V 12 N. 44 Blast from the Past "Shoe Goo" and Old Programs

 Remember back in the day when a tube of SHOE GOO could be found in every runner's gym bag, glove box, work bench, or on the kitchen table?  I saw some on sale in a hardware store in Canada a few years ago and sprung for a tube. Just for old times sake.    It's been sitting around for those years unopened, but finally I found a use when a pair of my favorite street shoes started disintegrating on the soles.  Yes, my disintegrating sole was repaired without turning to the Scriptures, just the Shoe Goo god.   In the late 70's and 80's many running stores sold this product and we extended the life of our shoes when the kids were babies and needed formula and diapers and our wives didn't understand the need to fork out $35 for a new pair of New Balance 350's or some Tiger Jayhawks.  The sacrifices we made to keep on running the streets.

I also recall that several running shoe stores also performed the service of resoling our shoes.  When the outer layer wore down, they had a belt sander in the back room.  They'd just sand off that outer layer and glue a new one on.  When the corner of the heel wore down you would just build it back up with Shoe Goo.  Can't do that anymore because the midsoles use that EVA material or something even more exotic now, and it disintegrates with time.  Can't apply a new sole and even if you could the EVA would have lost it's resilience with time.   Caveat emptor  this stuff will give you a buzz if used in a closed area.  Do you have a Shoe Goo story?  If so, let us know.

Here is another treat.   A few weeks ago John Cobley sent me a mint condition copy of the 1948 US Olympic Trials program.  Here are a few pages from the program.  I'll soon include a similar post on the Athletic Review of the 1948 games published in England which John also sent.

Front Page

Inside Cover  Longines Ad

Letter from Harry Truman

Page with photo of everyone's favorite human being Avery Brundage

Lipton Tea, A Man's Drink, well we're going to London, prepare yourself.

Remember King Veedol?

Page of the favorites

All the entries

I found this page interesting noting that Juan Carlos Sabata who won the 1932 marathon was 

only 20 years old at the time.

How we gonna get there and what are we gonna wear?

The back cover, my favorite, with Chesterfield ad with baseball's finest

endorsing the product.  The cigarettes are clearly drawn into the layout.

George-what a fantastic historical document! The Ads are especially interesting. I notice that in the ad for Chesterfields smokes, they photo-shopped or drew the cig onto the player's image to make it look like the celeb was actually smokin! Then there is the wonderful Pan Am ad with the Lockeed  passenger plane quoting a $350 dollar one way flight from NYC with a 10% discount if you purchase a round trip. Cannot imagine what $350 in '48 would translate into today's coin but it would be in the thousands for sure. Wonderful stuff!  I was also surprised to see how many of the athletes shown who were highlighting the Oly trials were still very active while I was training and racing into the 1960s. They were impressive for sure. I'm guessing that Perry O'Brian didn't get his Olympic string going until 1952. And he was always around in the 1960s. Amazing! 

Thanks for sharing!

Darryl Taylor-LBSC

Excellent work, George.  But after old-timers like you are gone, George, who will care.  The already apathetic void will be filled with yet more apathy.  I say fight back through the nightly use of vast quantities of alcohol.  Roy

OMG!!!  LOL!      I can't tell you how many times I've used shoo goo.   I think I still have some!  Mike Waters

Hey, George,  

Shoe Goo has been there all along.  I get mine at Red Wing Boot stores.  I suppose it could be used on the soles of modern running shoes, but the other parts of the shoes wear out before the soles do, these days.  Could it be that we don’t put the mileage on running shoes that we used to?

I use Shoe Goo mostly these days on my Teva sandals.  With it, I think I am into my 8th or 10th year on a pair of Teva Pteradactyls (sp?)They’re still perfectly fine for a round of golf (if you don’t mind curious (disapproving?) stares from the style-conscious).

Keep that computer keyboard smoking’!

Walt Mizell

Dear George:

If you will get out your magnifying glass and pull up the list of qualifiers for the Olympic team try-outs, you will find at #169 the name of Eddie Taylor.

Taylor was an outstanding Western Michigan College hurdler back in the late 40s.

