Runions' Shoes

The excitement in the air was simply palpable. The newness of it all. New school year. New teacher. New books. New clothes. New shoes. New blisters on the heels.

Oh boy! New shoes!

The new clothes, however, arrived in a big paste-board box from the mail-order house Simpson-Sears*. And of course it was so thrilling, yet so disconcerting, to hold up new flannel lined jeans that would finally fit perfectly next June when the school year was over. It meant I would have to roll the cuffs up half-way to my knees. But hey! The exposed flannel lining with that Scotch plaid pattern wasn't so awfully sissy looking after all.

But the shoes.

For new shoes, that meant a trip to Runions' Shoes.

The corner of Center Street North and 16th Avenue was a bustling little hub of commerce. A few store fronts south, on the east side of Center Street, Runions' Shoes was one of those old hole-in-the-wall narrow places of business with the bi-lateral display windows flanking the inset center doorway.

Opening the door not only rang a bell to jangle the auditory sense, but my nose was punched with a tsunami of the essence of tanned leather and shoe polish, old wood and stale air. The worn floor planking invited the way in. And to enter meant to jog to the left or to the right. For down the center of the store was a row of alternating circular tiered tables, displaying pumps and oxfords, wedge heels and high heels, patents and baby shoes, and the ubiquitous running shoes, and chrome-framed chairs with black leather seats and backs holding sway to a few matching chrome-framed shoe-salesman stools. And sitting ki-yi'd on an a few of those empty chairs were those foot-size measuring contraptions that would promote the obligatory "Oh my! How your feet have grown!"

The narrow, cavernous store was lined on each side with shelf upon shelf of shoe boxes. So high that rolling ladders would be rolled back and forth and then climbed upon by old Mr. Runions, gussied-up in his black and gray-striped pants, white shirt, red and blue striped bow-tie and horn-rimmed glasses perched on the end of his nose, to find just the right shoe box for the style and color and size in question.

Since this was fall, it was the time for leather shoes. New running shoes wouldn't come until next spring. And so I got to look at, and hold, and smell, and feel, and fondle and press against my cheek brown leather shoes and black leather shoes and then be forced into making a decision with consequences lasting to at least the Queen's birthday the next spring. And when I had made my selection, with Mother's frowning approval, Mr. Runions pushed the ladder, climbed up, and pulled out a stiff paste-board box, coded with the glyphs signifying only to shoe salesmen, the style and color and size.

I climbed up into a cold chrome chair. Mr. Runions pulled over his stool in front of me. He lifted the lid, and inserted the box into the now inverted lid. After setting the box on the floor, he unfolded the paper. Lifted out the right shoe. Pulled the lace out and finished lacing up the shoe. He whipped out a shinny shoe-horn from his back pocket and proceeded to wedge my how-your-foot-has-grown appendage into that stiff protective confinement of new shoe. Mr. Runions laced it up. Tight. I was instructed to stand up. It was supposed to feel good. Mother and Mr. Runions had already had the discussion about how they were to be six sizes too big for me so they would fit me just fine until running shoe season would come around next May.

Mr. Runions told me to wiggle my toes. He pressed down on them. The dimple in the toe of the shoe was noticeable. My mother nodded in approval. But you can't really, really tell for certain, unless you actually look.

And that came next.

The most fascinating part of the whole trip to Mr. Runions' Shoes.

Towards the back, just across from the sales counter was the machine. I stepped up on the little platform. Shinnied up close to the thing and inserted my feet into two oversize mouse-hole grottos. There were three oval viewing-scopes on top. One for me. One for Mom. One for Mr. Runions. And to peer into that oval was to see the mystery of my life. The yellow greeniness of it all. The outline of the shoes. The opaqueness of my toes. The blackness of the little disconnected bones . And I wiggled my toes and curled them up and watched the flexing and the reflexing with awe-struck amazement of the ingenuity of it all. I never heard a word of the conversation between Mom and Mr. Runions about how much space there was between my toes and the months-away Queen's birthday.

The shoe-salesman's fluoroscope was magic to my flesh. And I so hated to be dragged away from that thing. It wouldn't be until years later that I was told of the near lethal doses of x-rays that those machines emitted.

But the next event in the shoe store's enticements was watching and listening to Mr. Runions write up the sale on the Moore Business Forms aluminum sales ticket holder.

After packaging the shoes back into the box, pulling on the string from the spool of string perched high over-head, tying up the box with a little flair of the wrists resulting in a square knot, snipping the string from its source, then pulling the pencil from behind his ear, another enticing little ritual was about to be played out.

The writing up of the sale.

His pencil made that kind of hollow sound on the triplicate sales ticket exposed on the top surface of the Moore Business Forms aluminum continuous sales-ticket case. With the total calculated on an old hand-cranked adding machine and then annotated on the ticket, he pushed the little lever on the side of the case and the triplicate sales ticket ejected out the top end and pulled a fresh new order form from the embedded reservoir of continuous forms hiding inside. The ripping sound was simply neat as he tore off that sale and detached it from the case. The white copy he gave to my mother. The pink copy was stuffed into the little drawer at the bottom of the case. The yellow copy was set beside the big old National Cash Register for reference. He spread-eagled his fingers and thumbs to press the appropriate keys to ring up the sale. With a crunch and ring, the cash drawer popped open while simultaneously, numbers came flying up behind the glass window at the top. After making the change, pushing the cash drawer back in, the yellow copy got spindled on the spindle of yellow copies quivering beside the register.

Now, re-wearing my old worn-out running shoes that now fit perfectly and smelled like dead fish, I clutched a box of brown leather and odiferous new shoes like it was the most precious cargo in the whole world.

It wouldn't be for a few days yet that I would remember just how much new, hard, stiff, leather shoes, could hurt. Ameliorated, or course, with the remembrance of the joy of a trip to Runions' Shoes.



*Simpson Sears was the corporate name of the Canadian division of Sears Roebuck. Both are now known simply as Sears.


The Refectory Manager