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Bob Wright

Bob Wright

Hawkeye
Joined
Jun 24, 2004
Messages
8,597
City & State/Province
Memphis, TN USA
I was in my bank this morning and they have been doing some renovating. I especially noticed the pneumatic tubes from the drive-in windows had been relocated. As I observed I mused about the old brass tubes in department stores. These went from sales points to the cashier point, converging like railway lines coming into the yard.

In those days, when a sale was made, the salesperson took your money and put it in one of those capsules and sent it off with the clank and whoosh or the system. Shortly another clatter and the sales clerk took out the capsule which had your change and sales reciept. The clerk also verified your address for delivery, and you went on your way.

I related this to the bank teller. She had no idea what I was talking abut.

Bob Wright
 
I remember seeing them in Hochschild, Kohn & Co store in Baltimore. Went there with my Mom and Grand mom when I was a little kid. What a trip! Got to ride the WB&A train. I can still smell the coal burning.
Do you remember the 'x-ray' machines in the shoe departments?
 
Fox Mike said:
Do you remember the 'x-ray' machines in the shoe departments?
Click to expand...

I saw these on TV - I think they said the radiation was MUCH higher than would be allowed today. This was all before they knew a lot about the effects of radiation.......
 
I remember a similar system in our local J.C. Penny store. It consisted of a sort of "wrap-around" track/cage affair that ran from the sales points on the main floor to the accounting department up on the mezzanine overlooking the sales floor. One of these ran from each sales point up to the mezzanine. Your payment and paperwork were placed into a little cannister thingie with wheels on it that was launched via a lever that was pulled down compressing a large spring and then released. The spring imparted enough velocity to overcome the somewhat gradual slope of the track. As Bob mentions, your change and receipt were returned via the same thing.

It was so cool to watch . . . and listen to. There was the "KACHINK-swish" of the launch and the "CLICKITY_CLICKITY_clickity-clickity" of the little cannister running up the track, and the similar sound of its return.

This system was still in use in the early 1960s.

And yes, I X-rayed my feet every chance I got. It's a wonder I can still walk.

;)
 
Hey I'm Buster Brown and this is my dog Tide, we live in the shoe.
Yep saw the tubes and the rail system.
Small town I lived in the shoe store had the X-ray machine outside during the summer. Can't count the times I looked at my skeleton feet :D
 
I remember both of those. I also remember my first time on an escalator, boy was that fun. Do you remember the first type of automatic door opens with the horizontal visible light beam?
 
I remember when Detroit's Tiger Stadium was planning the last renovation before the new Comerica Park Stadium was built. The 2nd story offices had about a 2 x 2 ft hole in the floor where cash receipts and change could be passed up and down to the main ticket offices on the street below. No longer used but still there. This was in the 1990s. Tiger Stadium is now gone.

I also remember riding a clunking wooden escalator in an old Detroit department store named Kearn's, before it closed in the 1970s.
 
Bob did you ever look at your feet through one of those X-ray machines ?????
 
Yup.... had a J.C. Penny store with the cable trolleys up to the second floor balcony. Also had a Buster Brown shoe store with the X-ray machine.
 
Wyandot Jim said:
Hey I'm Buster Brown and this is my dog Tide, we live in the shoe.
Yep saw the tubes and the rail system.
Small town I lived in the shoe store had the X-ray machine outside during the summer. Can't count the times I looked at my skeleton feet :D
Click to expand...

"Hi! I'm Buster Brown
I live in a shoe. (Woof! Woof!)
That's my dog Tige
He lives in there too!"

That went along with "Pluck your magic twanger, Froggy....." on Smilin' Ed McConnel and his gag.

Bob Wright
 
JPGLSG said:
Bob did you ever look at your feet through one of those X-ray machines ?????
Click to expand...


Indeed I did. My brand of shoes was Red Goose shoes. The store was Harry Rosenblum's, in the Cooper-Young neighborhood. That area of Memphis has been revitalized into a "happening place."

Bob Wright
 
Even more memories: the Kress store downtown had a little kiosk in the basement where a man repaired ladies stockings. He used a needle and re-wove the run, using a rapid sewing-machine like motion.

