Whenever I shine my shoes I think of a lady I heard about in New York City who sniffed disdainfully about women who don’t shine the bottoms of their shoes.  I was amazed.  Up to that point it had never even occurred to me to do such a thing.  My shoes walk on dirt and gravel, mud and worse.  Why on earth would anyone shine the bottoms of their shoes?

This woman probably walks almost exclusively on carpets.  If she is so cultured and genteel that she looks down upon commoners who don’t shine the bottoms of their shoes, I don’t suppose she even goes to the bathroom like the rest of us.

What is she going to do when prophesied catastrophes overtake this country?  She won’t even know how to walk out of town.

I think of this woman every time I shine my shoes, and I feel sorry for her.

As I shine my shoes I also think about “the very best shoeshine man in the world.”  The very best shoeshine man in the world lived and worked in Lisbon, Portugal.  Elder Harold G. Hillam told about him in general conference in October 1990.  Following Elder Hillam’s release as a general authority he was the president of the Boise, Idaho temple when I began serving there.

The missionaries in Lisbon, Portugal were all acquainted with the shoeshine man, and introduced President Hillam to him.  The man sat upon a three-legged stool on the curbside of a busy street in Lisbon.  His customers leaned against an ornate lamppost, and placed a foot upon a shoeshine box that was full of his polishes and brushes.

The shoeshine man carefully applied two coats of polish, and polished between each coat.  Finally he would apply a special product that gave the shoes an extra special shine.  Then he would give a final snap of the cloth and say in Portuguese, “There.  Your shoes were shined by the very best shoeshine man in the world.”

I like it when people take pride in their work.

I was taught how to shine shoes in boot camp in the U.S. Navy.  All the recruits took pride in their shoe-shining abilities.  There is an art to shining shoes.  You apply a coat of shoe polish, and spit on your shoes as you rub the polish in.  That’s where the term “spit shine” comes from.  Then you apply another coat, and spit and shine some more.  You do that over and over.  You’re finished when you can look into the shoes and see your reflection.

Elder Hillam went to the shoeshine man as a mission president and then as a regional representative for several years.  He learned that the man’s wife had died, and that he had no family.

One day the man was not in his usual place.  Nor was he there on a subsequent visit.  Elder Hillam went into some nearby shops and inquired about his friend.  No one knew anything for sure, but had possibly heard that he had died.

“Could it be,” Elder Hillam wondered, “that the very best shoeshine man in the world had died, and no one really knew or even seemed to care?  I wondered:  Had there been someone there with him, or did he slip away unnoticed?”

I think of this man as I shine my shoes, and I feel sorry for him, too.  No one should be alone in the world.  Pity the man or the woman who is childless and without a spouse.

As I shine my shoes I think, too, of the apostle who found himself the hotel roommate of another member of the Quorum of the Twelve.  When he got up in the morning, he found that his companion had shined his shoes.

Wouldn’t it be a pleasure to shine an apostle’s shoes unasked?

Wouldn’t it be a pleasure to be able to perform that service for just anyone?

The extended family of a woman suffered a terrible tragedy that took the lives of several family members.  As the distraught woman hurried about packing her family for the trip to the funeral, the doorbell rang.  Standing at the door was her neighbor—shoeshine kit in hand.  He asked for all of the family’s shoes, sat down in the middle of the kitchen floor, and proceeded to clean and polish all the shoes.  They were made ready for packing into suitcases.  It wasn’t something the woman would have even thought to do.  She was made the recipient of an act of kindness, and learned from the experience what to do when it became her turn to express sympathy to another grieving family.  Thereafter she didn’t say, “Call me if there is anything I can do.”  Instead she assigned herself to walk the family dog, to mow the lawn, or to water the houseplants while the family was gone.

These were my thoughts as I shined my shoes.  I no longer give them a spit shine like I did in my military days.  I have a better system.  When my wife wears out a pair of nylons, I lay claim to it.  Nylons are a necessary item to have in a shoeshine kit.  So is a tooth brush.  Use the tooth brush to work polish into the seams.  Apply a coat of polish, and then buff with the nylons.  It’s almost as good as a spit shine, and a whole lot faster.