My brother and I grew up in our parents' downtown shoe shop.No latch-key kids here!
The store was our playground with the marble and brass 2-seater shoeshine stand and the wonderful fragrance of fresh leather. Mom and Dad worked 10-hour days six days a week for many years selling men's shoes, cowboy boots, and work boots. In the shoe shop they repaired anything their customers brought in. Gurney straps for the Fire Department. Bowling shoes for the local alley. Broken shoes for Dillards. Mom sewed Harley patches on leather jackets, handles on suitcases, and straps on purses. Dad dyed shoes for just about every wedding in town for 40 years. Dad also specialized in orthopedics, building up and customizing soles and heels for those customers with medical disabilities.
Customers entering the 100-year-old building through the extra-tall double wooden doors first had to walk past my mother's "jungle" at the counter. Her green thumb was evidenced by very healthy African Violets and other miscellaneous plants that threatened to overtake the countertop. Straight ahead and on the left were numerous racks of shoes and boots just waiting to be tried on. Placed randomly on the walls were posters advertising Cat's Paw and Goodyear products. Roper, Justin, Acme, Dan Post, Lucchese, Nocona, Tony Llama, and Wellington were among the names that identified the boot boxes lining the shelves along the wall above the shoe racks. All the way in the back, by the old-timey soda machine and Dad's aquarium, was the shoe repair shop,
I have many memories from my hours spent there. The shoe repair shop was especially fun. The machines whizzed and whirred as old, tired shoes came back from the dead in my father's hands. My brother and I loved making glue balls from the rubber cement used to glue on new soles and heels before stitching. I loved the way it smelled. (No, it's not the kind you get high on!) But the best quality was the rubberiness of the glue. I used to remove the large brush attached to the lid and pick off the glue that had run down the sides of the jar. Rolling it all together, it made a great glue-booger ball.
I was fascinated by listening to the humming machines. They didn't just hum--they sang. One day, when I was quite young, I decided to try to match the pitch of the finishing machine by humming along with it. When my pitch perfectly matched the machine's hum, the sound was amazing. I would vary my pitch slightly by raising or lowering my tone and would listen intently to the resulting enharmonics. These experiments with pitch fine-tuned my God-given gift of perfect pitch. When I wasn't humming, Mom was singing, or Dad was listening to Southern Gospel music on the radio. Music was never far away.
Over the years Dad sometimes hired shoe repairmen to help carry the load. One of my favorites was "Lou", a giant young man who was very nice to two kids who were surely in the way often. Lou was very creative and one day proudly brought in an immaculately painted sign he had made for the shoe shop. It hung at the end of the counter by the stitcher for too many years to count. On a piece of wood, Lou had painted a dark green background with giant red letters painstakingly shadowed in white:
You can't look neet
if your shoes are beat!
We never had the heart to tell him he misspelled "neat."
My father had planned to make a career of the military, but peace-time got in the way. The Army discharged many soldiers because they simply weren't needed any longer. But, being the great nation that she is, America did not turn her soldiers out into the streets. She made certain they had vocations to go to in return for their faithful service. Hence, my father, the shoe repairman.
Dad was as fair a man as you could find. He charged less than his competitors because he wanted people to be able to afford his services. Mom and Dad genuinely cared about their customers. And their customers loved them back. I couldn't even begin to list all the gifts brought in "just because." Fresh vegetables from gardens. More African Violets. Jewelry for Mom. Fish for the aquarium. They pretty much knew everyone who worked downtown. Wherever they went downtown, they usually came back with an armload of work to be done--especially from the "girls" at the bank.
Of all the lessons I learned at the shop, the most important thing I saw was love in action. Mom and Dad respected everyone regardless of skin color, lifestyle, or mental status. They befriended the down and out, made sandwiches for the homeless, watched out for the kids waiting for their parents after the Saturday afternoon movie, flagged down drivers going the wrong way down the one-way street, called 9-1-1 when the inevitable crash occurred after hearing screeching brakes, and called the police when winos wee-weed in the public fountain across the street. They picked up the winos out of the street and led them to safety. They looked out for the old black barber two doors down and the German lady who owned the book store on the corner.
During the stressful '60s, with racial rioting occurring across the nation, my parents drove right through the middle of the "projects" to go to and from work every day. I relayed my fears to Mom one day who said, "Why should we be afraid? They know us." That is when I realized for the first time just how respected my parents are. Many times they were the only two white faces at the funeral of a black friend.
Several years ago, while home for a visit, I was at church with my parents. Between Sunday School and church, Mom and I were standing by the big glass doors that overlook the parking area. Mom leaned forward looking through the window and said, "What's he doing?" A young man was going from car to car on the parking lot, putting flyers under windshields. There is a religious cult in the area, so this is not an unusual thing. Mom looked more closely and stated, "Oh, that's old so-and-so," stating his name. I asked her how in the world she could know that from so far away. The man was a blur in the distance. "Oh, I would recognize those feet anywhere. I can tell by the way he walks. I fix his shoes."
It was a very sad time for the customers when Mom and Dad announced their retirement. "What are we going to do?" Every customer asked the same question. My parents had loyal customers that drove from 3 counties away and from the neighboring state for their shoe needs. That doesn't include all the traveling evangelists who over the years made the shoe shop their personal long-distance shoe store. Mom and Dad basically shut down the store by themselves, selling the machinery and large items in an auction. It was a very stressful, tiring time for them.
But I have to say that retirement is agreeing with them. They have finally learned how to relax. Their daily M.O. is getting up somewhat early, eating breakfast, then going back to bed. Can I retire, too? Dad is league bowling several times a week and is very active with the local Gideons. They have started a prayer group at their church. And, for the first time ever, they are now able to participate in "day-time" church activities. In the fall they went on a bus ride up the mountain to enjoy the turning leaves.
Mom logged many hours behind this stitcher.
Stepping into the shoe store was like stepping into another era. My granddaughter is the last generation to be able to experience this. She loved going to the shop and doing the same things I did as a kid, the same things her daddy did, including making booger balls and cutting leather trimmings. It may very well be the last shoe repair store she ever goes into.
Most shoes just aren't worth fixing any more.
