Friday, November 12, 2010

I Am Surprised I Still Have My Feet



Do you remember these things? When I was growing up almost all shoe stores had one. It had some fancy names but it was basically an x-ray shoe fitting machine. The person trying on shoes would stand on the little shelf and put their feet wearing the shoes they were trying on in the little slot at the bottom. You and your mom (dads never took kids to buy shoes in those days) and the shoe salesperson could look through the slots in the top and see how the shoes fit your feet.







I don't know how effective they were for shoe fitting but they sure were fun. I not only stuck my feet in one of those things everytime I got a new pair of shoes at our local Buster Brown shoe store, but my friends and I would stop in just to have a look at our feet within our shoes, probably telling the clerk our mom's wanted us to see if our shoes still fit.

Do you remember Buster Brown and his dog Tige?
Tige looks like he may have been exposed to a few too many x-rays.


As fun as the foot within the shoe image was, it was also dangerous. The radiation hazards of the shoe-fitting x-ray machine were known for a long time before the machines were finally banned most everywhere in the U.S. by the early 70s.  What started out as a modern and scientific invention was later found to be a danger to skin and bone marrow and to have the potential to cause growth problems.

I couldn't find anything about proven damages from the machine (though my research wasn't too extensive) but there were a few shoe store clerks who claimed they were injured by too much exposure to these machines. I guess I am lucky that I still have my feet.

Photos from Google Images

17 comments:

  1. Holy mackeral. I haven't seen Buster Brown and his dog Tige in what must be forever. I had completely forgotten about them until your post. Wow. That image brings back memories. I remember the TV commercials too with them. Somehow though, I don't remember that machine or ever using one.

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  2. Funny you should bring this up. At the retreat I went to this past weekend we were discussing how to get a good shoe-fit for our feet, and The Walking company does a great job by using a Digital Foot Scanner. Not the X-Ray, but, as times in the electronic world moves onward, a Digital Scanner. I should have guessed.
    So this is where I am heading for a good fit.

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  3. I never thought of that...
    yuck and scary...
    I don't think we did it very often. I am surprised you still have your feet (o:
    Wonder what we are doing right now... that is dangerous. Well...cell phones for one thing.

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  4. Wow! Holy moley! I'm afraid I'm a tad too young to remember such a contraption but I do remember Buster Brown and his scary dog. I'm sure if I would have had a chance to stick my feet in that machine I would have! I'm glad you still have your feet:)

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  5. Yes! I used to love seeing my own feet in the machine, but (fortunately, as it turns out) they wouldn't let me spend too much time peering at the glowing green image because we had to buy shoes and move on. Hubby and I were just doing the Buster Brown slogan-thing yesterday. "Hi, I'm Buster Brown, I live in a shoe. Arf! That's my dog Tige, he lives in there too." I always thought Tige was creepy, and now I see why!!!

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  6. I don't remember that "contraption". I remember the thing they had to measure your foot (which I think they still have) but not this. Very interesting with the radiation effects. I do remember Buster Brown though!

    betty

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  7. I've never seen one of those before! Thank goodness...

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  8. No, I can´t say I remember these. Luckily, I guess. But I can imagine they would be fun for kids.

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  9. times have sure changed...fun to remember back when....

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  10. Do you know I have never seen or heard of this. And as I read your post I asked myself why. The answer is that we never had new shoes. We didn't have shoes much anyway. So I didn't even know what I was missing.

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  11. I've never seen or heard of that machine either. I've hear of Buster Brown.....wasn't there clothes too?

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  12. I sure do remember these machines. I haven't thought of them in years!

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  13. I've never seen one of those machines but I had Buster Brown shoes. We did get lung x-rays more often than was good, though.

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  14. I do remember Buster Brown...and yes, feet are a good thing. YOu should keep them :)

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  15. I do remember those, Jeanie! It's surprising everyone in the vicinity of those things wasn't affected by the radiation.

    I never understood why everyone thought Buster Brown and Tige were cute....but talk about successful marketing campaigns!!!

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  16. Well this chick is showin' her age....I remember the dang machines and knew Buster Brown well! Heeehehehe!!!

    God bless ya!!!

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  17. I had never even heard of these machines before.

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