And the sidewalk had glass block inserts to let light down into the basement. You could stand and see people's feet as they walked over the glass blocks. And, no, you couldn't see up ladies' dresses.

Bob Wright
 
Up until the day my mill shut down, we had these tubes running great distances throughout the mill to send samples to the lab. Being private sector, and since boys never grow up, a feller couldn't imagine all the things that were beamed-up in these tubes.

And since this thread has morphed into x-ray foot measuring...When I was very young, our school had a ringworm epidemic. One of the experimental cures was bombarding a kids scalp with x-rays. I was one of the lucky guinea pigs. And now, I'm plagued with skin cancer on my scalp. The Daktari says it could very well have been caused by the x-ray treatments. This same Daktari says he sees cases of skin cancer on peoples feet that were measured with x-rays back in the 50's.

WAYNO.
 
Bob Wright said:
Wyandot Jim said:
Hey I'm Buster Brown and this is my dog Tide, we live in the shoe.
Yep saw the tubes and the rail system.
Small town I lived in the shoe store had the X-ray machine outside during the summer. Can't count the times I looked at my skeleton feet :D
Click to expand...

"Hi! I'm Buster Brown
I live in a shoe. (Woof! Woof!)
That's my dog Tige
He lives in there too!"

That went along with "Pluck your magic twanger, Froggy....." on Smilin' Ed McConnel and his gag.

Bob Wright
Click to expand...


Yep, Froggy the Gremlin, on the Buster Brown Show every Saturday morning.

"I got shoes,
You got shoes,
We all gotta have shoes,
But there's only one kinda shoes for me,
Good ol' Buster Brown shoes . . .
Yaaayyyyyyy!"

:)
 
Something that has not been mentioned. The drive up grocery store pick-up. Remember the stores that you went in and shopped, bought your 60 pounds of groceries and then they routed them outside on a roller track where you could drive up and get your purchases? You didn't have to do anything but unlock your trunk, the kid would load your car and then you drive away. I was 6 years old or so when I first saw this.

Karl
 
737tdi said:
Something that has not been mentioned. The drive up grocery store pick-up. Remember the stores that you went in and shopped, bought your 60 pounds of groceries and then they routed them outside on a roller track where you could drive up and get your purchases? You didn't have to do anything but unlock your trunk, the kid would load your car and then you drive away. I was 6 years old or so when I first saw this.

Karl
Click to expand...


We didn't have the drive-up service like that, but the "carry-out boys" who bagged your groceries at checkout were glad to carry them out to your car or use a cart to do so, particularly for those who they knew understood that tipping was encouraged.

In those days you weren't supposed to take carts out to the parking lot and leave them there. There usually wasn't room to do so, and the stores didn't really have any "spare" carts anyway.

;)
 
Ale-8(1) said:
737tdi said:
Something that has not been mentioned. The drive up grocery store pick-up. Remember the stores that you went in and shopped, bought your 60 pounds of groceries and then they routed them outside on a roller track where you could drive up and get your purchases? You didn't have to do anything but unlock your trunk, the kid would load your car and then you drive away. I was 6 years old or so when I first saw this.

Karl
Click to expand...


We didn't have the drive-up service like that, but the "carry-out boys" who bagged your groceries at checkout were glad to carry them out to your car or use a cart to do so, particularly for those who they knew understood that tipping was encouraged.

In those days you weren't supposed to take carts out to the parking lot and leave them there. There usually wasn't room to do so, and the stores didn't really have any "spare" carts anyway.

;)
Click to expand...

Shop Brookshires and it is still that way. Here in Texas, Brookshires still does that. I shop them always. I won't give into the Walmart price. Brookshires loves their customers and treat them right. We do buy our dog food at Walmart because they are usually a lot cheaper.

Karl
 
Ale-8(1) said:
737tdi said:
Something that has not been mentioned. The drive up grocery store pick-up. Remember the stores that you went in and shopped, bought your 60 pounds of groceries and then they routed them outside on a roller track where you could drive up and get your purchases? You didn't have to do anything but unlock your trunk, the kid would load your car and then you drive away. I was 6 years old or so when I first saw this.

