At work the other day I was putting some protectant on a new pair of boots. I share an office with the Quality Assurance Officer. We were chewing fat and the subject of shoe shining was brought up.
I flashbacked to my youth and my days of shining shoes in the late 60’s - early 70’s. Back then, when you grew up in a city like Worcester, Mass and you weren’t too well off you tried to morally come across some coin in many different ways. Paper routes, lawn mowing, snow shoveling, coal shoveling, shoe shining, etc.
If you were going in the shine biz, you had to have a shine box. So you scraped together any wood and nails you could find and you built yourself one. Fence boards worked well. And it was a time to be creative with industrial skills. Once your box was complete, filling it with the necessary supplies was your next task. If there was polish lying around the house, great. If not, come up with some monies to purchase some. Throw in a few rags, a brush, nail an old belt on the box for a shoulder strap and off you went.
You would walk down Main St. soliciting people on the street, in diners, drug store lunch counters and in bars. The owner or person working in these places would sometimes run you off before or just as you had a customer. Usually 25¢ was the asking price and a good day would net $2-3.
Those were the days when people seemed to have taken better care of their shoes. Maybe because of the fact that nearly all shoes were made of leather, including the soles. Heels had to be replaced once in a while, so you would take them to a cobbler and have them replaced. Cat’s Paw was a popular brand of heels. Many times I dropped off or picked up shoes at the repair shop. The shoe repair stores were run similar to a dry cleaner. And sometimes they were the same place. Like many other crafts, cobblers are rare or no longer needed. Technology and availability replaced many things, and cobblers were not immune. Shoe repair can still be found, but not like when I was a kid.
I flashbacked to my youth and my days of shining shoes in the late 60’s - early 70’s. Back then, when you grew up in a city like Worcester, Mass and you weren’t too well off you tried to morally come across some coin in many different ways. Paper routes, lawn mowing, snow shoveling, coal shoveling, shoe shining, etc.
If you were going in the shine biz, you had to have a shine box. So you scraped together any wood and nails you could find and you built yourself one. Fence boards worked well. And it was a time to be creative with industrial skills. Once your box was complete, filling it with the necessary supplies was your next task. If there was polish lying around the house, great. If not, come up with some monies to purchase some. Throw in a few rags, a brush, nail an old belt on the box for a shoulder strap and off you went.
You would walk down Main St. soliciting people on the street, in diners, drug store lunch counters and in bars. The owner or person working in these places would sometimes run you off before or just as you had a customer. Usually 25¢ was the asking price and a good day would net $2-3.
Those were the days when people seemed to have taken better care of their shoes. Maybe because of the fact that nearly all shoes were made of leather, including the soles. Heels had to be replaced once in a while, so you would take them to a cobbler and have them replaced. Cat’s Paw was a popular brand of heels. Many times I dropped off or picked up shoes at the repair shop. The shoe repair stores were run similar to a dry cleaner. And sometimes they were the same place. Like many other crafts, cobblers are rare or no longer needed. Technology and availability replaced many things, and cobblers were not immune. Shoe repair can still be found, but not like when I was a kid.
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