On September 3, 2024, Jim McFarland, a Lakeland craftsman, woke up at 1:30 in the morning feeling as if he’d been hit in the chest with a baseball bat.
A voice in his head told him to check his blood pressure, chew some aspirin, call 911.
McFarland thought of his grandfather, who passed away from a heart attack at 63, and his father, who met the same fate at 65.
Yet McFarland believed he would survive.
When he made it to the hospital, his heart stopped. He was shocked back to life three times.
As the medical staff worked to resuscitate him, McFarland was somewhere else, feeling like he was 20 again, he recalled, surrounded by swirling angels that glistened like jewels in colors he’d never seen.
He realized, “That soul inside of you, it stays young. Our bodies get older.”
When he was revived, “The first thought in my head was now… now we’re gonna start.”
It’s hard to believe that McFarland would feel a calling to something more.
America’s Cobbler: Jim McFarland is a fourth-generation cobbler who has won 13 awards for craftsmanship from around the world.
His first video on TikTok, in 2020, had over two million views in one week.
Today, he has almost three million followers on social media.
The sounds of repair in his shop are punctuated by bursts of clicks as the TikTok and Instagram counters hanging on a wall update his online following in real time.
He’s been featured on NBC’s Nightly News, and in The New York Times and Popular Mechanics and Time magazines.
People travel hundreds of miles or ship their shoes from around the country for his repair services. He has has a website, America’s Cobbler, where he sells his own line of shoe care products.
Yet in Lakeland, his business, McFarland Shoe Repair, at 5355 Florida Ave. South, feels to him like “a hidden secret.”
“People come in every day who never knew we were here,” he says.
Walking in his shoes: McFarland’s work has always been about more than shoe repair and social media.
He saves some letters from clients.
One is from a father who sent McFarland boots that belonged to his 16-year-old son, who had recently died.
McFarland restored the boy’s boots so his father could wear them and walk with his son even after he was gone.
Family affair: McFarland hesitantly took over the shoe repair business from his father in 1986.
At first it felt like a “family curse,” he says.
He’s turned that around.
Daughter Tori McFarland, the social media marketing director, creates the popular shoe repair videos. Son Riley McFarland, the social engagement director, oversees the website and customer service, replying to the many questions the shop receives daily.
Nephew Kyle Crouse is learning the cobbling craft to follow in his uncle’s footsteps.
A turn: After his heart attack, McFarland’s focus shifted.
“It’s not so much about the shoes anymore,” he says.
When he isn’t at the shop, he’s been working on a book, recounting the story of America’s Cobbler and crafting a message about overcoming obstacles and sustaining hope.
“Sometimes you have everything in the world, but yet you still feel lost,” he says, “like you’re missing something.”
He says he hopes the book will be a “beacon of hope for so many people out there that are struggling with so many different things.”
“I’m still gonna work on soles, just gonna change two letters.”
Anna Toms is a reporter for LkldNow, a nonprofit newsroom providing independent local news for Lakeland. Read at LkldNow.com.
