RhetRESPECT

"FOOL, HOW YOU SPORTIN' $300 SNEAKERS WIT' A METROCARD IN YO' POCKET?"

-UBIQUITOUS ANONYMOUS   

Now a 34-year-old, life-long New Yorker, I know, all too well, the value of a hard-earned couple of bucks. That said, I'm baffled many times over, witnessing adolescent youth, likely unemployed, staking out, sometimes overnight in extreme weather, in order to buy sneakers made popular by an athlete whose greatness most of them are not even old enough to appreciate or have any degree reverence for. Furthermore, I cringe thinking of how misinformed and/or blatantly ignorant said spending habits make us, struggling mid/lower class citizens, seem to the people we are making rich. People, such as "His Airness" himself, who in-turn care/do very little, if anything at all, for our communities.

It would be extremely difficult for me to make a sound argument against the notion that a man, knee-deep in debt, currently working a job that may be just a step up from menial, has no business paying $300 for a pair of sneakers. Still, over recent years, I have bought several pairs. Money by no means well-spent, only because there is no tangible way to factor pure nostalgic bliss into the prices of said items, as my age also allowed me to experience the influence Michael Jordan had on urban pop/hip-hop culture during his reign over the NBA in the 90's, my own adolescence.

     

"THE STREETS RAISED ME UP GIVIN' A FUCK. I THOUGHT JORDANS AND A GOLD CHAIN WAS LIVIN' IT UP."

-NAS  

I have very few, if any, childhood memories that trump this particular chain of occurrences.

1. The Bunnies...

Back when the type of sneakers you wore and how frequently you managed to get a new pair was directly correlated to popularity amongst peers, my infatuation with the Air Jordan 8's began on Easter Sunday, 1993. A girl who had lived in my building was walking down our block wearing them early that morning. I'd known her from school and immediately felt a compulsion to lie, telling her that I had the same sneakers in black. I am still not sure why, silly me. Anyhow, almost all the remainder of that day, and quite often during ensuing days, I would daydream about the reception I'd receive from my classmates, stepping into the school gymnasium sporting "the new Jordans." I'd get excited just thinking of unique ways to position the straps.

2. The Aquas...

Sometime after the second colorway was released, a month or so later, one of my homeboys walked into the school auditorium sporting them. Bittersweet. One of many schoolmates gawking over my boy's fresh new J's, I was not jealous of him, per se, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little salty because I wasn't walking in his shoes that instance, pun intended, as everyone flocked to him just as I had envisioned it happening to me.

3. The Playoffs...

That summer, the third and last colorway dropped. Around that time, Michael Jordan's prime, I had started actually watching and playing basketball, effectively intensifying my desire to wear the shoes Mike wore. I remember walking up to Dr. Jay's, on Southern Boulevard in the Bronx, every other day for three weeks just to hold and admire footwear that would later be coined the "Playoff 8's." All the while, I would lie, through my teeth, to my best friend, telling him I already owned a pair. In hindsight, I surmise I'd spoken my very first pair of Air Jordan's into existence, as my mom finally conceded to paying whatever they were going for at the time. Size 4 1/2... I wore them right out of the store. Walking down the boulevard, I was sky-high off life. I literally felt like the focal point of any and every person in the vicinity and the look on my boy's face when I stepped out of the elevator in his building, seemingly making good on prior claims, PRICELESS!   

All things considered, what's a couple hundred dollars spent in exchange for being able to recapture past glory, even if only a small portion, solely in your mind and heart, for a fraction of the time it originally lasted? A pretty sweet deal, if you ask me. Moreover, who are we to determine for others what and/or how things are to be valued? Those driven by the potential spoils of their ambition aren’t any better off than those who are genuinely content with the simpler things life has to offer, and vice versa. After all, If one dies trying to live up to the standards of others, then an argument can be made that he/she never truly lived at all.

-RhetRESPECT by Deijohn E. Brown