In those days, one of the hardest things to come by was a good pair of boots. Boots were carefully and painstakingly hand made of relatively rare materials. They were meant to last for years, re-soled now and then, re-heeled a bit more often. I myself barely remember, as a child, bringing the family shoes to the cobbler for new heels, or perhaps bringing them back home, acting as a tiny courier and not having to bring any money for the work being done since it was put on an account. But back in those days … long before my time or even my father’s time … boots were even more rare and a person of modest means was likely to own perhaps six pairs in a whole lifetime.

So, when Kemmerich died, and he didn’t need his boots anymore, and his boots were bloodied but not torn from the explosion that killed him, it was reasonable for Müller to covet them, and indeed, to take them. And those boots served him well, while he lived.

When Müller was shot in the stomach, he knew the wound was fatal. In those days, not only were good boots hard to come by, but “gut shots” were always fatal, even if you died slowly. Slowly enough, in fact, for Müller to pass Kemmerich’s boots on to his comrade, Bäumer. Later on, Bäumer would die as well, wearing the same boots. And though the story as told of these men ends there, we suspect that the boots were passed on yet again, and perhaps a few more times before the end of the war.

It turns out that for the average German in 1910, he may own six pairs of boots in a lifetime, for the average pair of boots a few years later on the Western Front, the boots may have had six owners before the first time they are re-soled.

And so it is with scienceblog overlords.

I was reminded of this a few weeks back when we got a new overlord. Erin, and I really liked Erin, moved on to bigger and better things (and for that I’m very excited) and she was replaced with Evan. I was originally hired by Katherine. And between Katherine and Evan, there were two or three others besides Erin before Evan came along.

I’m not sure if Scienceblogs is the boots and these overlords are the hapless, ill fated German Soldiers from Eric Maria Remarque’s famous novel, or if Scienceblogs is the tenacious soldier who keeps trying on boots of the dead, one after the other, until he finally finds a pair that fits. I do know that all of our overlords served us well but if you told any of them they reminded you of a pair of old boots they’d probably kick you in the head. You have to have that kind of leatheryness of personality to deal with this stable of bloggers, I’m sure.

So, I was reminded (again) of the boots a few days ago when Erin passed them on to Evan, but I was reminded again much more recently when I had the opportunity to have a long talk with Evan about … boots and stuff. And I’m pretty sure he’s going to be a good overlord.

You might think this post is a metaphor for something, or has layers of hidden meaning. But no, it’s just about the boots. It is always about the boots.

Have you read the breakthrough novel of the year? When you are done with that, try:

In Search of Sungudogo by Greg Laden, now in Kindle or Paperback
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