Shoes and Feet and Radiation from a Bygone Era

I wanted to write about Nifty Notebooks but couldn’t find a photo. Do you remember Nifty Notebooks? Rather than having the rings on the side there were, as I remember, posts at the top of the notebook and you purchased perforated paper that you inserted into the holes. The problem was that they didn’t catch on with teachers. They would have been great for me, being left-handed, but no teacher-approval no notebook. I have no idea how long they lasted, more of a novelty than anything.

Then there were Tom McCan Snap Jack shoes. I had a pair of them as a kid. No laces, just pull the level back, insert foot, and hope when you close the lever that the tongue of the shoe doesn’t dig into your skin. I guess it saved parents the task of tying shoe laces. Adults had them too, some boots may still have them, but this is a kid’s memory I’m sharing – and I only had one pair.

Jackie Jensen, a neighbor, got to fooling around with his Snap Jack pair during recess one day and got his finger caught in the mechanism. I don’t know…don’t ask me how…he was always doing things like that. He was off to the nurse, it’s a wonder they didn’t call the fire department.

Speaking of shoes; shoe stores used to have fluoroscopes to X-ray your feet when getting fitted for shoes – I know it sounds nuts today but it’s the truth – photos below. I remember looking at my feet via the fluoroscope. Finally someone figured out that radiation isn’t all that good for you, unless you’re leftovers in a microwave oven, but even then watch out for the hot plastic…but I digress.

I read that a shoe store in W.VA. was still using a fluoroscope into the 1980’s when someone told them the FDA had banned the things years ago – they donated it to a museum. I wonder how many folks my age are walking around with radiated feet? No wonder I keep setting the security detectors off – I’m a walking Three Mile Island.

Go figure – here we were all worried about The Bomb and having air raid drills at school and home, and all the time our parents are shooting radiation through our little bodies so that we can get fitted for a pair of shoes…duh…is anyone home in Ozzie and Harriet Land?