The joy of a story for what it isn’t, and for what it is
It is a story of redemption. It is a story of faith. It is a story of determination and of persistence and of community.
It is also noteworthy for what it is not.
Yes, there was something missing from Mick Zawislak’s story on Saturday about the Lake Zurich community’s rush to the side of local shoemaker and repairman Johnny Bafaloukos. You may have noticed, though that should not be what colors your reaction to this inspirational tale.
Bafaloukos lost the lease to his office space at the corner of Old Rand Road and Main Street, where he had operated his 45-year-old Johnny’s Shoe Repair business for more than two decades, until a new owner took over the building. The structure needed repairs, so, although reluctantly, the new owners gave Bafaloukos 30 days to move out.
A former village trustee heard of his plight and shared his predicament on social media. More than 1,000 people reacted to the post, and one who saw it — Michael Muir, who heads the Lake Zurich Knights of Columbus and owns a nearby insurance building with available space — came to the rescue.
Last Saturday, Muir and a group of local volunteers showed up to load Muir’s equipment onto a donated truck and move it to the new place around the corner.
At 85, Bafaloukos, who has been making and repairing shoes since he was 12 years old, could have closed up shop and settled in to retirement. But that, he told Zawislak, was not an option.
“I couldn't retire,” he said. “I've got to feel like I could still do something. I have a purpose.”
According to his own telling, that purpose changed dramatically when he moved to Lake Zurich in 1979. Previously, he had been involved in organized crime in Cleveland, carrying “a gun on my side, police in my pocket.” But he got in trouble with gambling debts and came to the Chicago area to escape and start over.
Along the way, he found his purpose deepened by religion. It is evident in signs throughout his shop and in its front windows. They proclaim God’s love. They share verses from the Bible. It is not the newspaper’s place to promote any particular religion or religious point of view, but Bafaloukos’ faith is clearly an important part of his story — though it is not his story, per se.
For it was not his faith alone that attracted his community to rush to Bafaloukos’ side. Although the Knights of Columbus is an organization steeped in religious tradition, it was not that alone that brought Muir to the shoemaker’s shop. Muir said he grew up in the area and “being down the street and a business owner,” he wanted to help.
“It’s what we do,” Muir said.
Nor did anyone ask the volunteers who turned up to help about their religious point of view or, especially, their politics.
In the media and online, we are buffeted daily by reminders of our differences and the acidic social and political themes that separate us from each other, and there is no denying that those themes and those divisions exist. But, when it counts, it is not these that define us.
So, amid all the political angst that has dominated our conversations in recent days and weeks, the Bafaloukos story is a welcome respite for all that it is not. But what makes it newsworthy, what gives it heart, what it says about our shared humanity, is all that it is.
• Jim Slusher, jslusher@dailyherald.com, is managing editor for opinion at the Daily Herald. Follow him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/jim.slusher1 and on X at @JimSlusher. His new book “Conversations, community and the role of the local newspaper” is available at eckhartzpress.com.