30 Year Socks

Longevity: 30 Year Old Socks

"I am not sure when I first started wearing these socks. I think it was in the late 60's or early 70's... One doesn't normally take much notice of socks. And they weren't my favorite socks anyway since the fabric was kind of hard and scratchy. I had other socks that were softer and were more pleasant to wear."

"It was only gradually that I began to think of them as remarkable. Most socks start to get threadbare in patches after only a year or two of intermittent use and have to be thrown out. But I had these blue socks (they were all the same color of dark blue) that just kept showing up in my sock drawer."

"They are still kind of harsh and scratchy and they have lost some of their elasticity but they don't show any wear at all. I asked my mother about them recently and she said that my father still has a bunch of brown ones of the same material that are equally everlasting."

I asked her if she knew what kind of textile they are made of but she doesn't remember... It is definitely some sort of synthetic; not cotton or wool. She did say that socks made of that material were only on the market for a few years and that she has never seen any since. She reckon's the manufacturers decided that making socks that don't wear out was not such a good idea... They would rather have you buy new socks every few years. Who knows...."

Doug
Engineer
3/22/05