Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Golden Years

My 20th high school reunion has been scheduled for August of next year. [Do the math on that one! I guess the readers of my profile will no longer believe that I am 251 years old.] I hereby declare the start of one year of sickening nostalgia. I meant to begin with an image gallery of some objects that I particularly remember from the 80s, but was almost immediately stymied.

I recently discovered that it is possible to customize Converse "Chuck Taylors." (Go to www.converse.com and search for "converse one" or roll mouse over Fall Issue and select Converse One). That's tempting, but when I was in high school I had a pair of Chuck T.'s that attracted as much attention as a person could possibly desire:

The best part? I shared these shoes with my friend M. We pooled our money to purchase them at the sidewalk sales, where I must admit there were many many pairs available, due to the limited appeal of gold lame athletic shoes. I like to think we split the cost not only because teenagers have very little money (M.'s parents and mine were exceptionally generous, but not especially wealthy), but also because we sensed that it was excessive to own an entire pair of gold lame sneakers.

So, I thought to myself, what's the next totemic fashion item that springs to mind? Aha! My "Who Cares What Frankie Say?" t-shirt. I am both sad and happy to report that while the Internet is bursting with images of the "Frankie Say Relax" t-shirt, nary an image of its sarcastic sartorial retort is to be found. Sad? Because it brought my image gallery to a screeching halt. Happy? Because I am telling myself that the scarcity of the image means my shirt was just as clever and subversive as I thought it was 23 years ago.

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