Remembering Those Justin Boots 20 Years Ago
I love evenings in the summer. I don’t know anybody who doesn’t like them. I know people in the North like the different, full change of seasons, but there’s really nothing like a warm evening in July, in Texas. When I was just a kid, my friends and I used to ride our bikes to the creek in town and just hang out along side it.
All 5 of us, just hanging out pretty much doing nothing, but lovin’ every minute of it. School was out for the summer, our chores were done for the day, it was just time for us. On this one particular night in July, I must have been 14, not old enough to drive, but old enough to be into girls, a tall, well built guy in his thirties was walking on the sidewalk hand and hand with a women about the same age.
I remember this so vividly because we all stopped and nobody said a word until they were around the corner and completely out of site. But I remember thinking that night, how great it must be to have a girl like that walking beside you. Believe me, the way I looked at 14, there were no girls interested in me. “That’s the kind of women I want to marry,” I mumbled. For that remark, I was tossed to the ground while the guys told me that would only be in my dreams.
There were many nights when I did dream about that. What’s strange is that I remember specifically what this guy was wearing, particularly his boots. If I remember correctly he was wearing a pair of Justin cowboy boots, and that’s the reason he looked so tall to me, because those boots added a few inches to him.
Now I’m the one who’s in my mid thirties and there’s times in the summer where I’ll put on a t-shirt, jeans and my old, broken in pair of Justin boots. And every single time I do, that memory of that guy and girl walking down the street on that hot summer evening comes to mind. I just can’t believe that a thirty second event, something that happened so long ago, can affect my thoughts for the rest of my life. As a result of this little event many years ago, I’ve become a devoted fan of the entire line of Justin Boots.