The Vans shoe company started in Anaheim, California, in 1966. Their first pair of shoes was what would eventually be named the “Authentics,” a sturdy low top that would be adopted by generations of skaters, including Tony Alva and Stacy Peralta. And so they became a California icon—a gum-soled, low profile, no funny business shoe, one that made its way onto the feet of Sean Penn in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and then, just a decade or so later and about an hour’s drive from where the Van Doren Rubber Company first started, onto my feet, too.

For all the years I spent in Southern California, a pair of Authetics did just fine. The waffled soles treaded the tile floors of the chi-chi South Coast Plaza mall in Orange County sufficiently; there was provided more than enough arch support for pressing on the gas pedal of my 1996 Volvo 850—so much so, in fact, that hitting 85 miles per hour on Pacific Coast Highway was nothing short of mindless, even pleasant; and the walk to the complimentary barbecue grill right by the swimming pool of my apartment complex—with the help of the low-cut ankle support and the double-tied bow of my shoelaces—was brisk and effortless. Because shoes, like all clothing, serve a utilitarian purpose. But when the weather is consistently above 75 degrees and when winter is less a season than a few annoyingly intermittent drizzles on the umbrella you don’t own (because hell, I’m always in my car anyways, right?); when you’re Bermuda shorts deep in a cultural hub that is so totally-cool-all-the-time-dude that you can turn right on a red light (the entry for pedestrian has yet to be completed in the state’s regional dictionary), the only true sartorial utility is making sure you’re not so naked you get arrested. That is, unless you’re at that private-ish beach spot off of Cliff Drive in Laguna Beach after 10.

And then it was New York, and it was winter, and the snow settled on the park down the street from my apartment in Brooklyn like a deceivingly well-laundered down comforter, all shiny and white. It had some advantages to a comforter (you could mold it into the shape of a person, albeit a rotund one, with arms and all), but it had some disadvantages too (it’s not like you’d ever want to wrap it around you for a comfortable sleep). And then after meeting some friends in south end of the park, after walking knee-deep in snow, I was invited inside an igloo, which, by the looks of the thing, could only have been built by the disenfranchised hands of New England youth. You know, the sort of kids that grew up with snow. The construction was massive—with myself included, it comfortably housed seven people, one bottle of rum, and one bottle of what looked like vodka. But then I looked down at my shoes, at my Authentics, and though I could see them I couldn’t feel them. Because the snow, that by then must have reached almost to the bottom of my chin, settled into the cotton canvas, on through the socks, and through at least a few layers of my feet’s epidermis. Frigidness set in, and I could tell that this was an Into the Wild sort of frigidness. It was frostbite. I could hear the faint voice of my feet whispering, Where is the barbecue grill? Where is the swimming pool? Where is the Talbots and the Pacific Sunwear and the Paul Frank store? Fucked if I know, man. I can’t even find the In & Out.