Culling.

It’s a word being used very frequently in our household as we prepare to move to Germany. Padma returns from work: ‘What did you do today?’ Me: ‘I culled a bunch of crap from the garage’. Padma: ‘Do we have anything on for this weekend?’ Me: ‘Yes, culling.’ I don’t know when or how the word ‘culling’, which is actually a biological term, became associated with house moving, but there is no better single word to describe our lives at the moment.

When it comes to clothes and culling most people would abide by the old adage, ‘If you haven’t worn it in a year, let it go.’ If I had followed that wise advice I would have thrown out my old hiking boots 37 years ago. But I couldn’t possibly ever let those boots go and I’ve carted them all over the world with me.

I remember the day I bought them in November 1977. There was one backpacking store in Stevens Point, Wisconsin which stocked all the latest and greatest gear. I was heading off to Malaysia in a couple of months and wanted to start breaking in a pair of boots. I had narrowed my choice down to two boots: the Vasque Hiker I or the Hiker II. A woman who I had seen on the UW campus grabbed the attention of a salesman and said she wanted some boots. He asked what kind of hiking was she planning. ‘Just around campus,’ she said and then gravitated toward the massive Hiker II boot. ‘Planning to climb Everest?’, the salesman asked. She pretended not to hear him and tried the huge boots on and after confirming they fit she paid for them and was off. A few days later I saw that woman, a music major as I recall, on campus. Clomp, clomp, clomp with her massive boots. She wore a huge fluffy down jacket. Indeed it did look like she was bound for Everest but she was just crossing the car park from her dorm room to head to the cafeteria. In the late 1970s outdoor clothing was the fashion, at least it was at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point which probably had the highest per capita of tree huggers on any US campus at that time. Fashion never makes sense to me but I doubt the outdoor clothing business has ever had it so good as they did when hiking boots were in style.

I couldn’t see any reason to buy such a huge boot so I settled for the lighter and cheaper Vasque Hiker I. For the next three years those boots almost never left my feet and took me to some of the most amazing places I have ever visited. They were my most dependable friend and I had to rely on them. But then I moved to the tropics and replaced those leather boots with some Vietnam jungle boots. The old boots tagged along with me wherever I went. I just couldn’t throw out my old mates even though I bought lighter and more modern boots.

I’ve been doing a lot of bushwalking the past few months in preparation for an upcoming trek. My new Swiss hiking boots are perfectly broken in but with all the hiking I started worrying that they’d be broken down by the time of the trek. Hmmm… what to do? I remembered my old Vasque boots and found them stored away in a plastic tub. I could barely wiggle my feet into them as they were stiff and wearing them was like wearing some rigid downhill ski boots. I found a 30-year-old can of SnoSeal silicone and started massaging the old leather back to life. It took about 100 kms of hiking but finally the leather started to loosen up and remember the curves of my feet. Soon all those memories of hiking trips in the late 1970s were rushing through me with every step I take. And I was grateful that those boots hadn’t been culled

For the most part I have indeed been ruthless with my culling and it’s been feeling great to get rid of all of the crap you accumulate when you’ve been sedentary for 22 years. But these 40-year-old boots will definitely be packed on that sea container bound for Bonn.