A Boot in the Hand

Cowboy boots. Suede, pointy-toed, plastic gold-inlaid cowboy boots. That's what I wanted. But the parents were having none of it.

"What's wrong with the shoes you've got?" Mom asked. "And you have those nice mittens and hat that your grandma knitted you. You have warm things to wear to school."

Aye. That hat with the colored tassles and loose weave that let the winter winter wind blow through it straight to my cold ears. And those mittens. Nobody on the playground at Sierra Vista Elementary School wore any kind of mittens, much less orange-blue-red-green hand-knitted mittens, with idiot strings no less.

No, they wore jeans and denim jackets and cowboy boots. This was southern Arizona and the children of ranchers, braceros, soldiers, and miners went to the school. They dressed like their parents, like people were supposed to dress in the Southwest.

I looked like a Lutheran kid from Minnesota. A total nerd.

I had to have cowboy boots.

Luckily for me, my neighbor, Hank, had a beat-up pair that no longer fit. Yes, they had some scuffs, a few holes, and the heels were worn on the inside, so he walked knock-kneed.

He was willing to trade. We negotiated.

"So whatcha got?" he asked.

"Marbles," I said.

"Nah."

"BB gun?"

Head shake.

"Silver dollar?"

"Let's see it."

I took him into my room where I had an 1893 silver dollar in mint condition in a plastic case. It had been a gift and I did not use it much.

"My mom collects coins," he said.

"Go ahead and show it to her," I offered.

In two minutes he was back. Done deal.

Two days later I was walking away from the back door to catch the bus for school looking down at my new, too big, cowboy boots when my mom asked "Where did you get those boots?"

"I traded for them. Hank."

Pause. Long pause.

"What did you trade?"

"My silver dollar."

The door slammed and Mom was on the phone before I got to the gate. There was some yelling.

When I got home after school, Mom was there. She was mad. She told me to return the boots. I knew better than to argue.

Hank's mom gave us a silver dollar, but it was not the one I had traded. It was a beat-up, 1922 different version. His mom swore up and down that it was the coin that Hank brought home and had closed the subject. "Put her foot down," as Mom said.

Mom was furious, frustrated. She didn't want to talk about those "damned cowboy boots."

That was all good, because about two weeks later, my dad was transferred to Alaska. People didn't wear cowboy boots in Alaska. Up there, where people had sled dogs and fur parkas, they wore something called "Tuffy Boots." Man, did I want a pair of Tuffies.