When It's Time To Shine On

I’m getting ready for a wedding. Kate’s getting married and the ceremony is in about three hours. We’ve all been assigned tasks. Mine is the shoes. I was in the Navy years ago and Pat thinks all ex-sailors know everything about shining shoes. I also know how to tie a few knots, steer a ship, fold a flag and run a combat solution on radar but Pat has this fixation on shoes. And she wants them shiney

I heard years ago that most girls start planning their wedding when they’re about eight years old. I think that’s true. For most guys, planning a wedding means trying to schedule it so it doesn’t interfere with the fishing opener, any one of the hunting season starts, or a really good ball game. I learned over time the best way for a guy to survive a wedding (and everything that leads up to it) is to keep your head down, say “Yes Dear” a lot, find out where we’re supposed to be, when we’re supposed to be there and what we’re supposed to wear. When the women ask a question they don’t want an answer. They want affirmation. “Yes, Dear.” And I learned to never, ever get caught in the cross fire between the bride, the mother, the mother-in-law or any other woman involved to the planning or execution of The Wedding.

I’ve been keeping my head down a lot the last few months and have managed to stay out of the firing line. When it came to the shoes I gave the appropriate response (Yes, Dear”) and now I’m looking at several scuffed pairs and a fresh can of Kiwi wax polish.

There is actually a method for getting a mirror shine on shoes. If you look closely at the shoe leather you’ll see pores in the cow hide. The trick is to rub in enough wax polish on the shoe to fill the pores, then put another coat on top and buff very lightly with a cotton pad. Do it right and you can actually see reflections. It takes hours to get there and I’m not doing it.

I did know a guy on the ship who used another method. He found an old pair of paint spattered boondockers in a trash can one day as we were finishing work. He tried them on and they fit so he took them to the paint gear locker and used sandpaper to get down to bare leather. He painted them black and after the paint dried he put on a couple of coats of varnish. This wasn’t a recommended way to do things but for an inspection a week later the rest of us were filling pores with paste wax while he just pulled the boondockers out, dusted them off and was good to go. He got a compliment from the Captain on the quality of his shoe shine while the rest of us stood in formation watching the tropical sun melt our shoe wax into a cloudy glob.

When the varnish cracked on the guy’s shoes he’d just sand them down and paint and varnish them again. The boondockers were good for three sandings before they wore through. Then he found another pair and started over.

I thought about him as I was polishing the wedding shoes. I didn’t give them a mirror finish but they had a fairly good shine. They should be okay. If not, for next time there’s some black paint in the basement. And I know where we keep the varnish.