Shine of the times not what it used to be at the rodeo
The man in a tweed hat stands at the entrance of NRG Center, gaze fixed toward the floor, scanning the crowd for scuffed cowboy boots or worn-out dress shoes.
“Boot shine! Boot shine!” John Lopez shouts as people arrive Wednesday morning at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. Most breeze by, staring down at cell phones or rodeo programs.
Lopez got his start as a shoe shiner 57 years ago, when he was 10. He and his cousins would load a milk crate with polish, rags and a brush and set up outside of bars in north Houston. Back then, Lopez says, even the drunks liked to have their shoes cleaned and polished. But now? “Boot shine, young lady?” Lopez says to a woman in a cowboy hat.
“No, thank you. I like them dirty.”
Lopez shakes his head and mutters: “You’re going to regret it.”
The boots on his feet are jet-black, and boy, do they shine. They’re several years old but look new — the mark of someone with a little self-respect, Lopez says.
For years, shoe shining was just his hobby. He’d spent three decades as a chef, including a stretch as head of catering at the Astrodome. Then, about 20 years ago, he offered to shine a pair of work boots for a police officer friend, and word soon spread through the precinct.
“Before you knew it, the neighbors were saying, ‘What are all these cop cars doing lined up outside your house?’” Lopez says, laughing. “Those guys take pride in how their shoes look.”
The man striding past him now in a pair of scuffed leather boots seems less concerned. “Let me clean those up,” Lopez says, but the man doesn’t acknowledge him.
For some, a boot shine at the rodeo is an annual tradition. Like the people who pay to ride a camel or eat deep-fried butter, parents line up to have their kids’ faux leather boots polished. City slickers who bought a pair on the way to the rodeo sit down to have them shined.
Lopez calls out to a teenage girl in pink boots; she doesn’t look up from the screen in her hand. He points down at the faded boots of a passing rodeo volunteer; the man shakes his head.
After an hour, more than 50 people have turned Lopez down.
“It seems the whole world has got into a big hurry,” he says, and then, optimistically: “It’ll get busier this afternoon.”
He’s right. Later, as the crowd swells ahead of the night’s main rodeo events, a woman will walk up and ask him to spruce up her brown cowboy boots. A cattleman will plop down and fork over $7 for a wash and polish. A mother will set her 8-year-old boy down in his chair and take pictures of the shoe shiner to post on Facebook.
For now, though, Lopez sits watching people rush by and tells stories of the way things used to be.