Backwoods Blog

RUBBER BOOTS

The Isolation blues;

reflections during covid-19

When I was nine years old I worked my first job, picking potatoes on our family farm. With my paycheck I still remember one of the things I most wanted to purchase; a pair of gum rubbers for winter. It was a tall rubber boot that had removable felts in the bottom where you could pull them out to dry if your feet got wet. Up to that point I had been wearing rubber galoshes, a floppy black boot with metal snaps that fit over your shoes – not very cool. So one day after harvest (about this time of year) we went shopping in downtown Houlton to pick out my new boots with cash in hand. 

The store was called The Chain Apparel on the south side of Market Square and all I remember is that the shoe department was located in the basement of the store. There was one narrow stairway that led to the bottom floor; there were no windows, the ceiling was very low, the space was jam packed with merchandise and shoe boxes stacked taller than me and the air was filled with the thick, marvelous aroma of leather, rubber and shoe polish. Once I spotted the gum rubber I liked the clerk sat me down and helped me (and my mother) find the right size AND the right felt to go inside my boot and I made my purchase. When I went home I took my new boots out of the box and before I put them on I stuck my head inside the boot and breathed in…they smelled like rubber and a shoe store basement, just like the store did when I bought them. Although the new boot smell eventually wore off, to this day, whenever I smell a new boot (and I still do this) it takes me all the way back (over 50 years now) to that shoe store memory when I was but a younger guy. It’s truly amazing how something as simple as a smell or an aroma can associate itself with a memory and an experience years distant, and bring it immediately back to right here. 

Just this week I went shopping for new winter boots (a gum rubber no less) and I always get the same boot; a LaCrosse brand, 12 inch high top, logger boot with steel toe and shank. I always buy them at the same store and only in rural Maine can you find a pair of boots like these at a grocery store! They have a short shelf of chain saw and logging supplies right next to canned soda. In case you were wondering, when I got home the first thing I did was stick my head inside of each new boot and took a good whiff…the smell of fresh rubber and a shoe store basement just like fifty years ago. 

I figure if it’s going to be a long winter I’d better have my boots ready. Apparently my father also had a fine appreciation for a good pair of boots; note the picture below with his gum rubbers and socks pulled up over the top in classic fashion.  I know it’s unseasonably mild right now but don’t let that lull you into complacency.  Things have a way of turning white very quickly around here.  It’s best to have your boots and snow shovel at the ready just in case…

Have a good week everyone. 

In the woods,

Dave

November 12, 2020