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When I first spoke to him, he had tapped his ears and furrowed his brow, apparently to indicate that he was hard of hearing, but we managed to communicate nevertheless. I handed him my boots and gestured to the worn-down heels; he slipped the boots onto his shoe tree and, amid the thronging horns of delivery trucks and the chatter of passersby, pried off the existing heel, plucked a piece of black rubber from his bench, traced the outline of my boot’s heel on the rubber with a pencil stub, sliced it out with a pocketknife, and tap-tap-tapped it into place. Then came the most satisfying part, as he turned my boot in his hand while holding a file to the edge of the sole, and a shaving of black rubber curled away from the heel beneath his thumb. Then he sanded down the edges with an equally satisfying rubbery rasping sound, leaving a small pile of black shavings on the sidewalk at his feet.
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The re-heeling and polish cost five dollars. Admittedly, a month later, the heels had worn down again, and I had to turn the boots over to a more modern cobbler with access to Vibram rubber and a more abundant supply of brown shoe polish. But I’d say the experience was worth every penny, and every time I heard my heels click beneath me on the sidewalk, I thought of his little stand and the sound of his hammer, and smiled.
1 comment:
How wonderful to see someone making a living by the work of their hands - and on the streets of New York!
He's also providing a useful service to the neighborhood and to passersby.
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