Contemplating a boot

I have a favourite pair of hiking boots. We’ve travelled well together for over two decades. Labrador mountains; prairie dirt; ocean to ocean. They’ve given loyal service but the day has come when my friendly boots need attention.

I discover Jean François Lapointe: Cobbler. He’s working on a pair of auburn cowboy boots in a small, yellow-front shop tucked along King Street in downtown Trenton. “Seeing how a person walks and how they dress tells a lot,” Lapointe says while inspecting my footwear. He recalls a customer who recently asked for a shoe buffing: “I have a job interview tomorrow,” she told him, “And that is one thing they look at. Nice, clean shoes shows you are attentive to details.”

We talk about what we carry on our feet. I mean the ancients are depicted wearing shoes in primitive cave drawings. Ötzi the Iceman was wearing a high moccasin when his 5,000- year-old mummified body was found in the Alps.

Jean François moved to Trenton from La Sarre, Quebec and spent 26 years in the military travelling the world over. “I was a loadmaster on the planes and injured my back. Released from service, I went job hunting and came in here one day to get my shoes repaired. The rest well…” While the name has held —‘Pete’s Shoe Repair’—Lapointe has been at the bench for a decade.

“I took a course in business management, bought the business and the owner stayed for a month to teach,” Lapointe tells me. “At first it took longer as I studied how things were made. You have to be handy with your hands and the finishing is important. I enjoy doing custom leather belts. Boots, shoes, purses, leather coats, luggage, boat covers…if it’s made by man I can fix it,” he says with pride. “Anything that requires a stitch, I have the machines!”

The door opens. It’s the parking bylaw officer. An attractive smile, she politely wants to know about the vehicle at the curb. It’s not mine. Not this time, anyway. “By the way, mine is parked over by…” I say to her as she leaves. I mean just in case!

Lapointe shows me how the quality of material and whether footwear is stitched or not affects longevity. “In the last 10 years, the manufacturing of shoes has changed dramatically,” he points out. “Everything is glued; stitching is rare. With vinyl that is stuck to a sole, when the cloth that is the backing on vinyl doesn’t hold any more, the seam separates and is hard to re-seal. It’s disappointing for me to tell a customer who has paid good money for shoes a short time ago that they can’t be effectively repaired.”

He handles a cowboy boot. “If shoes are real leather and have a good weld and a sole of leather or sturdy rubber they’ll last. Glue has been traditionally used but with a stitching that holds the layers together. Without it, after a couple of years the glue dries out and…a sign of the times…a throwaway society.”

Beginning with a manufacturers’ cartel in the 1920s that ensured a light bulb wouldn’t last beyond a thousand hours, the term ‘nofixer’, a philosophy of planned obsolescence, has escalated hand in hand with manufacturing. ‘Built to not last’ is part of many presentday manufacturing strategies. It’s not so much about cutting production costs as it is about repeat consumer buying…the latest thing. It remains the consumer’s place to draw the line.

The role of the artisan like the shoemaker, along with many small enterprises, is overlooked for their immediate contributions to short-distance economies. Lapointe orders supplies by phone and leafs through a printed catalogue that finds information faster than any computer. He knows his machine service people and his suppliers by name. “I have a salesman that comes by roughly every month with leather hides and everything…I go out to his van and he shows me the colours and thicknesses and I make my choices by feel and appearance.”

A young man comes in; inquires about shoelaces. Lapointe surveys the customer’s shoes…counts: “Looks like six grommets.” He runs his hand along a row of hanging shoelace packages. “I think 45…no 48 cm will be good for you. That’ll be $2.45 plus tax. Thank you.”

I ready to leave as a couple arrive. They hand Lapointe a claim tag. “Beige shoes with new lifts,” the woman mentions. By now I’m feeling out the leather on a range of Canadian-made moccasins. “They come in deer skin, moose and cow hide,” Lapointe tells me later.

“I close at 1 p.m. for a half-hour and go out for lunch. There are many days that I call ‘a day I haven’t seen’. It just goes by! You do the work as best as you can with what you have and at the end of the day when a customer stands there…‘Ohmygawd! They look like new!’ You have pleased someone who in turn makes your life more enjoyable.”

My boots are in trusted care. I throw a wave to the ‘parking lady’ across the street; shove coins into a nowexpired meter. Head into Jimmy’s—a.k.a. Skyline Restaurant—where a hand-written sign in the window reads: ‘One owner over 50 years’. I order a fried egg sandwich and watch the traffic go by. The afternoon shines on the Seeburg juke boxes—10 tunes for a dollar. Now silent, they rest at every booth. I sip on coffee and consider Ötzi the Iceman and how archaeologists have scarce evidence of early shoes simply because they were made of organic materials that decomposed after use. There are many treasured moments to be found while contemplating a boot.