Jackson Jambalaya

Seeing as I have Wolverine work boots older than you are, I wouldn't call 'em trash. And less than $100.

Of course Kingfish has never in his life had a job requiring steel-toe boots or real work boots. I can see him in a powder-blue, wingtip boot, however. He'd be a hit out on the picnic table on break.

My granny had old black leather, high heeled laceups from about 1900, in her closet. She wore her waist length hair in a bun, a long print dress and those boots. The KF can buy an identical pair, delicately used by a Sunday School Teacher, for the paltry sum of $200 or less, where size will make the boots rare indeed.

Of course Kingfish has never in his life had a job requiring steel-toe boots or real work boots.

99.9% sure you don't have a clue about his work history.

My combat boots wet through Hell on my feet. They were free.

6:56
I’ve heard the man speak before. He sounds like the nuttiest fruitcake to ever fall out of a Bundt pan. That’s not conducive to ever working a job that requires steel toed boots.

I’ve tried just about every brand of work boot that is on the market. I have spent from paltry to sums above $400 per pair and I can attest that Thorogood is the brand that has held up with me better than any. What works for me may not work for you. Thorogoods are not “hunting” boots. They are for working. The past 42 years I’ve seen boots come and go and as bad as I hate buying a Union made product, they have what it takes to cut the grade. Their refurbishing program is top notch. I have to admit that they actually wear better when you send them back for the first refurbishment since that broken in leather feels better than the new as it wears off. But, like I said, what works for me may not for you. I have 4 pairs and at $275 a pair I say I made a good investment. Just remember to use a boot dryer. Your boots will gather up to 8 ounces of moisture a day and it’s important to keep them dry.

7:22

No sir... everybody paid for your boots. I also was "given" a pair or 3 that everybody else paid for. Hopefully we just paid them back.

Thank you, veterans.

Thomas Great M down on Farish St. is where I bought my last pair of work/hunting boots. Great store and great people there.

Shame stores like that are now history.

Left coast boots from the People's Republik of Washington.

@3:49, what’s your problem? Did your mother not teach you just BASIC manners? You’re actually here reading KF’s blog and I suspect you do so regularly. Yet you chose to unnecessarily insult him and, oddly enough, his work history? WTH? Why be mean and nasty for no reason then hide behind “anonymous?” Would you say that to him if we were all standing around talking? You and your ilk are to me the worst result of social media - trolls who post nasty and hurtful or mean comments bc they don’t have to face the consequences like they would in person.
Go back to kindergarten and learn basic manners. If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything. Or how about the old Golden Rule, huh?

I prefer my red wings with the slip resistant soles. They saved my life when working offshore.

(I didn’t slip and fall when the metal was crashing onto the work deck)

I have worked in and around blue collar work most of my adult life, and a good bit before that. I don't know about areas where people make more money than blue collar work pays here, but I seriously doubt there are very many actual working men out there buying $600 boots to work in. Now, some of the offshore and pipeline workers might spend that, and more on cowboy boots, but not to work in. I'm talking about electricians, plumbers, equipment operators, brick masons, roofers, concrete workers, truck drivers, asphalt hands, etc.

From what I have seen, I expect Red Wing price level boots are the top end that people will pay for work boots. Company owners and higher paid supervisory level folks might spend that. Personally, the sale prices under $300 on some of their boots would be reasonable for me. Seems like the last Red Wings I bought were $200 or so - for the real leather, made in America version, not the Chinese import stuff they put the Red Wing label on now.

If I could go somewhere and try on a pair of White's boots I would check them out, but I just don't care for ordering boots that I have to send back two or three times until I get some that fit right.

Red Wings are top of the line work boots made in Red Wing MN.

@9:53 AM
Imagine white-knighting for a dude who regularly censors the truth because it might hurt someone’s feelings.

@9:53 - While you, too, hide behind anonymous, can you show us on the doll where the mean tweets and posts hurt you. We all want to make you whole and make the mean people pay.

Wow! Lotsa manhood-challenged "men" chiming-in on this. Where to start... First, plenty of "working-men" need to look like they're in-charge, at work. They need durable footwear which will hold-up, and continue looking authoritative, while they're on-the-road. There are contractors. There are supervisors. There are consultants. There are engineers.

Farm tractors now cost around a million. Pickup trucks frequently cost over 100k. Regular Jackson Jambalaya readers have recently learned that hunting camp memberships can cost more than a new home in a nice subdivision. Sorry so many of you are left-behind, but things cost lots of money, these days. And "genuine leather" (the material used for "affordable footwear", these days) isn't particularly genuine, anymore. The genuine article costs a lot more than it used to.

As for Kingfish, he's a big, tough, massively-built MARINE, with muscles in places where half of you don't even HAVE places. And if I weren't a married lady....

I can’t imagine anyone being harder on a boot than a wildland firefighter, and White’s are the gold standard for them. Plus, if you are on a mountain putting in line, back-lighting, or putting down a hose lay, you can’t just duck into the locker room and change if your boot fails, so reliability is critical.

8/3/24 at 7:24:

Really? Contractors, supervisors, consultants, and engineers need $600 boots to appear authoritative? If a man doesn’t have what it takes to be in charge, his boots aren’t going to help. The men in charge I know and who are respected wear the same regular cheaper boots as the men doing the work wear. They started out working and moved up, and still maintain frugal habits for the most part. I suppose there are some men like this but I have never noticed their footwear. When they get covered in dust and mud I doubt anyone can notice how expensive they look. You may be referring to a type of man who won’t trouble himself to get his feet muddy though.

