Gray Matters by Stuart Carlson and Jerry Resler for September 07, 2024

Yep. Buster Brown shoe store.

“I’m Buster Brown, and I live in a shoe. That’s my dog, Tige, and he lives there, too. Plunk your magic twanger, Froggy!”-

There was a fluoroscope in the shoe dept. of the large department store in town. Whenever we went there shopping with Mom, we would step onto the machine to wiggle our toes … it was fun.

I looked it up. According to the Museum of Radiation and Radioactivity: “The shoe fitting fluoroscope was a common fixture in shoe stores during the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s.”

Toes that glow in the dark…

Now Timmy wears size 13 shoes.

Remember seeing them, but never used one.

Used em evey fall when I got my new back to school shoes.

I remember those and I think I did use it once. Then they were gone.

This is a blast from my past. My father and his father were the buyers for the largest shoe store in the Midwest, Gilbert’s in Columbus. I remember such a machine from when I was a kid in the early 1960s.

I’ve always been disappointed that I just missed these in shoe stores. A couple, while inoperable, were still in prominent places in the stores, were waiting to be removed. Perhaps there are a few in private clubs where refurbished pinball machines are used. Equal amounts of ‘magic’ to me in the 50s.

Well, at least they weren’t mandated in order to buy a pair of shoes…

I remember them. I was allowed to use one once when I was about 5. My mother thought they were unsafe.

Yup, stuck my feet in one of those when I was very young. Saw my tiny Tarsals as clear as day. They went away pretty quickly though. (the machines, not my toes!)

I think the last shoe store x-ray machine was found in a shop in Tennessee in the 1980’s. It wasn’t in use but still there.

I loved using them to get fitted for shoes.