So I bought some used skate gear from Play It Again Sports.  All is serviceable, none is quite modern.  Bindings are being mounted, boots are being repaired, snow is falling!  I hope to get out this weekend, pending the speedy repair of my boots which have a broken zipper and ripped seam.  When the sales person noticed the damage on the bright yellow Salomon boots, he was about to remove them from inventory, but I procured them for next to nothing. 
       I had never been to a cobbler before, approached the storefront with much anticipation.  Shoe repair seemed like a trade of the past in this throw-away age.  I was eager to meet the tradesman of this dieing craft.  The tiny store was in the middle of a shabby strip mall with a large yellow "Shoe Repair" sign over it in both English and some Asian dialect.  It was impeccably tidy and smelled of shoe polish and leather. The walls of the loby were lined with repaired and polished footwear ranging from slinky stilettos, to clunky combat boots.  Behind the desk was an assortment of zippers, laces, and polishes.  The counter, itself, was a glass display case filled with a variety of resole treads.  A sewing machine hummed intermittently in the next room.  I rang the bell on the counter and the sewing machine stopped.  A short man emerged from the next room.  His hair was thinning and well groomed.  He wore pleated khakis and a pressed white button-down shirt under a blue denim apron.  A wholesome smile beamed beneath his thick framed, coke-bottle glasses. 
       Seeing the boots in my arms, his eyes lit up.  "Ahh, yes," he exhaled as he carefully took the boots from my hands.  He worked his skilled and battered hands delicately around them.  His inspection was extremely delicate, as if the boots were brittle artifacts and liable to crumble at a strong a breeze, or a newly hatched chick.  His eyes were soft with appreciation, yet sharp with the scrutiny of a craftsman.  With that he reached below the counter and produce a coffee can full of zipper heads, which he then poured across the glass display case counter top.  Clamping the can between the counter and his body, he filtered the zippers back into it using his fingers, much the way a crab filters water with its mandibles, until he found the morsel he was after:  a red, Salomon zipper pull--an exact match!  "Yeeees!"  His face lit up again, as if he just won at BINGO.  "So, me fixy-fixy zippy here...and stitchy-stitchy seam here, yes?"  His smile was intoxicatingly energetic.  "Sounds great," I was barely able to reply.  By now I was as excited as a child.  "Okay,  Zippy twenty dollar.  Stitchy ten dollar.  Thirty Dollar!  Cashy only!  No checky!  How sounds Monday?"  He wrote out a receipt and thanked me kindly as I made my way to the door.  I left the cobbler feeling happy and warm.  It was great.  For less than a third of the cost of new boots, I have purchased and repaired a perfectly good pair of used boots that were about to be thrown away.
       Such dedication and contentment with a trade seems lost in this world where we are ever seeking for something better.  Something more.  Discontent seems to be an aspiration.  We are taught to constantly seek advancement.  To never be content.  That no matter what we do, what we achieve, there is always something better, if we just keep our options open.  What happened to dedication to a single course?  Those I have met who seem most happy and content are those who have stopped searching.  Who have left the race and run on their own--simply seeking the perfection of what they currently do.