Wallet Card at Billy & George again

A few weeks ago, my wallet card post I had a bit of a sign from an old shoe store, Billy & George. Just "Geo" was visible. I went by today and a lot more of the old sign is still visible, though surely not for long.

I couldn't find a whole lot online about the store, but in 1954 there was a column by a local humorist in a paper called Long Beach Life. In "Bunny's Corner" WOR Radio host Bunny Roberts would share some bits of humor he supposedly heard at various stores. For three issues in the fall of 1954 he shared snippets he claims to have overheard at Billy & George's Shoe Store. Here's what passed for humor in 1954:

10/29: Picking up my wife's shoes at Billy & George in Hewlett, I heard, "we're growing very serious and that's the next step to being dull."

12/2: "The the director said to me . . . Put more feeling into it, it isn't mamby pambies, it's for bloodthirsty children."

12/9: "I wish he'd call up sometime and say he's not coming home to dinner like other men do."

Kind of an odd way to get free advertising but there you have it.