Howdy:
Spent a fine afternoon polishing boots. I enjoy the task and it gets done too infrequently, these days. Luckily, I have a few pair to choose from, so that when a particular pairs' shine is no longer satisfactory, I can rotate in a new pair.
Nothing too fancy, just Kiwi, a cotton rag, and a quality horse hair brush to finish off the brush polish, my daily wear boot/shoe shine. I can do a fine spit shine, but reserve that for special occasions. I can not recall ever going to work without a shined pair of boots or shoes since I left the Army.
You might notice a pattern, trend, or commonality in the image below. Yes, I prefer black leather boots & shoes. All my clothing accessories are black leather, too. I also prefer my CCW leather to be--
wait for it--black. I do not have the patience to drum up whole sets of accessories & gear in different colors. I also don't want to be the guy who mixes brown & black leather gear. Not having any brown (or cordovan, gray, etc.) makes it easy to avoid that faux pas.
Here is my stable, less one pair of GI leg boots that are presently in no shape to be shined (still wet from cleaning off lots of muck and debris from yard work).
Going from left to right:
Nocona western bootsHippo lower, bull hide upper, walking heel, resoled with a thin rubber sole that looks like leather (not so good for dancing, but great for walking). 16 years old. Tough as nails.
Redwing RopersSteel toe & shank. IMNHO, the most comfortable western-style pull-on work boot on the planet. 3 years old.
Redwing 6" Work Boots, NewerSteel toe & shank. Second pair of this particular boot. No longer made by RW, but the same thing in another color is here:
http://www.redwingshoes.com/productdetails.aspx?prodid=1159This is a great everyday boot/shoe that can be polished to a fare-the-well. 5 years old.
Redwing 6" Work Boots, Re-soledJust like above, but older and have been resoled. Primary work foot gear for 5 years until I got them resoled and bought the pair above to help out. 9 years old.
Redwing Logger Boots, 9"Steel toe, steel shank, Vibram lug sole from hades. Redwings in general are built very well. These are built like a tank: quality materials, quality execution, and lots of it. They outweigh all the boots to their right, combined. If these boots were a truck, they'd be a 1-ton Ford F350 dually 4x4 crew cab with the turbo diesel and goose neck hitch. Thye came with brown laces and I will replace them with black speed laces. More detail here:
http://www.armedpolitesociety.com/index.php?topic=16342.04 months old.
GI Jungle Boots, ResoledGot these courtesy of Uncle Sam. I hurriedly had them resoled with the near-flat heel-less Vibram lug sole. They wear like athletic shoes and were my favorite boots in the field where frostbite was not an issue. They were the boots I broke m leg/ankle in on my last jump. Medic gave me the choice: cut them off or pull them off. Really, there was no choice as far as I was concerned. These have had many, many miles put on them through rough conditions. The cracked leather shows it. They are on their last legs and I have been agonizing over a suitable replacement for about a year. I think my boot purchase detailed here:
http://www.armedpolitesociety.com/index.php?topic=17617.0will do the trick, once they are worn in. 12 years old.
GI Jungle Boots, Issue SoleNot as nice as the resoled pups above, but nearly so. Also at the end of their useful lives. The pups above were re-soled early in life, these have had the lugs worn flat. 12 years old.
Son's Western BootsMy FIL (AKA, "Pop-pop") bought these for my son. They are a nice distressed leather and have a darn good rubber sole. We get western boots for the kids a size or size & a half large to last the year. They love their boots, as they are pretty much the first foot gear they could easily put on. I make my son wear them whenever he helps me in the yard, as a bit of his safety kit. These get nothing but a cleaning and a leather conditioner to keep them water repellent.
Daughter's Western BootsAnother gift from my FIL. I about had a coronary when my daughter chose these. Not because they are pink, but because they are
vinyl. WTH, over? They just didn't have any pink boots made out of what God and John Wayne intended boots to be made out of. No persuasion was effective, in my efforts to steer her to boots made from steer. The girl knows what she wants.
Not shown are the two pair of Wellco combat boots I recently bought. I haven't the slightest idea how to care for them. I think black Kiwi is probably not called for.
I guess if I have a clothing Achilles Heel, it is my desire for quality foot gear. I'll compromise many other bits of the wardrobe, but I want quality foot gear on my dogs. I also favor boots, due to the career-ending injury I sustained on my last jump. That bit of leg bone where they put the bones back together and then went back in and scoured out the (operation-induced) bone infection is a wee bit tender. I like to keep it covered and the ankle supported.
