A Job Made Easier With Boots

Baltimore native Tom Greco didn’t think he needed cowboy boots for work – until he stepped on a rat.

By Joy DiazMay 30, 2018 7:07 am, ,

Tom Greco hails from Baltimore and Omaha, but he makes his home in Duncanville Texas. In 1971, he was hired by an Omaha railroad to verify the numbers on freight cars. He recalls one day accidentally stepping on a rat while wearing wing-tipped shoes.

“It frightened the daylight out of both of us,” he says, “I don’t know who jumped farther…I, the very next day, found me in my very first pair of cowboy boots.”

He says he never wore another pair of shoes at the railroad yard again. He says it became a “trademark” to see him in his cowboy boots with his Baltimore accent.

Greco says he walked into a Duncanville boot and shoe repair shop 10 or 15 years ago and saw a pair of Lucchese “black cherry” boots. The shop owner told him they cost $60.

“What else could you do? I put them on my charge card and ran like a thief,” he says, “This pair of boots has been the best pair of shoes of any kind – boots or shoes – that I’ve ever owned.”

Written by Amber Chavez.