Sometimes it's about the clothes...

So what I’ve been thinking about lately is how sometimes it takes too damn long to learn the lesson that where you live is trying to teach you about what you should wear.   

Specifically I want to know why I didn’t use the brains that my 23 chromosomes gave me  to know enough to buy a pair of rubber rain boots until I was 60 years old! How many times did I have to go out in the rain and get my feet and my shoes wet to learn that lesson?  How many pairs of decent shoes did I ruin in the meantime?  I bought raincoats, good raincoats.  I owned umbrellas.  So I didn’t want my body or the clothes on it, or my head, to get wet.  But my feet and my poor shoes?   Too bad for them.

I say all this to convey what a revelation my first pair of rain boots were for me.  LLBean, bought just before we moved to Maine, and worn a few times when away. Then worn out once we lived here in mid coast Maine.   Say what you will, what really defines Maine – at least the mid coast – is rain and mud, oh, and wind.  Let’s make that: Wind.  Rain.  Mud. In that order.

I wore out my first pair of Bean rain boots, wore them to holes in the tops, which leaked.  I kept them and use them for gardening, and ordered a new pair.  But, like all good capitalist enterprises, LLBean decided to “improve” their rain boots and ruined them.  They came. Fit differently. Were sent back.  I started looking locally and eventually found a pair at Colburn’s in Belfast, Maine, which happens to be the oldest shoe store in New England.  

Here they are, my chicken-themed rain boots (yes, that's red duct tape on the top of one, where the edge rubs my leg; so they're not perfect--they keep my feet dry!)  

I love them.  And now, when I go out, I wear rain boots and a rain coat AND if it’s early spring or fall and chilly, I add rain pants. Yep.  The brains in my head are old, and slow, but steady. When I learn something, I learn it.  Staying dry is good. Let the rain stay mainly in Maine.  Bring it on!