If Boots Could Talk

...they would tell you why they cannot be replaced. My old hiking boots are tired. I need new ones but I cannot discard them. They floated me up to many mountaintops in Oregon, they guided me to cliff walk the Cornwall Coast in UK from Bude to Porthtowan, they lugged me for 7 days in the Andes Mountains of Peru, climbing to 15,300' (4,600m) to Machu Picchu and this past September, they supported my weary body walking 170 miles in the countryside of France. Should I bronze them like baby shoes or just find room in the back of my closet and bring them out in my old, old age and remember not where I have been but how I have changed...walking in these old boots.