On Saturday Sigrid and I went to the Westbrook Outlets to get me some new sneakers. Yeah, I know, that's an old term. I'm an old guy. I grew up with PF Flyers and Keds. Teenage boys back then wore Chuck Taylors, but us kids didn't.
Later, there were Addidas, Nike, Reebok, Sketchers, British Knights (I think) and probably another hundred or so brands. All or almost all of them had endorsement deals with sports stars which is how we all knew about them (and why they were all so expensive or seemed that way to me anyway).
Sneakers used to be made in the United States back before you were born but not before I was born. By the time the endorsement deals added to the price, all were made overseas by folks making in a day as a salary what the shoelaces on those "athletic shoes" now cost.
Of course, we had to have a new term for sneakers. For what we were paying for them, we certainly needed one. It was at some point in the nineties that I discovered New Balance. They were made in the USA and they cost more but they felt good on my feet and they made me feel better about myself.
In more recent years, they lobbied heavily for 'Buy America' legislation in the US Congress for military acquisition and you see a lot more of their footwear on our armed forces recruits than you did a decade or a generation ago. And they gave a lot of money to the Trump campaign who pushed "Buy America" during the election even though its MAGA hats are made in China (and with his imposition of tariffs could, as a result, now cost about eight grand a pop, I suppose).
That support of Cadet Bone Spurs pissed a lot of people off, myself included, but I still buy them and wear them even though more and more of the "components" are made overseas and only "assembled" in the United States. White People Problems and Ethics in my case.
A number of years ago I bought NB 993 (no idea to this day what the numbers mean) and walked out of the store a bit flummoxed that I'd allowed myself to pay $109 for a pair of sneakers even if they are "athletic shoes." Mine certainly are not. They just sit in the closet and don't do shit until I put them on and then I have to do everything, athletic and/or otherwise.
I saw the 993's on Saturday in the shop and now they're $139; yeah, thanks, but no thanks. Did you know that sneakers wear out? Seriously. Ideally, you should get new ones every five hundred miles or three to six months. (Wouldn't be surprised to find out the study was paid for by the Athletic Shoe Foundation) I got two pairs of walking shoes (a sub-genus, marketing wise I suspect, of athletic shoes) for a little less than ninety dollars and felt very good about myself, my feet, and my wallet (both pairs were made in Vietnam though maybe the boxes they came in were made in the USA. Maybe.).
On the way home, we stopped at Denny's for breakfast even though it was the middle of the afternoon. The guy in the next booth had the zesty nacho platter which makes sense at Denny's I guess if whenever you go to Taco Bell you have eggs over easy.
As Sigrid pointed out breakfast always tastes better when someone else makes it. She had some sort of a Grand Slam while I had the cranberry orange pancakes platter and she was absolutely right. It was delicious and took me hours to walk off, but man, did I look great in my new sneakers.
-bill kenny
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