The shoebox

Alright, here’s another restaurant story.

My brother is six years older than I. He was always looking for a way to make a buck. Perhaps times were harder when he was coming up and before I arrived.

Anyway, he bought me a shoeshine box. It was great. It had brushes, shoe shine polish, wax polish for the shoe leather and the liquid black for the edges of the soles.

We had the drinkers at the bar and so it was a perfect storm.

My brother got a piece of the action of course. He put up the seed money. He is very clever to this day. We had nothing so this worked pretty well. Anything we brought in, or I brought in, was profit after he was paid and the supplies were paid for. Hum, isn’t that how the real world works?

So when I wasn’t shooting pool or cleaning one of the four bathrooms or mopping the floors in the same or washing dishes or cutting meat, I could shine shoes.

Do you ever notice the bathrooms in public places, by the way? Someone’s father, mother, or child cleans them, you know. Just a thought.

I feel sorry for every shoeshine man or boy I see these days. Everyone wears tennis shoes now, Think of how that killed the shoeshine industry. The manufacturers and the men or boys who shinned shoes got a raw deal there.