Memory Lane, Right this Way
A Geezer’s Notebook, By Jim Foster
Do you remember way back in the early 50s, maybe even before, shoe stores had fluoroscope x-ray machines? All you had to do to see if the shoes were the right size was stick your foot in, look down the funnel, and behold, there they were, all your foot bones, bunions, even the buttons on your shoes. I spent days going from store to store, never bought anything, I just liked looking at my toes. I was eventually banned from every store north of Gerard St. and my picture posted in windows with a big X across my face, just like the liquor stores in Orillia today.
Then one day the shoe thingies simply disappeared. No one told me why, but then I wasn’t allowed in so how could they?
The medical community or some busybody scientist decided x-ray radiation and the resulting third degree burns were bad for us. It’s too bad really, for years after their disappearance every pair of shoes I bought were the wrong size and my toes were always scrunched up and bleeding.
Technology is so much more advanced now than it was when we were kids. A lot of things that were common back then are no longer around. When I was 9 or 10, we went to a dentist whose office was on the corner of Pape and Danforth. He could give gas to anyone too chicken to stay awake.
The strange thing is I don’t remember him asking any questions about my general health or whether I had allergies. I guess as long as my nose wasn’t running, he just smacked a rubber mask over my face, poured in a quart of ether, and started yanking. He never gave me the pulled tooth either, kept the tooth fairy money for himself. So much for medical ethics!
I never thought about this before, but were ladies at the time a little hesitant about letting some bozo putting them under? Imagine getting ready for bed that night and discovering your bra was on backwards. Maybe a nurse had to be with him in the office, I don’t remember and I didn’t wear a bra, well not back then.
Now that I think about it dentists are asexual anyway, and would have no interest in such sweaty pursuits.
My dentist is a good guy and hums along as he is drilling, whether there is an entertainment charge I have no idea; I never checked the receipt. It’s probably buried in there along with the bubblegum-flavoured gel, the sunglasses and the x-rays.
Speaking of x-rays, the technology must have changed. It doesn’t seem that many years ago the hygienist put a 50-pound lead-lined blanket over your chest and genitals, pointed the camera at a tooth, then took off down the hall to a lead-lined room where she would be safe, then zapped you from afar. They don’t seem to do that anymore. Either that or they know I have absorbed so many rays since the 50s they wrote me off years ago. I no longer need a night light, I glow in the dark.
You know what else has changed besides technology? That’s right the language in the movies. Hopalong Cassidy or Roy Rogers never said the big F-word like the stars do now. Even the bad guys didn’t say it after they were shot and fell off the roof of the Long Branch Saloon.
Movies were so straight. Roy didn’t even kiss Dale and they were married. Although maybe they weren’t in the early movies. They could have been just boyfriend and girlfriend. Dale likely wanted to get a bit kinky, but by the time Roy tuned his guitar, watered Trigger, and sang a song about tumbleweeds, she had lost the urge. Not only that, the Sons of the Pioneers were always hanging around and some women are not comfortable with four guys singing cool, clear water while sitting on the end of her bed. Well, they might be now that women are liberated, but not in the 40s.
I don’t remember Hopalong hustling a woman; on the other hand he must have been close to a hundred years old in the 40s and even the best of us slow down a little.
How did I get from a 1940s shoe store x-ray to Roy, Dale and Hoppy in bed? It’s amazing how my mind work – or doesn’t.
(Image Supplied)
