52 Postcards - postcard 3

This was a particularly uninspired 52 Postcard week. I've decided to post the results anyway, because part of the point is that I'm not always going to write things I love, but it's good practice for me to sit down and do it anyway, forgive myself, and move on. Sometimes you write on faith, and nothing happens. Nothing interesting shows up. I'm learning to live through that. For an explanation of the project, look here. One little note - I never look at the postcard description on the back until after I've done the writing.

Postcard: Giant shoe made by bootmakers for the children's ward of the London Hospital. During Christmas festivities, the shoe will be filled with toys. December 12, 1931
Photograph copyright Hulton Getty/Archive Photos
Exercise: Physical description, then speculation

You can tell it's an old photo from the shades of black. They are grainy and brownish, not crisp or shadowy like a new black and white photo.
It's a simple photo really, two men carrying a giant shoe down the sidewalk. They both wear ties, white shirts with old-fashioned collar stays, and you can see the collars of suit jackets under the long smock-like coats they wear. They are each stepping forward onto their left feet. The man on the left is a younger man, with a longish wave of hair on the top of his head, an unsmiling mouth, and slightly furrowed brow. His eyes are a smudge, no way to tell what he's looking at exactly. The man on the right is the larger man, dark hair receding away from the deep frown that sits on his brow.

I want to think that the street they are carrying the shoe down is a New York street. You can see buildings in the background that might be apartment buildings, and the wide sidewalk in front of the storefront looks like the sidewalks of the lower east side.

What could the shoe be for? A display, an advertisement of some kind, because seeing such a large men's shoe, utilitarian, a plain style that makes you think more of re-soleing than of buying new shoes. The only thing unusual about the shoe, other than it's size, is that it looks like it was made with strips of leather rather than a few large pieces. But we don't expect the shoe to be real leather, we know it's just a model, and the strips are the seams where the papier mache was set on the frame, which you might imagine is chicken wire. Did these men make it? Or is this an order they picked up?

Well, that's it. After two days of procrastination, I've posted it. This piece of writing bores me terribly, so I'm thinking about that, and how it feels when what you are writing bores even you. It's sort-of an interesting experience in a way, it makes me think about editing. That is, it's all well and good to describe the physical details of a thing, but why would anyone care to read this? In this case, I don't expect anyone to, but what if these were my characters? Would it be important to tell you that the younger man's pants are narrower at the ankle than the older man's? What kind of picture do the details give you? If I wanted to write about these men, what would I leave out, and what would I keep?