Richmond Times Dispatch, VA
Sept 21 2005
‘American Dream’
Lebanese immigrant runs shoe-repair shop, says, ‘I have everything I
want’
BY MELODIE N. MARTIN
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Sep 21, 2005
Holding a bulging plastic sack, a woman walked into Gary’s Shoe
Repair and placed five pairs of high-heel shoes on a scratched
countertop.
“Are you Gary?” she asked a smiling, gray-haired man behind the
counter.
“I’m the only one!” he replied.
As Gary Akseraylian inspected the shoes, the woman had second
thoughts about repairing a pair of strappy blue pumps.
“You know, I don’t care for these,” she began.
“These are good shoes,” Akseraylian said.
Akseraylian offered the woman a discount to repair all five pairs and
went on to explain the value of repairing shoes vs. buying new ones.
She agreed to pick them up the next Saturday.
Since he opened his business in 1989, Akseraylian, 63, a native of
Lebanon, has worked alone in the small shop near Lee-Davis High
School in Mechanicsville, where he repairs leather goods ranging from
shoes to handbags to jackets.
Growth in the area and a loyal clientele from around the state have
helped his business remain steady.
“When I came to the country, I only had $30 in my pocket, two
children and a wife,” he said. “Now I have everything I want. It’s
the American dream. I have a beautiful home, I have a good business,
two brand new cars, a good family.”
A tidy workspace in the back of the shop is lined with shelves of
shoes some wrapped in paper bags stapled to manila claim tickets —
and piles of rich-smelling leather pieces.
A worn path on the floor leads to machines with rotating brushes and
polishing wheels, and a blackened table with vise grips, hand tools
and metal jacks.
Nearly every shoe has a story, Akseraylian said. He points to a
Winchester man’s $400 pair of cowboy boots that have been overhauled
several times.
“When you work on something like this, you have to know exactly what
to do,” he said. “You can’t take someone’s shoe like that and ruin
it.”
For a motorcycle rider, he will replace the leather soles with rubber
ones on an expensive pair of boots. Another pair, belonging to a
ballroom dancer, will have rubber soles replaced with leather because
the owner “wants to slip and slide.”
While growing up in Lebanon, Akseraylian learned to craft shoes at
the urging of his Armenian parents. He immigrated to the United
States in 1973 as fighting in his homeland escalated.
After settling in Richmond, he held a variety of part-time jobs and
worked as a shoe-department salesman at Thalhimers’ Westmoreland
store for 16 years before he opened his own business.
“Hanover County has been so nice and good to me over the years,”
Akseraylian said, noting that sheriff’s deputies and police officers
often bring in shoes for repair.
In front of the store, shoes that go unclaimed after months and even
years are sold along with new shoes and like-colored cans of polish
in black, brown, oxblood, tan and cordovan. A box holds several
hundred other abandoned shoes that will be donated to charity.
While dropping off shoes for repair, Fred Skaggs, a church pastor
from Mechanicsville, removed the dark brown wingtips he was wearing
at Akseraylian’s insistence. Within minutes, the 5-year-old pair of
Allen-Edmonds shoes returned with a like-new shine.
“I’ve been coming to him for years, and he is the best. If you got a
problem, he can heal it,” Skaggs said. “If he can’t fix it, you might
as well throw the shoe away.”
Akseraylian also attributes his success to hard work and honesty.
“It’s a beautiful country we live in. You can make as much as you
want. You can be a millionaire,” he said.
“Just be honest and good to your fellow man, and that’s all it takes.
You can do anything you want.”
Sept 21 2005
Melkonian issue tops Armenian MP by-election
THE small Armenian community goes to the polls in a by-election on
Sunday, October 9, to choose a new Representative for Parliament
after Bedros Kalaydjian, who held the seat for two terms, died on
September 1.
Two candidates have already come forward, both young doctors, who are
already campaigning for the support of the 2,600-member community.
Dr. Vahak Atamyan is a graduate of the Melkonian Educational
Institute and Chairman of the governing board of the Nareg Armenian
elementary schools, and his main rival, Dr. Antranik Ashdjian, chairs
the Armenian National Committee in Cyprus that lobbies for Armenian
issues in Europe and on international fora.
In the eyes of the voters, however, the main issue is the struggle to
save the Melkonian school that was shut in June, depriving the local
community, as well as Armenians of Europe and the Middle East, of the
only boarding high-school with a history of 80 years.
`We need to know if either of the candidates will come clear and
declare their unconditional support for the struggle,’ that is
spearheaded by the local and worldwide alumni, a parent told the
Cyprus Mail.
Community members argue that the survival and subsequent reopening of
the Melkonian is vital for the future of the religious group, as
defined by the Constitution of the Republic of Cyprus.
The Armenians, Maronites and Latins have a Representative each who
can only vote in the parliamentary committees on education, culture
and religion. They sit as observers in the plenary of the 56-seat
House.
Other issues, such as the Armenian monastery and churches in the
Turkish occupied north, the reconstruction of the 19th century
cemetery near the Ledra Palace, as well as language and culture
issues are seen as insignificant if the community loses the Melkonian
forever.
`We are currently involved in a court battle to wrest control of the
school and its property, while the New York-based AGBU is adamant on
keeping the school shut and disposing of the assets, wiping out a
vital part of our post-Genocide history and identity,’ said an Alumni
spokesman in Nicosia.
`The Armenian Patriarch in Constantinople has intervened and claims
the 125,000 square metre property, the listed historic buildings and
the protected forest are rightly his and not the AGBU’s to dispose of
as they like. He is suing the AGBU in the District Court of Nicosia
and in California,’ the Alumni official added.