I hate a new pair of Chuck Taylor’s. An accomplishment for me in my career of wearing Chuck Taylor’s is when I look down at my feet and see a pair of dirty scuffed up and torn Converse shoes. The glow of the white rubber from a new pair of Chuck’s is blinding, like a sunny day after a snowfall.
A fresh pair of Converse shoes can throw off my whole month; one of my worst experiences was babysitting my nephew when I was twenty. There is something about a young twenty-year-old who sleeps till noon and can barely manage feeding and cleaning himself. This young twenty-year-old does not scream, “world’s greatest babysitter.”
I of course had to wake up at the crack of dawn to babysit my nephew so my older sister could go to work. Apparently children are people too. Despite the fact that I rarely count them when claiming the amount of family members I have. I just figure the mom and baby are one, until the kid is at least able to carry a conversation with me. In any event, my nephew did show human emotions.
He cried when I changed the channel from the hypnotizing Baby Einstein DVD. Honestly I felt like I was doing him a favor turning off the movie. If you haven’t seen this crap, consider yourself lucky. The DVD is like something a cult would play before a meeting to wipe your mind clean of thought. It is complete randomness with colors and creepy puppets. I found myself losing about an hour of my life without even knowing it. It was as if I was stuck in a trance. The worst thing is that you have the option to play the DVD on repeat. So you could hypothetically get stuck on the couch all day staring at the TV screen.
When I babysit I lounge on the couch and keep the kid alive. As long as he is breathing, the day is a success. I would probably even let him cry if the sound wasn’t so annoying. Eventually the child will get so tired of crying the kid would just pass out. Have you ever heard the ear-piercing scream of a child? For Christ’s sake, if you take away his or her pacifier, you’d think someone stabbed Janet Leigh while she was showering.
Sometimes though the kid will just cry. I feel like they cry because they hate me. It’s the child’s way of giving the middle finger. “Hey Mike, F@*K YOU” for not entertaining me more than putting on this crappy DVD. “Hey Mike, F@*K YOU” for not letting me out of this highchair. “Hey Mike, F@*K YOU” for feeding me this crappy vegetable diarrhea looking mush. Then there is my favorite, “Hey Mike, F@*K YOU” now change my diaper.
The smell of a baby’s fecal matter smells like death. I occasionally watch the documentaries of WWII when there’s an interview with a war veteran. The former sergeant is describing the horrible smell of bodies laying on the beach and he say’s, “I cannot describe the awful smell, you wouldn’t know unless you’re there” all I can think is, “Oh sergeant, I feel your pain.”
The smell of poo vapors flying off my nephew crushed my soul. I couldn’t come within ten feet of him without the overwhelming feeling of nausea. I would dry heave as I tried entering the room where he was balling his eyes out. I think he could smell himself too. I had to do something, more for my health than for his. I held my breath and ran into the room I would soon have to fumigate.
I grabbed my nephew and threw him in the back seat of my car. It was October and a little chilly but I needed to role down my windows or the smell would overwhelm me. I took the little poo factory to the only place I could think, my mom’s work. I frantically tried to call my mother as I speedily drove through Joliet. She never answered so when I get to her office I parked in a handicap spot, held my nephew as far away from my body, like he was a bomb about to explode, and ran into the building.
I knew the receptionist at the desk and she recognized me right away. Hastily I spewed my words at her, “I need my mom right now,” she ran like someone was about to die. Quite frankly, I thought the smell would steal my life soon. When my mom walked over she saw me holding my nephew like an un-athletic girl holds a football and started to laugh. I had to remind her that it was not funny and I needed help.
She took the little guy off my hands and I sat down in a chair because I needed some serious rest. I looked at my shoes and for once, I was happy that they were clean. If for some reason they had smelly baby poop on them there was a good chance I would be scared for life.
Did you know that Chuck Taylor Converse All-Stars shoes were originally produced in 1917 in an attempt to capture the basketball shoe market?
I’ve worn Converse shoes off and on since about second grade and I have always found them to be comfortable and unique. I even wore my Converse shoes during basketball tryouts in seventh grade. Wearing Chuck Taylor shoes during the day and wearing them during athletics are two completely different scenarios but I am not going to gripe about how painful it is to rebound in Chuck’s. Instead, I’m going to tell you about how I broke my hand wearing my classic blue Chuck Taylor’s.
I wasn’t the best basketball player. Just the year before, in sixth grade, I scored only six points the whole season. However, on defense I was an unstoppable force. I could steal the ball quicker than Satan steals an unlucky soul. I would fly across the court with disregard for life or limb. In fact, I was so great at defense that I was willing to break my hand for a team that I was trying out for.
