The Shoeshine Boy

In one brief summer a thirteen-year-old became a Texas Shoeshine Boy, creating a story to add to the family history––a springboard to link the threads of two generations.

The Houston Ice Houses played cowboy songs to lonesome folks whose shoes needed a good shine. In 1955 it was a place sandwiched between a boy growing up and a country expanding its frontiers. It was as simple as two people discovering each other and as uncharted as the Southwestern Bayous. But these thoughts could only be understood later, when growing older seasons memories and makes sense from a perspective far in the future. A place where all such stories are weaved and knitted into a tapestry that can only be seen and read after a lifetime; a place where teardrops are not lost in rain, but merge with fond memories into the lives of families yet to come.