My father told the story about how his father, my granddad, went into a Sears and Roebuck store with a pair of dress shoes that he had worn for 10 years. The shoes had a hole in the sole, and were beat up. He handed the shoes to the clerk in charge of the shoe department and said, “what are you going to do about these shoes?”

This was a time when the shoe clerk new my grandfather’s name. He responded, “Mr. Hammons, let me speak with my manager.” The clerk took the shoes back, spoke with his manager and came out and said, “Mr. Hammons, we’re sorry for the condition of these shoes. The manager has instructed me to give you a new pair.”

The clerk then went to the back room and brought out an identical pair of shoes, brand new, and gave them to my grandfather, who wore those for another 10 years.

I was hoping that when I went to buy a pair of Tecova boots, that I was getting the same quality. I believed their advertising. They gave me the impression that the fact that they were hand crafted, that one would be forever wearing the same pair. It was truly flashy commercialism.

The problem is, that I’m not an expert on boots. I outgrew my last pair of cowboy boots back in the early 1970s, when my mom would take me and my brothers out to the Round Up Rodeo in Simonton, Texas. Let’s face it, I’m a city boy. Our trips to the Round Up made it abundantly clear that I wasn’t a cowboy.

It’s not that I can’t ride a horse. I can. It’s not that I cannot saddle a horse. I can do that too. But the life of a cowboy, the title of the cowboy deserves more honor and respect than simply putting on a pair of boots and a Stetson. Not that there is anything wrong with wearing boots and a Stetson.

But let’s not kid ourselves. There are only a few men in the world who qualify as cowboys, and I ain’t one of them.

In buying a pair of cowboy boots, I was not trying to proclaim myself as a cowboy. I really, just wanted a footwear that was comfortable and would last longer than a pair of $350 Nike Air Jordans. The Tecovas I bought didn’t. But that isn’t entirely true. They did, and will last for many more years, but not without being resoled.

This is where the shock came home to roost. I imagined that I would have the boots resoled. But not after 2 and half years. I figured … 10 years should be expected? If my grandfather’s wingtips from Sears & Roebucks, which he did wear every day, could last 10 years, then certainly my handcrafted Tecovas would last that long, especially since I didn’t wear them every day.

But they didn’t.

Last week, I was looking at them more closely than normal and noted that the tips were worn off. Further more, the leather soles were splitting apart.

This was the opportunity to see if Tecova really supported their product. I planned to say the exact words that my grandfather used. It was a test. I was testing the company. They were so sure of their product that they not only boasted about them, they offered customers drinks of their choice while they sold their products. Yes, you could have a whiskey while trying on their boots. The first red flag: they didn’t have any Scotch to offer. As one obscure man once said, “American whiskey is nothing more than a hillbilly’s attempt at Scotch.”

But I digress.

I showed the woman in the store the boots. See the picture above. I asked her, what she was going to do about them? She told me, she would speak to her manager and went in the back. After 20 minutes or so, she came back and said that since they were so old, 2 1/2 years, they could not replace them. They could send them off to be resoled for $150, or give me a 20% discount on a pair of new boots.

This last offer was an absolute joke. They had been offering anybody and everybody 20% off for the past three weeks for the Black Friday sale. I let her know, politely, how disappointed I was in the company and made sure she knew that I was a repeat customer. I was wearing my second pair of Tecovas.

I took my boots and left.

In hindsight, my mistake was being enamored with all the claims made in their advertising, and all the flash in the store. They have all these young women selling their boots. They offer wine, whiskey, water, and soda for anyone who is thirsty. The smell of leather permeates. It’s a flashy place.

But when you think about it, Tecova hasn’t been around that long. There are only a few country songs with Tecovas mentioned in the lyrics, both in the past three years. Nothing like Lucchese which is mentioned in Amarillo By Morning (1982), George Strait, and in Much Too Young (1989), by Garth Brooks. Justin Boots, Ariat, and Tony Lama all have a much greater testimony to durability than Tecova.

This is all according to Grok. And yes, I told Grok about this, and asked which boots are better than Tecova. Those were the four he mentioned, and noted that the problem I was having with the Tecovas is a common problem with Tecovas. I guess this city boy should have asked Grok before shelling out a couple of hundred dollars on a pair of boots. Better yet, I should have listened to George Strait and his song, Amarillo By Morning more closely. Out of all the songs Grok listed, that was the only one I knew. But I have heard of Garth Brooks, and he suggested the same thing.

I should have asked my cowboy and rodeo acquaintances. But, like a city boy, I was enamored with exactly the things a city boy would be enamored with, and that is why Tecova is in business.

Before you buy a pair boots, have a listen to George or Garth Brooks.

Here is Grok’s comparison between Tecovas and other brands: