As I cajoled a whimpering Savannah into her pajamas a few evenings ago, I heard Halen lumbering down the marble-floored hallway: "Clomp! Clomp! Clomp!" He had found my Vans.I got my first pair of "Old Skool" Vans when I was 15. I didn't realize they'd misspelled "School" until I was 17, but I still managed to graduate, probably largely because my high school's administration was keen to have my orange and brown 1979 VW Bus permanently removed from the premeses.
Vans are ostensibly for skateboarders. I never could skate. When we moved to Salt Lake City in 4th grade I fell in with some neighborhood ruffians who built an awkward quarterpipe upon which to practice their aerial skateboard moves. I mostly watched and picked my nose, but I stylishly wore T&C Surf Designs t-shirts with pictures of skateboarders on the back, which intimated I could, in fact, balance on a skateboard, which I couldn't. No one ever called me on it, fortunately. This is probably because nobody really talked to me much after my shorts split wide open along the butt-seam in front of the whole class one afternoon when I bent over to pick up a pencil. To the eternal benefit of my social life, we moved back to Oregon a few months later.
Nonetheless, as Halen can attest, Vans are comfortable and durable, and can be used for clomping in addition to skating. I'm really surprised I was able to put together a half-dozen sentences on the topic of Vans. This is simultaneously admirable and pathetic.
Shifting gears...
This afternoon we met our new neighbors. They just moved in from Washington, D.C. and they have three children, two of whom are Savannah and Halen's ages. Unsurprisingly, Halen had known them for under four minutes when he marched right into their house (opening the front door himself) and emerged with a banana, pretzels, and a cup of orange juice. Evidently he just pointed to what he wanted, said "Want some," and the mother very kindly obliged.