<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Yes, go ahead and finish the lyric begun above;\u00a0 \u201c<\/span>are made for walking, and that\u2019s just what they\u2019ll do, one day these boots are going to walk all over you.\u201d<\/span><\/i>\u00a0 Some may hear Nancy Sinatra\u2019s voice singing her No 1 hit from 1966.\u00a0 It was written and produced by Lee Hazlewood and entered the <\/span>Billboard Hot 100 <\/span><\/i>on January 22 of that year.\u00a0 Though it has been covered by the likes of Loretta Lynn, Megadeth (yes, that Megadeth), Billy Ray Cyrus, Haley Reinhart, and Jessica Simpson, I prefer the version done by the late Carol Reid.\u00a0 Carol was one of the movers and shakers responsible for remodeling the Ontonagon Theater of Performing Arts (located in the Ontonagon Township Memorial Building).\u00a0 On more occasions than I can count, I was lucky enough to be playing the drums with The Easy Money Band when Carol would be brought on stage to perform the song.\u00a0 More than a few people see it as Carol\u2019s signature tune (rather than Nancy\u2019s) in the same way the late Donnie Hawkins\u2019 name became attached to <\/span>The Mule Skinner\u2019s Blues.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>Carol had a lot of fun with the song and so did we.\u00a0 With that said, let us turn our attention to boots – real \u2018boots on the ground\u2019 boots.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0My first memories of boots include plastic bread bags.\u00a0 During my years in elementary school, trundling off on winter mornings included slipping on an old fashioned pair of rubber galoshes.\u00a0 Over the years, I wore them all – the type with the metal clasps and those with zippers.\u00a0 What they all shared was the near impossibility of getting my shoes to slide in or out of them.\u00a0 Getting my feet in was easy enough because I could stand up and force the issue.\u00a0 Getting them out, however, was an entirely different matter.\u00a0 The feet came out fine, but the shoes (and sometimes my socks) remained.\u00a0 It required a good deal of tugging and pulling to extricate them.\u00a0 My mother heard my complaints and solved the problem by having me put an empty plastic bread bag over each foot.\u00a0 At first, it felt a little funny to be seen doing this at school, but this \u2018easy on \/ easy off\u2019 method overcame any self consciousness I may have felt.\u00a0 I also couldn\u2019t help but notice a few of my classmates began doing the same thing.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The rubber school boots were fine for school, but extended outdoor winter activities required a different mode of footwear.\u00a0 As long as I remember, I was the recipient of hand me down Sorel boots with felt liners.\u00a0 My brother\u2019s feet grew faster than mine so every time he got a new pair, I got his old ones.\u00a0 If any of you were the youngest in the family, hand-me-downs were one of the joys of being the younger brother or sister.\u00a0 As long as his feet kept growing, new boots were purchased and the old ones were passed on to me.\u00a0 My dad always had a pair with eye hooks the laces needed to be criss-crossed through many times over to tie (to me, they seemed to take forever to get on).\u00a0 I was happy with eyelets with only one set of hooks at the top that could be ignored if one was in a hurry to get rolling.\u00a0 I convinced my mother to let me wear the Sorels to school one day but by the time I came home for lunch, my feet felt like they were on their own little sauna.\u00a0 After putting on dry socks, regular shoes, and rubber boots for the return to school, it was a mistake never to be repeated unless we were having our annual outdoor fun day.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The rubber boots went away in seventh grade.\u00a0 The only two years I had to ride a bus to school meant trotting two blocks to the bus stop in front of the new Marquette Senior High building on Fair Avenue.\u00a0 The first really rainy fall day, I made the double mistake of wearing my rubber boots and my old Safety Patrol rain poncho.\u00a0 Nothing could have prepared me for the vicious attack my attire evoked from the eighth graders riding the same bus across town.\u00a0 I did wear the boots home but the poncho got rolled up and tucked under my arm for the ride home.\u00a0 My poor mother could not understand why I refused to wear either (poncho or boots) for the rest of seventh grade.\u00a0 She must have figured it out because she did invest in a more waterproof outer coat for me but no matter how much she tried, she couldn\u2019t get me to wear boots to the bus stop, even in winter.\u00a0 As mothers are want to do, mine decided to take action rather than press for an explanation.\u00a0 I would not be wearing my school shoes to the bus stop the next winter if she had anything to say about it.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I came home from school one day to find a brand new pair of Chukka boots waiting for me.\u00a0 Being a fashion maven wasn\u2019t my strong suit so I had no idea what she had in mind when I asked, \u201cWhat are these?\u201d \u00a0 My mother explained they were something new she had found in the Sears Catalog.\u00a0 \u201cBoots that look like shoes,\u201d she said.\u00a0 At this point, there was no use arguing the point so I tried them on and must have deemed them okay.\u00a0 Mom was always ahead of the fashion curve.\u00a0 I was wearing wide-wale corduroy pants, paisley pattern shirts, and vellore shirts with leather lacing instead of buttons before they were trendy.\u00a0 From that day forward, she never had to nag me about wearing shoes with no boots in the winter and my feet were much happier for it.\u00a0 All fashion trends have to start somewhere so I guess it took my sensible mother to put me on the path of wearing Chukka boots, a habit I continue to this day.\u00a0 Back then, there were only a couple of styles on the market but these days, the great variety almost makes it hard to choose which way to go.