MICHAEL: Like Taylor’s grandad, my late grandad was also a man of simplicity. He loved plain white spinner bait lures, Carhartt flannel, Marlboro cigarettes, and taking long looks at the stars lighting up the winter night sky. Naturally, I think about him often when I visit the valleys and pasturelands that he kept in the Shenandoah region and am always inspired by this simple life he led. Interestingly, he wasn’t ever really very philosophical about his lifestyle. He was principled, sure, but he didn’t set up grand Wendell Berry-style systematic convictions for himself to follow and then blog about his exploits afterwards on social media.
When it was time for a new tractor, he bought a new tractor and didn’t get all up in the weeds about whether or not the new hydraulic system was going to offset some aesthetical ambition he was chasing. Rather, he was a man of simplicity because he held onto the things in life he cared about, the things that brought him joy, and had no grand illusions that he needed to be living somewhere else or doing something else. Oh, and he loved morning gas station coffee at the Quickie Mart.
So, maybe it’s a little strange to stand up a shoe comparison after writing about the kind of man my Pap-pap was, but I’m trying to make the point that it seems like the most refreshingly simple things in life are oftentimes not really trying to make a point to be simple, they just are. and such is the case with the Topo Athletic MTN Racer line. Perhaps the term I’m looking for is elegant simplicity?
Anyways, the Topo MTN Racer has proven itself to be a dependable, solid shoe year after year. Last year’s model wasn’t without its hiccups, however, but instead of taking the entirety of the MTN Racer back to the drawing board to sketch out a new model, they’ve placed the shoe on the ironing board to work out the wrinkles. Personally, I couldn’t be happier with the result. Read on for more details on Topo’s Swiss army knife daily driver.
