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Shoe Cleaning Kit
These days I wear shoes that don't need polishing, but back in the day almost everything I put on my feet was made of leather and needed a regular application of brown or black gunge. I didn't like doing it because I'm lazy and antiauthoritarian- and it was one of the many social conventions I thought pointless. My first boss (the vicar of St Martin's, Wythenshawe) tore me off a strip for being such a scruff- and I wanted to say, "Do you think St Peter regularly polished his sandals?" but didn't dare. He told that if I didn't polish my shoes before I showed up (usually at the last minute) for morning service he'd send me home and I wouldn't get to parade around in front of the congregation being holy- and for some reason I took this as a threat...
Anyway, I may not polish my shoes any longer but I still own the kit. I had it stashed on a high shelf in the garage- only accessible by stepladder- and yesterday evening (because we're clearing everything out of the garage) I fetched it down.
There's a tin box, painted green and scabbed with rust. It has two compartments- one labelled "brown" and one labelled "black". Inside are the brushes and some tins and tubes of still viable polish. I considered dumping it as found in the dustbin- and then something clutched at my heart. It hardly makes sense- given how I hated everything it represents- but it's one of the few objects that's still around that connects me to my childhood....
Anyway, I may not polish my shoes any longer but I still own the kit. I had it stashed on a high shelf in the garage- only accessible by stepladder- and yesterday evening (because we're clearing everything out of the garage) I fetched it down.
There's a tin box, painted green and scabbed with rust. It has two compartments- one labelled "brown" and one labelled "black". Inside are the brushes and some tins and tubes of still viable polish. I considered dumping it as found in the dustbin- and then something clutched at my heart. It hardly makes sense- given how I hated everything it represents- but it's one of the few objects that's still around that connects me to my childhood....
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Can you imagine?
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My mother taught me to shine my shoes and care for them and I always thought of it as showing appreciation for your possessions and helping them last longer: some kind of thing of sustainability if you will. I always thought myself privileged to have been taught all these ways of caring for what I own.
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