim ones and the all blacks with the blacked out star and soles. We used to hit the 5 and 10 every weekend and ravage their shelves in search of different styles. Sadly they never had any of the fold over ones (you know they'd reach up your calf if fully laced but would be one color on the outside and another on the inside so you could fold them down) in my size. The bast thing about my black hi tops was that I wore them down according to my slouch. When I last put them on my feet immediately rolled to the outside edges and suddenly I was standing like High School Me. Shoes as time machine.

Eventually I moved on to other styles, I've had flirtations with Gola and Saucony, but I feel sort of wrong if there isn't at least one pair of Converse in my closet. For the past year I've been meaning to buy a pair of the lo tops as I feel they are the ideal sneaker to pair with dresses and skirts and jeans and shorts and EVERYTHING really. Not that I don't love my brown and lime Golas. I do, I really do. But no matter how nice they are, they aren't Chuck Taylors. Also they don't match either of my red skirts.