We do not do "fashion". Fashion is about making something the company hopes will be worn once and stuck in the back of the customer's closet when a new style/finish/color is introduced. (See earlier statement about The Depression.)

Basics are what we are about. You will not find a hundred different styles/colors/items on our pages. We offer you a small but nice selection of shearling slippers which can be purchased with plain shearling bottoms or an add-on outsole for those who run in and out of the house a lot in their slippers. We have a variety of shearling hat styles, mittens, and smaller items like boot/shoe innersoles that we have been informed are life savers for forestry professionals in the northern Midwest. We also have that wonderful earmuff selection we mentioned earlier. We do not want our items sitting in your closet, unused or barely used, and we don't care if you don't call us back for years. (Recent call- "I have this hat I bought from you 25 years ago and it is getting kinda ratty, time to buy a new one.")

Our old school ways even extend into repair (which you can't get from Deckers). Our soft soled slippers can be resoled for a small fee as long as the upper will hold a stitch. If the band in your earmuffs breaks after a time, no worry, we will replace that for a small charge as well. Sometimes, but not always, we can do a patch on your soft soled slippers (sorry there is little we can do for the crepe soled ones) or replace your mitten thumbs at nominal cost to you. When was the last time you had something repaired instead of buying new? This applies only to the products that we make/sell so, seriously, don't even bother to ask if we did not make the item. You can understand that, right?

We do thank this new age for helping us cut back on a seriously grueling schedule of fairs and festivals. That was just fine when we were young, being on the road 25 or more weekends a year and dragging the babies/kids along with us. That is how we built our business. We still make a point out of doing some face to face business with people and for good reason. There is nothing more old school than face to face and the reward is greeting familiar families from year to year, watching the children grow and become adults and, better yet, meeting our fourth generation customers in their strollers. Only face to face makes that possible. So, we continue to do a few fairs and festivals in the North East and even get down to Maryland once a year. As physically demanding as it is for us old folks, seeing our customers and conversing with them once a year is something we will continue as long as we are able.

We don't do sales and we do not manipulate prices based on your perceived income level either. That is a new age concept as far as we know. Prices on the web site are the same as they are at the fairs and festivals. They are firm and, we think, fair. We are going to skip to the potential future of Internet marketing and state that we will never manipulate our prices based on your perceived income, ethnicity, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, etc. We will make a deal with you, you treat us with respect and a dose of good humor and we will do the same for you. Good humor is always welcome in our little world.

We don't do "point and click" ordering. Remember when you had to mail in an order form or phone in an order when you wanted something from a company? Well, as much of a hassle as it is, that is the way you have to do business with us. There are real solid reasons why and we have outlined them for you here. Sure, such is easy when you do the drop shipping thing but not when you actually make the merchandise.

If you decide to order by phone, the "call center" consists of a single phone line, hard wired no less, with no "prompts" or even an answering machine. The "operators standing by" are the same two people who are doing all the rest of the work so we are available during the prescribed hours most of the time but not always (please note the clock to the left of our phone number before calling) . When we answer the phone, we will just say "Hello" (no packaging so to speak). If the phone rings more than 4 or 5 times we might have stepped out for a minute or actually taken some time off. We do understand just how much you enjoy being stuck on hold and/or pushing buttons for an hour or better but we are sorry, we just can't satisfy your needs in that area. Our failing, we admit it.

We do charge shipping and handling. We do the static price thing on the merchandise so we have to add s/h charges because such are very expensive. Free s/h is not honest largely because the customer is paying for it in the price of the product, it is just hidden. Again, we have posted a lot of detail about s/h and how much it costs, especially for a firm as small as ours. But, we tell you the costs right up front so you do not have to place and order, give out all your personal info, etc. before you find out what the charge will be. We start at $7 and the maximum is $14 for all US and Canadian customers. Big old school note here, we DO ship to PO Boxes. All merchandise is shipped via USPS unless you request otherwise and are willing to pay the additional costs. For all you PO Box owners, some respect, finally! (Only PO Box holders understand that statement.)

We actually encourage the use of checks as a method of payment (checks or cash in face to face situations). Say what? Checks/cash? You do remember those, right? We grew tired of "bailing out" the financial industry with every purchase so we are going to give you a 5% discount if you go old school with us and don't pay with a credit/debit card. The details are quite simple, it is like "instant rebates" in theory. Take the 5% right off the top, no special coupons, codes, what have you and that includes the s/h charges.

Okay, we admit to the "weird" thing but we really don't think we are all that scary.

By now you already get the "read" thing. You don't have to read all our information, we just put it out there for the sake of honesty and your entertainment as we do try to interject a bit of humor (remember, we admitted the weird thing). We believe it helps to know a bit about the product you may purchase as well as where and by whom the product is made. Otherwise, you end up supporting this kind of activity. If you don't mind reading and you really want to know all the facts, you can start at the very beginning of our FAQ page. That is what all the financial analysts have been doing the last few years as they tracked the rise and fall of Deckers' stock price and we have enjoyed our in depth phone conversations with each and every one of them, especially the "short seller".

As for finding your way around, see the button above. Mouse over it. This was/is a carefully crafted site menu designed to be completely out of the way unless you want to call it up. We have no idea just how many hours went into adapting it for each page. You will find a similar button at the TOP of all of the main pages. When you want it, it is there, when you don't, it is not in your face.

Remember, we are old school. Blue text with an underline means it links to something in almost all cases though it will change color once you have clicked on it. That is the way it was in 1995 and, yes, we do understand that many folks are clueless so this is an educational endeavor as well.  (How many of you remember "floppy disks" ?) All text links are there for a reason, they ARE NOT advertisements. They either link to internal pages or carefully researched and relevant outside sources of information.

If you are viewing a page with a close up of the merchandise on a black background then the links are white text with white underline though all of those actually open up in a new tab. Just shut the tab down and you will be back to the original page. (Note that we listen to our customers and what may be second nature to you is not to someone else. We are NOT being condescending, we actually pay attention. We had to explain how the tab thing worked to a customer recently.)

At the very bottom of each of the main pages is a section which contains text links to all of the main pages, our email/contact form, address and phone #, and ordering information. We have tried very hard with all our links to determine which should go to a completely separate page or which should open up in a new tab in your browser. This has been a judgment call on our part. If we have failed, we apologize but it does show that time and thought goes into this web site.

As for being like everyone else, why? Really, we are not into "cookie cutter" web sites, trying to make as much money as possible with as little work as possible, invading your personal life, etc. We should be like everyone else?

So, if you really have to deal with a company that is a bit more conformist, we will take our  customer service to to an even higher level and refer you elsewhere with no hard feelings at all. Visit our list of competitors which will allow you to locate many additional sources, some which you would likely never find unless you Gooooooooooogled all day and night.

Have a great day. Thanks for your time and remember that good humor goes a long way the next time you have to call someone else's call center. Be nice, it is not their fault. They are so removed from the production of the merchandise you are asking/complaining about all they can do is follow a script.