{"id":480,"date":"2009-07-14T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-07-14T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=480"},"modified":"2009-07-14T04:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-07-14T08:00:00","slug":"my-first-pair-of-boots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=480","title":{"rendered":"My First Pair of Boots"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family:verdana;\">There is a thread of responses to a question about when you got your first pair of boots, and how old you were when you knew you were &#8220;interested&#8221; in boots on the &#8220;Boots on Line&#8221; discussion board.<\/p>\n<p>I replied to it, thinking back to the days when I spent summers on a family horse ranch in Oklahoma.  I was surrounded by cowboys and their boots all the time.  I got my first pair of boots at a very young age, and I don&#8217;t quite remember how old I was &#8212; probably age 5, wearing those cute little-boy boots that they made at the time.<\/p>\n<p>I remember that a sister was getting married when I was ten years old, and having quite an argument with my mother when she tried to drag me to a store to get a new pair of dress shoes.  I insisted on wearing my boots.  At first, my mother tried to talk me out of it, but realized that I wasn&#8217;t going to budge, so she just dropped it.  I think she thought I would feel funny wearing boots when everyone else was dressed up at the wedding reception.  Actually, quite the opposite happened.  I loved having my boots be the center of attention!<\/p>\n<p>From then on, it was boots only.  I spent most of my time &#8220;back East&#8221; where I live now from about age 10, only going back to Oklahoma for occasional visits.  In my early teen years, Frye boots were all the rage.  I clearly remember wearing Fryes in Junior High and High School.  I know that I must have had some regular cowboy boots, too, but I think I wore &#8217;em out or trashed &#8217;em (or both.)<\/p>\n<p>I remember being fascinated by watching some other guys in class who wore harness boots.  Soon enough, I got myself a pair, and wore them almost exclusively.  I couldn&#8217;t stop fiddling with &#8217;em during class, pulling on the harness straps until they were stretched and almost drooping on the floor.  It was kinda cool, in a high-school-kid kinda way.<\/p>\n<p><a onblur=\"try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}\" href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_yytsDp42pSs\/Sluuj-NnqXI\/AAAAAAAABdU\/e20Efk3XMZg\/s1600-h\/Searseng2.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 225px; height: 240px;\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_yytsDp42pSs\/Sluuj-NnqXI\/AAAAAAAABdU\/e20Efk3XMZg\/s320\/Searseng2.jpg?w=584\" alt=\"\" id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5358068114706114930\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a>At age 18, I had saved enough of my own money to buy my first motorcycle.  Along with it, I got myself my first pair of &#8220;bad-ass&#8221; engineer boots, made by Sears.  I remember a guy in high school who always wore engineer boots.  I think he was my first crush, though I didn&#8217;t really know it.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, I can remember placing the catalog order for those boots, then getting the call that they were ready.  I rode over to the local Sears store and picked up my boots.  I tore the box open and put them on right in the parking lot.  I thought &#8220;I had arrived.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>I still have those Sears engineer boots and most of my Fryes, though no others from my earlier years.  Anyway, I thank my buddy Bob for initiating the thread on BOL and some fond memories of my own. <\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There is a thread of responses to a question about when you got your first pair of boots, and how old you were when you knew you were &#8220;interested&#8221; in boots on the &#8220;Boots on Line&#8221; discussion board. I replied &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=480\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,9,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cowboy-boots","category-frye-boots","category-motorcycle-boots"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}