Let's die with our boots off

Letter writer Dorene Terryberry lamented the sight of “families paying last respect” with empty boots instead of with crosses. She implores “Let us die with our boots on (Letter, Village News, Dec. 3, 2009).”

I suspect Ms. Terryberry does not know the origins of the phrase “He died with his boots on.” It signifies that the gentleman in question did not die peacefully in his bed, but met with a violent and sudden end. ‘Out West’ people had a disagreeable habit of shooting each other out in the OK Corral, and in the old South, blacks were not infrequently discovered taking the morning air suspen...