My Bronzed Shoe
I spent most of my early days barefooting around. Later when I did have shoes, my parents bronzed them. It was a thing to do in the 1950s.
I bronzed my shoes and I hung 'em from a rearview mirror Bronzed admiration in a blind spot of regret There was all these things that I don't think I remember Hey, how lucky can one man get? - John Prine "How Lucky"
The things you find
My sister and I keep finding memories of the past as we settle our mother's estate. At the botton of a trunk I found a shoe of mine that had been bronzed. What a flashback to the the 1950s.
It was the fashion at the time to bronze baby shoes. However this shoe is five and half inches in length. I was hardly a baby when it was bronzed. In the majority of my baby pictures I am barefoot (see featured photo). As the first born I was awarded the honor of having my shoes preserved in such a way. Actually just a single shoe. My two sisters didn't have bronze footware, I did because it was another perk of being the first born.
I have an anecdotal information about how this all came about. My father had a Popular Mechanics encyclopedia of home projects. He made several lamps out of old pottery scotch bottles and I remember matching lamps made from wooden dowels wrapped with twine. I'm guessing there was probably instructions for electroplating your child's shoes. What I heard was that he coated the shoe with graphite to make it conductive and immersed it in a solution of copper sulfate with some sulfuric acid. A battery charger was used to supply power for the plating, the positive lead would be connected to a copper plate, the negative to the graphite coated shoe. To agitate the solution during the plating process he depended on wind power, a fishing line connected to a branch and a pivoted paddle. If this was the way it happened, I am happy I didn't find it and poison myself with those chemicals.
Sadly I only have the single shoe. A pair would be nice hanging on my rearview mirror, in bronzed admiration in a blind spot of regret.
