My First Pair

I guess I should start on how I became fascinated with cowboy boots. I wasn't born in Texas, nor on a ranch. I was just a kid that watched a lot of the westerns on TV in the late 1950s and 1960s. Roy Rogers & Dale Evans were my favorites, followed closely by Gunsmoke and Rifleman. But then things changed in the later 1960s, TV dropped most of the western programs. Our idols like Roy and Gene got older and there was no new blood to replace them. During my teenage years, I became more interested in science and sports, so all of my earlier favorites were set aside for a decade or two.

I came to Texas for the very first time in 1978, a naive Ohioan, with a degree in geology, trying to learn the oil business, without getting killed. I was a mud-logger, or as we told ladies at the bars that we tried to impress, "hydrocarbon well-logging engineer" which they would respond quickly, "oh, a mud-logger." For those that don't know, mud-loggers, along with a laboratory trailer, would be at a well, drilling for oil and gas, from a certain starting depth, to the last depth that was drilled. Mud-loggers looked for "shows" in the drilling fluid (mud) while drilling activities were going on, and record the information to determine if the well had a chance to produce. The mud-loggers could be at the well for two-weeks, two months, however long. But it was a 24/7 job. I did it for two years, traveled mostly in East Texas, in little-bitty towns near Marshall, Longview, Nacagdoches, and Henderson.....those were the big towns. We lived in flea-bag hotels that made a Motel 6 look luxurious.

One day in late 1978 when I had an afternoon off I drove to a retail plaza in Nacogdoches, there was a department store in this plaza, located on the north side of Nacogdoches off of Highway 59. I saw where they had some boots for sale in the store, and I remembered the neat ads in "Sports Illustrated" with O J Simpson or Joe Namath advertising for Dingo or Acme boots. So I thought, "here I am in Texas, I need to have a pair of boots." So I tried a few on.

It wasn't a pleasurable experience. They were UNCOMFORTABLE!

I didn't see what the big deal or mystique was. So I happily put on my Chuck Taylor Converse All-Stars on, and forgot all about being a Texan or wearing cowboy boots.

Many years, a wonderful wife, two towns, two homes, and a couple jobs later, I started listening to country music again. I grew up in Southern West Virginia on "hillbilly music" so I was no stranger to Ernest, Hank, Kitty, and the rest. I had listen to rock 'n roll in college and for several years after graduation, but it became so terrible after disco, I did not listen as much. But now being in Dallas Texas, with all my co-workers talking about George Strait, Alan Jackson, Clint Black, and of coarse Garth Brooks, I gave it another chance. I started listening to it on the radio, more and more. I decided to give cowboy boots another chance.

One day in 1994, I was at Boot Town/Western Warehouse on Beltline in Addison, Texas, looking at cowboy boots. I didn't know diddly about them, so of coarse you listen to the expert, a salesman making minimum wage and commission. I wanted more of a businessman's attire boot, I was dressing mostly in office attire, suits & ties, so he pointed me to ropers in my size. I put on a pair of antique brown Lucchese ropers, and my feet felt like they belonged in them. So that day was my start.

Next post, I will try to explain how I went from one pair of ropers, to a hundred or more pairs.