You Can Go Barefoot!
How to bribe a barefoot girl by Sharleen W.L. If you have read the story titled "Barefoot Sisters" you would know that in the beginning mom was so opposed to her kids going barefoot in public places, but she later gave in and allowed Tania and me to do so. The following took place in my early days of barefooting in public when I was in elementary school. I was the only barefooter in the grocery store that night It was 9:30pm on a Wednesday when dad was away on business. My oldest brother and sisters were still busy doing homework and studying, and my little brother was already in bed. I just got done with all my homework. I had karate class earlier in the evening, and so I took a shower when I got home. Btw, I got punished in class with doing lots of push-ups (I was joking around with another kid and wasn't paying attention to the instructor), so now I was a bit tired and sleepy. I was planning to go to bed a little earlier but wanted to kinda unwind first. So I ...
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"The old days" huh? Depends what you mean by the "old days" ... 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, most kids went barefoot at least some of the time during the summer, often the whole summer. But then you grew up and had to wear shoes, as people in those times got dressed up when going out most of the time. But they all had that collective memory of going barefoot as kids. No explanation needed as to why, or how, it was obvious that gradually getting used to it in the spring made your feet tough by summer. Then in the late 1960s a segment of the adult population started going barefoot - the hippies. Continuing to go barefoot into adulthood and breaking all the "unwritten social rules" of how you must dress in public, and how you must wear your hair, made the conservative older population of the USA quite angry. And combine that with the fact that they were against the Vietnam war, made the average person associate bare feet in public with being un-patriotic. So signs began to appear on doors - "no hippies allowed", "no long haired men", "no bare feet". Then by 1970, the "hippie" fashion (or more precicely, anti-fashion) hit the mainstream. Soon most young people looked and dressed like hippies, because it was cool to do so, even if most did not actually belong to any hippie communes and had little interest in the politics and anti war movement. So you would see lots of young people in their teens and twenties, - mostly young women, from what I remember, I was a teenager in the 1970s - going about their daily business, running errands and shopping barefoot. In malls, grocery stores, banks, in the streets of most downtown areas, including New York City. So you did miss those so-called "old days". Once the 1980s came along, there was a rapid decline in the numbers of people going barefoot in public, as styles changed, and fancy athletic shoes became hip and cool to wear. Amazing how people quickly forgot about going barefoot in public, and how common it was, and today most young people don't even know this even happened.
ReplyDeleteOh boy, the good old days. Well growing up in the 60's and 70's, I saw plenty of bare soles. What changed was the coming of "thongs", or "flip-flops" as they are known today, and as I remember it, everyone was wearing them during the summer and to school. Seeing someone barefoot anywhere, as it is today, become a rarity.
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