Published Wednesday, February 06, 2008 1:14 PM
Updated Wednesday, February 06, 2008 2:19 PM

 

Watts Line 2/7/08

Dust off those dancing boots


It’s been about 15 years since my guy and I decided to join the Western dance craze. It was fun. We ran into folks we knew, everybody was dancing and having a good time and feeling good about the sheer exercise benefit of the whole scene.

We went so far as to buy really good cowboy boots. The real ones, with steel shanks, high arches, good leather. And we danced our way through the early to mid-90s. But the craze began to wane a little as some of the clubs closed. (We used to joke that the clubs couldn’t really continue to stay in business because nobody could drink and do the intricate little dances. We, and most of the people we knew, were drinking mostly water, or occasionally going nuts with a ginger ale.)

But when we stopped, it was sudden, and the boots got shoved further and further to the back of our closet.

So, when an opportunity came up last week to go to an event that practically mandated boots, we found ourselves reaching into the dark recesses of our closet and pulling out the dusty remnants of our “Boot Skootin’ Boogie” days.

“I probably won’t be able to get my feet in mine,” the Hubster said.

“Well, you know that my feet have grown a full size in the last five years,” I told him. (At this point he’s tired of hearing about the amazing “Judy’s feet have started growing again,” phenomenon. When my strange foot-growing started, I was a little worried that I’d contracted some weird disease that manifests itself by causing already large feet to get even bigger. But about two years into the foot-growing occurrence, I came across an odd little story in the back of a magazine. The story was about a study that found that, like noses and earlobes, feet also continue to grow as we get older. I breathed a sigh of relief, threw out all my shoes of the previous size and set out to re-supply my closet with footwear. I had never felt more justified in buying shoes – and it doesn’t take much for me to come up with a good reason to purchase a new pair of shoes. Even in the worst of times, all it really takes to prompt getting new shoes is a new outfit for which you don’t have just the right footwear.)

So my beloved and I dusted off our boots, sat on the edge of the bed and started pulling them on. And guess what? We were both seriously surprised when not only was it still possible to get our big old feet in these structured boots, they felt good. We would wear the boots. We would go forth and see how we faired.

As we walked to the car en route to the party, we both remarked that the footwear of the hour felt pretty good.

An hour into the event, we took stock with each other,

“How’re your boots feeling?” I asked my guy.

“Good. Really good.”

As the night wore on, we checked in with each other a couple more times concerning the state of our feet.

As we left, several hours later, I asked, “Why did we stop wearing our cowboy boots?”

“I have no idea,” he said. “But I plan to start wearing them again.” Once more, I agreed that I, too, would be wearing mine more often. The next night we were off to an oyster roast, a perfect event to test our new resolve.

I pulled on my jeans and a sweater, then reached for the boots. The night before had not been a fluke. They felt good, molded to my feet from all that dancing years ago.

I came into the den and found the Hubster standing there, also in his boots. We smiled.

Who knows, maybe we’ll take those boots out dancing again sometime soon.

After all, those boots were made for dancing.

Contact Judy Watts at jwatts @journalscene.com or 873-9424, ext. 220.