Burn Shine

Boudhanath - photo by JoAnn Sturman

Scott Sturman

My daughter is getting married this weekend and insists I wear dress shoes with my tuxedo.  This may seem like a reasonable request, but for a man who has been able to spend his entire professional career wearing only running shoes or Chacos, her concern is not to be under estimated.  In the closet behind some old suits that have not been worn for decades, I found my black, scuffed shoes covered with dust.  They are home to my feet once or twice a year, when my wife insists I dress for a formal occasion.

For four years and particularly the first of these, I spent many hours shining shoes at the Air Force Academy.  It was not how I intended to wile away spare time during my college years, but shoes shined to such a luster that they resembled black mirrors were the expectation.  A smudge or infinitesimal defect was enough to bring unwanted attention from hounding upper class cadets.
 
Fresh out of high school and oblivious to military life, my first day at the Academy passed in a daze–head shaved, each arm vaccinated a half dozen times, and enough clothing issued to fill two large laundry bags.  At the end of the day I staggered into my dormitory room and saw Jack, my new roommate, with a cigarette hanging out the side of his mouth and apparently lighting his shoes on fire.  Or so I thought.  At nearly twenty-two Jack was as old as one could be to be enrolled as an incoming freshman.  As a prior Air Force sergeant and Prep School graduate, he was wise to the ways of the military.

“Hi, I’m Jack. I’ll be your roommate for the next month during First BCT.”

“Good to meet you.  If you don’t mind me asking, what are doing to your shoes?”

“Burn shining them–you put on a thin layer of shoe polish then heat it with a cigarette lighter.  After it softens, you take a moist cotton ball and rub the shoe in a circular motion until the polish clears.  Do it thousands of times, and you’ll be wearing mirrors rather than shoes.”

It was going to be a long summer for me, but Jack was gone within a week.  Immaculate shoes and all, he was unprepared for the vicious hazing from the predatory cadet trainers, who were more inclined to put the soles of their shoes on the top of his than pay him a compliment.

Yesterday I went to the drug store and bought a can of Kiwi black shoe polish–the first in over forty years.  I thought about buying a cigarette lighter to burn shine my shoes for the upcoming wedding, but decided against it.  A couple quick applications of polish were quite enough.  No one ever looks at your feet unless they are afraid to look you in the eye.  Besides my daughter inadvertently might step on them during the wedding dance, and all that work would be for naught.