In no sense have I ever considered myself to be or have ever been at any time in my life a trendsetting fashion maven. Never been there, never done that, never will.

My pants of choice since the days of junior high have been Levi’s, and prior to that; during my grade school years, I was outfitted in pairs of stiff new blue jeans which my mother purchased at 

the start of each school year from the J. C. Penny’s store in downtown Pontiac. 

Shirts now are usually of the graphic “T” mentality – more often than not from an obscure brewery or pub or an even more obscure sort from an obscure country purchased during my travels. Brown hiking shoes have been the footwear of choice for decades; being replaced by a similar pair every few years as the old pair wear out and are relegated to my working in the garden shoes.

Nothing fashionable going on here. Nothing to see. Now move along.

So it might strike you as a little odd to discover this nondescript Levi’s, tee shirt wearing, hiking shoe fashion nerd has a near fixation for socks which, at times, defy description. For the past couple of decades socks of a questionable sort – think argyle socks on steroids – have found themselves cuddling up in my sock drawer. Wild colors with wild stripes or patterns grace my sock drawer as do graphic socks of construction equipment, honey bees, frogs, whales, sardines, fish skeletons, Halloween pumpkins, flowers, eggplants and much, much more find their way on to my size 9 feet. 

Lately I have been thinking about my near obsession with goofy socks since the date of my annual physical this past winter. While putting on my hiking shoes following the check-up my health care provider stared down at my feet clad in a pair of bright pink socks with electric blue polka dots. She looked up at me, grinned, and said “oh, nice.” I think it may have been the first time someone was moved to comment on my sock attire since abandoning plain old black or white footwear at the end of the past millennium. 

I have no idea what prompted this ferreting out of boring black, brown, blue and white socks in the first place, with something I must have believed to fall high on the “snazzy” scale of the fashion spectrum. The ensuing change has stuck and continues unabated as I now count upon socks as my favorite souvenir find when traveling abroad or around the continental United States.

There are plenty of (well, at least a few) stores around the world with a “fashionable” selection of socks, and even some stores which specialize only in socks. I’ve been in quite a few and have come to the conclusion most of the socks offered for sale are lacking the “wow” factor I require when it comes to adding yet another pair to my collection of foot coverings. Lots of cartoon graphics and superheros; Simpsons characters can be found a dime-a-dozen, dominate the choices and are what I am faced with when attempting to eliminate the plain silly for what I perceive as the way cool wow factor I demand in foot wear – hence the honey bees and bulldozers.

Not normally known as a well respected follower of fashion I have no clear-cut objectives in mind when I am on the prowl for a new pair of socks, or what this wild footwear fetish says about my sense, or lack thereof, for what constitutes fashion today.

While my jeans and hiking shoes, for the most part, hide this minor quirk in my perceived sense of fashion, I guess I just enjoy seeing myself as being a bit left or right of the mainstream center in that department.

Now that I am all in on making my mark as a fashion guru and trendsetter in the world of the sock my big challenge, as I now see it, is how do I top myself at the upcoming annual physical where I broke my health care provider’s mind when she spotted my pink socks with the blue polka dots?

I may have to check in with the Paris hoi polloi and trendsetters to determine what the well heeled models are strutting out on the runway for the new haute couture sock season.