From The Vault: Traversing the East Coast in a Pair of Converse

            The idea to write about shoes actually came from my step-dad Jim, somewhere around ten or eleven years ago. He was helping my step-sister think of ideas for her college admission essays, and said that it would be interesting to write about life by writing about her shoes. I remember the scene exactly: he was standing on one end of the counter, she was sitting on the other, and I was at the kitchen table. I don’t really remember what I was doing at the kitchen table, but I was sitting there. And that idea stuck with me.

            So in my third year of college, as I walked around with an American Flag high-top on one foot and the Union Jack high-top on the other, I knew what I had to write about: my life journey in a pair of Converse tennis shoes.  

            So I started carrying a pack of notecards with me everywhere. If I remembered a certain story regarding my Chucks, I wrote it down. Then I went back to my apartment and taped it where it belonged on my poster board.

            Now the entire board is filled with notecards, and I get to organize them whichever way I choose. I took a picture of it for Instagram, a large tri-fold cardboard poster with index cards and paper taped to it. On a lined sheet of paper is listed every single pair of Chucks I’ve ever owned. It’s surrounded by four columns: Trips and Adventures, Civil War Reenacting & Me, Obsessions, and What the Future Holds. At the bottom, a section for my parents, and a card that reads Cleveland Sports, Lawson’s Chip Dip, College, and Everything Ohio. I was going to split this up by the columns of the poster, but I think it would be far more interesting to go chronologically with the pairs of shoes I’ve owned. Not every shoe may be included, because no one’s life is so interesting that they have something to talk about for every pair of shoes they’ve owned, but enough will be said that one could easily follow my growth and development through the Converse sneaker.

            The journey begins with a pair of pink low-tops…

            My first pair of Converse All Stars were bought in fourth grade, and somewhat on a whim. My mom, my step-dad, my two step sisters Erin and Alexa, and I were on our way to my cousin Greg’s Hebrew School confirmation. Now, I had been asking my mom for a pair of Chucks for a while. My older step sister, Erin, had a pair, and she wrote all over them. And it was so cool. And I wanted to do it so bad. My mom didn’t want to spend that much money on me, because admittedly I had a problem with acquiring expensive shoes and not actually wearing them.

            We made it to Baltimore, where my cousin was being confirmed, early, so we decided to make a pit stop at the mall. The mall in this county was…questionable, at best…but we had nowhere else to go. The shoe store we went to was called Shoe Carnival, and to be totally honest, it was a little freaky. I didn’t appreciate the large, goofy clowns painted on the walls, or the cheesy color scheme, but it was also massive, and had a wide array of shoes; including my beloved Converse. Upon walking into the store, my step sisters and I made a beeline to the Converse section, and I stared in awe at the rows and rows of beautiful canvas. I don’t entirely recall what was so special about that day, but after weeks and months of asking, my mom approached us, and finally said the words that changed my entire life (it seemed like that at the time…):

            “Well, how about you try a pair on?”

            And that was how I wound up with my very first pair of low-top pink Chucks. I was seated in the back of our minivan as we drove to the synagogue, cradling the cardboard rectangular prism that held my new favorite things.

            Since then, I have owned twenty pairs of Converse sneakers. They have carried me—albeit in a pretty unsupportive manner—through many stages in my life, and are now a staple in my life. My story begins in a pair of Chucks, and will probably end there as well.