Recent Comments

Recent Posts

Categories

Archives

Meta

Archive for the ‘shoes’ tag

Jack's Shoes, 1555 Sunnyside Drive: 1990s   6 comments

Posted at 1:06 am in Uncategorized

The picture isn't very good because the sun was against me, but Jack's was a local shoe store on Sunnyside Drive (which is a side street off of Forest Drive, just past Richland Mall heading towards town). The site is now either Miyo's or Leapin' Lizards -- I can't recall exactly which space it was. Growing up, we shopped for shoes in a number of places, including Gerber's at Trenholm Plaza and the shoe departments at Sears and other department stores, but I think Jack's is where we most often ended up.

I remember in particular, that Jack's was the place I got my first pair of Sebago Docksides, a shoe so comfortable that I have worn them ever since and that would be over 30 years now. In fact, that was about the only place in town I could find them. Now I either have to get them in Charleston, or order them from amazon.com (which is OK since my feet stay the same size now).

Written by ted on February 25th, 2009

Tagged with , , , ,

Shoe Carnival, 5520 Forest Drive: 2008   16 comments

Posted at 10:18 pm in closing

I don't get into the outparcels around the Forest Drive Wal-Mart very often, but I was over there at Radio Shack the other day (needed an audio cable and wasn't willing to forage into Wal-Mart and get it cheaper). While I was there, I noticed that the Shoe Carnival store was gone. It's a fairly big place -- that was a lot of shoes! When I was a kid, I thought shopping for shoes was a step up from shopping for "clothes". Partly this was, I think, because of the neat foot measuring devices which always struck me as kind of futuristic (and that was just the manual ones. The one at Sears on Harden which was fully automatic was a special treat!). It was also partly due to the premiums given out with kids shoes. I remember compasses, decoder whistles and comics coming with Keds, PF Flyers and Buster Browns. I don't think any of that happens any more. It's like cartoons before a movie -- nice but it doesn't help the theater's bottom line. Though apparently nothing helped this place's bottom line.

UPDATE 25 March 2010: Added full street address to post title.

Written by ted on September 20th, 2008

Tagged with , , , , , ,

Birkenstock Store, Trenholm Plaza: July 2008   1 comment

Posted at 4:21 pm in Uncategorized

There's a classic cartoon panel from the 70s. The setting is a doctors office. A female patient is sitting on the table and the (male, which rather dates the cartoon) doctor tells her:

I'm sorry Ms Johnson, but we're all out of birth control pills, please wear these Birkenstocks instead.

Whether the shoes got better looking, or men just don't look down that far, the brand is still around.

It's not around Trenholm Plaza anymore though. I don't know if the ongoing renovations cut traffic, or if they had decided to decamp before that, but I noticed when I went to Starbucks the other day that the Birkenstock store was gone.

I wonder what the deal with the palm tree in back was?

Written by ted on July 15th, 2008

Tagged with , ,

Tags

Recently Updated Posts

Blogroll