I wanted expand a bit on my above post but didn't want to make the first too long or dis-jointed. So bear with me.

I am a traditionalist, I admit it. In fact, I'm proud of it. I come by that perspective naturally. I am by nature a conservative in the oldest and best sense of the word--deriving from the root "to conserve," meaning "to preserve and protect."

I like continuity with the past...with ghosts of all those who have gone before. Sometimes when I'm making a pair of shoes, I can feel them at my shoulder guiding my hands. I'm sure there are those who will dismiss that as overblown rhetoric but I assure you it is not. Creativity is something that comes from outside of yourself--it is a tapping into something that can only be described as "The Divine."

I like things that have meaning...like the generations old German Christmas cookies that come down through my family and Great Aunt Lydia Raab. All the years my girls were growing up I made nearly 800 cookies...every year. And it is now a tradition that they are passing on to their families. They don't know what it is to have nothing more than the miserable droppings of the Pillsbury Doughboy at Christmas.

I like things that are quality...that bear witness to a human hand. That evoke the heart and the soul of real human beings and not just commercial mechanisms. That will last...that I will hand down to my great great grandchildren. That will be cherished not only for the family connections but for the enduring functionality and quality. And be marveled at as a testament of "how much people cared in those days."

I like things that say something about us as people, as human beings, as souls on a journey to eternity. Like old brownstones and gothic cathedrals. Regional accents and farmhouse cheeses. And microbrews made with nothing but barley, water and hops. Skills passed down from one generation of stonemasons to the next. (In my work we used techniques that date back, virtually unchanged, to the 14th century.) And "re-discovered" farming techniques that preserve the land. And National Parks. And the Constitution of the United States of America. And the battlefields at Gettysburg and elsewhere--and I like them fine as they are...without a shopping mall on them.

I also like Traditional wool tartan kilts and all the traditional accouterments...for all the reasons that apply above.

None of these things need updating or interpretation or improvement...or more shopping opportunities or quicker times to market. In fact, they all suffer at the hands of the "sophisticated " (from the same root as sophistry) class.

I like "raindrops on roses..." too, in case anyone is wondering.