Karl
Click to expand...


We didn't have the drive-up service like that, but the "carry-out boys" who bagged your groceries at checkout were glad to carry them out to your car or use a cart to do so, particularly for those who they knew understood that tipping was encouraged.

In those days you weren't supposed to take carts out to the parking lot and leave them there. There usually wasn't room to do so, and the stores didn't really have any "spare" carts anyway.

;)
Click to expand...

Yep 1959 Supermarket in Columbus Ohio I was there. No tipping allowed but I was making $1.05 a hour. It was enough to by a 1953 Ford Victoria for $595.00. $35 for car payment and $15 a month for insurance. :D Down payment was my 1948 45 CI Harley
Not quite as nice as this one.
72ea_3-468x296.jpg
 
737tdi said:
Something that has not been mentioned. The drive up grocery store pick-up. Remember the stores that you went in and shopped, bought your 60 pounds of groceries and then they routed them outside on a roller track where you could drive up and get your purchases? You didn't have to do anything but unlock your trunk, the kid would load your car and then you drive away. I was 6 years old or so when I first saw this.

Karl
Click to expand...

When I first moved to Orlando in 1986, the local Goodings Super market had one of those roller tracks underneath a covered area; It sure was GREAT on a rainy day. Sadly Goodings finally closed and the store was converted to something else and now its not even a super market.
 
I remember my Dad going to a gas station and an attendant pumped the gas and checked the oil. I remember ashtrays in the armrests and my Mom smoking on airplanes. Metal silverware too!
 
When I was a kid in about 1947 I was playing with mom`s washing machine wringer. I was mowing down the krauts and if you slightly engaged the wringer it would chatter like a machine gun. Somehow I got my left hand caught in it. It shoved some flesh up higher on my arm. The folks were poor and didn't have medical insurance. They took me to a buster brown shoe store, had me lay on the floor and put my arm in the x-ray machine to look for broken bones. Now my arm glows in the dark. I also remember those tracks with the capsules. My grandpa owned a good sized country general store in wisconsin.. Mom was raised in it, bought grandpa out and she raised me in it during world war two. Back in the late 1920`s grandpa fixed up a model T truck and mom and my uncle had grocery routes. My uncle was 13 or 14 and drove while mom, a couple years older did the sales work. They would take orders and buy or trade for eggs etc from the farm women. That all sounds laughable and unbelievable to some now.
 
I remember those in our local dept store. Vacuum operated with brass tubes with a raised felt rib on each end to make them slide easy and reduce noise. I guess they did not trust the sales person with money and they did have the foot x-ray machine, but it always had a out of order sign on it. My bank uses the vacuum tube setup in their drive up lines. At one time i had a few of those brass tubes from a store that went out of business.

EvilDr235
 
Hi,

The vacuum trolley system wasn't big in the stores we went to. Seems only one had it, and I don't remember who it was, though a good bet would be Sears or JCPenney.

Got one new pair of shoes for school each fall, Buster Browns with the scuff toes (were they REALLY made of shark skin like the salesman told me, or was that a ruse to cover up the fact they weren't exactly stylish?) They had to be polished every Sunday night for the following week. It's not that we had formal "inspection," but it was private school, and the teachers did kinda give us a "look over" on Mondays.

Those were the most comfortable shoes! Thinking back, it probably wasn't so much a function of the build quality, which was good, but that my mother made sure to buy at least a size larger than I measured, to account for growth over the next nine months until summer, when shoes were generally optional. So I only x-rayed my feet once a year, and still have 10 toes. Admittedly, some of 'em aren't as cute as they were back then, but most of that's a function of their being in the way when conducting gravity tests with heavy items.

Rick C
 
Of grocery stores, my mother grocery shopped at the store around the corner from our house. She would buy here groceries, check out, and we would go home. A little later a boy would deliver the groceries on his bicycle, one of those that had the small front tire to provide for a large basket on fornt, and a bushel basket wired to the luggage carrier on the back.

Once we had such a delivery. Mother always had a bowl of wax fruit on the table. After the grocery boy had left, my mother discovered teeth prints in one of the wax apples!

Bob Wright
 
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