Long Burn

Fallen nuts and trees

The congregation has a picture of who they want their minister to be, and the minister has a vision of the church. My father told me once that he had tried to make sure that the church was a place for the regular people in the community, farmers, families. Not long after we moved to a new town somebody in the congregation told my dad that he needed to get some new shoes, maybe some sharp black wingtips, to uphold the image. I guess some of you know my father and maybe some of his principles, equally applicable to shoes and life, comfort, durability, diligent maintenance, new shoes aren't high on the list. One of Dad's rituals was to take his shoe care box out of the bittle (this was our name for a cabinet by the back door) and carefully polish his shoes to get ready for Sunday services. He probably never threw out a pair of shoes but polished them and put on new laces, maybe glued a sole back on or took them down to Ubl's. I don't remember my dad ever buying shoes, just fixing them.


So, as my wife says, the nut doesn't fall far from the tree, and here are some shoes I've been maintaining for over a decade. I remember when I bought them I thought, it's going to take me a long time to wear through those soles. I've glued and clamped the soles a couple of times, cleaned and polished them many times, re-sewed them in a couple of places. But now the back half of the right sole has come off and I don't know if I can fix it. Been considering drilling a hole and sinking a short wood screw into the sole from the inside, but would it hold? Do I want to be standing on wood screws? I have been using these shoes for messing around in the yard and the current project, a 3 x 6 meter mortarless brick patio, involves a lot of digging. The shoes and the spade don't get along.

In the picture the shoes are sitting on a workbench I recovered from my wife's aunt's basement-- Dad helped me refinish it a few years ago.

posted by Matt_J @ 3:14 PM