"By Golly! Dats Some Shine!"
-- Shinola advertisement
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| My favorite shoes 1-24-14 |
"I am standing like shoe polish on an overstocked shelf
hoping that one day someone will pick me to make things better."
-- Buddy Wakefield, Living for a Living
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| My favorite shoes with scuffs 1-24-14 |
"Dull shoes counteract polished resumes."
-- Kiwi shoe polish advertisement
The smell of shoe polish always reminds me of my Dad.
He used to pay me a quarter a pair to polish and shine all of his shoes.
It was a semi-lucrative gig for a little kid, since he had several pair of dress shoes -- wing tips were his favorite -- in black and cordovan. He kept them lined up on his closet floor with metal shoe trees locked down tight inside them like mechanical skeletons.
He kept the shoe polish on the top shelf of his closet in an oversized replica Kiwi shoe polish tin as big as a birthday cake. The tin originally came as a kit filled with little flat pucks of polish, brushes, daubers and soft, fuzzy shoe shine cloths. He just refilled it whenever he needed new supplies. (The tin was also right next to a not-so-well hidden stack of Playboy and Penthouse magazines that I'm pretty sure he didn't know I knew about. I knew.)
I'd set up shop by spreading out newspaper to protect the bedroom carpet. I'd unhinge the shoe trees, pull out each shoelace with a satisfying "snap," and line up the shoes according to color. He showed me how to rub the polish in careful little circles -- a thin film. Not too much. He taught me to let the polish fully dry before buffing it off. He showed me how to use the brush, demonstrating sharp, back and forth strokes.
Somehow, polishing my Dad's shoes made me feel close to him. There's something very personal and intimate (not in a weird way) about putting your hand into someone else's shoes and going over every inch of them to erase the scuffs and scratches they've collected while living in them. Those marks are like a mysterious map of who they are, and what they've done, and where they've been -- some of it with you, but much of it when you weren't anywhere around. And afterwards, when I'd see him heading off to work in his shiny shoes, I felt a sense of satisfaction and usefulness, like I'd done a good and necessary thing to help him on his way.
It felt good.
I don't pay my children to polish my shoes, not because I want to deny them the opportunity to feel useful, or close to me. I do it because I still really like doing it myself.
Methodically working to transform shoes from dull and scuffed to gleaming like new is like giving yourself a fresh start -- like a re-charge to go and do it all some more. For me, a shoeshine fits into the same category as a haircut or a car wash or a pedicure or a crisply ironed shirt. Somehow, a fresh shoeshine just makes everything seem a little bit better. Also, it makes me feel taller.
The process is relaxing and meditative and I love the "before and after" satisfaction. Sometimes I do them a pair at a time, and sometimes I line them up and do them all.
My favorite part, though, is twisting the little metal mechanism on the side of the shoe polish tin to pry up the lid. That familiar whiff of naphtha, turpentine, lanolin and Carnauba wax gets me every time. I prefer a waxy polish to a creamy one. And I learned from soldiers that to get that really shiny shine on the toes, you have to polish and buff the toes three times. Old laces look shabby on just-polished shoes. (Laces are cheap. Buy extras and keep them in your kit.) And use separate buffing brushes for browns, blacks and reds. Nothing screws up a cherry red finish like black polish residue trapped in the brush.
Come on, you know you have a pair or two that are looking pretty shabby.
Feel good.
Shine your shoes.
