magic sock

Sometime in the mid-1990s, I purchased three pairs of socks at the old Gil’s Runnershoe World on Carlisle and Lomas. The store’s long gone, its building torn down and replaced by a Walgreens. But the socks remain. In 1997, I was wearing a pair of them when I was caught in a storm while hiking in the backcountry of the Grand Canyon. For a long time, two of the six socks carried the reddish-pink tint of the running gullies we had to cross that day. Given the memorable nature of that trip, this allows me to date the socks at, conservatively, 15-plus years old.

In the mix-and-match that is my sock drawer, the number of socks has dropped from six to the current two, but it is safe to say that I have worn these socks once a week for that entire 15-plus years. They were my favorite running socks, because they were so comfy, and now that the knee’s shot and I don’t run any more, they remain my favorite socks. As I said, they’re so comfy.

I do not understand the sock technology involved, what has allowed them to endure while other socks fall by the wayside, but it is indistinguishable from magic.