The day the bones in my hand choose to leave it’s God given position: I was on a 3-on-3-scrimmage team. I must say I was on my game this day. Sure I wasn’t scoring points but that just wasn’t my style. I was working the defensive skills putting my hands in the face of my opponents, blocking shots and passes left and right. You could hear the sound of my Converse soles rubbing on the ground as I left smudge marks on the court. Then all of the sudden my teammate missed a shot and as I dove for the ball saving the shot from the damnation of being turned over: my left hand was smashed under the weight of my chest as I fell to the floor.
A shocking pain traveled up my arm as I stood to my feet. When I looked at my hand I knew right away… something’s not right. My pinky finger was a good inch off the side of my hand, my ring and middle fingers had nearly changed positions and all three of these knuckles formed one giant knuckle on my middle finger. My Chuck Taylor’s and I floated over to my coach and I said, “Coach, I think I broke my hand.” He told me I just dislocated it but I thought it would be wise to go to the hospital.
I waited nearly an hour for my mom to come pick me up from the tryouts and take me to the hospital. It seemed like days before the hospital staff called me to the back. My hand wasn’t very painful until I looked down and reminded myself; that should probably hurt. It felt like I had no hand at the end of my arm, just space. The nurses took an X-ray of my mangled hand and I waited for a doctor to come in the room to tell me the news.
As Doogie Howser, M.D walked in the room he held the X-ray in his hand and as he continued to look at the film he said, “Well I don’t see any breaks,” then he glanced at my malformed hand and said, “Let me check the X-ray again.” I immediately felt like I was receiving topnotch care. The young doctor walked back in the room after only a minute and said, “Yeah there are numerous breaks in your hand.” I said, “you think” and felt hopeful about my abilities to someday become a doctor.
A specialist was called to the hospital to fix my deformed hand. When the new doctor walked in he seemed to know what he was doing. He was wearing regular clothes, not the normal scrubs with a lab coat. The new smart doctor said he was at a baseball game when he was paged to come to the hospital. He didn’t seem to mind being called away from the game… until he put my hand back in place; it was as if he was taking out some rage on my poor hand. No one told me that he was going to do the repositioning of my fingers right there in the room with no numbing or laughing gas. It felt like he was getting me back for missing his baseball game.
The doctor gently grabbed my hand and quickly turned my fingers straight and bent it forward. There was no warning, no breath held, no nothing; I just screamed. Then he wrapped my hand with a bandage and splint and said, “You’re going to want to take a lot of ibuprofen.” I left the hospital with my hand throbbing in pain and I felt like I may have wanted to leave it messed up with the unbearable pain I was feeling having it fixed.
I didn’t make the team season and I officially retired from basketball from that day forward. The scuffmarks my Converse shoes left on the court that day is proof of my dedication to the team. Of course, my messed up middle finger is proof that I made a doctor miss a baseball game.
I have been wearing a version of Converse Chuck Taylor’s for most of the decision-making time of my life. The times when I may not have always been considered an adult but I was picking out my clothes in the morning. That is what I call the decision-making periods of life. These are the years when I wore sweatpants with a polo shirt and of course, my chucks. I looked like a cross between Doug Funnie and Skeeter Valentine.
Needless to say, as cool as I felt walking through the halls in my pair of red Converse shoes, I was not as welcomed as one may think. The Michael Clinton of today was not the Michael Clinton who roamed the halls of Minooka Community High School between 2000 and 2004. The young Michael Clinton was soft spoken and made a point not to be noticed. A very reserved young man who was known by his teachers as the “shy kid” just trying to make it through the horribleness of high school.
MCHS was probably like every other high school in the country. It had its popular group, athletes, smart kids, gothic punks and of course, the geeky-nerdy-losers. I was in more of the geeky-nerdy-loser group. I had my friends who I would eat lunch with, and tell jokes to. Around my friends, I was slowly becoming the immature, loud, aggravating person I am today.
However, when I was in class and all the groups of popular kids, athletes and everyone else began to mix. I would stay in my shell and hope that I wasn’t noticed. High school was a time when kids get made fun of for anything different. When you are as weird as me, it opens the door for much criticism. Flying under the radar just seemed like the smart thing to do. Especially when my efforts to fit in came at a terrible cost.
For instance, my football career was short the summer of my sophomore year. I decided I’d give the sport a try. I had always been a fan of football and thought it looked easy enough. The head coach was my homeroom teacher and I was on his good side so he liked me. In fact, he was kind of excited that I wanted to play on the team.