Take care,

Tom Coyne

New Commentaries

1948 U.S. Trails Program - Artist Lon Keller drew the covers for the 1948, 1956, 1960 and 1964 U.S. Trials Programs. He also did the 1960 Squaw Valley Souvenir Program and the Nov., 1981 issue of The Olympian. His website is www.lonkeller.com. Click on Professional Sports, then Olympic.

The U.S.O.C. produced generic Trials Programs for the years 1948-1972. The generic Program supplied for each sport. The cover was stamped with the sport name (1948 - across the word TRIALS). The schedule and participants would be compiled into an "Insert" which was stapled to the center of the Program. The 1948 Track and Field (Athletics) Trials Program scarce; most common is the '48 Wrestling Program.

Shoe Goo - I tested all the available shoe repair products in the 1980's. None as good as Shoe Goo. If the shoe's sole PROPERLY PREPARED, Shoe Goo will not peel off. Every month or 2, I sand the worn Goo surface(s) and apply a new layer of Goo to the existing layer(s) of Goo (on my running shoes). Goo attaches to rubber soles, nylon, leather, felt, aluminum, steel, etc. We used Goo to make Hershey Kiss sized 'bumpers' on aluminum brackets to hold equipment in place.  If Shoe Goo were UV resistant, you could use it (long term) to seal holes in your car. I used it for a year to seal screw holes in my roof. 

I'm in a suburb of Philadelphia (PA.) - Abington. ("Gary" from Arch Bishop Wood H.S., who recently ran the sub-4 minute mile, is nearby...)

I discovered "Once Upon a Time in the Vest" via a serendipitous Google search maybe 4-5 years ago. I probably wanted to know if any info. was available on the web for an Olympic Trialist, or maybe an Olympian who didn't medal. Your blog came up... I pop by every once in a while and just read about runners I've heard about and some I have not...

I remember the dumpster find photos article. (I find 'goodies' (tools, equipment, collectibles) myself when out running, and 'compete' with a friend to find the most coins(!) and enough folding money to keep things interesting...)

Purchased some modest items from Lon Keller's personal stuff being sold by his daughter. She's the one who clued me in - and sent a copy of an article which appeared in an art magazine(?). (After reading, passed the article to my Uncle, who is an artist- cartoonist and is also interested in 'sports art'.) I looked at the Trials Programs covers in the collection and noted the 'style' and 'signature' of each.

The trivia/minutiae of the Olympics and Track & Field are interesting to me. I may only have a moderate knowledge of the college running scene from past decades, but I KNOW about U.S. Trials Programs,  Olympic Programs, Tickets, Medals, and mine the info. regularly for 'answers'. I also know about adhesives, including Shoe Goo. (I wrote to Eclectic Products in the late 80's or early 90's to discuss a bad batch of Goo I'd purchased. They wrote back, replacing the Goo, and including a sample of new industrial adhesive they started producing. I used it, and wrote back telling them about the results of using the new glue.) I've contributed material to a few Olympics websites, including high-resolution scans of posters, tickets, etc*. No separately published articles. I was working on one about the USA vs. British Empire/Commonwealth Meets (1920-1960); and another about the M.L.K. International Freedom Games (1969-198x), but I keep procrastinating... I have written extensively about helicopters, aircraft electronics, and their maintenance for the military/government and worked at a Navy R. & D. lab.

*I do regularly identify and describe Olympics items for sports memorabilia dealers, estate sellers, etc.

(A few years ago your blog posted a photo of a 1964 Tokyo distance Final (?), and I think the question was - who are these runners? I literally had the bib numbers vs. names in the filing cabinet here...)

(Similarly, one of Sport's Illustrated top 100 sports photos - featuring Roger Bannister, is captioned incorrectly. The photo bugged the heck out of me, so I did sit down and figured WHY it bugged me... Do you know why the caption is incorrect? I wrote S.I. but received no reply.)

https://www.si.com/more-sports/2015/03/18/100-great-sports-photos-sports-illustrated-si#gid=ci02558776a004279d&pid=roger-bannister

DO have direct running experience - ran 50Km. in 3:01 (1989) and 10Km. in 29:00 in the 80's and 90's. Qualified for 1988 Trials, but knew I couldn't run the Olympic standard. Have met many others who fell into the category we call - "not too bad, but not too good, either"...

Best wishes, Bill Pileggi\\\

shoe goo works to close drain holes in roof of car (2003 volvo station wagon).  Bruce Kritzeler