How childhood experience determined my future
During my childhood, my family was generally either upper lower class or lower middle class. How do I define that? Well, I was never homeless. I always had a bed to sleep, I have never had to share a bed. Though I did have to share a room with my sister when I was in second and third grade. I never went to bed hungry a day in my childhood because my parent(s) couldn’t afford to put food on the table. I’ve gone without dinner before, but that was because I refused to eat spaghetti. Yes. I hate spaghetti. It’s worms.
I did have to wear Jeepers, aka Bobos. For those of you who didn’t grow up in the northeast, that was the term other kids would use to deride your no-name brand sneakers. The songs my Uncle would sing about my jeepers, making my feet feel fine because my jeepers cost a dollar ninety-nine, while cleverly rhyming and humorous to me today, was nothing but infuriating at the time.
The day my mother came home boasting of the Adidas she had bought for me brought a bright shining smile to my face. That was until I looked at my sister, who had a look that could only be described as pity. My excitement, that my mother had finally got it right and understood the importance of “kicks” to a young boy’s “rep”, crumbled into dust when my sister uttered 5 words that will haunt me forever. “You’re not gonna like ’em.”
It hit me in the gut like the Gooch before stealing Arnolds lunch money. And while I hoped, with all my fourth grader might, that my sister had somehow not understood what Shell Toe Adidas really were, and could not recognize them when my mother had so generously purchased them for me, in the back of my mind I knew what all children know innately and fully. Parents are stupid.
Both I and my sister were right. What was pulled out of that beautiful blue shoe box with 3 white stripes moving across it, was dare I say, an abomination. These were bobo’s! Jeepers! Cleverly hidden inside of an authentic adidas box to trick an unsuspecting child into believing they had purchased the most stylish sneakers ever to adorn a sweat sock.
These travesties of 80’s footwear engineering were some kind of cruel joke. It was as if someone had taken Converse All Stars and tried to pass them off as Shell Toes. Please understand, at this point in time, Converse All Stars had officially lost all of the street cred they once demanded. To me and my friends, Converse were bullshit. These shoddy shoes weren’t even leather. They were canvas. Canvas! Who wears canvas shoes? Corn-balls, that’s who. These sneakers that couldn’t even be called sneakers they were so ridiculously old fashioned and “corny”, they couldn’t’ even be spruced up with the all-important sign of the #1 shoe in the nation – the 3 stripes of the Shell Toe Adidas.
And that was just the start. The toe had no shell. It didn’t even have the soft smooth toe of the Stan Smiths or the Campuses – sneakers I could deal with even though they were not the avant-garde of 1983. What the shoe did have was a caramel brown rubber toe. A brown rubber toe! It was as if they weren’t even trying to hide the con job they were trying to pull off. In fact, it was almost a parody. A taunt! Yes. The designer who had somehow decided to purposefully produce this farce of a sneaker was doing this to deliberately ruin my life. And as my fourth-grade existence flashed before my eyes, I saw my future as clear as day. And it was filled with the daily shame, embarrassment and ridicule of a child wearing no-named-brand shoes. For while these had 3 stripes, they might as well have been the big red shoes that Ronald McDonald wears. Because, for as long as I would wear these monstrosities, I would be a clown.
This episode rings in my mind because my mother could only afford these sneakers. And when my mother told me this, I remember the fury I felt at having to be poor. I knew that when I grew up, I was NEVER going to have to wear jeepers. I would have every color shell toe Adidas manufactured, lined up neatly in my closet. And the new Jordan’s too. And the track suits to match. And Gazelles and Kangol’s to go with every outfit. I would be looking “Fresh” to death, from head to toe, every day. Cause being poor was for Suckas.
Having to wear fake Adidas was only one of a number of experiences I vividly recall that caused me to silently repeat to myself, with utter determination, I will NEVER be poor when I grow up. Having to wait, in the freezing cold wind and snow for busses. Busses that would constantly drive past with Out-of-Service signs – infuriating me for having to endure the situation of being broke. And then when we finally got a car, it was a beat up, navy blue Chevy Nova that definitely did not go! Thing broke down constantly. I remember getting into the car and praying the thing would start. Or the embarrassment of having a brown, ugly Buick when all the rich kids I went to school with had nice, new cars.
To be honest, those were the funnier poor kid memories. Memories I actually look fondly back at with nostalgia. Moving into the projects and having to live in a house with cinder block walls, constantly broken elevators and pissy stairwells is not as funny to me today. Living in a place where you’re constantly being watched by the people around you because they are plotting your plunder. My family found this out the hard way, the day my brand new black BMX bike with gold spokes and gold lightning bolts on the pad sets was stolen from me – on the first day I rode it. This was, coincidently, done at the exact same time that our house was being burglarized. The burglars had watched us all go to the park and knew we would be gone. Another day I will never forget. And one that has helped shape who I am today.
Ok, I laugh about this shit now too! But that is only because I don’t have to deal with it anymore. Because these were all experiences that built on each other to force me to look at a comfortable financial life as an absolute, non-negotiable requirement – and not a choice. They solidified the mantra “I refuse to be poor.” And as a man thinketh…
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