No Bare Feet In This Store

The anti-barefoot attitude of stores was in full swing in the 1970s. Here’s an article that documents it pretty well.

See how many flaws you can spot in it regarding the excuses.

The article is from a small suburban newspaper from a town in the suburbs just west of Chicago, Oak Park. It’s dated in the summer of 1973, and was written by Harriet Vrba, their family living editor.

“No bare feet in this store”

One warm, breezy afternoon a couple of weeks ago I was walking on Lake St. near Euclid Av. in Oak Park. As I looked toward the intersection, I noticed a motorist open the window of his air conditioned car and expectorate on the street. Within 30 seconds, three girls, all walking barefoot, went right through the wet mess without realizing what they had stepped into.

Further east on Lake St., a young woman was walking on the parkway, carrying her shoes in her hand. She stopped a moment when I asked her why she goes barefoot. She enjoys walking without shoes, she said, but has second thoughts when she steps in dog poop hidden in the grass.

Notice the (not-so) subtle start designed to put people off from going barefoot. Do I think she actually witnessed this? No. But it sure makes it sound scarier.

Girls and boys, and young men and women are shedding their shoes and walking barefoot on the streets and sidewalks of the western suburbs.

IN ELMWOOD PARK, a barefoot homemaker says she takes her shoes off, “but only in my own garden.” In Maywood, a small boy goes barefoot in a field, tossing a baseball as he runs. And in Oak Park, an incredible number persons are walking around town unshod. You see them in parks, playgrounds and village shopping centers.

Some who leave their shoes at home may not suffer from the experience, but many end up with cuts, bruises, planters warts and trouble with the arches.

And the evidence for this?

Besides that, those who walk barefoot find themselves barred from many stores and restaurants.

MANAGERS OF ALL food stores contacted by Pioneer Press said that barefoot shoppers are asked to leave their stores. All said that daily breakage of glass jars make walking in the stores hazardous.

Dominick Stores display signs asking barefoot shoppers to stay out. The manager of the Oak Park Jewel on North Av. says he tries to keep a “no bare feet” sign on the door but the kids keep tearing it down.

Pete Salerno of Super Foods says bare feet are definitely barred in his store because of the dangers of being cut and because other shoppers object to seeing dirty feet in a food shop.

Stammers Market in Elmwood Park also displays a “no bare feet” sign. “Most shoppers cooperate,” says the manager.

DEPARTMENT STORES have a varying attitudes about bare feet. Marshal Field’s and Penney’s don’t care what the shopper has on his feet, but Wieboldt’s asks barefoot shoppers to leave the store.

“Some kind of construction is always going on inside the store and in the aisles,” says a spokesman for Wiebolt’s.

All restaurants, including MacDonald’s refuse to serve patrons who come in without shoes.

It looks like the author really did some research here. I think this is a good litany of just how barefooters were addressed during that time.

Village health departments have no regulations about bare feet. “We couldn’t make that kind of rule stick in court,” Dr. Herbert Ratner, director of the Oak Park Health Department.

Dr. Ratner believes restaurants and stores have a right to make regulations concerning their customers but, he says, in many summer resort areas barefoot vacationers are permitted to go almost anyplace.

It’s more a question of aesthetics than health,” says Dr. Ratner.

Nails it. And we have other examples of towns being told that anti-barefoot rules wouldn’t hold up in court. These days, however, judges have entirely forgotten that (or what freedom means).

But what article would be complete without an ignorant podiatrist spouting off?

DR. EMANUEL DEMEUR, a west suburban podiatrist with offices in Oak Park since 1919, doesn’t agree.

He says that walking on streets and sidewalks is very dangerous to health.

Resistance is lowest in the the feet because they are farthest from the heart. If the feet are scratched or bruised a person is exposed to infection,” says Dr. Demeur.

The podiatrist says that his practice bears this out. His patients come in with planters warts, fungus infections and broken down arches a result of walking on concrete.

Quite frankly, I think he was lying. Yeah, I’m sure he saw patients with plantar warts (yes, the article really does say “planters warts”) and fungus infections, but I bet that was his shod patients. And “resistance is lowest in the feet”? Well, maybe if they’ve been encased in shoes. But if that were really true, how did our barefoot ancestors every survive?

“Barefoot in the sand or on a soft lawn is beneficial if the areas are free of debris,” says Dr. Demeur. He also advocates taking off one’s shoes and stockings in the house in order to give the feet a chance to breathe.

“But be careful not to stumble over furniture,” he cautions, “because the toes are easily broken.

“EARLY MAN WENT barefoot but then nature compensated by giving him very thick skin on the soles of his feet for protection,” Dr. Demeur explains.

“Today, after centuries of wearing shoes, man has thin skin on the soles of his feet. Nature thickens only the heel which bears the weight of the body,” he says.

He also doesn’t understand evolution or physiology. Centuries of wearing shoes is not going to have changed our genes enough that we can no longer develop thick skin on the soles of our feet. He’s seeing weakened feet, not incapable feet—and he’s too ignorant to realize that.

All the advice in the world will probably have no effect on persons bent on saving shoe leather this summer. But it’s possible that the end result will cost a lot more money than a pair of shoes.

I suppose it’s “possible”. It’s just not backed up by data.

Anyways, I think this provides a bit of an interesting historical perspective on the progression of anti-barefoot attitudes. Also, keep in mind that this was a pretty urban area. I suspect rural areas saw things differently.