I might go shopping

I’m not sure exactly how old my rain coat is. We’ve been in Washington a little over a year and I owned it when we still lived in South Dakota, so it is at least a year old. When we lived in South Dakota, I didn’t wear it very often. Out here, at this time of the year, I wear it nearly every day. it is, however, wearing out. I noticed a few places, around the collar, where the lining was wearing thin. Then I noticed a few more inside the sleeves. I’m hard on the lining of jackets for some reason. I’ve had suits and sport coats that looked just fine from the outside, but the lining was worn out. At any rate, I’ve been wearing my rain coat, which has started to end up with me getting wet. The problem is mostly with the sleeves. I went for a short walk yesterday and ended up with wet sleeves on my shirt on both arms from the elbows down. I suppose I could just wear short sleeve shirts and dry off my arms after a walk, but I’ve been thinking of going shopping for a new rain coat.

Although pandemic restrictions have eased, I have really gotten out of the habit of shopping. I really don’t need many clothes. I have what I need and what I like to wear and when I do occasionally need something, I’ve gotten used to doing a bit of shopping online and ordering the item. Not having to go to stores suits me well. I’m not much of a shopper in the first place. I have a few stores I frequent, however. I go to the grocery store and I go to the hardware store. We have several family jokes about me and hardware stores. A real home repair requires at least two trips to the hardware store. The term “hardware store” has a fairly broad meaning in our family, however. It might mean a local hardware store. It also might mean a big box store. Bellingham has two of the big box stores. I call them the blue store and the orange store, referring the colors used on their signs and decorations. Then there are the stores that have the name “farm” or “tractor” in their name. Those are really my favorites.

My first job for which I earned a paycheck was sweeping my father’s feed warehouse. I spent a couple of hours each Saturday at the chore and received a dollar each time I completed the job. There is a certain smell to a store that sells animal feed that triggers memories for me. I love cruising up and down the aisles of harnesses and tack and feed supplements. I like looking at the machines for sale. I love the springtime when they have chicks and ducklings for sale. I threaten to take our grandchildren to a feed store and bring them home with baby rabbits. These days, however, there are big box farm supply stores that sell a whole lot more than just feed and animal supplies. They sell clothing. About half of the total square feet of the nearest tractor supply store is dedicated to clothing.

My family is used to my rants about clothing. I’ve belonged to REI, an outdoors gear cooperative for longer than our children have been alive. When I first joined, it was a single retail store, located in Seattle, that had a large mail order catalogue. It was a source for technical climbing gear such as ropes and carabiners. They also carried cross country skis, boots and bindings. You could get crampons and sleeping bags and tents. In recent years, however, the catalogue is mostly clothing. There are pages and pages of jackets and caps and shirts and slacks. I complain nearly every time a catalogue comes to our home, which over the course of the lives of our children, has been a lot of complaining.

There wasn't a lot of specialized clothing for outdoor recreation when I was growing up. We wore jeans for backpacking and we wore jeans for skiing. When it was super cold, we wore coveralls. When we went downhill skiing, we were proud of our jeans and jackets patched with duct tape the duct tape came only in silver. We used to say we could tell who really knew how to ski by what they wore. The tourists who were beginners had matched ski clothing. The locals, who knew the mountain and how to ski, were the duct tape crowd. Only we weren’t ever a crowd, just a few of us who wore our mis-matched clothes as a badge of honor.

So, naturally, I’m thinking to going to tractor supply to find a new rain jacket. My reasoning is simple. Farmers work outdoors. People who work outdoors in this country need good rain gear. The place to get a rain coat that works and that will last is probably where farmers shop. Of course me being the person that I am, I’m likely to talk about going shopping for a new rain jacket for quite a while before actually doing it. After all, I haven’t even tried repairing the one I have with duct tape. And I have duct tape in several colors. I might be able to make a fashion statement in line with the jackets I used to wear for skiing a long time ago. Duct tape is pretty much waterproof as long as the surface to which you are attaching it is dry when it is applied. Actually, I’ve pretty much given up on duct tape, and yes, I know they sell a brand that is called duck tape. The good stuff is called gorilla tape now. It’s pretty good stuff - an appropriate replacement for baling wire in a lot of situations. And that is a good deal because you can’t find wire-tied bales anywhere these days. In fact the twine tied bales are tied with a synthetic plastic twine that is a lot stronger than the old stuff, but which has to be picked up because it will never compost. And a lot of farmers have switched to giant bales which can be moved only by machines. You won’t find me tossing 800 pound bales into the back of the pickup.

You can tell by this journal entry why my children aren’t eager to go shopping with me. It isn’t just that there are too many stories. It is that they’ve heard all of the stories hundreds of times already.

Made in RapidWeaver