Digging through a Tony Lama boot box of found photos and correspondence, I have become archivist and narrator of this mysterious body. My curiosity careens wildly for any relative truth, whether it is real or imagined. The people and moments are frozen in a period spanning decades. The charcoal mist, the sepia fog, the faded, peripheral colors champion the myth of what is collectively known as “The Good Old Days”. It’s an aggressive library of naïve spirits wearing lace bonnets, battle fatigues, lost in shy laughter beneath the bridge in downtown Burlington, North Carolina sometime in 1929. The irony is that while many of these events were canceled by hand, they live on with a steadfast bravery that seems non-existent in modern polite society that shits its pants over anyone daring to breathe and sweat and speak with any such genuine life. No iBabysitters to collect the drool of the digitally shackled existed. Patience was understood as an absolute virtue. Pens were loaded with cartridges of ink or dipped in a well. Everyone used pen and paper to communicate across state lines and the seas. Those who stuttered appeared to have the elocution of Rhodes Scholars. Those who looked like they were beaten down savagely by circumstances came across as chivalrous leading men and sultry sirens from that strange new place called Hollywood, where the moving pictures were magically created with a mirror and a Tesla Coil… or, you could just pose with a cigarette dangling from your second grade face to tell the world that you were one tough little bitch. Trifling with you would be suicide for the unfortunate jackass. Right on, sister.