Atlantica - 01.12.2006, Page 42

40 AT L A N T I CA
11 pm: L.L. Bean, Freeport
My eyes are blurry as I almost sleepwalk from my
rented Chevy Cavalier parked on Main Street in
Freeport into L.L.Bean. It’s 11 at night, and the
graveyard shift is about to begin.
And L.L.Bean, Maine’s best-known clothing
and outdoors store, is still open. In fact, L.L.Bean’s
flagship store never closes. There aren’t even locks
on the doors. It opened its doors in 1917 down
the street from its present location in Freeport, 20
minutes northeast of Portland, and has been open
24 hours a day since 1951.
Ok, well, that’s not exactly true. It has closed
four days in its 55 years: two subsequent Sundays
in the spring of 1962 when Maine changed its
alcohol laws; 23 November 1963, the national day
of mourning following JFK’s assassination; and 5
February 1967, the day L.L.Bean’s founder, Leon
Leonwood Bean, passed away.
Even though it’s late, there are customers still
milling around. In the women’s section upstairs,
someone tries on a cashmere sweater. Another
zips up a baffled down vest. A couple of college-
age kids check out the canvas tote bags down-
stairs, where shopper Ian Weiss sits on a wooden
bench with six different shoeboxes strewn on
the floor. At the moment it looks like the brown
leather Rogues are earning top honors.
“My girlfriend would tell you I like really ugly
but comfortable shoes,” says Weiss, who’s home
for the weekend from New York City. Weiss’s dad,
Erick, who lives in Freeport, votes for the black
Merrell Passport slip-ons, size 9.5.
“I guess I’ve got to decide,” Ian says.
“No you don’t,” Erick says. “You’re right here.
You can come back anytime.”
Over the years, L.L.Bean has become syn-
onymous with Maine, and its flagship store is the
crown maiden of Freeport’s more than 170 outlet
stores. L.L.Bean sells nearly 500 different styles of
shoes, but none even come close in popularity or
fame to the “Bean Boot,” the first hunting boot
created by L.L. himself in 1911 when he took a
pair of rubber shoe bottoms from his store and
asked a local shoemaker to stitch leather to the
top.
Together, Ian and his dad talk about L.L.Bean
like it’s a regular stop on the to-do list. “We
always come after dinner,” Erick Weiss says. “It’s
way quieter. Sometimes we walk. Usually we ride
our bikes.”
Manager Phyllis Brannon’s shift ends at 12:15
am; the third shift, as its referred to in employee
parlance, begins at 11:45 pm. “There’s minimal
customer traffic during the graveyard, but they
have to do everything – man the registers, recov-
ery, straightening up from the day. It’s like little
elves came in and fixed everything up.”
Then she pauses.
“Well, we’ve had people take bikes out for little
joyrides at night but they always return them.
And once there was a couple sleeping in sleeping
bags in one of the tents. The tent was zippered
shut. I won’t tell you what kind of noises we
heard.” a
“My girlfriend would tell you
I like really ugly but
comfortable
shoes.”
MAINEa
Scenes from Freeport and Boothbay Harbor, Maine.
034-44MainAtl606.indd 40 20.10.2006 9:30:09