Today was a big day…a long day…a long day that’s not over yet. The day started with me waking up on the wrong side of the time zone this morning. I was late. No biscuits and gravy for me, nope…just down to the hotel lobby for a bowl of Frosted Flakes and black coffee…back to the hotel room for some phone calls, then off to the Coliseum. I walked through the front doors of the show and took a beeline to Wild Bill’s booth (a.k.a. Bill Niemczyk). Bill has old tools…good old tools. They’re good because he fixes them up after he finds them, he shines up the metal and smoothes the handles. You pick up the tools and they seem kinda warm, like they’ve been in someone’s hand. The handles are worn down in all the right spots. I bought 5 small hand tools: a saw-tooth tack puller, 2 peggin’ awls, a sewing awl haft, and a rand file. They fit in my hand just right, I snagged everything with a small handle. (Can’t do that on e-bay.)
And then I think I spent the whole day talking…talking to everybody I knew…and everybody I didn’t. I talked about boots all day long. I looked a lot like a bootmaker today… I had on a red name tag, some fancy foxing on the toes of my boots, and I was carrying around a cigar box with a bunch hand-me-down tools rattlin’ around inside. I’m having fun alright.
