Others Barefoot in Public?

I'm curious about seeing others barefoot in public. Typically, I'll only see one person/year barefoot in public and that's typically a woman. This year I've already seen six people other than myself barefoot. Of these three were men (one entering a grocery, one crossing the street, another coming out of a store and walking across the parking lot). The other three were women (one coming out of a take-out restaurant, one outside a performance theater in downtown Denver (but carrying her shoes), and one younger woman barefoot in a wheelchair). Have others noticed folks barefoot in public this year? It's nice to see others enjoying "foot freedom"!! It makes me realize I'm not alone.

 

So far this year I've only seen one other person out barefoot in a not-traditionally-barefoot setting, which was a guy in his late 40s, early 50s in a supermarket with his wife.

Of course, I've seen plenty of people barefoot in more traditional places. I was down by the river on Saturday and the meadow was full of barefoot people - primarily teenagers of (I would say) around age 16 at what looked like a birthday party.

 

I very rarely see other in-public barefooters, and of those the majority are female. On the other hand I think almost everyone wears flip flops.

 

I see a few but it's usually women who have decided they don't want to wear their heels after all. I very rarely see anyone male or female who just prefers going barefoot.

 

So far this year I have seen three other people barefoot, all in convenience stores, three guys and one teenage girl.

Back in Ohio where I once lived I would see one about every ten years.

 

So far this year i've only seen one guy barefoot and NOT carrying shoes, but i've seen several women carrying them.

 

In the last three days I've seen three others barefoot: a 40-something guy at the grocery store, a girl in her mid-twenties at another supermarket, and a teenage girl walking down the street near the high school just this afternoon. Of course, I do live in a beach town, so that skews things somewhat.

 

i barefoot most of the time, i drive barefoot, walk to the store barefoot, walk my doggy barefoot, i get looks all the time but i don't mind. i've only seen one other person a couple of weeks ago who was walking down the street to pick his kid up from school barefoot.

 

I think I spoke too soon. I was walking back from the doctor just now (went for a blood test as part of my kuwait work permit application - the nurse asked if I was going to be ok without shoes, mentioned needles on the floor, and then said nothing more when I assured her I'd be fine) and across the road I saw a lady jogging barefoot along the pavement. Being on the otherside of the road I didn't get the chance to make eye contact, but that was a first for ages, seeing someone who, like me, clearly didn't have any shoes with them.

 

the last time i saw anyone barefoot in public was maybe 10 years ago, when i was a teenager growing up in the late sixties you'd see it every day and think nothing of it, those were good times.

 

Yesterday I went barefoot to a FedEx Kinko's to ship a package. As I was filling out the paperwork a woman behind the counter said in a loud voice, "Where are your shoes"? I looked over and she was smiling, so all was okay. I said it's just comfortable. She said she may have seen some kids in there barefoot before but never an adult. She wasn't being judgmental or anything, just smiling and talking. Oh well, it was sorta fun.

Getting back to the topic of this thread, I did see about three kids barefoot in the breakfast area of a hotel in Seattle (not included in the six people I've noticed so far this year as reported in the first entry to this thread). We were passing through on vacation a few weeks ago. It made me think. When I was a kid in the 60's, no one would even notice a kid being barefoot in public. By contrast, seeing these kids seemed like an oddity in the 2000's. What a shame!

 

I have noticed a lot of kids having barefoot charity events lately. Usually these consist of raising money and awareness by having a barefoot rally or a barefoot day at school. Although I question the need to collect shoes or raise money to buy shoes for kids, it is good to see the kids rallying in bare feet.

I think that the rock group Hanson has been asking their fans to go barefoot to raise money for the infortunate.

Maybe if the kids go barefoot for these events they will go barefoot more often in the future.

 

other than myself, i have seen 3 other barefoot people in the last 2 weeks. a young womyn (early 20's) with a shaved head and tats on 2 occasions, this young womyn accocompanied by a young man (early 20's) with long dreadlocks, and another young womyn (a street kid) with dreads.

 

Got to ask. What's the significance of the alternative spelling of woman, and why doesn't man get the same treatment?

 

It's an attempt to rewrite the English language to make it non-gender specific due to the etymological basis of the word.

As for me, I'll stick with woman, as well as perSON and will continue to refer to the human race as man or mankind. Rewriting the language accomplishes little to address inequity.

Back on topic:

On a larger stage, the number of barefoot individuals you see on a given day varies dramatically with location. Here in the islands (Hawaii included) bare feet are very common. In some places, such as Yap proper, and the Caroline Islands, bare feet are the norm. Throughout Asia, bare feet are typically more common than in Europe or North America. Of course, Africa is another thing altogether...

 

I've spotted very few bf'ers so far, and they were all white and westerners. There are some african guys from senegal, ghana etc who are friends of mine and -at least abroad- they don't even pull off their shoes on the beach or at home. maybe they had enough with barefooting when young.

 

I have spotted very few barefooters this year. I saw a couple with kids walking down the street with ice cream that they bought at a local ice cream shop. I also caught a guy coming from a bar barefoot who said he gave his flip flops to his girlfriend (probably for the night), so he went barefoot. I've seen two men and one woman on campus barefoot with no shoes in sight. I've also managed to convince a couple of other hippie-type dudes to go barefoot for a little while, and apparently, one guy followed my example of being barefoot and ended up carrying his shoes after walking perhaps 500 feet away from me.

 

I think that just like in the 1980s when video killed the radio star, it seems to be the truth of today that flip-flops killed the barefoot people... (I am just waiting for a song of that title coming out ).

Since the weather has become warm enough even for the "normal" people to think about wearing t-shirts and shorts and perhaps walk barefoot, I have spotted only one (that is: 1) barefoot young woman carrying a pair of black sneakers. Other than that, I have seen numerous bare toes in thin leather sandals and flip-flops.

Wiggling happy toes, since my soles are allowed to touch the Earth,

~*Ganesha*~

 

I saw a girl barefoot last week in a grocery store. She was tall blonde and with friends. She didn't even have shoes with her I don't think and she didn't care.

 

I've ventured into the city the last three or four Saturday nights and I have observed several women walking barefoot from one club to another. I even saw one woman barefoot on the subway. Of course all of them had their pumps or sandals under there arms. Regardless, I still appreciated the effort on their part. Unfortunately, other then myself, there were no other guys walking barefoot around the city.