A Good Pair of Shoes

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David Cohen illustration

In the 1960s, on Sunday mornings, I polished my father’s dress shoes. Rubbing the paste on with a rag, brushing then buffing them with a soft cloth, I made the leather shine like glass. My father seemed pleased with my efforts and happy to wear them to church. I would continue this ritual throughout my childhood, and even in my adulthood, I polished his treasured black loafers.

During my elementary school years, my mother bought me a new pair of shoes in the fall. I wore these oxfords until they were outgrown or worn out. The only other shoes I recall having then were Mary Jane church shoes and summer flip-flops. My parents didn’t have multiple pairs of shoes, either, and appreciated what shoes they had.

My husband, Steve, remembers his boyhood in McDowell County and his mama taking his Buster Brown oxfords to a shoe repair shop in downtown Marion.

“Tipton Shoe Shop was on Main Street,” he recalls. “Inside the shop, everything looked old—aged oak and cast iron machinery, with the sound of a machine spinning a buffing wheel. There was the warm smell of leather, shoe polish, and oil.”

A small man, wearing eyeglasses and a work apron, took the shoes from Steve’s mama. He wrote her name on a tag, tied it to the shoes, and set them on a rack with other shoes. In a few days, she returned to pick up the shoes, polished and bearing fresh leather half-soles and rubber heels. Looking new again, they were ready for more wear.

My mother often reflected upon her Clinchfield cotton mill village upbringing and described a nearby business section known as “Greasy Corner.” Located near the Southern Railroad tracks, Greasy Corner housed shops, including a barbershop which her father and other mill workers visited for a haircut and a shave. Outside the barbershop, her younger brother Virgil, nicknamed “Kool-Aid,” worked as a shoeshine boy. He charged a nickel for a shine.

In the 1930s, a pair of shoes was not taken lightly. And Virgil must have felt pride as an asset to the mill workers, helping them preserve and enhance their shoes with a coat of polish and a bright shine.

But Virgil paid a price for his industriousness. One day, after he had shined the last shoes of the day, he was leaving Greasy Corner for home. He had walked this path for years and would need only to cross the highway and walk on the edge of the road a short distance before he reached the mill village. As he started across the highway, his pocket full of nickels, a woman driving toward him wasn’t looking and slammed into him.

He was severely injured, and when my mother visited him in the hospital, she was shocked to see her nine-year-old brother lying in the iron bed, his broken leg in traction and his body bruised.

“I didn’t know if he would heal,” she said.

But he did heal and returned to his shoeshine job at Greasy Corner. I’m sure the men were pleased to see their friend Kool-Aid back at his stand.

Today, I have more shoes and boots than I need—some I’ve never taken out of the box. I do try to take care of the ones I wear, cleaning my sneakers and occasionally polishing my dress shoes. But I don’t prize my shoes like people once did.

After my father passed away, my mother and I distributed his clothes to family and charity. As I looked through his closet I came to the black Florsheim loafers. He’d always wanted a pair of Florsheims, so one Christmas I had gotten them for him. I almost didn’t have the heart to let them go, but my parents’ longtime neighbor, David, seemed the perfect recipient. He came to the house, tried them on, and luckily, like my father, he wore a size 81/2 wide. He accepted the shoes gratefully, and I’m sure he enjoyed wearing them to church.

David, like so many of my parents’ generation, appreciated a good pair of shoes.

They never took them for granted.