Wanted: A Cobbler and A Sleek, Tall Black Boot

Yes, a Cob­bler. A per­son who makes or mends shoes.  And at this point we are talk­ing NEED and not sim­ple want.

I think every woman or man should meet one, sit with one, observe as they cre­ate, or at the very least, mend a shoe.  You don’t have to have a shoe fetish (Lord send help!) to under­stand the allure, or dare I say want to learn.

When I was a young girl head­ing off to ele­men­tary it was in fact ele­men­tary to have Honeyman—that was our local cobbler/shoeman in St. Kitts (Sugar City) get our kicks ready for the first day. I don’t know if I thought the results of his labor were the most attrac­tive things, but at that time mirac­u­lously, I wasn’t the sort of child to make shoe demands. All the grand­chil­dren had the same, and that would take away any sting.

Now with a name like Hon­ey­man, you may begin to under­stand any sub­con­scious attach­ment that was formed.  You may even begin to dis­cern that I have great expec­ta­tions of a shoe’s begin­ning, on through its life expectancy after pur­chase and  in that its over­all evo­lu­tion.  And there begins my trouble…

My need for a Cob­bler cur­rently stems most directly from three pairs of shoes that I love which are in dire need, but also from that Fall state-of-mind, since I also need, yes need a boot. Specif­i­cally a sleek, black, tall (in heel and length of shaft) boot.

On the streets of New York, there are Cob­blers every­where. They actu­ally call them­selves that. Noth­ing nec­es­sar­ily attrac­tive about these work­ing men, except for their hands, and that stud­ied, almost unearthly util­i­tar­ian skill. You might be able to learn car­pen­try and wood­work or weld­ing in someone’s school of thought, but you learn cob­bling at someone’s feet or not at all.

Is it any won­der that I feel the way I do. A Cob­bler knows a woman. They under­stand us. There is noth­ing like a man who antic­i­pates the need, and can take your shoe and heel, and with tools that defy the death of a shoe give you back your pride and a small mea­sure of grace.

I’ve had a bro­ken heel twice in my life and each time, both in sep­a­rate sec­tions of NYC, a Cob­bler has been so close I could prac­ti­cally touch him; and I did because I didn’t have the words for shame, and he took what I offered, on each occa­sion, and I knew that every­thing would be alright.

My last great sig­nif­i­cant mem­ory of a Cob­bler is of the one who fixed a boot that I loved with the kind of awk­ward pas­sion reserved for first times. It was 2000 in Queens, New York. I had slipped into the Steve Mad­den store in my local mall and stood trans­fixed at the sight of “the boot”—“my boot” on dis­play. It was the most sump­tu­ous black leather, tall as it rose to heights just below the knee and strik­ingly shaped with a unique rounded toe that upturned slightly off cen­ter. The heel wasn’t diva either. But at the most maybe 2 3/4 inches, they had their own atti­tude, and I worked every last inch.

I was instantly ready to pur­chase, but wouldn’t you just know there was a young girl look­ing at me like the world was hers and in par­tic­u­lar “my boot.” And so we had a stale­mate. She had the left shoe and I the right of it. Or I was wear­ing half of my shoe and she was deter­minedly strug­gling with the other.

I knew I would win, I was just wait­ing for her to fig­ure it out. There were tears in her eyes and her mother tried to con­sole her. “The boot”—“my boot” wouldn’t fit. It was an issue of a zip­per that refused the own­er­ship of calves. When her mother brought me my boot, she said “she does ballet.”

I must have com­mis­er­ated, but inside I was smil­ing, preen­ing actu­ally, if one could do such a thing with­out an audience.

I got the side eye, I got com­pli­ments, I fell flat on my butt in the snow in the mid­dle of mid­town Man­hat­tan in those boots. They were my babies. I had them for 5 years before the cold of win­ter began to pen­e­trate the worn-to-the-ground sole. I didn’t imag­ine a solu­tion, but my dad offered to take them to a Cob­bler in Brooklyn.

When those shoes returned, they smelled like shoe pol­ish and leather. They smelled like a very good Cob­bler had had his way with them.  They smelled like Honeyman.

I have no idea why I moved to Orlando with­out them. I am imag­in­ing some­thing like too much bag­gage (phys­i­cally and emo­tion­ally) and the feel­ing of just want­ing to start over. But I miss them.

So, I’m not actively look­ing for a sleek, black, tall boot with my name on it, because the great ones always find you.

But the Cob­bler. Well, if any­one knows of one in the sur­round­ing area, please let me know. I’m will­ing to go the distance.

ABOUT THE WRITER

Hi there, I’m Tynisha Leon, founder and Editor-in-Chief of DASHEEN mag­a­zine — the online des­ti­na­tion where cul­ture feeds imag­i­na­tion! I am a cul­tural war­rior first and fore­most; and for me that sim­ply means that I am a light bearer for all things intrin­si­cally cul­tural and Caribbean. If you seek to inno­vate, pro­mote and/or con­tribute to posi­tioning a Caribbean peo­ple and gen­er­a­tion most pos­i­tively then link me! Bless!

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