CowboyBootStories.Com

I am 40 years old and never owned a pair of cowboy boots. This may sound dumb but I ride with out. It all started when my daughter was 2 years old. She loved horses, every time we would pass an amish buggy she would get so excited just to see the horse. at about age 5 she started to ask if she could have a horse and we just kept telling her someday maybe. Well at age 8 we bought her her first pony, Ginger. I got her into lessons and went all out to start showing at the small town shows, we bought her everything she would need. As we all know horses are addicting. We bought another horse so her an I could ride together. Everytime we would go to the stores to buy a pair of boots for me I as a mother would always put my daughters needs ahead of my own. Please don’t get me wrong she is not a selfish girl at all. She always says “mom don’t you think you should get your boots” I always say maybe next time. Why do we as parents do this? I have gone several times to buy a pair but there always seems to be something that is more important than my own. I am not writing this story to win the boots but to let others know that I have been riding for 6 years and I have been thrown off my horse and I didn’t have cowboy boots on. I just make sure that the shoes that I wear are shoes that won’t get caught up in the stirrups. For safty reasons I do make sure my daughter has everything she needs.
Good luck to all of you on winning a pair of boots.

Divorced and lost, I had decided I was going to live my dream and become a cowgirl! Although I had never owned a horse, I found myself buying my most prized possession -My First Pair of Ariat Boots! Followed closely by a few horses. I started by cleaning off any mud that landed on my new leather boots, after a few days I had to let go of the idea that they were to remain in a prestige condition if I were going to play cowgirl. I wore them religiously, even to church although the barn smell probably had everyone praying that I would leave my boots behind, but they were a symbol of my new life. Thru the years, those boots, beat up and worn have been the First Boots for myself, my daughter, son, and step son. Thus the title given to them “Training Boots”. They now stand proudly displayed in my old farm house as a reminder of the first steps of my new life. Just waiting to inspire the next beginning rider to come along .. Thanks Old Boots! From All of Us!

I have an old pair of Justin lace-up workboots that I LOVE! I wore them out on my dates with my hubby and just wore them everywhere. April of 2001 I had an accident with a lawn tractor and shredded my left foot. I have been wearing a big black ugly brace for 7 years now.. but I have been trying on all of my different shoes to see if I could wear any of them. I finally tried on my left Justin workboot..and I felt like Cinderella.. It fit perfect. My foot does not move in that boot, and the insole is more comfortable than carpet. My Justin workboots are the only shoes I have that I can wear both of them comfortably. so when I go out and people look at my boots.. they are admiring my Justin workboots and not staring at that big ugly brace! Thank you Justin!

There once was a dude with an oblong boot
Who tried his best to give it a scoot
With his gal they did two-step
to the Cotton Eyed Joe
All night they sashayed til they couldn’t no mo
By the light of the silvery moon
He and she rode their steeds to where they could swoon
After escorting his gal home
Our dude went out to roam
At the local saloon he found what he was looking for
The bad hombre he had once run into at he dry goods store
At it they went
til they were both spent
And spent they did, the night in jail
The next morn the our hero awoke feeling like hail
After the deputy threw him out in the dregs
He went down to the cafe for bacon coffee & eggs
His waitress asked how did ya git thet oblong boot
To which dude replied To fit my oblong foot!

“What are you gonna do with those pointy toed boots?” they would say. “You gonna kill a spider in the corner?” The jokes would go on and on about my grandpas black pointy toed boots. I grew up just a mile down the road from Grandma and Grandpa in northeast Oklahoma. There was not a day went by that my feet did not enter some type of cowboy boots, but I never would have worn a pointed toed boot like grandpas. We rode and fed horses and cattle everyday in boots, you know regular boots like ropers and round toed boots. We left the pointy toes up to grandpa to wear. Every year I would go to the store before school started and would buy me a new pair of boots. I would always take them for grandpa to look at right out of the box. A year never went by that he did not ask me “when are you gonna get you some real boots with pointy toes?” I would laugh and tell him, “I aint gonna wear those things!”
That has been over 25 years ago now. Grandpas black pointy toed boots are in the garage stored away in a box for safe keeping. He has been suffering from prostate cancer now for over a year. It has been tough on a man of 82 who took care of close to 1500 acres for most of his adult life to not be able to do it anymore.
I spent Easter Sunday afternoon with grandma and grandpa this week. I got to show him my new pair of boots for possibly the last time. He told me “those are the best looking boots you have ever had, they look good on you,” as he looked at my new pair of Lucchese black pointy toed 1883’s. I guess we should never say never.

