The Pair of Nike Running Shoes That Altered My Life

Nike's Royal Crown Cream-Sponge Para Litefoot Tennis Shoes

Two things happened about the same time in my life. First I read "Dandelion Wine" by Ray Bradbury and then Nike came out with its first running shoe. Well, maybe not the very first Nike running shoe, since the company opened its first store in 1966 in Santa Monica, California, but one of the first. I must have been fourteen, in middle school and finally released from the requirement of wearing a dress to school no matter how nasty the weather. Back then, the students still held "sit-ins" to convince the school boards that we had a right to wear whatever we chose, especially jeans - no more hearing the other children sing, "I see London, I see France, I see a pair of underpants" no matter what you did on the jungle gym. With pants and a pair of running shoes, we could summersault over bars, fall down in the cedar chips, race across fields and never ever worry about holes in our fishnet stockings.

But what was so special about running shoes? Well, as Ray Bradbury put it:

Mr. Sanderson leaned forward. "How do they feel?"

The boy looked down at his feet deep in the rivers, in the fields of wheat, in the wind that already was rushing him out of town. He looked up at the old man, his eyes burning, his mouth moving, but no sound came out.

"Antelopes?" said the old man, looking from the boy's face to his shoes. "Gazelles?"

The boy thought about it, hesitated, and nodded a quick nod. Almost immediately he vanished.

Those weren't just any old tennis shoes. Those were Royal Crown Cream-Sponge Para Litefoot Tennis Shoes. I read about them, felt them on my feet, went leaping and flying through a summer of fun and growing up, where death was too close and life very precious.

Then Nike built them. I had my very own pair. They were lightweight, whiter than anything and made you feel like your feet were cradled in clouds.