“Now go get your f–king shine box”

But whenever I travel through airports, I wear leather loafers. It’s a pain to take your shoes off through security and then tie them, so the loafers are great.

And then I always look for a shoeshine stand. You’d be surprised where you can still find them. And the conversation is always a great part of the experience. My favorite guys are at St. Louis airport and Dublin. …. and I live in Los Angeles.

It’s a great tradition. Enjoy it and don’t let it die out.

I have had people tell me (erroneously) that “bootblack” is a racist term, but they don’t stop to realize that in that phrase it is the boot that is black with no mention of race either way of the person…

The camp was located at Caven Point area in Jersey City, which just happened to be another of our illegal swimming areas,
with deep clearer channel water and a few abandoned or derelict wooden barges with high derrick scaffolding. Much more fun than climbing the monkey bars at the local park.

That area was rarely patrolled, as it was not close to the camp. The guards would usually look the other way if there were no officers on patrol with them. So we just splashed around on those hot 1944 summer days. They probably remembered their own boyhood adventures or the thrill of defying authority and getting away with it.

Guess it was kind of dangerous jumping bare-assed naked,
holding onto your nut sack for dear life as you hit the cold channel water from 50+ feet up, then tucking your legs under
to cushion descent as you neared the muddy bottom. This
is the place where I learned to hold my breath underwater
for our gang’s record of two and one-half minutes.
_______________________________________________________________

When I checked out Google for Caven Point this is what I found:


”Caven Point” is a modern ballet and true story of the Italian Prisoners of World War II, who were held at a top secret army camp at Caven Point, in Jersey City, NJ between 1942 and 1945. During that time, more than 2000 Italian POWs were treated kindly and allowed to be signed out by Italian American families from the area to spend weekends in their homes, and to work in churches and fall in love with the girls who worked as interpreters at the camp. The US Army called Caven Point the most benign POW camp of all World War II.

Choreography is by the Kennedy Dancers. Artistic Director, Diane Dragone. Original music was composed by A. Louis Scamolin, an Italian Born, NJ based composer and the film was directed by Tom Horan.

Who would believe it – WWII POW Camp becomes fodder for
a ballet! And I was there…no…not at the ballet!

The shine took an unbelievable 25 minutes, and in that time, this woman practically stripped the color off each shoe down to the bare leather, and methodically built it back up, layer by layer, explaining each part of the process. I watched this incredible transformation, first irritated that it was taking so long, then fearful that expensive shoes were being ruined, then amazed at the way she crafted the rebuild and finally, stunned and grateful for the seemingly new pair of shoes on my feet. The color was bright, brilliant and the exact original cordovan hue as when I bought them. I stepped off the stand and handed her a $5 tip, blown away by what I just saw.

Here’s the best part: that shine lasted for almost 2 months of regular use in NY and occasional buffing. I made up reasons to go out to Santa Clara, just to get a shine (you’d think I had a mistress there) until one day, about 18 months later, she was gone, replaced by another woman who charged the same price, took half as long and didn’t deliver. Its a terrible thing to watch a man in a business suit and a laptop cry in the middle of an atrium lobby, but maybe she was the leading edge of the end of the tech bubble that burst soon after. But boy, what a shine!

I can still recall looking out our living room window and seeing the faded green copper of the back of the Statue of Liberty in the distance. No New Jersey Turnpike yet, just the Jersey Central and Lehigh Valley Railroad Railroad tracks to cross to get to the prohibited area where we swam as kids – the murky polluted waters of BlackTom area, not far from what we know as Liberty Island today.

We were just kids entering puberty. What did we care about the
danger of wild dogs running rampant in the bay area, or the
“supposedly” poisonous stingers of the horseshoe crabs that scuttled across our beach, or the ever-present “white eels” that we stealthily avoided as we swam bare-assed naked while just a stone’s throw away the great lady herself, the Statue of Liberty, who politely turned her back on us.

I, too, was a bootblack (or as we were referred to back then as
shoeshine boys). Making the rounds of the local saloons each
evening (there was usually one on every corner of the main
drag in Jersey City during WWII years), trusty shine box slung over my shoulder, “Shine, shine, 10 cents,” reverberated through each stop I made. Sometimes there would be a fifty
cent piece for a job well done, and three dollars for a night’s
take was spending money for more than a week.

And Sunday mornings from 8-12 noon, standing just across the street from the Catholic Church of the Sacred Heart, with several others of my ilk, awaiting the entrance and exit of the Mass goers, always earned us several days’ pay for those few hours.

Fatso, Scoupi, Weasel, Flukey, Jumbo, Kleerow, and me -
the “shineboys” of Jackson Avenue – memories, memories…

Then I got to wondering, as I saw an obituary one day -

“November 26, 1998 Comedian Flip Wilson dies at 64″

It continued: Clerow Wilson was born into poverty on Dec. 8, 1933, in Jersey City, N.J., and raised in foster homes, quitting school at 16.

Could it be? There’s only a few months difference in age. Did I once shine shoes with the great Flip Wilson -
The man who gave the world Geraldine and the catch phrase “the devil made me do it!”

Wonder if he’ll be in the high school year book I got when I was
freshman…

“Shine-shine-10 cents!”