everyday kind of wonder
I picked up my shoe from a shoe repair shop yesterday. The outer seam was coming loose on the left half of my favorite pair of hiking boots. It actually started coming loose a month or more ago. When school started, I looked up shoe repair places up near the campus and tossed both shoes into the back of the car. They stayed in there for quite a while.
It was difficult to find time to go off to Irving street. I kept leaving the house too late to go before classes, and after class, well... that usually means about nine pm. I don't think most shoe places are open at that time of night. (Heh, "24-hour Emergency Shoe Care!")
I've got the same problem, actually, with my bag. It's about ready to disintegrate, but I haven't found the time to replace it.
Anyway. On Wednesday midday I went up and found parking a couple of blocks from Neighborhood Shoe Repair on 20th. (Incidentally, there seems to be an awful lot of construction, like, everywhere. Seems strange, somehow.) I went in to this small place and gave up my shoe for inspection to an older black man in a work smock with lots of small, interesting-looking tools. I felt kind of nervous, never having been to a shoe-repair place before. (What if it's ridiculous to repair dirty old hiking boots? Maybe people only repair expensive ballroom shoes or something...) I also felt kind of excited to be visiting a cobbler. Sort of mythical.
I stopped by yesterday and got my shoe back. The guy (cobbler!) was rather friendlier than last time. From the first, I felt sort of an instant affection for this man. He's a cobbler and his store is called Neighborhood Shoe Repair. It's like visiting a secret and unpretentious piece of history or something. Difficult to explain. But I visited a cobbler!
It's funny, but even though we completed our transaction and ended our business on good terms, I can't escape this impression that I couldn't understand a single word that man said. Anyway, I'm really glad he fixed my shoe.
It was difficult to find time to go off to Irving street. I kept leaving the house too late to go before classes, and after class, well... that usually means about nine pm. I don't think most shoe places are open at that time of night. (Heh, "24-hour Emergency Shoe Care!")
I've got the same problem, actually, with my bag. It's about ready to disintegrate, but I haven't found the time to replace it.
Anyway. On Wednesday midday I went up and found parking a couple of blocks from Neighborhood Shoe Repair on 20th. (Incidentally, there seems to be an awful lot of construction, like, everywhere. Seems strange, somehow.) I went in to this small place and gave up my shoe for inspection to an older black man in a work smock with lots of small, interesting-looking tools. I felt kind of nervous, never having been to a shoe-repair place before. (What if it's ridiculous to repair dirty old hiking boots? Maybe people only repair expensive ballroom shoes or something...) I also felt kind of excited to be visiting a cobbler. Sort of mythical.
I stopped by yesterday and got my shoe back. The guy (cobbler!) was rather friendlier than last time. From the first, I felt sort of an instant affection for this man. He's a cobbler and his store is called Neighborhood Shoe Repair. It's like visiting a secret and unpretentious piece of history or something. Difficult to explain. But I visited a cobbler!
It's funny, but even though we completed our transaction and ended our business on good terms, I can't escape this impression that I couldn't understand a single word that man said. Anyway, I'm really glad he fixed my shoe.