The first day of practice I was placed as a wide receiver, because I was tall and skinny. The scrimmage that day was a combination of varsity and junior varsity on offense against the varsity defense. Once I got my route I was going to run for the upcoming play I lined up ready for the snap. As I looked to my left the quarterback looked right into my eyes and gave me a nod. I felt like Wile-E-Coyote standing in the shadow of a falling piano waiting to get crushed. Basically, I had a bad feeling about this. After the ball was snapped and I glanced over my shoulder I saw the quarterback throwing a pass to the smallest receiver on the field, me. Just as my fingers scratched the pigskin a very large varsity quarterback hit me like a Mack Truck. I flew about 10 yards before I hit the ground and rolled nearly another 10 yards. I got up, walked to my coach, took off my pads and said, “I’m done!” and I quite the team. I learned that day, trying to fit in just wasn’t worth it.
That was why staying below the criticism radar was so important. I would show up for school everyday at 7:30, then go to all my classes saying as little as possible and at 3:02 in the afternoon I left school after sighing a breath of relief. Of course, there are things in life that just happen because… well, God just hates us. It was the day of sophomore year photos and I was wear a plaid button-down orange shirt and sporting a classic buzz haircut. I smiled my best smile for the cameraman and the bright flash of white consumed my vision. I rubbed my eyes and walked over to my friend who turned and said to me laughing, “you have a booger hanging from your nose?” I couldn’t believe it. The day my photos came, sure enough, there was the big brown booger, stealing all the attention from my smile. I couldn’t believe that the photographer took the picture with that thing hanging from my nose.
In high school, no matter how cool I thought I was wearing Converse Chuck Taylor’s. I will always be remembered as that kid who had the booger hanging from his nose in the yearbook.
When I was 19 I joined the United States Navy. It was one of those decisions that everybody I knew tried to talk me out of but in the end, I signed on the dotted line. It was chilly in November when I left for Great Lakes Naval Base and my feet were getting cold through the canvas in my Chuck Taylor's. The Chuck’s I wore that day were one of my proudest pairs of shoes. They were deeply worn in, like a La-Z-Boy that has only cradled one ass.
I was dropped off at the O’Hare Airport in Chicago where I would sit in the USO office until a bus would come and take me to my impending doom of bootcamp. I sat in the USO office for hours as more and more recruits waiting to be a part of the U.S. Navy flooded in. I was getting bored and annoyed with all this waiting but when I closed my eyes for a quick nap, the door to the room flung open and hit the wall with a loud bang. I awoke up from my nap like someone had dropped me from the roof a building during my sleep. A voice screamed for two rows, guys on the right and girls on the left- over and over the voice yelled this- I was scared, I was nervous, I regretted signing my name on the dotted line, and no one in this room was going to care.
It is amazing how fear can control a person. As we walked from this crowed room through the airport being yelled at by two men in a black United States Navy uniforms with a red rope hung over their shoulders I wondered why anyone would listen to them. We outnumbered them almost 50 to one, yet we did as we were told. Single file lines all the way to the buses parked out front and I did not dare stray from the lines or exchange my sight for the view I had of the back of the head of the young man in front of me. I knew we were going to Great Lakes Naval Base, but what waited for me there I did not know, and when I would leave I knew would be in two months and if things continue as they have so far, it would be two months of hell.
The bus ride was short and quiet, creepy quiet, like when you are in your house by yourself for the first time at night with the power out. I felt like throwing up, wondering how I ever thought college could possibly be harder then what I had ahead of me. When the bus finally stopped at Great Lakes Naval Base, we took attendance of the people on the bus, this was not your everyday classroom attendance either, it was the equivalent to what I would imagine prison attendance would be like after a revolt and the guards just rounded up the stray prisoners and they are very pissed at them demanding your name and last four digits of your social security number. As we left the bus in a single file line I was the second person from the front and grateful not to be first, because the first person was being yelled at like a child who just broke his mothers favorite vase and now his mother, who had been hanging on her last thread of sanity, just snapped on him in a verbal rage. The only difference here is that the kid first in line is being yelled at before he does something wrong, in this case, his task as the leader of our single file line is to exit the bus, walk to the door of the building and stand there and NOT open the door. This is a nerve racking task when the man yelling at you is 6’4” and about to rip out of his uniform because his muscles are so huge that the material is going to fly off his body like the Incredible Hulk. This kid was scared, I know he was scared because I was scared and I was not even being yelled at. We left the bus and headed towards our destination and I discovered a sea of black uniformed men and women with red ropes over their shoulders and very short tempers like someone did not hug them enough as children. This sight must have been just too much for my not so fearless line leader because he did something horrible… he reached for the door, like a moth flying into a bug zapper on a wonderful summer day, this poor sap was heading for ultimate doom. I wanted to tell him to wait, I wanted to grab him and pull him back, but most of all I wanted to cover my own ass, so instead I did nothing and figured I would just see how this played out.