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t think that much about fashion choices back then, but as one expert described the style recently, \u201cSwapping sneakers for Chukkas is an easy way to elevate all your casual looks.\u00a0 They remain suitable asa\u00a0 choice for a business casual look and can be worn with khakis and a sport coat or blazer.\u201d\u00a0 Who knew they could be such a fashion statement?\u00a0 Shoot, I was happy to have warm, dry feet without being forced to wear rubber boots.\u00a0 I also decided to be a supporter of anyone who \u2018did their own thing\u2019 fashion wise – no fashion bullies!<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0My favorite pair of boots came courtesy of the United States Army, but I didn\u2019t have to serve a hitch to get them.\u00a0 My brother ended his first year of teaching in downstate Chesaning by getting drafted in the summer of 1971.\u00a0 He came home that Christmas with a set of regulation high-top Army boots to go along with the regulation gloves, jacket and liner he had gotten me for my birthday.\u00a0 I got the quick \u2018this is how you shine your boots\u2019 tutorial and spent the winter semester of my freshman year in college wearing them everywhere.\u00a0 With the right socks, they were as warm as any felt lined Sorels.\u00a0 The traction soles were great for any surface, and I really liked the extra ankle support they provided.\u00a0 My second summer at the Huron Mountain Club, we did one of those acts of idiocy only 18 year olds can do that really put them to the test.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0After climbing the trail to the top of Huron Mountain one afternoon, we decided to run (yes, run) back to the car.\u00a0 The trail had some steep sections and in the moment, we thought it would be a good idea to jump straight from one corner to the next and skip every other switchback on the trail down.\u00a0 As we neared the bottom, we hit one section of trail that was a little more rugged than the rest.\u00a0 When I launched myself to jump to the next landing, I realized it was a little farther down than the switchbacks we had already encountered.\u00a0 At twenty feet, it seemed to take forever for me to hit the trail again.\u00a0 It may have only seemed like my life flashed before my eyes before I hit with a thud.\u00a0 A quick tuck and roll (as one sees a paratrooper do when they touch down) left me staring up taking a quick survey of which body parts were still intact.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0How the three of us managed to splat down, roll, and finally come to a stop without landing on each other is one of those little mysteries we probably should have thought about before going airborne.\u00a0 \u201cAnybody break anything?\u201d was the first question that came out of my mouth.\u00a0 We compared notes, took a quick inventory of our bruises, and thanked our footwear we were still in one piece.\u00a0 The other two guys had on pretty heavy duty hiking boot and I was sporting my trusty black Army boots.\u00a0 Jim summarized the event in two simple phrases:\u00a0 \u201cProbably a good thing we didn\u2019t try that in tennis shoes.\u00a0 How about we walk the rest of the way?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When we first began taking students on hikes at the Porcupine Mountain Wilderness State Park, I dug my trusty Army boots out of storage.\u00a0 They had been sadly neglected but a little spit and black polish had them looking almost as good as new.\u00a0 Knowing the terrain we were going to encounter would be rough, it made sense for me to give my ankles enough support.\u00a0 Having sprained both of them during my college years, it only made sense to give them all the help they could get.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The lesser of the two sprains was an accident.\u00a0 Before they put in the artificial surface and new bleachers at the Hedgecock Field House, they had those gray, wooden ones ringing the basketball court.\u00a0 After watching the NMU team play, I was on the way down to the floor when the person to my left stumbled into me.\u00a0 I took a step to the right to catch myself from falling and my right foot hit the framing that held up the seats.\u00a0 I knew immediately what happened so I hopped out the side exit and stuck my foot into a snowbank.\u00a0 It hurt like the dickens but the cold kept it from ballooning up.\u00a0 It was sore the next morning, but after a couple of days hobbling around, it improved enough I could get back to exercising again.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0During my semester of student teaching in the spring of 1975, I had sprained my left ankle badly playing a pickup basketball game at the Field House.\u00a0 The doctor at the NMU Health Clinic told me helpfully, \u201cWell, I don\u2019t think you broke it but maybe you would have done less ligament damage if you had,\u201d before she sent me off to have it x-rayed at the hospital.\u00a0 It turned out the tech who x-rayed it was the same guy who had undercut me playing basketball.\u00a0 I went up for a shot and he moved under me which resulted in my foot landing on the top of his instead of the floor.\u00a0 It made an awful popping noise and when I was able to get down to the locker room to change, I realized it was the same foot I would have to use to depress the clutch on my truck.\u00a0 It was a painful drive home.\u00a0 When the x-ray guy happily said, \u201cI kind of figured I might see you today,\u201d I would have hit him with my crutch if he had been standing any closer.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I spent the next day student teaching on crutches but my arms rebelled and said, \u201cNope, this isn\u2019t going to last long.\u201d\u00a0 Luckily, I had purchased a pair of calf-high moose skin boots from an Indigenous craftsman while we were on a geology field trip around Lake Superior.\u00a0 The next day, I gritted my teeth and tightened the laces up so they became more like the walking boot one gets to wear after ankle surgery.