Sneakers and a the World of Wonder that lies beyond them

On the way home from Russian Math today, Daniel and I had an intellectual conversation about sneakers.  He pointed out that the Nike logo appears in four places on each of his shoes and asked me, don't I find it "annoying" that they do that?  (Of course I do.)

He went on to ask me what's the most famous sneaker (company) in the world.  I opined probably Nike or Adidas, although, with my New England bias, Reebok also seems like a potential candidate.  Daniel told me that he used to think that Reebok was ReadBook.  I told him that I could never figure out how to pronounced "Adidas" when I was a lad.  Then he asked me what Nike means.

I told him that Nike is the Greek word for victory, and that Athena was called Athena Nike, presumably because she was victorious over something [I can't imagine what...].  I also told him that Nicholas comes from the Greek Nikolaos - Nike + Laos or "Victory of the People."

That's when Daniel put two and two together, in a truly uncanny pattern:

"Well, that's a little bit of a coincidence, because there's a Nicky in my class, and he wears Nikes, and he's victorious."

Of course, I was curious as to the nature of Nicky's victorious-ness.  He said that he's good at games.

(December 13, 2014)