When many of us reflect on our childhood, kicks instantly come to mind. Our memories (some good, and some not so good) might travel back in time to highly-anticipated birthdays or Christmas Eves when we impatiently waited to get the shoes of our dreams. And after telling mom, dad, uncles and aunts exactly what pair we just had to have, sometimes our wishes didn?t come true. So, the Nice Kicks staff reminisced about their past to reveal what shoes they wanted VERSUS the shoes they were given in our new column titled What I Wanted & What I Got. Tell us your story!
Matt Halfhill
I was a typical, easy-to-please, five-year-old boy; soccer practice, Ninja Turtles, Tail Spin, and Looney Tunes. One thing that I did NEED though was a pair of the checkerboard slip-on Vans for my first day of school. My friend had a pair of these crazy shoes that required no shoelaces and had no ugly velcro. I had to have them for my first day of Kindergarten. My mom came home from her first round ever of back-to-school shopping, and lo and behold, she let me know that she got me my slip-ons! I wasn’t able to read yet, but when I saw the box, I knew those weren’t Vans. And guess what, they weren’t. Mom, of course, wanted her son to look sharp as she always stated and wanted me to wear a pair of shoes she found at Payless that matched the clothes she grabbed from K-Mart. I got over it, I guess, but the memory will always be with me!
Brett Pickert
I was always the kid that didn’t go with the trend. I wasn’t a big Michael Jordan fan because he always defeated my favorite players in the finals, so in 2001, I begged my mother for the Nike Air Zoom GP III because I talked as much trash as Gary Payton and wanted to be as gifted as him on the basketball court. Instead, I got the orange Nike Hyperflights. In retrospect, it wasn’t a bad-looking shoe but being clowned for wearing “creamsicle” kicks took its toll.
