DonAA

My rubber boot fetish hit me full force when I was 9. I spent my first years in a small town and I can honestly say I have no recollection of rubber boots from those days at all. I'm sure there must have been older boys at school who wore them, but us younger kids were no doubt encouraged to wear slippers, etc. in the winter time and to take off our boots. I had winter boots, but no "rubber boots".

When I was 9, we moved to the country. My father commuted to the city to work so we weren't farming or any such thing. There were some small farms around though, and a number of fishermen, loggers, etc., so it was largely a resource-based community. That translates into "rubber boots".

When I started school all seemed normal for the first couple of weeks. Then it rained. About 3/4 of the boys in the little 4 room school came in rubber boots. Mostly they were the black wellington type rubber boots with the red trim. I was thunderstruck by them. They looked so beautiful. I had never seen such numbers of them before.

But suddenly, with the strangeness of the new school and home, etc., seeing a dozen guys in my own classroom sitting all day in those boots, WHAM, powerful impact. The visual experience was what struck me first. Before I'd smelled them, felt them or worn them. The tall shiny black shafts and the red trim was "beautiful". No better word could describe it. I think I was feeling rather left out as well with all these country boys who seemed rougher and tougher than the guys I knew in town. So, the rubber boots immediately represented toughness, machismo, although I wouldn't have realized it then - they just looked fantastic.

I immediately became totally obsessed with them. And, not only did these boys wear their boots TO school, but to a boy, they left them on all day IN school. And it was accepted as completely normal to do so. I never heard a teacher suggest that the boots should be taken off. In fact, my grade 4 teacher had 4 boys herself and they wore rubber boots as much as anyone. There was no gym, no PT classes, no reason for taking them off.

Initially, the rubber boots were worn when it rained, but as the fall wore on and the weather worsened, they became the regular everyday footwear. Heavy wool socks were worn when it got cold. I loved seeing those big heavy socks peeking out of the tops of the rubber boots. The rubber boots were always worn over the pants, never hidden under trouser legs.

I would sit and stare at the rubber booted feet around me and I desperately wanted a pair. Perhaps if I hadn't had to wait for a few months, my desire to wear them wouldn't have been so great, but it was the longing and the watching the other boys in them, that added to my obsession.

It took some time before I could get them, I suppose my folks put a buck or two away each payday. I doubt they cost more than 5 or 6 dollars, but as you know, people were not as affluent in those days. It was probably late Nov/ early Dec of that year before I got my first pair.

When I slid them on it was magic. A few of my friends commented on them. "Nice boots", sort of thing. By the time mine came along, the others had been in theirs for a few months and the new shine was gone so mine rather stood out. A lot of guys would get new rubber boots each fall for starting school. Some would get hand-me-downs. I, being the older brother, never had the pleasure of wearing second-hand boots. There was no stigma attached to that, though, because a lot of the kids were really poor and hand-me-downs were common.