Boots In, Boots Out

This may be hard for some people to believe, but I am not trying to establish a record of how many pairs of boots can be owned and worn by one man. I did, however, briefly hit a new record by receiving a new pair of boots -- Guide Gear engineer boots -- that I picked up on a surplus sale for only US$20. This brought my collection up to 150 pairs of boots.

However, the very next day, I shipped a pair of my boots to a buddy (he will reveal himself at a later point in time.) These were my Chippewa lug-soled engineer boots that I bought from Stompers on a close-out sale in 2007.

The Chippewa boots were labeled size 10-1/2D yet my feet swam around in them so much that they were more like an 11EE, which is my friend's boot size. No matter how thick my socks nor how many additional insole/inserts I put in the boots, my feet continued to "swim around" in the boots and therefore they never felt right. They're great boots, but not my size and since they were a close out since Chippewa stopped making them with a lug sole, not avaiable in my size.

So, for now, my boot collection remains stable at 149 147 pairs (oops, in June, I had to discard a pair of Harley Harness Boots and a pair of Corcoran Field Boots, but I forgot to delete them from my list until now.)

One pair in, one pair out... and that's probably what it will be like for a while. Again, believe it or not, I do not envision buying any more boots, but I'm not one to turn down a great deal or opportunity.

Life is short: wear your boots!