Waffle Stompers

“Well, these boots are made for walking
And that's just what they'll do”
-Lee Hazlewood

While cleaning out the garage for Brisket Fest 2006 I remembered an old pair of hiking boots that I had refused to throw out. These boots are “waffle stompers” as they came to be known.

The leather of the boots was turned inside out giving them a very rough exterior. They were coated with a water proofing product known as snow seal. The sole of these boots were the infamous Vibram waffle sole. The sole was attached by sewing using a flat welt, although this particular brand sported a modified welt that was not completely flat.

These boots were purchased in Fayetteville, Arkansas in 1976. The boots had hiked the entire stretch of the Ouachita Mountain hiking trail, in the winter at that. They wandered the campus of the University of Arkansas when it snowed, along with my Catahoula hound, Hank Williams
–Wooooo pig soooie!

When I went to LaPaz, Bolivia as a student teacher, the boots went too. The boots were on my feet when I took a bus to some ruins on the altiplano. I missed my return bus and me and the boots had to catch a Chola truck back to LaPaz. We sat in the back of large truck full of Indians and shared a popcorn treat with the Indian kids. I still think of that trip when I hear the Bruce Cockburn song, “Dust and Diesel”.

Dust and diesel
Rise like incense from the road –
Smoke of offering
For the revolution coming

On that particular trip the boots and I teamed up for a hike on an Incan trail from the altiplano to the tropical area known as Las Yungas. According to our former US Aid guide the trail had not been hiked in years. We sorted our gear and I was found lacking a whistle. I had no idea why I needed a whistle until we started our hike. First, there was the land slide on the side of the mountain that we had to climb then there was the great wide open of grass covered steep mountain criss-crossed with trails and a condor soaring over head. I took a trail going down, knowing that we were to follow a river. Then I heard the whistles. I followed them back to the group with the new found appreciation of the signal whistle.

The boots went back with me to live in Bolivia for three years. They traveled to Santiago, Chile where after curfew we listened to banned folk songs sung by the uncle of Violeta Para. She was a popular folk singer during the Allende period that was captured and killed in the soccer stadium when Pinochet took over.

From Santiago it was on to the North and into Peru. The boots were with me when I took photographs of army tanks in the plaza at Arrequipa. They visited Machu Pichu and were on my feet when we saw the curly haired cross of sheep and alpaca (see previous blog entry).

Upon returning to the states the soles were quite worn out. So I visited a cobbler and had them resoled. They continue to serve me through some hard labor. I was a part of a hiking club that built the Ozarks Highlands Trail from the Boston Mountains to the Buffalo River country. They even went with me on my first backpacking trip to the Wind River Mountains in Wyoming. I retired those boots after that trip for a pair of lightweight Nike hikers; these carried me through the Saw tooth Mountains in Idaho. I do not have the Nikes anymore. My wife talked me into putting them in the gleaner’s box. But I just can not seem to part with these, even though they are antiques and I do not wear them anymore.

-Willi