Leather is still just leather, and I can’t see how being stitched by hand can make them last longer than Red Wings. If I could find credible evidence they last three times as long as Red Wings I might be convinced.

Google "Pacific Northwest Boots". The Rose Anvil Youtube channel is pretty good too. Boots are sawed in half and dissected. It's rather interesting to see what is crap and what's not.

I rock the Doc, Doc Martin's, that is. Steel toes, thick soles, heavy leather for injuring a-holes in parking lots, bars, back streets and alleys, these dogs can hunt. I practice kick boxing in them, just to stay strong.

7:31pm
I have enjoyed KF on radio, sitting in for Kim Wade. Captivating, professional sounding voice for Radio and he presents his stories and arguments with style, albeit not as funny as Kim Wade, our future mayor? What a riot that could be.

OK, here's your challenge:

8" lace-up work boot. All leather exterior except sole and maybe a collar around the very top. Stitched resoleable, such as a Goodyear welt. NO glue-on soles. Hooks for at least the upper half of the lacing. Steel toe. Waterproof (that means GoreTex). NO stitching of any type on top of the foot and heaven forbid a moc toe. No little pansy fringe at the bottom of the lacing. Sturdy relatively heavy sole with considerable wear, abrasion and heat resistance. In other words, a waterproof welder's boot.

Go.

Are we using weatherboard or another cheap material for midsoles or not?

There is a very old story about this very thing.

A farmer who got rich by being smart buys a $10/100/1000 (or whatever the then-current price might be) pair of high-quality boots, a man of lesser means and acumen buys a $2/20/200 pair, and a man of lesser current means but on his way to catching up to the first man cobbles his current boots as best he can while saving up to buy the same as the first man. Over the next 10 years, the first and third men do not need boots but the second man's boots last barely a year and he keeps "saving money" buying cheap (in both current price and quality) boots. At the end of the 10 years the first and third men have spent $10/100/1000 and the second has spent at least $20/200/2000. The first and third men took the money they didn't have to spend replacing boots and invested it, each making a nice return. In another 10 years, when the high-quality boots finally need replacement, the situation is even worse for the second man but the first and third men have made so much money by doing things like spending so much money once - but wisely - that they don't buy another pair of boots, they sell their farms and retire to their tropical islands where they go barefoot in the sand.

Take from this anecdotal information what you will:

I own at least 30 (and probably closer to 50) pairs of leather footwear, from formal dress to sport and work boots, acquired over the last 40-50 years. I have not bought a new pair in at least 20 years because all are either high quality custom or equally high quality ready-made and have not needed replacement. None were inexpensive when purchased but have proven to be smart purchases. A few have needed repair (and they are repairable) and all require varying degrees of routine care. Over those same years I have also bought numerous pairs of "disposable" shoes, mostly "walking"/"tennis" shoes destined for necessary abuse (and a very small number when a reason suddenly arose while traveling) but those are as inexpensive as I can find while still being comfortable. I view them as what they are, inexpensive and disposable, and have no illusions otherwise. When the wife says, "You are NOT going to wear those in public!" ("?" not even in, er, question), it's time to take my loss on that investment.

The same concept applies to just about everything, from cars to furniture to tools to clothes, etc. IOW, high quality one time is generally much less expensive than low quality several times. A corollary is that if you cannot afford high quality right this minute on something you actually need and will use for many years, reduce spending on things you do not actually need until you can. And in most cases financing ANYTHING due to a lack of funds is a terrible idea, especially depreciating assets like vehicles, "toys" and other "I-want-its," furniture, etc. We'll leave mortgages to the next episode of "The Rich Old Man's Guide to Life."

@ 9:11.

OK lady, we all took economics and you only have 1 pair of feet.

"OK lady, we all took economics and you only have 1 pair of feet."

Er, no, "we all" did not, unless you are referring to some very small group. I'll accept that you did, I know I did, but as for most of the rest of the world, nope. And even in the relatively small number of the world's population that actually did take "economics," many didn't understand it or pay attention. And most importantly, "economics" has nothing to do with finance, money, capital, common sense, or much else other than economic theories.

As to shoes, based upon the scant evidence, I'd believe you if you claimed a PhD in economics. You have absolutely no information at all about the reality of the situation nor did you seek even a hint but you didn't let that stop you from making completely uninformed and incorrect assumptions.

If economists knew anything about finance, money, the economy in the real world, or had any common sense, they would not - shit, they COULD not possibly - come up with the theories they come up with, all based upon uninformed assumptions. Look no further than just a few of the many indicators in the current economic picture of the US and the world to know that even economists with PhDs in economics have been educated well beyond their intelligence and have little practical knowledge or experience.

As final tidbits of info, Trump and Steven Cohen have econ degrees, and from the same school. Clearly, "economics" has not factored into the business escapades of either. Another very wealthy guy with a, er, less "colorful" career but a Masters in econ once said that he would be even richer and would have gotten there much sooner if he hadn't wasted time being told that none of ideas could work and just gone out and demonstrated that they did. Given his history, he is correct. He also mused that any company with an economist has at least one employee too many.

This is 11:05. So nobody's fancypansy boots will do my job I take it.

Most Pacific northwest boots are stitchdown construction, not Goodyear welt.