White Bucks

Bucks A shoe originally made of suede buckskin. White buck, made of a leather colored white, or dirty buck, a light tan color suede. Usually have red rubber soles. The first bucks appeared around 1870, made from Brazilian or Chinese deer and were worn as tennis shoes.

If you are old enough to remember these white bucks, for they were the top of the hops in the 50’s. Along with the narrow ties and the narrow collar jackets and the left over jute suit trousers, the white buck was a symbol of class on the dance floor.

While they certainly stood out along with my pink and black suit, the rubber souls were hard to slide around in. At the time feet gathered the attention instead of arms walling and hinnies wiggle.

The dance of the day was the box step, which introduced the genders to each other under watchful eyes of chaperones. The girl’s crinolines guaranteed personal body parts would not get to close for rubbing.

While the kids clomped around to big band music their parents approved of even our hands were restricted to gloves. Perhaps you might get coodies from the other gender.

Kids, being kids, would step on each other’s feet so the white bucks had to go into repair with toxic white paint on a sponge brush to make them spiffy again.

I put taps on my white bucks so I could slide down the tiled school floors.

Still they were heavy shoes, like wingtips and other oxfords so I traded them in for a pair of Beatle boots, Italian pointed zip up boots with leather soles.

Now those were dancing shoes.