Bibliophile Style: A Librarian’s Sock Swag

There’s a smell in highly trafficked libraries—musky, bookish, woody, and nostalgic—that will never be replicated by scrolling on a Kindle. The sensory experience of logging time in your local library feels familiar.

Stacks of shelves, well-worn carpets and rugs, nooks amongst the books with natural light and a comfy chair, and welcoming librarians who speak a hushed dialect that is a bit cliché.

In one library in a western mountain town, a librarian shows up to work every day with a handpicked pair of Darn Tough socks on.

Every day. Without fail.

“I wear Darn Tough almost every day to work,” the librarian says. “My mom buys them for me every Christmas, and the kids love it when I wear my socks with lemurs on unicycles, or the gray vegetable ones.”

Story Time

I know this because my two young sons regularly attend story time at this library. They file in from the cold winter mornings and crunch through the entry way over fallen aspen leaves during autumn. They sit through story time smelling like sunscreen in between summer’s schedule of bike rides and swim lessons. They spend spring’s muddy season with the librarian.

Every week of every season, our small town’s children spend 30 minutes with this librarian and her handpicked books and handpicked Darn Tough socks.

During story time, kids sit wherever they feel like they belong. A couple months ago, one small boy laid with his back to the carpet and stared at the ceiling through the entire story. Afterwards, the kids are unleashed into the library, and the Children's Room turns into complete chaos.

Careful Selections

The librarian carefully picks the week’s book to align with the season. Timely stories about Jack Frost or snowballs, Old Mother West Wind’s animals of the forest, dragons and wizards, artists and adventurers, or far-off locales that pique the kids’ interest and spark interesting conversations between father and sons during the rest of the day’s adventures.

The librarian also carefully selects the right Darn Tough socks to pair with her style. Sometimes the socks complement her story selection, too. Every week, a color splash sneaks out from the top of her boots and the cuff of her pants.

A rooster standing on striated lines once made an appearance on her socks when she read about farm animals. I’ve seen owls, squirrels with cameras, and lemurs on unicycles.

A hedgehog schlepping a nap roll was spotted by my youngest son and made him giggle — there was no correlation between the hedgehog and the story —but the dirty hiking socks with a hedgehog hinted that the librarian went for a quick hike at lunchtime.

Our librarian’s sock swag is a tableau of style. The menagerie of exotic animals and iconic graphics is a conversation starter for shy, inquisitive children huddled on the carpet. The kids eagerly listen to stories read from a voice that isn’t their parents, while the librarian’s sock-of-choice is a nod to her lifestyle away from the bookshelves and work.

Conversation Starters

One winter day, our librarian’s socks served as a springboard for a memorable conversation. My boys asked about the American flag after snow day’s story time at the library. The conversation about patriotism stemmed from the librarian’s socks.

The librarian didn’t have time to change out of her ski socks after a powder morning on our local hill.

There’s a “Powder Day Policy” at long-standing establishments in mountain towns that encourages employees to ski for a few hours on days with more than six inches of new snow. On those days, the ones when most locals ski a few laps before work, the librarian sports ski socks under work clothes. Darn Tough takes her directly from the library to the ski hill, and back again.

That day we skied powder in the morning with our friends and neighbors. Then, sat wherever we felt comfortable during story time in the library. On the way home I talked to my boys about skiing and patriotism, “blower snow” and our country, fall-line turns and the American flag. It’s a memory I hold thanks to the librarian’s red, white, and blue ski socks that made a cameo during story time.

The Thread

The books the librarian chooses to read to our town’s children coupled with the things she does during her free time and the Darn Tough socks she selects to pair with her work and passions tell a story. It’s a layered story, like all stories worth telling. 

I know that she’s a hiker and a skier because she sports hiking socks in the summer and ski socks on powder days. In addition to being a reader, a librarian, and part of our community during the weekdays, I know she fishes and backpacks on the weekends because she threads nuggets into story time about her weekend adventures.

Her socks hint at her passions, and they represent our mountain town’s values. The weight and length of the socks change with the seasons, but the stories accompanied by Darn Tough logo are a constant.

About the Author

Greg Fitzsimmons lives in Colorado with his wife and two sons. He’s a storyteller with bylines featured by outlets like GQ, ESPN, and Powder. He’s also crafted stories for brands from Patagonia and Blizzard Skis to Red Bull and—now—Darn Tough. He skis, hikes, rides bikes, and throws rocks into the Roaring Fork River with his family.