James Lileks on bootscrapes:
I’m tired of walking across the lot to beep my ID and walk in the building and see the sign that asks me to stomp my feet to remove the snow. It comes out every year, along with a brush for scraping your boots. It has the company logo. It’s got to be more than half a century old.
I AM TIRED OF THE SHOE THING
Well, maybe in the big city, they only bring the bootscrapes out in the winter, but one of the first things I noticed when I moved to the Springfield area is that you’ll find bootscrapes outside many local businesses and whatnot.
Like outside the Republic branch of the Springfield-Greene County Library:
You’ll have to squint to see it in that picture.
Note that that esoteric branch of the library opened in 2009.
We have bootscrapes out here because we have ranchers out here. Not city slickers with their exotic footcoverings for the snow.
