My shoes are done.
Today my trusty, dirty, scuffed up, Brooks shoes will be sent away to some landfill somewhere in the South Valley. I’m not a very sentimental guy, despite being a hopeless romantic. I don’t keep things like ticket stubs, or matchbooks or old love letters. I didn’t even keep the gum wrapper from the piece of gum I gave Jessica Simpson in the Charlotte airport–she wanted my number, but she had to settle for some peppermint Trident. Things are things, they don’t last forever, and sentimentality to me is just another form of denial. Move on.
With all that said, I do feel a slight attachment to my old running shoes. They have seen me through a lot and followed me all over the continent and never complained once along the 400+ miles they’ve run. I haven’t been all that nice to these shoes either. I have mashed them into mud and poop all over the place. They’ve been on pavement that was way too hot, and on ice that was way to cold. They’ve splashed puddles and paint and have seen their share of blood and vomit too.
One night in El Paso, my shoes ended up wearing most of my stomach contents when I ran the ten miles to Juárez in a little over an hour. They didn’t complain when I wore them in the shower with me to clean them off, though I’m sure the maid at the Hyatt wasn’t impressed. There was a midnight run in Columbia where my shoes and me ran from a drunkard and dodged empty beer bottles flung from a redneck in a truck. Later that night, we were picked up by the police because I was lost and had run to the far side of the airport. We were on the “wrong side of the tracks,” by the officer’s own reckoning.
We ran away from Blood’s or Crypts or both one night when I took a left instead of a right and ran through the heart of Compton around one in the morning. I know the difference between the sound of firecrackers and 9mm now; so do my shoes.
My shoes and I took leisurely jogs along the both coasts. Their favorite was Myrtle Beach I think, though I prefer Santa Barbara. We’ve seen much of Canada, including Nanaimo in the winter. We also spent a great deal of time in the high altitudes of Colorado, Utah and New Mexico. We’ve sped along the rivers in Austin, Calgary, and Wichita. We ran from dogs, and hoodlums in Huston and San Antonio. We sat inside on cold days in Des Moines when it wasn’t smart to run. We crashed into a car in Charlotte. We saw the ships in the harbor in Norfolk, and we’ve checked out our fair share of women Burbank. When we did see a pretty gal, my shoes always gave me an extra bound and I squared off my shoulders just a little more than normal.
We ran three mountains in San Luis Obispo, stopping by Cal Poly to check out the sights there. We ran Roanoke too and saw the sights at Virginia Tech. We ran the river with my dad and his shoes too once or twice when I took them to visit in Canada.
When I was injured, my shoes and I ran slowly on the treadmill at the gym. My shoes were just as bored.
My shoes have taken a beating many times when I just didn’t know how to deal with what was going on in my life. They stayed right there for me, under my feet. We sure have seen a lot, my shoes and I, and now, they’ve reached the end of their road. So long shoes.
I love reading your stories. You have such a unique perspective, and the way you tell them is so engaging. You rock.
Thanks Brit!