I work on a goat farm and have about 200 goats. well one day i was cleaning it out and the goats all surrounded me and ate my boots. My boots were 4 months old and now i have a little bit of leather and the soles have many bite marks. There is one particular male that also eats my pants and shirts.

A prerequiste for growing up on a horse farm in Middle Tennessee is a good pair of riding boots. Every horse lover knows there is no substitute for a comfy pair of boots. Not too long after I married my horse trainer husband (twenty seven years ago and counting), he bought me a pair of Justin ropers. I only wish I could say how many miles I have ridden and walked in those boots. Though I ride mostly in English saddles, recently my husband bought me a trail gelding. I have been riding him in a western saddle for the past few months. The other day I pulled on my boots to go ride and noticed something different when I walked. Upon closer inspection of my beloved boots, there were cracks in the bottom of the soles. Immediately I jump my hubby, accusing that old western saddle of ruining my best boots. My patient and understanding husband (the one who married a blonde) calmly replied, “It wasn’t the saddle honey, it was the twenty something years before the saddle.”

I grew up in New Mexcio and loved wearing boots. After college, I joined the navy. During one of our many moves, we stopped in Ohio. While there, I helped my new in-laws relay their leech bed for the sewer, just trying to be a good son-in-law, It totally ruined my boots. I was never able to replace my boots. After 25 years in the Navy, we retired to Virginia. Now my 3 girls are grown and looking for boots! I am most happy to help them pick them out, but have yet to ever find the right boots to replace the ones I ruin 25 years ago.
Paul Smith

Growing up in a military family is rough. Especially when your mom is a bit out of it and your dad is at war for most of your birthdays. When dad would come home on leave, he replaced his spit shined army standard boots in favor for his worn down, 15-year-old, duct-tape-tailored, size-too-big-for-a-7-year-old-girl cowboy boots. I remember that when he was home, he never took them off. I’m pretty sure that in every picture of my childhood with him in it, the boots were there too. He was wearing them when he married my mom, when I got my first puppy, when he was teaching me to roller skate, at my first gymnastics recital, out in the snow building snowmen with his kids. Every memory I have of him includes the boots I deemed embarrassing when I turned thirteen.

Those boots were like air to dad. And when the soles finally met their doom in the jaws of the new family dog, I wouldn’t have been surprised to find that he cried himself to sleep that night.

That was a few years ago, and Dad has a new pair now. They don’t seem to fit him right though. He looks sort of foreign with them on. Its taken a while, but I think I know why now. Those boots weren’t just chunks of threaded together leather adorned with shiny plastic tape. They were like the stupid notches that you carve into the wall when your child grows. They wore the scars that were much like his children’s wounds. Those goofy looking decrepit books were his reminders of his baby girls, and his only son. They reminded him of us. And that’s why he hung onto them so long. They were his babies.

Congratulations  Martha Allen, of Florida

This is our second week of sponsoring the Cowboy Boot Story project.

The second week brought some great stories, and we have heard that the Country Music Writers Guild is now using the cowboy boot story website as a source for inspiration…
The winner of the $200 prize towards the cowboy boots of their choice is… Martha Allen of Florida, Martha wrote a story titled Two miles of Fence, Six pounds of Mudd

 Martha will be allowed to pick out a new pair of boots and leave the old boots in the pasture

Congratulation Martha, you can claim your new boots today. (or anytime in the near future, just watch your email for details)