If only we could turn back the clock. How great would that be,
to relive life’s joyful events?
Short of that, we’ll settle for preserving the moment, heirloom
style.
‘‘Bronze baby shoes are like a trophy to babyhood,’’ says the
man who runs the company where the tiny, upside-down sneakers in
this photo were frozen in time.
Bob Kaynes Jr. is the CEO of the American Bronzing Co., the firm
in Columbus, Ohio, founded more than 70 years ago by his
grandmother, Violet Shinbach.
Something like 12 million baby shoes later, Kaynes says this
tradition of preserving little ones’ footwear in bronze is a
uniquely American phenomenon. Efforts to interest Europeans in
doing the same went nowhere.
Maybe we’re just more sentimental. Grandma Vi certainly was. She
began the business going door-to-door to homes with signs that
children lived there: a swing set, a bicycle, a toy truck in the
front yard. Today, the company she founded bronzes some 200,000
shoes a year and if there’s a pair or two in your house, chances
are they were dipped and plated by American Bronzing
(abcbronze.com).
But why stop with babyhood? As long as the object is not
‘‘fluffy’’ it can be bronzed (a process that doesn’t involve bronze
but copper electroplating).
One man who survived a car accident promised that if he ever
walked again, he would have the body cast that he wore for months
bronzed. The American Bronzing Company did the job.
And then there was the World War II veteran whose family had
stored his old Navy uniform in the attic. Going through the pockets
years later, the man’s wife found an unopened wartime U.S.
government-issued condom, still in its pristine packaging.
Decades passed. For the sailor’s 80th birthday, the family sent
the packaged condom to Kaynes’ company to be preserved forever and
attached to a walnut base.
‘‘Thanks for keeping this in your pocket,’’ said the engraved
plaque. It was signed-with love-by his six children.
——— (c) 2006, Chicago Tribune.
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