4. Cobbler
A few years ago, in east Mississippi, I went to see a cobbler. There was a crowd when I arrived. He had announced his retirement and so many people had come to say goodbye (and take advantage of a going-out-of-business sale) that I had to wait my turn to speak with him. He was the only cobbler in town. Still, I feel comfortable saying it may have been the first time people lined up for his attention.
As I waited my turn I overheard him compare his pending retirement to a book reaching its final page. He was 67, in jeans, a T-shirt and suspenders. He looked gracious. He also looked tired.
When the way cleared I went over and we chatted. Eventually I put it to him plain: Why are you closing down?
“It’s a throwaway society,” he said.
In the moment I believed he was saying he had aged out of productivity. That his usefulness had expired. That it was time for him to bow out. Toss it in. Throw himself away.
I realized soon later that is not what he meant at all. He meant something much simpler and true. That these days, when someone’s footwear begins to falter, they buy a new pair and throw the old ones out with the garbage. To make a living repairing shoes nowadays is damn near impossible.
I am not sure what happened to him. He mentioned fishing in his future. I liked him and hope he is off his feet somewhere comfortable, tossing lines into deep waters, reeling in big ones with a peaceful mind.
There is another cobbler in Mississippi, one who has not been affected by the ways of a throwaway society. His name is Danny Frazier. He is a third-generation cobbler who has been in the shoe repair business for more than forty years. There is no shortage of work in Frazier Shoe Store & Shoe Repair. That is where Danny repairs leather baseball gloves, fixes up a dog collars, reconnects the handles of pursues, shortens high heels, lengthens high heels, improves tennis shoes and resoles loafers. He also fixes saddles. And builds holsters for pistols. The most common work he does, though, is on cowboy boots. He is aware of the decline of his profession. He just does not worry. For one thing he is so busy he has no time to spare for misgiving. Also, he has the kind of optimism the authors of the Old Testament surely had in mind when calling for conviction in the face of troubles. Danny once told me: “The Lord always has a hand in things whether you know it or not.”
Louisville is a small town near no interstate. Danny grew up there. In Noxapater, about 10 miles away, his grandfather—Fred Frazier Sr., born in 1903—was a sharecropper, like his family before him, growing corn and cotton. In the early 1940s Fred Sr. came down with what doctors believed to be tuberculosis. Quarantine was the answer. The story that came down the Frazier line is that for one year Fred Sr. lived alone in a little cabin beside his family’s home. His wife and young son worked the farm. He came out of quarantine recovered and in 1947 decided to leave farming in favor of opening a shoe repair business. A year later, he moved to Louisville.
His first shop was located near the Winston County courthouse on South Church Street but somehow—the family is unsure of details—he acquired a downtown storefront on Main Street and moved his business there. Eventually the place grew to 2,200 square feet, which it remains today. The address is 108 West Main Street. A sign that hangs outside, above the front door, reads:
Frazier Shoe Store & Shoe Repair
Est 1947
On one side is the figure of a high-shafted cowboy boot. On the other is a leather saddle, because at some point the business began repairing old horse saddles.
The sign is made of poplar, the same type of wood Mona Lisa is painted on.
It was surely understood that when the time came Fred Jr. would take over from Fred Sr. In the early 1950s, Fred Jr. began working in the shop. To better discern who customers were speaking to, Fred Jr. became known as “Brother Junior.”
Brother Junior sometimes noticed his father would spend 45 minutes sewing a single shoe. When the customer came in to retrieve the shoe and asked how much was owed Fred Sr. would say, “One quarter,” or, “One dime.” Brother Junior would shake his head. “I’ve got to give a fair price,” Fred Sr. would say later.
Fred Sr. retired in 1969 and Brother Junior took over. He and his wife lived five blocks away and at midday she brought lunch. At 5 p.m., he locked the door and went home. On Sundays the shop was closed and Brother Junior pastored at First Pentecostal Church of Noxapater.
Danny was born in the spring of 1958. He attended a local public school. Sometimes he skipped classes in favor of fishing or hunting and the following morning he would hand a note to his teacher explaining that he had been needed on the farm. He would have forged his father’s name. Because of the respectable place Brother Junior held in town, this worked.
Danny also spent time at this father’s shop. When he was 13, while fooling with a piece of shoe repair equipment, he sliced off the tip of a finger. His father wrapped it up and began walking him down the sidewalk toward the doctor’s office. Brother Junior is the accommodating, friendly type and as they walked townsfolk stepped forward to speak to him, and he stopped to engage each of them in unhurried, pleasant conversation, like a gentleman. Finally he got his son to the doctor’s office, where Danny’s finger tip was sewn up.
When Danny graduated from Louisville High School in 1976, his father asked if he wanted to come work at the shop. In the 40 years since, there have been stretches when he had other jobs—construction, steel factory work—but Frazier’s Shoe Store & Shoe Repair has been a constant in Danny’s life.
“None of this is difficult really,” he said. “It’s just learning what you’re doing and finding the time to do it.”
Today Danny is in his 60s. The only way to tell he has broken 30 is the gray on his head. He is trim and has the calm presence of someone in shape.
On most days he wears blue jeans, a button-up shirt, work apron, and Wolverine brand boots, of which he has several identical pair (size 9.5). They treat his feet, which give him some trouble, well. They come with lace-ups. After buying each pair, Danny sits in his shop and installs zippers on the sides to make them easier to get on and off. His grandchildren say he uses the zippers because he cannot tie laces. Danny laughs about that.
“As you get older,” he said, “you like things to be more simple.”
There is a relaxed feel at Frazier Shoe Store & Shoe Repair. The front half is full of boots and shoes for sale. Danny spends most of his time in the back, where repairs are done. To get there he passes a wall where black and white photographs hang of his father and grandfather, who died in 1993. Not far away is a sign that reads, “With God all things are possible.”
A while back there was a retirement party for Brother Junior at Frazier Shoe Store & Shoe Repair. They advertised the occasion in The Winston County Journal. More than 100 people came.
“I think people skipped work for it,” Danny said.
A few years ago Danny and his wife, Linda, who also works in the shop, bought a house on South Columbus Avenue in Louisville. It is three blocks from the Frazier Shoe Store & Shoe Repair—closer than Brother Junior’s home ever was.
Danny has two grown sons. One works at a steel factory. The other manages a Memphis cemetery. It does not seem that they will take up the shoe repair business. This leaves Danny sometimes wondering about the future.
“I’d like to see it continue,” he said, “but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”
One afternoon I spent some time in the shop. There, surrounded by sad shoes, damaged boots and esoteric tools, Danny and Linda told me how they met. It was summer. They were in Memphis, attending a church conference. He asked her to coffee and dessert. She accepted. They married by year’s end.
Danny in his apron fell silent after sharing the story. He looked content, and broke the silence by saying, “Life is grand.” Just then a customer walked in. Linda began walking toward the front of the store. Over her shoulder she said, “If you make it grand.”
“We do everyday,” Danny said.
A woman had brought in some high-heels. She wanted them shortened. Danny turned his attention to them. Picked one up. And went to work.
About the photographs
The photojournalist Mary Alice Truitt took the artwork of Danny Frazier and his shop in Louisville. Her website is here.