My Favourite Trainers.

My mum bought my favourite trainers, which, in fairness, should deny them the right to be referred to as “cool” but it doesn’t. They were the coolest trainers I had ever seen, electric blue nylon with three, yes three Velcro straps and a tan coloured rubber soul that didn’t know when to stop. It rolled up over my toes like an Alladins shoes and back to the heel with a big flat flourish.

These were seriously cool trainers.

I remember opening the box and saying one word, “Starsky!” and pulling them out and holding them up in the air, unbridled excitement before I’d even put them on. When they went on things just got better,

“Look how high I can jump up in the air!” I shouted from the back garden, “They are so light I feel like they aren’t there!” When I discovered what they were like at stopping I had to run into the kitchen and skid to a halt on the lino,

“Look at how fast they stopped me! These are the best trainers ever!” I shouted before I ran off to do some more jumping.

When my mates saw them, Eddie shouted “They look like Starsky’s!” and I did a few skids/stops just to show how good they were at skid/stopping, and we all agreed they were the best trainers in the world.

“I don’t even have to do up the laces! Look...velcro!” I shouted as I ripped and then smoothed the fastenings,

“Wow!” someone shouted “You’ll be able to take them off super fast! Just like Starsky!”
And I did a bit of jumping, really really high in the air, just to show how light they were.

I reckon it was only a few days until I we met Paul on the back field, from a distance he looked like he was wearing pumps that looked a bit like the ones we had to wear in the gym in school. I couldn’t wait to skid/stop in front of him to show him my new ones. I ran over and when I got close I saw his weren’t pumps, they looked a bit like shoes,

“What are they?” Said Eddie

“Adidas Samba, I bought them yesterday.” He said, languidly, well as languidly as a 12 year old boy can be,

“You bought them?” said someone,

“Yeah, out of my birthday money.”

All the others gathered around and I’m not sure but I think I may have jumped up in the air a bit and mentioned something about Velcro, but they’d gone. Gone to the land of “buying your own clothes” and looking cool.

As the summer passed my trainers faded slowly, like the leaves on the trees they lost their brilliance as autumn approached.

For me, blue never looked as electric again.