William Beaty wrote: > Antique Simplex Shoe Fitting X-Ray Machine 1930's-40's
> http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=220118855684 > Collectors pay big bucks for these! But you'll have to drive to Kansas > to pick it up. Likely the three or four thousand dollar price is less than new, adjusting for inflation. Am I the only one on the list with first-hand experience with these machines? When I was a kid, not only did my mother insist that she peer at great length at the fluoroscopic image of my feet in prospective new shoes, I had other, longer and more frequent exposure sessions. My neighborhood was little over a mile from the downtown movie theaters, so my friends and I would either walk or ride our bikes to the latest matinee combination of cartoons and "It Came from Outer Space" or some other B-grade sci-fi. The street we traveled on was packed with shoe stores, most of which had these x-ray machines right near the front door. It was our afternoon entertainment on returning from the movies to go into a shoe store and look at our feet and each others feet for a really long time, or until one of the shoe salesmen chased us out. There was just a button on the side that you had to press to turn the thing on and it warmed up quickly. It's just a guess, but I would estimate that my friends and I had several hours each total exposure to the x-rays emitted from these beasts. To my knowledge, none of us has developed any symptoms associated with x-ray exposure. Now while I realize x-rays are not good for you, I have to wonder if the dangerous exposure level has been grossly exaggerated. And I gotta tell you, in the days before wide-spread television and the internet, wiggling your toes and seeing the bones move was the height of kid entertainment. M. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Sucker-punch spam with award-winning protection. Try the free Yahoo! Mail Beta. http://advision.webevents.yahoo.com/mailbeta/features_spam.html