Like something you would see on the nature channel it was like the lions pouncing on the lonely zebra as three men in black uniforms and red ropes surrounded my line leader with a listening complex and yelled at him until his eyes welled up with tears and ordered him to the end of the line. Now I understand their decision to move this poor sucker to the end of the line, fate had handed him this unfortunate position of line leader and the difficult task of not touching a door. It was a no brainer; he needed to be removed from this position, however through his ignorance he had promoted me to this position of dumb luck and now I had to be the one who would mindlessly follow the orders of these angry people in black uniforms with red ropes. I was suddenly unsure of myself; I was sickened with the thought of embarrassment, and worst of all I really had to pee.
My first task as line leader was to walk through the door and down the hall while staying next to the wall and stop at the end of the hall. Okay, I thought to myself I can do this, I just had to remember how to walk first. It was like walking with two numb legs. I felt more like I was floating than walking and I stayed so close to the wall that my right shoulder rubbed against the bricks as I headed down the hall. Everything was going great until I met an obstacle in my way; someone had left a mop leaning against the wall right in my walkway. I had strict orders to walk next to that wall- it was time for my leadership skills. I had two options, to walk around the mop or walk through it. I went with the ladder; however as a skinny man in a black uniform with a red rope quickly and very unkindly pointed out to me, that was not the correct choice. He shared some insight on my intelligence and decision making process and when he was finished I was not lucky enough to go to the end of the line, instead I got his verbal lashing and had to continue down to the next hall still in front of everyone else and stand outside a room where I heard a lot of commotion and yelling. Now my heart was beating so fast I could see it through my shirt, I was sweating like I had just ran three miles in a dead sprint, and I still had to pee.
At this moment I, and everyone else who would soon become a recruit for the United States Navy, was in civilian clothes. I of course was still wearing my comfortable Chuck Taylors. This however would change as we entered the room of commotion and noise. We were issued white t-shirts some very uncomfortable white BVD briefs and a navy blue sweat suit. All the guys were in this room standing in columns and rows holding their new attire in hand and waiting for further orders on what to do next. Once everyone was in their designated position we began our quest to conform. We were told to put on our t-shirts first and here is the thing about that, I am not a large man being only 5’and 11” and weighing 150 pounds, so when I put on my large t-shirt I was swimming in it. The man in the black uniform with the red rope yelled at the group to find out if there was anyone who had a t-shirt that did not fit and slowly about 20 hands went into the air to let him know we had the wrong size. After we traded our old t-shirts for new ones we were told to try them on. Now you may ask yourself why I would care to tell you this part of my experience here at Great Lakes Naval Base, but you see when I traded my large t-shirt for a medium, I was handed another large t-shirt. The man in the black uniform now asked again if anyone had a shirt that did not fit, and I was the only person to raise their hand. All of the sudden I was alone, I was humiliated, and I really had to pee.
After my unwelcomed moment in the spotlight the group I was with was broken into smaller groups and sent to different areas. My group was the urine test group and it could not have come any sooner. A man in a black uniform with a red rope gave us instructions to drink water and walk up and down the hallway until we had to go pee, and to not enter the restroom unless we had to urinate. I needed to do no such thing. I had to pee and was happy to do so. I grabbed a cup and turned for the restroom which I was now instructed to refer to as a “head.” When I walked into the head I noticed the toilets were long tubs like you would find at Wrigley Field or in a barn for cows to eat out of. Also in the head, I found a little Asian man about five feet tall in a khaki uniform, meaning he is a Navy Chief, and he was just standing there in the middle of the head. This was odd to me and I do not think you would find this any other place besides Great Lakes Naval Base. I walked over to the tub and was about to pee when the little Asian chief stood next to my shoulder looking at what would be a stream of wonderful yellow relief but instead was air and male anatomy because he was yelling at me about why I would walk into his head and not have to go to the bathroom. He asked what was wrong with me and demanded I leave the head at once for not sending a flow of glory into the little cup in my hand. I was very confused, I was very clammy and I did not have to go pee.
After 40 minutes of drinking water, walking up and down a hallway, being forced to join a new group of recruits because the group I was in had paid their water bill and moved on and watching the perverted little Asian chief leave the head, I was finally able to go pee.
I began missing my house. I was missing my lazy life. I missed my Chuck Taylors that were in a box with my address being sent to my parent’s house. I quickly learned just what navy stood for- Never Again Volunteer Yourself.
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