One Photo: I just emailed this photo to LLBean, 50 years after its purchase

One Photo:  I just emailed this photo to LLBean, 50 years after its purchase

Boots for my birthday!  This is a photo of my classic LLBean “Hunting Shoes”, bought fifty years ago this past week, on my 18th birthday. I was a freshman in college “just up the road a piece” from the LLBean Freeport store. That was the only LLBean retail store back then. 

Because it was open 24 hours a day, we college students loved visiting it at all hours.  I remember that the sales people wore plaid flannel shirts and had Maine accents.  Mostly I remember camping, fishing, and hunting gear. Some clothing was also available, but none of it was the “fashionable” clothing that is sold today. 

The Freeport store today occupies the same spot in town… plus some.  But it has been so significantly redesigned that it is hard to remember how it was set up way back when.  I do remember a long set of wide stairs that brought you up to the one-floor showroom on the second or third floor.  I may be imagining that the first (and second?) floors were for warehousing or even manufacturing (shoes?).

I remember fifty years ago this past week, as a newly minted 18 year old,  taking my birthday money to Bean’s for boots. This is the pair I returned with. Not a winter goes by that I don’t wear them. They are my favorite boots for snowblowing and shoveling.  The leather uppers are still in great shape. I have replaced the rawhide laces several times. The bottoms are a bit slick and ought to get re-soled. I’m guessing that LLBean still provides a resoling service. My workaround for the slick soles is to pull on a set of YakTrax, which work like adding chains to vehicle tires.

All I can say is it’s amazing how fast fifty years has gone by.  Life seemed so simple back then as a student in Maine.  Jeans, flannel and wool plaid shirts, hunting shoes, no cell phone, no calculator, and pay telephones that swallowed quarters.

"LLBean's Maine Hunting Shoe" 

Purchased in 1967

Panasonic GX80/85 and Olympus 12-40 F2.8 @ 40mm

1/60sec, F5.6, ISO200

Olympus 36R flash via TTL