Windmill Jousting...at the L.L. Bean Blucher Moc

I don’t want to give up on L.L. Bean but I feel like my decision to pull the trigger on a pair of Blucher Mocs was a bit Quixotic.

Windmill jousting at seventy bucks is for me, essentially a low risk endeavour. Besides, it gives me something to complain about. Toad needs a contrarian successor and I might as well step up and shoulder the mantle. The Quixote image above you ask? I'm gonna do a story someday on William Nicholson and his brother-in-law James Pryde, aka The Beggerstaff Brothers. Be patient.

Why do these have to be L.L. Bean Signature? Why can’t these be the only version they offer? What’s with...Signature?

Why do they sell this pair on the regular side of their shop yet the aforementioned are somehow special? Special for the same price...

I wore a pair like these in college. Back when L.L. Bean offered one version...and they were made in the States. Even the Signature ones are now made out of state.

And these seem to possess formidable newness. How in the world can I knock some of the new off of these babies? Beer and pee would be unintentional new-knocking solvents if I still lived in the KA house. I don't drink beer anymore but word on the street is that sometime in the next ten years, I'll pee more frequently. Shut up.

Surely, if I was that concerned with the loss of homegrown quality goods, I could pop the dough for a pair of Maine’s finest hand-sewn mocs from Quoddy. But at a couple hundred dollars a throw…a well-worth throw I’d bet…I’ll simply buy Bean and lament.

L.L. Bean Signature. For me that’s simply code for “L.L. Bean the way it was…L.L. Bean the way it should be…” With my code as context, every Bean shodding shown above is Signature.

Signatory to a better time…a time when the good ole USA didn’t have to borrow forty cents of every dollar spent by the government. Stop me. Stop me now before I begin to sound like a damn Tea Party Maitre’d.  Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. 

Signatory to a time when sequential orders for the iconic L.L. Bean Camp Moc manifested a consistently styled shoe with an identical fit. I’ve had five pairs of these over the last thirty years…in three different sizes…with three different vamps.

So here’s to what’s left of L.L. Bean. Onward…with one foot in 1979 and the other…right here…right now. Present. And jousting.

ADG, II