THE HIGH TOP BOOTS

In the wintertime, my Father wore a special kind of high top boots. They laced up the front with eye lets below the ankle and hooks up to the knees. They always had a buckle strap at the top. He always laced his boots with rawhide strings and kept them well oiled with mutton tallow.

My Father had a friend named Upton Blevins. Upton was a former college classmate and I don’t really think he had a home. He was a bachelor and was quite eccentric in some ways. He had no job and seemed to wander about, visiting with friends and acquaintances. He traded and trafficked in all kind of whatnots and things and would pick up odd jobs here and there. He was sort of a fortuneteller and some people claimed he could predict the future.

Late one fall Upton came by and stayed a few days. While he was there he sold my Father a used pair of high top boots!

When you entered our house the downstairs bedroom was just to the immediate right. The stairway to the second floor was in this room and there was a dark and spooky closet built into the stairwell. My Mother and Father slept in this room and the children slept upstairs.

The closet under the stair steps seemed to stay the same temperature the year round. It was cool during the warmest days of summer and never real warm in the wintertime like the rest of the house. My Father had developed the habit of unlacing his boots and tossing them into the closet until the next morning. I think this was at the request of my Mother. My Fathers boots seemed to ripen with age!

The first night after wearing the boots he got from Upton, my Father, through habit, tossed the boots into the closet and shut the door. He later claimed he got the best nights sleep in years that night. The next morning when he reached for his boots in the dark closet they were both laced all the way to the top, tied and buckled!

The next morning when he reached for his boots they were laced, tied and buckled like the morning before. Then the next day and the next. This went on for days.

My Father first thought that one of us children was playing a trick on him and he couldn’t figure who would have the nerve to go into the closet, especially at night. He would try to stay awake at night to catch the culprit but he would always drop off to sleep.

In desperation he got a hasp and a padlock and locked his unlaced boots in the closet. To make sure he also nailed it shut with twenty penny nails. He slept with the keys to the padlock around his neck. The next morning when he unlocked the door and pried it open, there were his boots neatly laced, tied and buckled!

After that, my Father quit tossing his boots into the closet. That is, most of the time! Occasionally, as a test, he would toss them in and sure enough, the next morning they were laced, tied and buckled as always!

My Father wore those boots all winter and in the springtime they looked just as good as they did when he purchased them from Upton. To this day, I do not know what he done with those boots.

The next fall I was with my Father when he bought a new pair of boots at Welch’s Department Store. The owner of the store, Charlie, gave my Father a real strange look when he asked him if the new boots were spooked!

Years later we learned that Upton helped my Uncle Wiley Davis, the original owner, build our house. We also learned that Uncle Wiley would take his boots and place them in the same closet after he laced, tied and buckled them. He claimed they would keep their shape better that way.

Uncle Wiley died in that same bedroom many years before my Father purchased the house.

I have often wondered just who’s used boots my Father purchased!

Anything that sniffs and smells
Can find odd things
In old stairwells!
And who’s to say,
"Tis not profound,
Ghosts may be like
A good bloodhound!