Nice mix of facades in these three buildings. Three solutions to one problem.

Either every businessman was trying to keep up with the Joneses by naming their business National This or National That, or the National family held all the cards when it came to operating in this neck of the woods.

Free legal tubes, batteries....thank heavens. I was afraid they would be illegal tubes and batteries.

Anyone have any back story on the free legal tubes? Obviously they mean tubes for inside tires...but legal? I'm guessing it has something to do with being constructed to a specific standard.

Or perhaps they mean free legal all by itself, like free legal advice?

[Try reading across the emblem. - Dave]

Behind the lamppost.

My assumption is that the cobbler would be happy to fix the shoes immediately while you sat in those small booths in your stockinged (socked?) feet. His edge would be that he was paid on the spot. Alternatively, he would fix them later and wrap them and put them on the shelf with all those other packages of repaired footwear, waiting for the owners to get up enough money to bail them out. Hence the "Not Responsible for Goods Left Over 30 Days" signs with a statement that wasn't legal.

There was a shoe repair place in my home town that had a sign that also read "shoes repaired while you wait."

I always assumed the sign meant that you could have your shoes repaired at the time they were brought in. That was until I took shoes in to be resoled and learned that I would wait at least a week while the shoes were repaired.

So the shoes would indeed be repaired while I waited!