![]() ![]() The back of the Buster Brown store appeared distinctly shabby-you could see the storage area, which didn’t have a carpet there were little bits of crepe paper and tags and such lying around and dust. ![]() I was ardently devoted to mastering all this so I could claim my destiny as an American boy. The objects of my devotion included Campbell’s baked beans, Superman, Roy Rogers, cap guns, baseball gloves, Spalding balls, Levis, the Shadow, Bazooka gum, peanut butter, Coke, Chevys, Louis Armstrong, Dinah Shore, Milton Berle, Jerry Lewis, Sid Caesar, Imogen Coca, the Pledge of Allegiance (at that moment, still godless but about to become a pious weapon in the war against godless Communism). Who knows how this should have been done: I experienced it as being akin to what’s expected of a devotee. It was the weirdest object of study among the welter of things that I, having just got off the boat, wanted so badly to see and feel and value the way any American kid would. I loved, feared, and felt altogether gaga about that contraption. At the base of this tall box was an opening where you stuck your feet while wearing strangely stiff, not-yet-purchased shoes the top of the box enclosed a rectangular viewer through which you looked down at-this was the magical part-an X-ray of your feet darkly outlined in their casing of new shoes! It was a kind of out-of-body experience, before I knew there were such things, and one blessed by science: a scientific measure to ensure that your brand-new shoes fit perfectly. The most wonderful thing in that store was a magical contraption kept in the rear against the back wall, a tall wooden box resembling an elongated cardboard carton or a miniature coffin. On 207th Street, way uptown in Manhattan, a couple of blocks north of the elevated subway, there used to be a Buster Brown shoe store. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |