Clogged Memory
August 2, 2011

Not only haven't I finished it yet, but I stupidly didn't bring my copy of Gael's Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? with me this summer so I can't check to see if these shoes are included, but do you remember these clogs?

Dude, I YEARNED for these clogs when I was 10-ish. At least two of my friends -- Maria and Rebecca, I think? -- had a pair of these. If I recall correctly, Maria had a red buckle pair and Rebecca's were either black or the navy blue ones I coveted. Someone else in the neighborhood had white. They were EVERYWHERE except on MY feet!

My mom wouldn't buy them because she said they were really bad for your feet. Given their totally inflexible (wooden? really freaking hard plastic?) construct that provided zero arch support to my still-growing pair of arch-challenged feet and aggressively weak ankles, I'm sure she was right. (Even if I vainly tried to argue that the brand of these clogs was Dr. Scholl's. You know, the podiatrist.)

Ooooh, but I can taste the memory of how badly I wanted them! My babysitters had them and the KISS-loving teenagers across the street had them, which just PROVED how COOL they were.

These buckle clogs are also the reason why I was confused when a character in The Night Swimmers talked about the massive bruising she sustained from going "clogging." The way I understood it, "clogging" was a kind of dancing. I could not imagine dancing in these buckle clogs. With the internet at my fingertips, I am no longer confused about clogging as dancing nor about which sort of footwear is appropriate for such an exercise.

I had not thought about those navy blue buckle clogs in decades until today when I was skimming the Dansko catalog at Zappos (while I attempted to persuade Shauna that my basic black Dansko clogs were the best thing that ever happened to my feet), because LOOK at these!

Are they not totally familiar? I do think they're kind of ugly (probably in the way my mom thought those buckle clogs were ugly), but I also sort of want them because of that pair of navy blue buckle clogs that got away.

...WHICH STILL EXIST! Oh, dear. I think I'm in trouble. (However, the buckle clogs of MY yearning youth did NOT come equipped with rubber soles that are probably quite handy in preventing skinned knees, but definitely would have muffled the awesome clack-clump clack-clump noise the clogs made on the sidewalk which, let's face it, was one of the clogs' biggest attractions.)

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