Mary Flood mines her past for some wonderful stories, including this Best of the Memoir Writing Conference 2012

THE SHOEMAKER

 

By

Mary Flood

 

Mary Flood grew up, lives and works in Portland, CT.  Fortunately, or not depending on your point of view, her rather large family provides her with plenty of material.

 

In the 1960s Main Street in Middletown, Connecticut was a bustling downtown.  You could go to Bunce’s Department Store for an outfit, to the five and ten to buy a goldfish or turtle, to the New York Bakery for a black and white cookie and to the Capitol Theatre for a double feature.

I did all of those things, sometimes in the same afternoon, but one of my favorite places to go was shoe repair shop near the Jewish deli.  It probably had a name, but I don’t remember what it was.  When you walked through the door, the smell of shoe leather and cigars filled your nostrils.  A little old man who spoke broken English stood behind the counter.  It was always a little dark in there.  I was fascinated by the row of chairs, mounted high against the wall where you could sit and get a shine.  I don’t believe I ever

saw anyone actually getting their shoes shined, but it seemed like great idea.

The whole idea of having shoes repaired seems almost quaint now, but we seemed to go there fairly often. With ten brothers and sisters, getting the most out of a pair of shoes was a necessity.

What I never understood was why there were so many men in the store.  Were there really that many shoes to repair?

The chatter among these men often included a smattering of Italian and occasional yelling accompanied by a great deal of smoking.  There was so much foot traffic in and out it surely meant the shoemaker would have business for years to come.

It wasn’t until I was grown and long after Bunce’s  had been shuttered, the five and tens were closed, the Capitol theatre lobby became a liquor store and the New York Bakery was razed in a fit of urban renewal that my mother shattered my illusions about the little old shoemaker.  Apparently when he wasn’t repairing shoes, he was running a gambling operation in the back of the store.  The slightly Damon Runyonesque characters that enthralled me were in fact low level thugs and working men who no doubt rolled the dice and cried, “Come on, baby needs a new pair of shoes!”

 

Copyright 2012©Mary Flood