An investment as a teenager has become a hobby and favorite pastime for Viola native Eugene O’Toole.

In 1954, O’Toole (known as Gene Winchell after his mother remarried when he was a child) was 15 years old when he decided he wanted to buy the shoeshine stand from Max’s Barbershop in Viola. The barber agreed to sell the stand for $25. O’Toole asked his mother for the money and she gave him $10. He milked cows on a local farm to earn the rest of the money. When the stand was his, he set it up in his mother’s restaurant, Main Café, in Viola and for about a year shined people’s shoes for 15 cents.

Now, 55 years later, O’Toole uses the stand as a means of entertainment at several western-themed and reenactment events in Wisconsin, Iowa and Illinois during the summer. The price has risen to $3 for a shoe shine, but the task is teamed with a series of stories and jokes to pass the time.

“I generally get a good smile out of people,” O’Toole said. “What you’re giving is a personal touch that you don’t seem to get in this day and age.”

O’Toole said his shoeshine stand dates back to the 1880’s when barbershops had bathtubs in the back rooms and men would visit the barbershop for a shave, haircut, bath and a shoeshine.

Less than 10 years ago, before he started shining shoes throughout the tri-state area, O’Toole was asked if his stand could be used at the Wild West Days in Viroqua. He let some kids load it into their truck and haul it away to use for a day. O’Toole said they brought it back broken and he had the Amish repair it. That led to O’Toole working the stand himself.

“I went back [to Wild West Days] the following year and asked if they were interested in having me set up,” O’Toole said. “They said sure. I started charging $2 for a shoe shine and I was having a lot of fun. I can tell a good story and I relate to kids because of the background I’ve got in education. Then I looked around to see what else I could do, and what I came up with was Civil War. I wondered if they’d let me in, and they did. A lot of these events I go to, I may not be authentically correct, but I’m a good crowd drawer and it goes back far enough and it’s close enough for them.”

O’Toole does about a dozen events in a summer. He shines shoes at Naperville, Ill.; Wauconda, Ill.; Lake Villa, Ill.; Lockport, Ill.; McGregor, Iowa; Nekoosa; La Crosse; Boscobel; and Viroqua. He also attends several horse shows and smaller events in the tri-state area.

O’Toole said he shines about 30 to 40 peoples’ shoes during a weekend event. He has done as many as 60 in a weekend. He also carries along a repair kit to fix boots and generally uses it two or three times during the summer.

“Anymore you don’t see a lot of shoes that are polishable,” O’Toole said.

He keeps tennis shoe polish and toe nail polish on hand to satisfy all walks of life.

“It’s a simple process, but it’s dirty, too.”

O’Toole’s shoe shine includes cleaning off the shoes, using a tooth brush to clean the bottom edges, shining the tops and working up toward the leg. He generally puts two to three coats of polish on the shoes.

“When you get them up on that stand you’ve got a captive audience for seven or eight minutes,” O’Toole said. “I’m pretty careful about one thing: I stay away from politics and I stay away from religion. I try to pass a nice conversation and I try to tell a good story. I come from a generation of story tellers.”

O’Toole said when he first started going to the shows, he got a lot of help from the other vendors because he’s not in competition with them.

“This is not a money-maker, please believe me. I generally break even,” O’Toole said.

O’Toole can’t afford to go long distances because he doesn’t charge a lot for his service. His car carries everything he needs for the trip, including his shoeshine stand, polishing supplies and even his bed, which he makes by folding down the seats and lying on a board.

And just like a pair of freshly-shined shoes, O’Toole hasn’t lost the sparkle in his eye for his hobby.

He said he will run the stand for another 12 to 15 years, as long as his health holds up.