Oxford Student

"Greg, what did your dad teach you to do?"

"How to catch a fish, clean a fish, fix vacuums, sell vacuums, drive, watch wrestling, and make steak sandwiches. What did your dad teach you to do?"

"Polish shoes."

Evening time, basement storage room, Dad perched on a bucket with knees above his hips, me sitting at his feet. Smears of black or brown or cordovan (a favorite color to this day; just bought a turtleneck in cordovan) clouded the shiny leather, the wide horsehair brush rhythmically swish-swashed back and forth over each section. I stepped in the empty shoe to keep it still as Dad zig zagged a rag as fast as a blur for the final "spit shine". Just the two of us.

Dad, what is saddle soap?

Dad, how old are your shoes? What were you before you were a dentist?

Dad, how do they put on a new sole?

Dad, what if the leather gets gouged? How do you get scuffs off patent leather?

Dad, what are the tiny dots poked all over your work shoes called?

Dad, what do you do if your skinny waxed lace breaks?

Dad, will you polish my shoes if I bring them down?

Dad, can I polish my shoes?

Surprise, Dad. I polished your shoes.

First by watching and then by doing I learned how to resurrect leather and restore it to glory.

I learned you resole a shoe not to save money but to save the shoe, the beautiful leather upper who stood faithfully beside your bones and callouses all those years until you were “an item.”

I learned because genuine leather is expensive pleather will tempt your pocketbook. Don't take the fake. Invest in things that are real and don't doubt your strategy. Pleather can't go the distance. If tragedy strikes pleather it can be doctored a temporary time or two but you’d better start shoe shopping. Cheap and Fake are besties that will stab Eternal in the back.

I learned cobblers use teeny nails, tiny hammerheads, and magnifying spectacles to affix new soles. To save something worth saving you need the right tools and the right mindset. Saving things isn’t the result of talent, it’s the result of concentration. The work of saving is glorious. Sometimes saving means remembering inherent value or focusing on potential.

I learned the patina of a weathered, sound shoe is a beauty you can’t artificially replicate. Some things just take time to possess their true beauty.

If your lace breaks tie the two ends in a knot and keep going. You’d be surprised how far a knotted lace spare tire will go. Shoes trick you into needing laces; they don’t want you to know they work just fine as slip-ons. Plan B often gets you to the same place as Plan A so don’t sweat it if life breaks your laces.

With limited language and plenty of polish my dad lectured about leather and life. 

The last Christmas before I headed off to college yielded a special gift from Dad: my own shoe polishing kit. I may have been the only female freshman in the dorms with a shoe polishing kit. It felt like home to spread a towel out (to catch any rogue polish bits), twist the circular Kiwi tin open, and plunge the bristles in stain. It felt like my dad was still with me, guiding me here and there about avoiding direct contact with laces or double-checking the soles with a rag so I didn’t walk polish all over the carpet. It feels good to have old shoes. RE is anxious to stop growing so she can get a dress from Boden and some kickin' leather shoes.