Cowboy Boots

And autumnal euphoria

Yesterday I spent the better part of the day playing with my two beloved granddaughters (ages 6 and 9). They have an annoying little wiener dog who insists on playing with us.

The two girls are as different as night and day. The older one is an intellectual bookworm who likes stories and music and art and science. Like so many girls, the younger one just wants to have fun. And she is never happier than when out of doors.

Plus she owns a pair of cowboy boots.

Every few hours we would let the dog out the front door to run around and do his business. Every time the younger girl would be right behind the dog. She would very quickly slip into her cowboy boots and go out to run around. Seriously, she is like a doggie who needs to be let outside every few hours. She just can’t take being indoors for too long.

I have never worn nor owned cowboys in my entire life. As a kid growing up in Texas I saw other kids wearing cowboy boots and I thought, Oh my god! Those boots are pointed! My feet aren’t pointed. There’s no way they could possibly be comfortable. (I was a very, very bad Texan.)

At one point in the afternoon all of us went outside to play ball. (The dog, who is deathly afraid of balls for some reason, kept running away from all the action.) The youngest girl wasn’t nearly as good at throwing and catching a ball as her older sister but with those cowboy boots she sure could kick the hell out of that ball.

When the ball-playing was finally over my youngest granddaughter grabbed my hand, saying, “Come on, Grandpa. Let’s go stomp some leaves!”

Obediently, I let her lead me down to the sidewalk down by the street which was buried under about two feet of dried leaves. (All the trees around here have already dropped their leaves and are now naked. Winter has already started here.)

Still clutching my hand, my six-year-old granddaughter gave me my orders, “Okay, we’re gonna stomp through these leaves then turn around and stomp back.”

We didn’t just walk through the leaves, we marched. My granddaughter lifted her knees up high and stomped down with her cowboy boots as hard as she could on the dried leaves. I did the same although I was wearing tennis shoes. We stomped through about 15 feet of dried leaves then turned around, changed hands, then walked back through it then turned around and did it again and again. We must have done that a hundred times — or so it seemed. The sound of crunching leaves was truly exciting.

Suddenly, the six-year-old stopped and pointed at the dog who was on his back rolling back and forth through a big pile of leaves on the lawn.

“Let’s do that!” screamed my granddaughter as she let go of my hand and dove head first into a giant pile of leaves. She was quickly rolling around in the leaves just like the dog.

“Come on Grandpa! Join us.”

Old fogey grandpa wimp that I am, I replied, “Uh… that’s okay. I think I’ll just watch you two.”

After several minutes of rolling through the dried leaves the girl and the dog got up and the three of us headed for the house.

But standing at the top of the porch in front of the front door to the house stood the nine-year-old granddaughter with her arms folded across her chest, “Oh no you don’t! You guys aren’t coming into the house covered in leaves. You know how mad our mommy will get if you track dried leaves all over the house?!”

My daughter is neither a slob nor a neat freak. But her one rule is that the floor in her house is always clean. She could have some messes around her house but the floor had to always be clean. When my daughter cleans her house she goes from the bottom and works up. When I clean I always go from top to bottom. We are as different as night and day.

So for the next fifteen minutes my six-year-old granddaughter and I sat on the porch steps picking bits of dried leaves off each other — and the dog. When we were done we stood up and turned to go in the house but the nine-year-old (who can be rather bossy) was still blocking the door. She pointed at her younger sister’s feet and yelled, “Boots!”

So we sat back down on the porch steps. The six-year-old took off her cowboy boots. Holding them upside down about thirty pounds of dried leaves came pouring out.

I did the same with my tennis shoes although far less leaves came pouring out. When we were finally as leafless as possible we stood up and the nine-year-old finally let us back into the house. The dog, of course, rushed underfoot ahead of us into the house.

As the six-year-old and I entered the house together we looked at each other and smiled.

We had so much fun together!

Copyright by White Feather. All Rights Reserved.

Speaking of girls and dogs…