Bobos

When I was kid, the shoes you wore were very important.  No, you didn't have to have the best pair of tennis shoes, but you damn sure had better not have been caught with cheap ones.  Where I lived, we referred to the cheap tennis shoes as "bobos".  Bobos were the tennis shoes you would find at local department stores or in the pet food aisle of your grocery store.  Typically, they would be purchased four pair at a time, like a bunch of bananas, tied together by their shoe laces.  Usually, they had a big round rubber toe and had four stripes, in the hope that your friends couldn't count and would mistake them for Adidas.  And yes, more than one kid was caught having removed one of the stripes in an attempt to avoid embarassment.

Bobos were the ultimate in humiliation.  If you were caught wearing these, kids would ridicule you without mercy.  There was even a little song that the other kids would sing to you.  As I recall, it went something like "Bobos...they make your feet feel fine...bobos....they cost a dollar and a dime...etc.".

As an adult, I moved to the Midwest and would often use the word "bobos" to describe cheap tennis shoes.  To my surprise, no one out here had a clue what I was talking about.  So I began to think, perhaps this bobos thing was peculiar to my neighborhood growing up.  As it turns out, it wasn't.  Here's what I found in the innerwebz:

From Urban Dictionary:

Bobos:  Generic, no-name shoes or even worse shoes with corny names (i.e. pro-wings, avia, sike (just glue it), four-stripe adidas, ragamuffinpinwheelsdeluxe. . .).

And these comments from a message board discussion about bobos:

"Nah, thats wrong. Keds are a brand name. BoBo's are not. They are cheapo's. Sneakers that you would find at Fava-fall-aparts. Remember the song? "Bobo's, they make ya feet feel fine. BoBo's, they cost a dollar forty-nine"

"I am laughing hysterically at this thread. I grew up in Turkey among Americans and some of the poorer ones wore bobos, and were subject to the following song...Bobos, they make yer feet feel fine!Bobos, they cost a nickel and a dime!Bobos, they're meant for hobos!....I can't recall the last line.My daughter came in wearing a pair last night though, and I just about died with laughter!"

"I used to dread going to the supermarket with my mom, when we would go down the cat food isle I just knew what was next (we didn't have a cat)....I was getting new bobo's. DAMN!In addition to the traditional bobo's song, my good friend told me of one that I was not aware of, it's sung to the tune of Eddie Grants 80's song electric avenue...."we're gonna walk down to k-mart 'n buy some shoes they only cost one dollar" I'm still laughing"

"I grew up wearing them. My mother bought them for us at the ACME and Pathmark despite our pleas. The only thing that saved me was that I was faster than the other kids. So they couldn't make fun of the bobos without making themselves look bad.

here is the complete song:

Bobos, they make your feet feel fine.

Bobos, they cost a dollar ninety nine.

Bobos, they are for hobos.

So, get your Bobos for hobos, today."