The Jumpman

I fell in love with sneakers when I was young boy. Every time my Mom or Gram would take me to a department store I would always want to go to the Sneaker section and check out all the sweet shoes. Back then my Mom would usually only buy me the “store brand”, like JC Penny’s “USA Olympics”, but that made the Nikes and other name brands all the more spectacular for me to drool over! There were a few times my Mom would buy me a name brand if it was on sale. You can imagine how thrilled I was at those times!

I mainly wear running style shoes now because of how comfortable they are for just chillin, but Basketball shoes are my first love. I remember going “Back to School Shopping” with my Mom before my 6th grade year. We went to a store called “Montgomery Ward” and they had Converse “Magic Johnson’s” on a good enough sale that my Mom was willing to buy them for me! It was the last pair he came out with before he retired in 1991. They were sweet shoes, I remember my 6th grade teacher, Mr. Witter commenting at least twice about how cool they were. Later that year I became a Jordan fan. I remember finding a red “Jumpman” shoelace clip (the Jumpman is the iconic Nike “Air Jordan” logo of Mike doing a stretch style dunk) on a seat at a McDonalds that some kid must have left behind. That was as close to owning a pair of Jordans that I was going to get back then! So, I proudly put it on the front lace of my “Magic Johnsons”. It was kind of the “Classic Confrontation” shoe as one of my friends called it. Jordan vs. Magic, like the 1991 NBA Finals!

Since I only had one clip, I had to choose which foot to place it on. So, I chose the left, because that’s my “lift off” foot when I do “lay-ups” in Basketball. See, there was even a method to my madness.

Now that I’m an adult, I can buy whatever sneaker I want to! I’ve purchased two pairs now of “Air Jordan” shoes over the last couple years and both are kept as near “Mint” as possible. My latest pair came with Jumpman shoelace clips! This time they're blue and I have the the whole pair. As a "throw back" to my youth, I wear them on the front lace of both shoes.

I took the image above last night, this was a shot I've been conceptualizing recently.