Happy Feet

There was a time, back when Wally and the Beav were kids, that gentlemen went to the barber shop for a haircut. Sometimes, a shave with a straight razor was involved, too, and if you were going all out, the trip included a shoe shine as well.

Since I graduated beyond the home-haircuts of Mom and my Grandma, about the same time I started driving, I’ve tended to go to a “stylist”, the traditional barbershops having gone the way of the General Store and hitching posts on main street. Once in a while you find a true old-fashioned barbershop, and it’s an experience when you come across it, but you have to really look for them.

On a trip to New York last summer, a friend and I were killing time walking around Greenwich Village while waiting for the others in our group to finish their tasks. We both needed haircuts, and he chose where we were going.

I honestly didn’t think that there was such a thing as a straight (as in….not gay) hair stylist in the Village in NYC, but we apparently stumbled into the only such facility there. Four barbers – no stylists there – sports on the television and the invitation, “What can I do for youse guys?”

It was an interesting experience, finding Sports Illustrated, Field and Stream and Playboy to peruse rather than Southern Living, Better Homes and Gardens or those gawdawful hair magazines that you usually encounter.

The one thing they didn’t offer, though, was a shoeshine stand.

In the past, I’ve tended to shine my own shoes, giving them a quick swipe with bottled dye and calling it good if the color is relatively even. It was not a shine, for example, that Dad would have been proud of because he was taught to shine shoes in the army.

Apparently this was a life-skill deemed necessary in the 1950’s, because they spent a great deal of time doing it. Even now, more than 50 years after he completed basic training he will regularly pull out the same kit he had then with it’s myriad of sponges, brushes and polishing clothes (some of which have surely been replaced, although the brush still sports his Army Serial Number on the wooden handle) and make his dress shoes gleam for whatever event happens to be upcoming.

Since retirement, he’s slacked off a bit and discovered the joys of hush puppies rather than wingtips for daily wear.

In adolescence, he apparently sensed that a military career wasn’t in my future – probably because of my propensity to question directives rather than follow them – so he taught me the right way to shine shoes.

It’s a pain. It’s time consuming since I don’t tend to think about it while watching television some evening, but instead let it cross my mind after I’ve got on a white long sleeved dress shirt and a short deadline. The result usually comes from one of those little pre-filled sponges with the polish built in. I can usually get the scuff marks covered without having to change clothes again.

Only guys who used to be in the military would probably notice that it’s not a Grade-A shine job.

So the other day, I found myself killing time in the airport and happened across a shoe-shine stand and decided to splurge on an indulgence. There is an event coming up which will require that I be squoze into my tuxedo for the first time in several years, and I was hoping that nice shiny shoes would put enough of a reflection up that people wouldn’t notice that I need to move up a size because my jacket no longer buttons and the cummerbund is at the extreme limits of physical tolerance.

Besides, the cost of the shine would more than likely be offset by the savings for the ruined tuxedo shirt when I got polish on the sleeves.

I climbed up on one of the four thrones in the nook at the airport, designed apparently to make you feel like royalty as you survey the minions below while being serviced. The young lady welcomed me (an innovation you probably wouldn’t have seen in Floyd’s Barber Shop in downtown Mayberry!), rolled up my pant legs and put little guards around my ankles.

This obviously was going to be more involved than the vague swipes that I usually made while sitting on the side of the bathtub.

First, she actually washed the shoes with a little brush and some type of soapy-looking water. Whoda thunk you need to remove dirt before you smear on the shine?

Then she began applying her assorted pastes and poultices, the rubber gloves she wore looking like purple based palamino hide with the remnants of earlier endeavors.

The first thing I noticed was that the foot massage you got, even through the leather of the shoes, was wonderfully relaxing. There was a reason that you sat up on the throne, because this is how I imagine royalty is treated! Every time I thought she was surely about done, she’d grab another container from the drawer, smear on another layer and go at it again.

I was neither out of breath, nor did my stomach hurt from trying to bend over to become reacquainted with my feet, both events becoming more common of late. My throne-mates and I were also entertained by the banter from the man who seemed to be in charge of the stand, a slim African-American gentleman of indeterminate age and enough grey in his hair that one would suspect that he may have learned his craft as a result of the military draft earlier.

Today’s topic was numismatic trivia, and he posed questions about American coins. In an interesting paradox, he revealed that he goes online every evening after work to determine the following day’s questions. Then when there was a dispute among us regarding the answer to a question, an airport security guard on the next throne whipped out his cell phone, logged onto the internet and resolved the issue.

All too soon, about the time that I was ready to doze off, my sommelier of footwear was snapping a cloth across my toes, removing the guards and indicated that I was all done.

The total price of the indulgence? $5.00, plus tip. I had no idea you could buy luxury that cheaply.

Or that I could get my shoes looking so good without breaking a sweat.