Back In The Fifties

Believe it or not, there was a time before shopping malls were invented. You went to an individual store - in my mother’s case, she generally went to a department store, and that was generally Sears. It had everything my mother needed. There was no point in shopping anywhere else.

My shoes, which my older brother had worn until he outgrew them, had worn completely out. Off to Sears we went - the same store where we got my eyeglasses and the family vacuum cleaner and many other necessities. Impulse buying was a foreign concept. Necessities only.

It was a rare event, me getting new shoes, never worn by anyone else. Mom and I went quickly to the shoe section, and I was excited.

The primary criterion for my mother was the length of the shoe. On second thought, the length was secondary. As in all shopping, price was most important. But there had to be plenty of room for my feet to grow. If I outgrew the shoe before the shoe wore out, that would be a failure - I had no younger brother to whom the shoes could be hand-me-downed.

My mother did not reach a “worn out” decision easily. Shoes could have the soles and/or heels replaced, saving money. Many times the soles on my shoes became partially detached, held to the body of the shoe only near the heel, so there was a quite audible flapping noise with every step. When the flap-flap-flap bothered Mom enough, she would authorize me to flap a half-mile to the shoe repair shop.

Broken laces did not cause her any duress, so I was on my own there. Get the shoes to stay on my feet any way I could. Scuffed toes were the norm.

But I digress. Back to the new shoes shopping experience.

Sears had some new technology that would be of great assistance in fitting my new shoes. With the try-ons on, I would stand on a little platform and face a chest-high machine. At the top of that machine was a viewing screen. The machine was a continuous X-ray, and the image on the screen showed my foot bones inside the faint outline of the shoe. Pretty cool.

Sometime after that experience, Sears found out about the adverse health effects of such a machine, and you won’t see them at Sears anymore. 

Of course, you won’t find a Sears store anyway. The foot X-ray machine was probably the beginning of the end for them.