I'm starting this thread so each of us can share obscure but (possibly) interesting facts that may not be widely known. I'll go first.

In another thread, someone posted a picture of a guy wearing a kilt with his western shirt, broad-brimmed hat, and cowboy boots. After much discussion, the concensus was that cowboy boots are worn with the pants leg out, not tucked in, and therefore such footwear was inappropriate for wear with a kilt.

As a member of the TV generation, many of my early memories are of Roy Rogers, Sky King, and other Hollywood cowboys doing their Saturday morning action/western/adventure thing while mom, from the kitchen, admonished us kids "Don't sit too close to the Tee-Vee! You'll get square eyes!"

In the afternoons when I'd go outside and play with my little friends, whether cowboys wore their pants-legs tucked in or hanging out was an issue of utmost importance. The True Cowoy Way was especially urgently debated by those of us with real, live, cowboy boots. Some argued that only one way was correct, but the position one took on the pants-in-or-out controversy was usually based on who his favorite cowboy was. You had a thorny path to tread if you ever noticed that your personal favorite wore his both ways (just not at the same time). If you tried to take the "either way is fine" position, you were likely to be branded a coward who lacked strong convictions. You tried to stay out of the debate in this case.

Many years later, the Cowboy Boot Controversy still puzzled me, but since I wasn't such an ardent fan of westerns anymore, it did not concern me overmuch. A few years ago, however, I finally got my chance to learn the truth, and it surprised me.

I was living in Clovis, New Mexico at the time. Clovis was not only an old (read ~100 years) railroad town, but still had quite a few cowboys working the ranches and feed lots in the surrounding countryside. I had noticed that some of the cowboys I saw were wearing their pants legs tucked into their boot tops, while others wore their pants legs outside the boot. I decided to ask on of them, and here's the answer:

BOTH ways are correct!

It all depends on what you're going to be doing that day whether you wear the pants leg in or out. If you're going to be working on the range, in the brush and weeds, you leave the pants leg out. That way, burrs, foxtails, and other debris don't fall into your boots and make your life, at least temporarily, miserable. If you're going to be working the stockyards or feedlots, on the other hand, you tuck your pants legs in. Why? Because you're gonna be walking in ankle-deep (or deeper) cow exhaust at some point during the day, and it's so much easier to get the stuff off of leather than out of denim.

So there you have it!

My opinion regarding cowboy boots and the kilt? Maybe with ropers. High heels of any sort just look odd on a man in a skirt.

~~SSgt Baloo