Final exam boots

March 18, 2013 • 5:37 am

Today is the final exam in my ecology-and-evolution course (I teach the evolution part), and it will all be over at noon.  If any students are reading this, good luck!

Even though it’s slushy and sleety today, I decided to wear a nice pair of boots, these hand-tooled jobbies from Falconhead:

P1000296

The hand-stitching on the shafts, and the tooled pulls at the top, are also nice, so I took a photo of the entire boot:

P1000293

23 thoughts on “Final exam boots”

  1. Beautiful, Dr. C!

    May I propose a new fashion trend? I’d like for it to be OK for men to wear leggings or tight skinny pants with boots, like we women do, so the artwork on the upper part of the boots can be displayed. 🙂

    1. Well, a man can if he’s in a heavy metal band or a fan. Spandex jeans have been common since at least the 1980s. But you need a smaller waist than I have now to carry it off… 

      /@

        1. Southern boogie!

          Back in the day I had plain black spandex and snakeskin-print denim/spandex jeans, but wore them with Converse boots, not cowboy boots (see below).

          /@

    3. Cowboys used to wear their pant bottoms inside their boots. Boots weren’t called “shit kickers” for nuthin’. You’d always tuck your pants inside your boots, because it’s easier to wipe sticky organic matter off of leather, than off of cloth.

  2. Nice!

    So, Jerry, each time I visit the US (typically the South-West), I toy with the idea of getting a pair of cowboy boots, but I’m chary of being ripped off by tourist-y shops. (I guess I could buy a pair in the UK, but there’s not that much choice)

    How much would you expect to pay for a decent “starter” pair? And are there any particular things to look for in a good boot?

    /@

    2. I buy most of mine on eBay where you can get incredible bargains. If you want a really high-quality boot, new from a store, you’ll pay $500 and up, but on eBAY in the US you can get them for $125 or so on.

      You need a good custom-equivalent boot with no foam padding, wooden pegs in the soles, and so on. Some makers, like LUcchese Classics (avoid their other lines) are reliable. But eBay is really the way to go if you know your US size–much cheaper even with international shipping.

    3. Ah, Ant, then you must be one of those Limeys who Gary P Nunn & Jerry Jeff Walker sing about:

      Them Limey eyes
      Was eyein’ a prize
      Some people call manly footwear…

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4Ppc3jz3GE

      (Music starts ~1:15, lyric @4:32. JJW’s studio version is much better, but it doesn’t appear to be on YT. This was the theme song of the country program from the sadly no-longer-extant Upsala* College in NJ when I was a grad student long ago @ Rutgers)

      *For the Swedes – only one P in this Upsala.

  6. Beautiful. I keep thinkign about the storage … You must have many shelves of boots.

  8. Those are nice boots! They remind me of a pair I had in high school, that were custom-made by the old Hyer Boot Co. of Olathe, Kansas. They had a black kangaroo vamp and blue kid uppers, with the traditional Hyer pattern in 5-row green and yellow stitching (all to my specifications). They also had a riding heel (although I didn’t have a horse.) I wish I still had them, although they probably wouldn’t fit anymore. Price for all that in 1960: $50.00!

  9. Sadly, Jerry, your lingo hasn’t travelled well. The only common use of the word “Jobbie” over here in the UK is as Glaswegian slang for a turd (or a Richard, as cockneys call them). This usage was further popularised by a brilliant (Glaswegian) comic called Billy Connolly, as in “there was a wee jobbie on the doorstep…”.

    Seems a bit harsh on your boots…

  10. Your boots all seem to look the same to me. What do I know? Are they all different?

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