Amputee joins 'Odd Shoe Exchange'

PHOENIX € When his left leg was amputated three years ago because of complications from diabetes, Patrick Hogan's need for shoes changed forever.

Because no store would sell him just one shoe, he resigned himself to paying full price for a pair and tossing the left one into the growing pile at the back of his closet.

The retired radio announcer's luck changed when he came across the National Odd Shoe Exchange while thumbing through the phone book.

Since 1943, tens of thousands of people with two different-sized feet € or, like Hogan, only one foot € have looked to the nonprofit National Odd Shoe Exchange.

NOSE's cramped offices overflow with 1 million shoes donated by more than two dozen manufacturers. The organization counts 17,000 members in the United States and Canada, most of whom have mismatched shoe sizes because of disease, injury or birth defects.

Members shop for shoes for free at the organization's headquarters or order by mail, paying only the shipping costs.

Many of the shoes are manufacturers' overstocks. There are rows upon rows of Nike Air models to Joan & David black pumps, handmade in Italy, the $229 price tag still attached.

First Interstate to go on line

LOS ANGELES € Following Wells Fargo's lead, First Interstate Bank is hitching its future to cyberspace.

First Interstate, which is being purchased by Wells Fargo, said yesterday it will offer on-line banking via the Internet.

It's the second major bank to do so. Wells Fargo was the first.

Randy Kahn, who heads First Interstate's electronic products operations, said personal computers and other electronic systems are the ''future of banking for the consumer and small business.''

''It is through these means that banking is becoming a 24-hour phenomenon where the hour of access is at the customer's discretion,'' he said.