Shoeshiner keeps trade alive

Many occupations, once commonplace, have disappeared with time, changing taste and technological advancements.

At age 70, retired Houma native David Brown is one of the last Tri-parish purveyors in the art of the shoeshine.

From his stand next to Lafitte’s Café in the Quality Inn Hotel, he maintains a loyal customer base, including patrons Michel and Rene Claudet, Terrebonne Parish President and the hotel owner, respectively.

“It makes me feel good when you go home at night, you know you did something to help somebody feel a little better,” Brown said. “When you give a person a good shine and they look at their shoes, it makes a big difference. They really appreciate it.”

Brown will restore the luster to any footwear for $5 for shoes and $7 for boots. But customers get more than just a shine. They will get a warm smile, pleasant conversation and a new friend, according Brown’s clients.

“He adds to the hotel his personality and his demeanor. He’s a genuinely nice man,” Rene Claudet said. “If you watch how he speaks and reacts to people, he’s a good-hearted Christian man. I admire him tremendously. He’s a special human being.”

Even for a first-timer customer like Troy Shuron of Baltimore, in Houma for a wedding, his initial shoeshine with Brown was so enjoyable, he returned the next day.

“I never had a professional shoeshine before. They look better than when they came fresh out the box,” he said of his black Nike sneakers. “Matter of fact, I’m going to stop here (Saturday) and get my shoes shined for the wedding.”

Brown’s shoeshine stand is independently owned and is open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.

On an average day, he shines six to seven pairs of shoes. But on a busy day, he will stay until 3:30 or 4 p.m. because he never leaves a pair of shoes unfinished.

“Most of my customers drop their shoes off and get them later,” Brown said. “No matter how many shoes are waiting to be polished, you have to shine the shoes on a person’s feet first.”

Brown said it takes about 35 to 40 minutes to properly shine a pair shoes.

First, he cleans off the shoes with a rag and brushes them. Then he applies a base polish, followed by another brushing and shining. Afterward, he uses a neutral polish, which gives the shoes the shine. Then he brushes and shines the shoes again. If it’s men’s shoes, he applies either black or brown sole dressing to polish the sole and heel. He explained he never uses it on women’s shoes because it makes the heel “too bright.”

“The important thing you learn is what type of polish to put on shoes because you can really ruin shoes if you don’t put the right polish on them,” Brown said. “If you have a pair of tan shoes and you put brown polish on them, that’s going to change the color completely and make them look red.”

He also uses a toothbrush to rub the polish where the shoe meets the sole to avoid forming white spots.

“There are so many little different things you can do to bring the shine out of a pair of shoes,” he said. “A lot of people use that liquid polish, but that makes your shoes crack up.”

Brown got into the shoeshine business eight years ago. When he retired from United Gas after 28 years as a maintenance man and truck driver, he began shining shoes under the carport at his Stovall Street home.

“You work that long, you can’t just sit around the house,” he explained. “I had to do something, but I didn’t want to get a job that would bind me. So I started shining shoes.”

Brown began honing his skill when his four kids were growing up, and he had to shine their white baby shoes. However, he has been fascinated with the craft since he was a teenager.

“When I was working uptown at Mohana Electric a long time ago, there was an old guy, Old Man Henry. He shined shoes on the side of Haydel’s Drug Store for years,” Brown recalled. “When I wasn’t busy, I used to go over there and watch him. Sometimes, I helped out.”

It wasn’t until he retired that Brown could devote his energy to shoeshining.

He enjoyed a small but dedicated following under his carport stand until 2006 when fate stepped in.

“When I bought the Quality Inn, I wanted to have a shoeshine guy, but I had no idea where to find one,” Michel Claudet remembered. “I read an article about him shoeshining on Stovall Street. I tracked him down, going up and down Stovall Street asking people, ‘Where is he?’ I found him and convinced him to come over to the Quality Inn. I had some of my guys build this shoeshine stand just for him.”

Brown immediately saw the advantages of relocating and has been at the Quality Inn for over three years.

“It’s much better over here because it’s air-conditioned in the summer and heated in the winter,” he said. “In the winter, it was some cold under that carport.”

Brown has become more than just the shoeshine guy. He is an integral part of the Quality Inn experience. It’s a role he cherishes.

“The people here are so friendly. Everybody is like a family and pitches in,” he said. “If they need help with something I do what I can. Anytime I see somebody needing help, I get out there and do what I can, or I get one of the employees to take care of them.”

His favorite thing about being a shoeshine man is meeting and chatting with new people every day.

“It’s the people you wouldn’t ordinarily meet other places, but they sit up here and I learn about things I wouldn’t normally talk about,” Brown said.

“If you’re stuck up and don’t say nothing, just shine shoes, (customers) aren’t going to be coming back often,” he added. “My wife (Margaret) tells me, ‘You talk too much anyhow.’ But I’m used to talking and I enjoy talking to people.”

On the weekends, Brown enjoys going deer hunting with the Houma Hunting Club at its camp in Woodville. But according to Rene Claudet, he is not the killing type.

“He’s an avid deer hunter, but the deer are very safe around him,” he said. “He’ll go hunting, and he comes back and tells me, ‘Rene, I did it again. I couldn’t kill them.'”

Brown has no plan to give up his shoeshine stand anytime soon. But when he does, the art of shoeshining in Terrebonne Parish will go with him. He understands why younger people would not want to get into the business.

“A lot of times, I come here and do pretty good, and some days I may shine only one or two pairs of shoes,” he explained. “You couldn’t make a living doing it. With another income, you might make it.”

Brown has tried to get his son, Bryon, 29, to take over the stand he still has at his Stovall Street home. But the younger Brown is not interested.

“He works offshore and when he comes in, I said, ‘If you take the stand, you can make, some extra money.’ ‘Daddy that ain’t for me,’ he always tells me.”

When Brown hangs up his rag for good, it won’t be the service he provides that customers miss most. Rather it will be the man behind the shine.

“Sometimes, people will come to him with a bag of shoes, but the conversation lasts for an hour,” Claudet said. “I come in some mornings and the shoes are just there waiting for him. He goes, ‘Yeah, that’s this person’s shoes,’ and ‘These belong to that person.’ He’s just develops that type of relationship with people he deals with.”

Houma native David Brown, 70, brightens the leather sneakers of Tony Shuron, from Baltimore, at his independently-owned shoeshine stand at the Quality Inn hotel. Brown is one of the last professional shoe shiners in the Tri-parish area. * Photo by KEYON K. JEFF