It’s Fashion Week in New York, so this is a fitting time to discuss my favorite socks. They make me happy whenever I wear them. Dare I call them my magic socks? I’m wearing them right now, and I feel invincible. I’ve owned these socks for about 20 years and I can still remember the day I picked them out with my mom at Silverstein’s of New Bedford.
They are designed along the lines of the Red Sox cool, old, multi-colored, striped stirrups, before the new owners took over and ditched them in favor of the bland red-only stirrups. These bad boys, made by Ocean Pacific, are white, but just above the heel, there’s an aqua seafoam stripe (adorned with the familiar OP), then a teal stripe, then a canary yellow stripe, and the top is finished off by another teal stripe. Despite their advanced age and high frequency of wear during the mid-1980s to mid-1990s, these socks are in phenomenal shape. There is ever-so-slight thinning of the heels and the elastic ring is pretty loose. Aside from that, you would think I bought these socks last year.
I only wear them about two or three times per year and this is the first time I’ve worn them this summer, I believe. It’s only been in recent years that I’ve consciously taken special care of these socks. Even during college (which began 10 years ago next week; fitting that Captain Larby, Matty Ballgame, DJ Cornbread, and I will be together, by the way), I wore these socks regularly. How they survived the primitive washers and dryers, not to mention the poachers, of Northeastern’s dorms, I’ll never know.
These socks are a link to my past. A timeline, like the rings on a tree trunk. It feels good just to put them on. Life is okay, at least for a day, as long as I have my happy socks.
