Hallo allseits,
der folgende Artikel ist gestern in der "Chicago Tribune" erschienen und zeigt weitere Facetten des amerikanischen Umgangs mit Barfüßern auf.
Gruß
beka
Chicago Tribune, April 9, 2001
FOR FOOTLOOSE, SHOES ARE SHODDY WAY TO TREAT FEET
By Ted Gregory, Tribune staff reporter
Gordon Hlavenka, Bethany Vedder, Debi Jellema and Ken Grossinger find it somewhat baffling that U.S. consumers buy 1.3 billion pairs of shoes every year, or about five pairs for every man, woman and child.
They're a bit bewildered by the $38 billion spent annually to put leather, canvas and plastic on feet.
In a world lockstepping to Florsheims, Nikes and the like, Hlavenka, Vedder, Jellema and Grossinger choose bare feet.
They don't want to be forced into shoes and, legally, they--and the rest of the international Dirty Sole Society--may be standing on firm ground.
"There are no state public health laws regulating bare feet," Illinois Department of Public Health spokesman Tom Schaefer said. "It's up to individual building owners and management to make that decision.
"It's sort of like those signs saying you can't try on a hat or a swimsuit or underwear or anything like that because of the state health code," he said. "I've seen those signs and thought, `Wow, I didn't know we did that.' And we don't."
It is legal to drive an automobile barefoot in Illinois. The Chicago Health Department has no regulations prohibiting barefoot people in public or private places. And city ordinances address only indecent exposure, which bare feet, however unnerving, do not constitute.
Federal safety regulations require employees to wear protective footwear only "where there is a danger of foot injuries due to falling or rolling objects, or objects piercing the sole, and where such employee's feet are exposed to electrical hazards."
Legalities notwithstanding, there is something fundamentally unsettling about bare feet in modern society. In daily life, these impudent few push the boundaries of restraint. Hlavenka said he goes shoeless everywhere, except for two hours in church on Sundays. Jellema has a frog tattoo on her right big toe, carries shoes but goes barefoot everywhere she can get away with it. She even plays barefoot in a volleyball league. But, in the deep cold of winter, she wears shoes.
Out on the town
Vedder, a graphics designer, has the luxury of working at home, where she is barefoot. Although she wears shoes to the opera and has grown weary of trying to sneak shoeless into grocery stores, she was barefoot when she, her husband and another couple went to Starbucks and a movie theater, then finished the night at Borders--in March. She tries to sneak into clubs to go dancing barefoot.
Grossinger, an electrical engineer, succumbs to mores by wearing moccasins in the office and boots if he has to go to a job site. But at home and on the weekends, he is barefoot. He drives barefoot, sometimes shovels snow in bare feet.
All of them have experienced society's anxiety with public display of bare feet, in the astonished expressions and snide comments of passersby, the demands from librarians, grocers and fast-food restaurant managers to wear shoes or exit.
"In most societies, shoes are considered a sign of civilization," said Hlavenka, 42, an electronics store owner from Villa Park. "Not wearing shoes hits some trigger in people's minds that you're not civilized or are too poor to afford them.
"We can turn around that enough to say that, `I'm wealthy enough to afford not to care what you think about me not wearing shoes.'"
Barefooters say they have worked through narrow-minded perceptions in the name of comfort and freedom. They are, in fact, aware of and embrace the so-called risks and contend that going unshod is healthier than wearing shoes.
The feet acquire thicker skin and stronger muscles, they say. Ankles get stronger. And, because they are able to breathe, unshod feet rarely fall victim to athlete's foot or similar unpleasant afflictions.
Feet bottoms get no dirtier than the bottoms of shoe soles, the barefooters argue, and bare feet are much easier to clean than shoes. Yes, bare feet are more vulnerable to punctures and scrapes, but the barefoot army maintains that a sensitive foot is a nimble foot much less likely to find itself wounded by a nail, glass shard, rock or curb.
The Dirty Sole Society promotes "barefoot acceptance worldwide." Barefoot Hikers, a group that sprouted after the publication in 1993 of a book with a similar name, has 15 chapters in eight states, Canada and the United Kingdom.
Sizing up the numbers
Still, the numbers of brazen bare footists remains meager. The Dirty Sole Society, based in, surprise, California, was established in 1994 and has 731 members on its mailing list. A total of 27 reside in Illinois.
"It bugs people," said Vedder, 30, of Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood. Vedder was married barefoot, attended by six barefoot bridesmaids.
"People don't understand why, and they think you're doing it just for the attention or to be odd," Vedder said. "It's people who want everybody to be conformists. They think, `Whose button are you trying to push?' Well, mine. That's it."
Bare feet push the button of Dr. Fortunee Massuda, a podiatrist and medical director of Foot & Ankle Clinics of America, which has 11 clinics in Chicago and northwest Indiana. She advocates moderation.
"You don't want to go barefoot 24 hours a day," Massuda said. "You don't want to be in shoes 24 hours a day. It's wonderful to walk across the beach barefoot or walk around your home after a hard day of work."
She said too much barefoot walking can lead to aches on the bottom of feet, loose ligaments, frostbite, not to mention the puncture threats. "Sooner or later," Massuda said, "you're going to step on something and injure yourself."
Vedder, Jellema and Grossinger said they've always disliked wearing shoes and slowly gained the courage to challenge society's norms.
Hlavenka said he bought sneakers about four years ago that caused an acrid odor on his feet. He avoided wearing the shoes and soon discovered the pleasure of going barefoot all the time, even in his store.
"My wife thinks this is some kind of midlife crisis," Hlavenka said.
All say they have endured no serious injuries from going barefoot, although they have had their run-ins with those less tolerant. Grossinger, 53, of Lemont, said he left his church after the minister forbade him from worshipping barefoot.
Jellema, 24, of Park Forest, said she sometimes bristles at bosses' insistence she wear shoes at a Chicago psychology school.
Day in court
One barefooter, transplanted Elmhurst native Robert Neinast, has decided to mount a court challenge to preserve his rights to what he calls a "non-disruptive mode of dress."
Neinast, 46, of Pickerington, Ohio, filed suit April 3 against the Columbus Metropolitan Library, claiming its ban on bare feet "is not authorized by state law" and deprived him of "his freedom to receive speech" given in the Constitution.
"Sometimes you get tired of being pushed around," said Neinast, a software engineer, father of three and husband who was evicted from the library three times for being barefoot.