Well Before Velcro

       

  I wish I knew if more octogenarians were reading this blog, because I’d love to know if I’m the only person left alive who remembers wearing high button shoes.   The ones I remember might have been black kidskin.  The house I associate with those shoes is the one we lost after the stock market crash, when I would have been three years old.
         I must have graduated to something more modern by the time I was five, because we were "doubling-up" with relatives that year, and I remember exactly the sunny day – and the spot on a Buffalo sidewalk  -- and the exact moment -- when my cousin Betty taught me to tie my shoelaces.
         But while we’re at it, gang, how many of you can identify this artifact? 

Yep, it’s a button hook.  When I was a girl it was sometimes mentioned in low-voiced discussions of the dangers of self-induced abortions.
         And why am I surprised to find that in the course of looking for this illustration, I ran into this? –
         http://www.thebuttonhooksociety.com/mainpage.php