An unexpectedly poignant quote concerning the women who opt for the urban dairy farmer look.
"I see these 16-40 year old girls and women with their tall green boots all over. A hint of rain and they put them on with some gore-tex parka, flannel shirt and jeans. When these same "fashionable girls" where young they mocked me to no end for wearing them to school, which I did from about 3rd grade to middle school. They came from suburbs that were built on land that used to be the Perkins, Stottlemeyer, and Colchester family farms from when my dad was a kid. We still lived on our smaller farm like a lot of the other kids in school and we wore [boots to class] because that was really all we had. They made fun of us when we got on the bus, throughout the school day and until we were dropped off. It was really non-stop. I remember different jingles they would sing about cow manure on our boots and how they smelled even though we always cleaned them in the morning after our chores. I remember how it made me hate school and resent my family farm. I see them now putting on $200 pairs of rubber boots and wearing them to parties, jobs and to school and I want to tell them that they made my childhood horrible. They would never get it."
I like Wellies, and in foul weather they are indispensable. A far more elegant friend of mine often wears her black Lacrosse lobster boots with beautiful city clothing. Her lifetime of summers in Coastal Maine give her the chops for it, and when the cold salt sea sprays the deck while underway, she never turns her head. Like other boots, they are acceptable when appropriate, but when the look turns fully to details aping those who provide our agricultural abundance, I will think of the above quote.
"I see these 16-40 year old girls and women with their tall green boots all over. A hint of rain and they put them on with some gore-tex parka, flannel shirt and jeans. When these same "fashionable girls" where young they mocked me to no end for wearing them to school, which I did from about 3rd grade to middle school. They came from suburbs that were built on land that used to be the Perkins, Stottlemeyer, and Colchester family farms from when my dad was a kid. We still lived on our smaller farm like a lot of the other kids in school and we wore [boots to class] because that was really all we had. They made fun of us when we got on the bus, throughout the school day and until we were dropped off. It was really non-stop. I remember different jingles they would sing about cow manure on our boots and how they smelled even though we always cleaned them in the morning after our chores. I remember how it made me hate school and resent my family farm. I see them now putting on $200 pairs of rubber boots and wearing them to parties, jobs and to school and I want to tell them that they made my childhood horrible. They would never get it."
I like Wellies, and in foul weather they are indispensable. A far more elegant friend of mine often wears her black Lacrosse lobster boots with beautiful city clothing. Her lifetime of summers in Coastal Maine give her the chops for it, and when the cold salt sea sprays the deck while underway, she never turns her head. Like other boots, they are acceptable when appropriate, but when the look turns fully to details aping those who provide our agricultural abundance, I will think of the above quote.
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| A celebrity Vapida sloppily emerges from an emasculated pseudo-assault vehicle wearing the boots of those actually familiar with toil and uncoached physical exertion |
Not only will they never get it, but in cases such as this, justice will never be served. The unthinking and inconsiderate teen grows up to be the unthinking and inconsiderate adult. They slide smoothly through life, down the well-paved path set for them, oblivious to the very fact that they're on a road at all.
ReplyDeleteThe answer, initially unsatisfying, is to let it all go and lead a superior life. The battle to attain true wisdom is the struggle to transform that resentment into affection.
I didn't farm, nor did I wear Wellies (unless Gills count), so I'm hardly expert but I'd say this is a welcomed development. These fashion victims for once have attached themselves to a reasonably tasteful trend that offends almost no one save for you lads. They sure beat Uggs. And once the trend recedes you'll find loads of them at your corner thrift shop where you'll find me, happy as a clam(mer).
ReplyDeleteJKG: Just so! What is one era's punchline is another era's must-have.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous: Gills aren't wellies, but they likely mean you're familiar with the water and how to move vessel across the top of it, and I agree with you on Uggs, to be sure. But you have mis-read the text to call me "offended" by the wellie. I (clam)dig 'em. Speaking of, During summer, clam digging was always in "---- Island clam boots" which was a euphemism for bare feet and rolled pants.
Amusing. I suppose this is the female equivalent of all those excruciatingly hip Brooklyn hipsters who wear Carhartt jackets, Red Wing boots, and other American working men's clothing in the streets, an effect generated, I am guessing, by their desire to appear trendy, masculine, and in touch with what they like to imagine is the common man.
ReplyDelete