Nicks Falcon

I’ve never taken good care of my feet. When you’re younger, you can get away with wearing the same pair of tennis shoes for five years, but in the last decade I’ve become more conscious of what I put on my feet. I’m an engineer, and love the mechanisms of most things, but once I started investing in higher quality shoes, I became fascinated at the construction and history of boot making; the antique hand tools and tedious craftsmanship, gave me the distinct taste of nostalgia that comes from observing what many consider a dying trade. My wife eventually took to calling me a part-time cobbler and joked that I should quit my day job. Historically, I’ve always had work boots and home boots. Unfortunately, my work boots made my feet hurt (it never seemed to matter how much money I spent on a pair, or how many inserts I tried) so that by the time I got home, I switched to the softest shoes I could find. When I bought my Nick’s last march (due to product availability they didn’t arrive until twelve hours after the early entry into the Stitchdown closed), I was worried about the break in process. I’ve heard people who swear by the old ‘bucket of water’ trick, oiling them almost daily for the first two weeks, warming them in the oven before the first wear, and filling them up with water in the sink “Just once, NOT twice” before pouring it out before wearing them. I decided I was all in for the Patina Thunderdome contest and immediately wore them to work all day long right out of the box. In the last six months, I’ve practically lived in these boots. They immediately became my work and home boots when after only a few days, I realized my feet were feeling better. I wore them all winter in the snow and slush, got them waterlogged and dried them out, often all in the same twenty-four-hour period, and they kept showing up to work the next day just like millions of us people do. As a lead maintenance engineer at our local hospital, I routinely trudge through backed up drain wa