Smog Check Shoemaker (or My Fairy Tale for the day)

In addition to my normal daily activities, I needed to get my smog checked today so I could send in my registration and pay the DMV some more money. I found one just down the street and when I pulled in, there were three other people waiting. The guy who was finishing up didn't quite pass his smog check and wanted Sam, the man who ran the shop, to still give him the certificate--I believe for a little extra money. Of course, he wouldn't because he could lose his smog check license. I didn't catch all of the transaction, but I think that's what happened.

It really seemed to infuriate the shop owner as after the man left he talked about it to me for some time as he worked on my car. He said some people think the money is more important, but it wasn't to him. Perhaps he wanted to justify that he wasn't unethical to me.

However, in talking about it he mentioned that when he used to live in Russia he was taught by his father at the age of thirteen how to repair shoes. When he was young, though, he worked in the back of the shop and didn't have to deal with the customers. Before he came to the United States, he opened his own shop temporarily in a small town. Since he had never dealt with customers before he didn't know what to charge them and so some customers wouldn't pay. He never made customers pay for children's shoes especially when these would sometimes be the only pair of shoes the children had to wear. And even though he would go home hungry some nights, he believed in what he did. One day, a man came in his shop to take his photograph. He asked, "What's this for?" and the man replied, "You'll see." Later, he found his picture in the local paper and an article thanking him for all the good deeds that he had done for his neighbors. As I drove away, the quaintness of the shoe repair story made me feel like I had just enjoyed a fairy tale of a faraway place and time.

Before I moved to California, I never had to deal with the smog checks. But maybe this was a way to bring me back to the small town feel of shoe repair shops.