Memories

[susandennis]

I was born in 1949. As a kid, come new shoe time, we all marched into Stanley's Shoes in Winston-Salem. Old Mr. Stanley and Mr. Stanley Jr where members of our church. The first thing we would do was x-ray our feet.

You step up this wooden box and put your feet in the slot.



Whichever Mr. Stanley was waiting on your would look into those goggle things on the top and ascertain all manner of amazing things about your feet. Then you got measured. Then you tried on various shoes to pick which ones were THE shoes for you.

It was that x-ray machine that determined I needed corrective shoes. My mom took me to a foot doctor who decided that my flat feet required me to wear brown tie oxfords when everyone else in the whole world got to wear cute mary janes or even keds. I had to wear the uglies shoes on the planet.

I whined and carried on ever year until finally my mother gave up on whatever foot problems Mr. Stanleys' machine had discovered and I got to join the cute shoe club. But by that time I was about 10 and four years of shoe torture had done their job on my psyche.

So yeah, exposure to those machines was really harmful!

Comments

[kayre]

I didn't get the x-rays, but I did need corrective shoes, and mine were black and white saddles, for years and years. And then in 6th grade I was set free-- and guess what came in style?

[susandennis]

hahaha!! I'd have killed for black and whites.

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

It was harmful, but it must have been cool to see your feet that way!

[susandennis]

Oh magnificently totally amazingly cool! I think if kids had put their feet in for one check and pulled them out, no problem. BUT if they were like my brother and sister and I, while one was making shoe decisions the other two of us were trading places being looker and lookee! We LOVED shoe shopping only because of this magical machine. You could wiggle your toes in your shoes and SEE them wiggle! I'm telling you, it was cool.

[stagger-lee77.livejournal.com]

that's actually kind of cool.

[susandennis]

oh yeah

[greatbearmd.livejournal.com]

These days Dr. Scholl has a machine that is claimed to work in a similar fashion, but with even better graphics and no radioactive isotopes. :)

[susandennis]

I know, I love that thing. But, I never buy the expensive soles it recommends. I need Mr, Stanley's ok, I think!

[rsc.livejournal.com]

I remember those machines! I used to get up on it just for the fun of seeing my foot bones. (Nobody gave a second thought to the "harmfulness" of X-rays in those days. And, so far, it doesn't seem to have done me any noticeable harm, although in fact I probably only did it a few times.)

[(Anonymous)]

We had the very same machines back in the UK, in all the Clarks shoe shops. :)

Mira.

[waitingonsunday.livejournal.com]

I would have x-rayed the hell out of my foot with those things as a kid.

I'm chuckling to myself reading this, because I was eternally stuck in Keds as a kid and thought they were the ugliest things ever. Mom refused to pay more for something I was going to grow out of all too soon anyway and that's understandable, but, god, how I hated those Keds.

[susandennis]

I would have traded you in a skinny minute!

[gfrancie.livejournal.com]

I would have loved something like this as a kid. We just had that one thing to measure our feet.

[spikesleman.livejournal.com]

I didn't live in Winston when I was a kid. We had these X-ray machines in the Washington, DC, area, though. I loved putting my feet in and wiggling my toes, too.

[susandennis]

:)

[lookfar.livejournal.com]

Did you also know that many shoe salesmen got testitcular cancer from the rogue rays? Back when we thought X-rays were so good for everything!