Mr. Trendy ...

I may or may not have blogged about this before – so if I did, I apologize. My wife and I got into talking about my parents – specifically my mom. When I was growing up, my mom often dressed in weird outfits, such as lederhosen, and plaid suits that Danny Terio probably wouldn’t even wear. As an aside (or not), my parents have always been frugal with money – this is what happens when you grow up in Germany during World War 2, and the massive depression that followed.

Anyway, because of this, the clothes my mom got me tended to be on the … let’s say … cheaper side. I’m pretty sure my parents could’ve afforded much better clothes for their kids at this point, but sometimes frugality sticks with you. And hey, my parents are awesome, and have done a lot for me over the years, so I can’t hardly hold it against them. And besides, they have produced some gut-busting stories.

Well, I decided to do a search to see if I could find any information on some of these “brand-name” clothes and shoes my mom would buy for me. I stumbled across something sort of interesting – another blogger had blogged about one of my blog posts about these weird brands (he did this in November, 2006). I was kind of flattered by this – and I wish I would’ve known about this complement back then! Here’s the site – you need to scroll to the bottom to see the reference to me: http://www.namedevelopment.com/blog/archives/2006/11/default.html

Sadly, I couldn’t find any pictures of Smacks Jeans, Uncle Charlies pants, or Big Yanks corduroys. I also couldn’t find any pics of the red Copa 83 sneakers, or the $4.00 brown Nado Super Primos kicks my mom was able to find at a local grocery store. But, I did remember a few other “interesting” stories. For instance, my mom bought me a few pairs of “Traxx” sneakers from K-mart back in the day. Not only couldn’t they spell the damn name right, they had that ridiculous Velcro strap (as opposed to the shoelaces that normal sneakers require). You can probably imagine the coolness that oozed from me as I walked the middle school hallways in my Smacks jeans and Traxx kicks.

It didn’t stop there. Remember those Kangaroos sneakers – you know, the ones with the zippers on the side? What a novel idea! You could fit about 2 quarters in those pockets, if you were lucky … and you know what, I did. I would go to the arcades, and instead of putting the money in my pant pockets, which would’ve been much easier, I stuck them in my sneakers, so I would have to bend all the way over and unzip them in order to get quarters to play the arcade games … basically, stretching the limits of my Uncle Charlies brown pants. I’m surprised I wasn’t shoved in lockers back at school. Now, in researching on the internet, it seems that the “Roos” are still pretty popular in certain parts of the world …maybe I was a trend-setter, or something … probably not.