SHOES: FACORIES, COBBLERS, SHOPS, & THE TTLE FEATURES THEMSELVES
An old time shoe factory. A fanciful image of a cobbler shop – perhaps in “Hobbiton” where Bilbo and Frodo Baggins lived? Looks like this ‘shoe hospital’ did a lot more than just fix shoes. That’s quite a stacking of old suitcases! Cobblers took on more than shoes, of course. Purses, belts, caps, aprons, suitcases, briefs - just about anything leather. Today’s cobbler hard at work. I remember as a child stepping up on that second step, shoving my shoe-covered feet into a hole, and looking down to see the bones of my feet inside my shoes. The machines were known as fluoroscopes although different shoe stores had different names for them like ‘Ped-o-Scope’ or ‘Foot-o Scope’ or ‘Xray Shoe Fitter’. When I was young I wore shoes like these. I don’t know that they were Buster Browns, necessarily, but they were very much like this style. By the time I was in 6 th grade I was wearing more fashionable shoes and by the time I hit Jr. and Sr. high schools I was wearing ...
