New Balance 609 Sneakers

I’m the poster boy for the New Balance 609 sneaker.

I’m 6’4”, weigh 220 and I’ve got at least twenty-four pounds of muscle packed on my frame – maybe even 25 pounds. I love sports but I’m long torsoed and when it comes to basketball when I sky on a good day I’ve got almost a three-inch vertical.

I must be the middle of the New Balance target market because just about every male baby boomer I run into at the park, or Sam’s or Papa John’s is wearing my sneaker, in my color. There are finally so many of us wearing these things that I’ve stopped complaining that they’re wearing my shoes and I no longer ask them to go home and change their shoes. And in some sick, inadequate way now I know how Michael Jordan must feel.

I do know that male baby boomers are not copying me. But why do we all wear them? Perhaps the sneaker fairy came to all male baby boomers in their sleep and said, “New Balance 609’s are great sneakers that fit your smelly old feet and they wear like industrial strength titanium. I double-dog dare you to try to wear them out.” And the sneaker fairy has proven correct.

Of course maybe New Balance originally just handed out a bunch of really good coupons.

I suppose if I went to Texas I wouldn’t see New Balance sneakers I’d see cowboy boots emblazoned with a big blue N and B followed by some other number than 609. And I’ve noticed as NASA’s astronauts walk toward the space shuttle there is always the subtle flash of at least one pair of 609’s.

You just can’t wear these sneakers out. Every pair I’ve ever purchased gets stained and dirtied out long before they have the chance to wear out or fall apart. I wish my cars would wear so well.

A friend told me recently when he was in my garage that he knew I understood how to be poor and he said he could tell I had been poor at one time by checking out my sneakers. I asked if it was because they looked so bad and he said, No, it was because I had good sneakers that I saved for special occasions (anniversaries, weddings, and funerals), I had my day-to-day New Balance and I had a rotten old pair or two I kept for working in the yard. And here I thought poor Americans couldn’t afford sneakers; the truth is they can’t afford to throw any sneakers away.

I’ve gotten to the point that when I buy a pair I don’t even try them on or do the fancy shoe-store walk. My wife can even buy New Balance 609’s in my size for me but of course this means that in return she can pick up at least a half-dozen pairs of wear-once-a-month shoes for her closet. And she wonders why I tell her not to bother buying my 609’s?

Once I bought a pair and didn’t realize I’d left shoe paper in the toes as I wondered in my wanderings for days why they didn’t fit. I even complained to some of my buds, who wear my shoes, that for once New Balance had screwed up. It was my wife who finally discovered the wads of tissue paper jammed into the toes and I was appropriately chagrinned until I told her I didn’t think there was any reason to put shoe paper inside sneakers in the first place. It’s not like someone’s going to give them as a Christmas present. But that’s not a bad idea.

I don’t buy New Balance 609’s unless they’re on sale but if I spot a sale I may buy them early and often and stack the huge boxes in the back of my closet.

My wife says my shoes are so ugly I should just wear the boxes. But according to me when it comes to New Balance – ugly is beautiful.