Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 2, 1995 TAG: 9503020066
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
But he put his best foot forward.
Both of them, actually.
When Allen toured Foot Levelers, a Roanoke maker of orthopedic shoe inserts, company President Kent Greenawalt had a surprise waiting for him.
He asked the governor to take off his cowboy boots.
And his socks.
In front of everybody.
When governors tour factories, they're often presented with sample products. But for Foot Levelers to give Allen one of its samples, it first needed to make a cast of the gubernatorial feet.
Allen good-naturedly shucked off his boots. "When you wear boots, you can wear white socks," he said, warning workers what they'd see next. Then he peeled off the socks. "I hope you all have a cold," he joked.
A delighted Greenawalt peered down at the governor's feet and announced to workers: "I told you he had a Morton's Toe."
The workers nodded knowingly, leaving Allen to ask: "Who was Morton?"
A Morton's Toe, it seems, is a condition in which the middle toes are longer than the big toe.
Allen gingerly rolled up his pants leg and stepped onto a foam tray, just so, to make a mold of his feet.
"And here is the governor's foot," Greenawalt proclaimed, holding the model aloft.
Once Allen's boot inserts are manufactured, the cast of his feet will go into Foot Levelers' "Wall of Feet," a lobby display showing off models of the other famous feet for which the company has produced inserts.
Greenawalt asked reporters accompanying Allen not to name all the names, citing doctor-patient privilege. Many of the celebrities, he said, don't know Foot Levelers has a cast of their feet; all they know is their doctor has prescribed a special shoe insert.
But it seems safe to say that the soles of the late Vincent Price are enshrined there.
by CNB