Posted on 11/01/2007 5:17:15 AM PDT by hemogoblin
Randy Mitchell and Chris Lowe come at life from different angles.
Mitchell tunes his radio dial to Rush Limbaugh and Neal Boortz. Lowe prefers Soulja Boy's "Crank That," and anything else WJJS 106 FM plays.
Mitchell is an older white guy who dropped out of corporate America. Lowe is a young black man who dropped out of college.
Mitchell, gregarious and lively, wears his gray hair neatly trimmed. Lowe, soft-spoken and unfailingly polite, wears his neatly cornrowed.
Yet somehow in the back-room clutter of Mitchell's business -- Schafer's Shoe Repair on Brandon Avenue -- amid Birkenstocks, Allen Edmondses and Liz Claibornes, these opposites attracted.
(Excerpt) Read more at roanoke.com ...
Do you mean to tell me that one of Rush’es Mind Numb Robots you know those Racist, mean poor hating guys would actually give a Black kid a try????..how can that be..we’ve been told all us ditto heads are mean selfish pigs.....
This is an excellent example of the saying, “Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, (or repair shoes), and he eats for a lifetime.”
I’ve been looking for a good shoe repair guy. They are hard to find these days.
I’ve sort of wondered who still takes their shoes to one of those places. I wore out the soles on a pair of loafers I had. Not very expensive—I might have paid $100 or so for them a few years ago—but they were broken in and comfortable, so I decided to take them to the local shoe repair place to have them resoled. It was almost $50!
Heck, for that price, I’ll just buy a new pair of shoes. That sort of price just seems way out of line to me, but maybe I’m just being cheap.
Not that it has any relevance to this story, but there is that line from the Corey Harris blues tune Fish ain't Bitin' no more":
"Give a man a fish, teach him how to fish, bring the whole school to his door, but what he gonna do when the water dry up and the fish ain't bitin' no more?"
You know, I just know this young man, and probably his cousin, Lee, have it in them to become successful businessmen in their own right, thanks to the generosity and trust of a former banker. So I wish them good luck tons of it, in their careers in the shoe repair business.
"It would be unfair and unfounded to accuse Mitchell of looking for an excuse not to hire a black kid. First, his 20-year assistant Cleo Flint was black. Second, I don't care for cornrows myself, and I'm black"
Ms. Flowers deserves applause, both for writing this wonderful and uplifting piece and for having gotten through journalism school without becoming another Borg-like adherent of the hate cult that is progressivism. It's been years since I lived in the great commonwealth of Virginia, so it's not like it'd be local news to me anymore, but she makes me want to read the Roanoke Times more often.
Great find, THANK you for sharing this with us.
Yah, I have a guy that is overpriced and never in his shop right now. He charges $40. It makes sense for $150, $200 shoes and not much sense for $50 shoes. I think $30 would be a fair price but I may be stuck in the past.
I have a fisherman friend who has a sign in his office.
Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he has to buy:
Graphite Reels
Special test lines
Bobbers, weights, lures, and hooks
Charters
Boats
Waders
Bait
etc. etc.
: )
I guess it depends on what sort of person you are. Some people can become very attached to a comfortable pair of shoes. Foot problem lead to other problems, like chronic back pain and lack of energy. Ask any woman in a job requiring wearing a skirt and pair of appropriate shoes all day the value of a comfortable pair.
It probably also depends on how much money you have. None of the brands listed in the article are cheap ones. Some people can afford dozens of pairs but place a high value on comfort. Also, some people can't afford more than one pair of really good shoes to wear to work and are in jobs where there ARE people who judge you by the quality of your clothes and shoes. To them, having a pair repaired can be much more affordable than buying a new pair.
Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day.
Perhaps, but that seems like a pretty low number to me. Also, by the time you wear out the soles, isn’t something else going to go wrong with the shoe, too? I’d lump myself into the people that love a pair of broken in shoes, but $50 is a lot of money.
I’m wearing a pair of Cole Haan loafers right now that I bought in 1998. They are, in fact, very comfortable, which is why I’m wearing them right now.
I have a small hole on the left sole. The top of the shoes look great, except that on the inside of the back, the leather has worn out and the thread has begun to show where I slip them on. Oh, wouldn’t I love to be able to repair these shoes! But the cost—oh the cost. It’s tragic.
I think you are overthinking this shoe repair “issue.” If the cost of repair is less than the cost of equivalent shoes and the shoe other than the sole is fine . . . repair makes sense. If you have a $100 pair of shoes and repair them for $50 . . . what is the issue? You’ve saved $50.
Right, and here's the rub. New shoes aren't equivalent; they are new. I've had the pair of shoes I'm now wearing for almost ten years. Even if I replace the soles, how much longer are they going to last before they otherwise need replacing? Another new pair of shoes might last me another ten years, though.
If a new pair of shoes costs $100 and I can expect that they would last ten years, then it costs me $10 a year to wear those shoes. So I guess--maybe I'm not thinking this through fully--but that I would need a $50 repair to last five years before it would be worth it to make the purchase, right? Otherwise I'm paying more per month to wear the shoes.
But I think you're right. Maybe I am overthinking this issue. It's just a pair of shoes.
I have wingtips that are at least 12 years old and could be 15 or more years old. They show no sign at all of wearing out. I don’t think the tops of good shoes, if you keep them polished, are going to wear out in just 10 years. As pointed out above, a broken in pair of shoes is more valuable to you as an individual than new ones. Also, I overpronate, so I put “taps” on the edge of the shoes and they last much longer than an ordinary sole for me because of the way I walk. Not that I overthink this!
LOL!!! Don’t remind me. It’s even worse when they’re also taught to play golf - that list is endless.
So is a good accordian repair person.
I think it makes no sense to buy cheap disposable shoes when you can get good shoes and resole them for less money.
I think what killed shoe repair was molded soles; people got used to the shoe repair guys telling them they couldn’t resole the shoe they wanted done, and the shoe repair guys didn’t change when they needed to to learn how to repair the new products, so they only do the more expensive shoes now.
Oh, I agree completely. I wasn't trying to be a smart-alec...I really wish I could find a decent accordion repair person in the area where I live.
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