In the response to your first question: beer.

The second: Not an answer, but another thought -- what if running shoes looked like bowling shoes?

Yeah, but somehow bowling shoes have become "cool" over the past few years. Running shoes are always these ridiculous colors and color combinations. I always wonder what crack the shoe designers are smoking when they come up with the aesthetics of those sneakers....

That "coolness" was what I was alluding to. I think the sneaker designers just try to hard when they make "performance" shoes. I bet they use focus groups - that would be funny to spy on.

i think they are thinking of the coolness of the colors when you run by in a blur. that or they don't want runners to get run over by cars.

hey, you can be stylish AND reflective at the same time. tell me how this is remotely attractive. ick. not that i was going to buy those, anyway, but still...

oh, i forgot, i don't run. all the sneakers i have are purely for recreational use. maybe the occasional athletic use, but that's rare.

That image was very disturbing and know next to nothing about style.

the allure of both bowling and fancy running shoes continue to elude me. beer, however, makes perfect sense and its inclusion into the equation makes each of the aforementioned subjects much more appealing to me. thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

and beer doesn't need to be stylish.

I think there is some running club that stops for a beer every mile or so. Anybody want to join?

They would be the Hash House Harriers.

I bowled for almost 20 years, from 1967, when I was nine, to the mid 1980s. I remember my first game, it was a 43. The second game, I got frustrated and started angrily throwing gutter balls. I bowled a 6.

Over the years I never mastered a hook and so never did better than a 150 league average. My best game was a 223. I once tossed 15 strikes in a row, but it was over two games...

Because of bowling, I was a college letter man, something none of my more athletic friends ever did.

www.forgotten-ny.com