Latest Trends: Old Bowling Shoes and Guard Llamas

0 Comments | Insight on the News, May 28, 2001 | by Stephen Goode

Llamas guarding businesses in the Windy City! Old and ragged bowling shoes as the latest in must-wear styles! Trends of the new millennium? Maybe not, but who knows? Here are the stories. Make up your own mind.

In Beavercreek, Ohio, a town of 35,000 near Dayton, folks are making a fashion statement by walking off from Beaver-Vu Bowl, a bowling alley, wearing the welt-used and often dirt-smudged shoes they rented while at the popular entertainment establishment. The Beaver-Vu has suffered theft of about 30 pairs so far this year, manager Pat Henderhan told the Associated Press (AP). Henderhan's employees tell him they've seen young people wearing the easily identifiable footwear around town -- hoping, perhaps, that they're giving everyone the impression that they're wearing the bowling-style shoes (without the numbers on the side) that cost $100 and more from such designers as Kenneth Cole. Beaver-Vu now requires bowlers to leave one of their own shoes as collateral when they bowl.

Meanwhile, at Ameropan Oil Corp. (AOC) in Chicago, llamas have become the security-guards du jour, though that's not what they were intended to be. AOC President Rolf Wittich told AP that the company bought a few of the South American animals to eat weeds around the company's buildings and oil tanks because conventional methods of keeping lawns neat wouldn't work. Lawn mowers might throw off sparks and cause an explosion. Goats didn't work because they climbed the steps to the tops of oil tanks.

The llamas proved excellent at keeping lawns trimmed closely and didn't do any climbing, but then AOC officials noted that break-ins dropped to zero after introduction of the beasts.

Speculation is that the llamas' reputation (undeserved) for spitting right in the eye of an enemy and causing blindness deters would-be burglars, but for the people thinks it has to do with their size. The llamas at AOC range between 250 and 400 pounds, and the presence of such big critters is likely to cause anyone to think twice about challenging them.