When Richard Agabiti is not working, he takes time out to ride the waves and commune with nature.
By John Tredrea
Editor’s note: This is the latest in the series, "On the Job in Hopewell Valley" portraits of people at work.
Richard Agabiti, owner-operator of the Pennington Cobbler shop at 14 N. Main St., in the heart of the borough, got started in the shoemaking trade over 40 years ago.
When he’s not working, he takes time out to ride the waves and commune with nature.
"It was in the early 1960s," he said Saturday afternoon. "I was 14 years old, working part time in my dad’s shop. He was a shoemaker, too."
Mr. Agabiti opened his shop in Pennington four years ago. "It’s the best move I ever made," he declared with complete certainty. "I have the most loyal customers here. And here I’m part of the community. I’ve spent years working in stores that were in shopping centers. It’s much different here so much better. People stop in to say hello. If they’re going for coffee at Cup of Joe up the street, they’ll bring me a cup, too. Something like that can make your day."
Mr. Agabiti fixes all kinds of shoes luggage and handbags, too. "I sell some shoes as well," he said. "Fixing shoes is work I still enjoy. It’s really an art form if you have the hands for it. Not everyone does."
He noted with laughter that, for centuries, people have for some reason tended to think of a cobbler as someone who can fix just about anything. "They’ll say: ‘If you can’t find a guy, take it to a shoemaker,’" he said quizzically. "People have brought me umbrellas, for instance. But why would I be able to fix an umbrella? How much like a shoe is it? Oh, well."
Also grounded in the Middle Ages, or earlier, is the tradition under which his trade is called "shoemaker." However: "I don’t make shoes," Mr. Agabiti said. "Just fix them. But way back they used to do both make and fix them, too and the term shoemaker has stuck."
His father Albert Agabiti, himself the son of a Trenton steelworker, had his first shoe repair shop in that city, on South Broad Street. "He moved from there to Independence Mall in Hamilton," Richard Agabiti said. "That place closed just before my father died, about 12 years ago. We also had a Fisher’s Footware store at a shopping center in Lawrence. I sold that in 2000."
Mr. Agabiti said he made that sale in recognition of changed economic realities: "The economic shoe business has dried up," he said. "Almost no one will go into an independent shoe store anymore. But shoe repair is a growing industry."
Why is that?
"One reason is that there’s fewer of us left to do it," he said. "The old-timers are dying. There’s no schools you can learn this in. I’ve been at it all my life and have seen ups and downs. My father had six full-time shoemakers working for him in the early ’60s."
Behind the counter in his shop, Mr. Agabiti uses three machines to get almost all of his work done: the sole stitcher, the nailing machine, used to attach heels to shoes, and the McKay stitch machine. The first two date to the 1950s. "They’ve changed very little in design since then," Mr. Agabiti said. The McKay machine, used to attach soles directly to shoes rather than to an intervening layer of leather called a welt, is so old he isn’t sure how old it is. "1930s, maybe," he said. "Maybe even older than that."
Getting replacement parts for the machines is not hard, but finding someone who knows how to fix them can be difficult, he said. "There again, there are fewer and fewer of those guys left all the time," he said. "I’ve had a guy all the way up from Maryland to fix the sole stitcher. There used to be two guys out of Philly who could work on these things. But no more. You know how it is if one of the machines breaks down, it’s an emergency, because you need it to get the work done."
On the north wall of Mr. Agabiti’s shop, right next to the counter, is a group of photographs showing a surfer confidently riding some pretty big waves.
Asked who the surfer was, he said: "That’s me. I’ve been surfing since I was a teenager. I gave it up for a while, then took it up again when long boarding came back."
A long board is a surfboard over 9 feet long, he explained. "Riding those short boards is almost like skateboarding," he said without condescension. "Just wasn’t for me."
Mr. Agabiti usually journeys to northwestern Puerto Rico the surfing there is excellent, he said twice each winter. He surfs the Jersey Shore in the summer.
"It’s more than fun," he said. "It’s almost a religious experience. . . .the communing with nature. You’re out there with whales and porpoises. You see the sun rise. The wind and the waves. It is really something. I work indoors, always have, but I’m an outdoor person always have been. Cycling, hunting, fishing, surfing, skiing. I love it out there."