\u00a0 I was helping Fred Rydholm with the Bothwell Middle School track team that spring and once he saw me limping around, he told me to spend the first half hour of practice in the whirlpool.\u00a0 Between the boots and the water treatment, I was almost tap dancing within a week.\u00a0 The prospect of hiking in any kind of rough terrain brought me back to wearing my extra supportive Army boots.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Sometime in the late 1980s, we expanded our Porkies field trips to include orienteering with the eighth graders.\u00a0 Orienteering employs topographic maps and compasses to travel between points without the need to simply hike down a trail.\u00a0 The first few years we took this day-long trek, I was extremely glad to have my old favorite combat boots.\u00a0 By rights, the thirty years we made this annual hike should probably have worn them out, except for one minor detail.\u00a0 Before one of our hikes in the early 2000s, my beloved boots were nowhere to be found.\u00a0 After searching all the usual hiding places, I even began to wonder if I had ditched them and just forgot about it.\u00a0 I was able to pick up a pair of cross-trek hiking boots for the occasion.\u00a0 They are good boots and I still wear them to this day, but I missed my old go-to hikers.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Even as an adult, the \u2018hand-me-down\u2019 boot thing was still part of my life.\u00a0 Twice, my dad took advantage of an offer to test drive a new pick-up truck when the dealer was offering a free pair of Sorel boots as a come on.\u00a0 The first pair was passed down to me because dad found his arches were high enough he could not get his feet into them.\u00a0 When he gave them to me, I knew his size 11s would be at least a size too big for me, but with an extra pair of socks, maybe they would fit.\u00a0 Up to then, I never gave the arches of my feet much thought but true to my family genetics, I could not get them on either.\u00a0 Eventually I found someone with the right shaped foot and gifted them a really nice pair of boots.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0His second \u2018boots for test drive\u2019 event landed dad an even better style of Sorel that he could actually get his feet into.\u00a0 Unfortunately, it wasn\u2019t long after he got them that he missed a step going to the basement and ended up breaking his ankle.\u00a0 He got it plated and pinned, but the boots became a moot point when his outdoor trekking was hampered by his ankle.\u00a0 When he offered them to me, he made it a point to emphasize that yes, they were a style he could wear so they would also fit my feet.\u00a0 They are great boots, but they are heavy enough I do not like to wear them for anything other than running the snowblower.\u00a0 The padding must be significant because it feels like I could fall down and the boots would stand me up again like one of those old Palooka Joe blow-up punching bags.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I took my last orienteering hike in the spring of 2018, just a couple of weeks before I retired.\u00a0 As I began devoting some of my new free time to sorting out the mess in my garage, I found an opaque plastic bag hanging from a hook in a back corner.\u00a0 Lo and behold, my missing Army boots reappeared nearly fifteen years after they had vanished.\u00a0 Once they get their spit polish shine back, I will have to take them for a test hike to see if they still work.\u00a0 And no, I do not plan to jump off any high rocks to see if they still offer me enough ankle support to keep me from breaking my ankle.\u00a0 They may have saved the 18 year-old me but I am not tempting fate fifty years later.\u00a0 With apologies to Carol and Nancy, \u201c<\/span>These boots are made for [only] walking.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0After years of wondering where Chukka boots got their name, I finally looked it up.\u00a0 They originated with British troops serving in North Africa during the Western Desert Campaign of WWII.\u00a0 They were manufactured for officers in Cairo\u2019s Khan el Khalili bazaar and resembled a popular boot style from South Africa known as Veldskoen.\u00a0 When infantryman Nathan Clark observed officers from the Eighth Army wearing them, he took the design back to his family\u2019s company after the war.\u00a0 The \u2018Chukka\u2019 name more than likely comes from a seven and a half minute playing period in Polo known as a Chukker or Chukka.\u00a0 The Brits were fond of wearing boots while playing and socializing after a match. \u00a0 The British Army gets a nod for the idea, but Clark can be credited for making them popular. The Chukka became a \u2018must-have\u2019 fashion in the 1950s and 1960s especially among actors like Marlon Brando and Steve McQueen.\u00a0 As I said, as the driver of my JH wardrobe, my mother was always up on what was new in the world of fashion.\u00a0 I just never imagined she may have been taking hints from Brando and McQueen.<\/span><\/p>\n Top Piece Video:\u00a0\u00a0These Boots Are Made for Walking by . . .<\/em>yeah, I was curious about the Megadeth version, but could not pass up Nancy – it is much closer to what Carole sang!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Yes, go ahead and finish the lyric begun above;\u00a0 \u201care made for walking, and that\u2019s just what they\u2019ll do, one day these boots are going to walk all over you.\u201d\u00a0 Some may hear Nancy Sinatra\u2019s voice singing her No 1 hit from 1966.\u00a0 It was written and produced by Lee Hazlewood and entered the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,11,8,12,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bands-musicians","category-education","category-from-the-vaults","category-humor","category-woas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2751"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2751\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2754,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2751\/revisions\/2754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}