Athens Cobbler Practices 'dying Art'

"I made enough and had that bike about a year before it got stolen," Mike Latimer says.

That theft was a disappointment, but Mike Latimer learned a trade and that he loved to work with his hands.

"It's relaxing for me," he says as he burnishes a new sole with beeswax on a polishing wheel.

The store can have over 1,000 shoes waiting for repair and receives some by mail from those who have family or friends in Athens.

"We have a lady from New York who used to be on the show 'Baywatch' who sends her shoes to us," Mike Latimer says. "Cowboys come in to have work done on their boots during the Sheriff's Rodeo. We get a lot of word-of-mouth business."

Randy Lipson, owner of Cobblestone Shoe Repair in Missouri and a board member of the Shoe Service Institute of America, says cobblers are hurting in factory dependent places like Detroit. But he says the downturn in the economy could help cobblers elsewhere because people cannot afford to buy new shoes. At Dobbs Shoe Shop, repair prices range from $3 to $41.50.