Colorful Characters — Billy Barber

While bare feet were undoubtedly more popular in the past (at least here in the U.S.), they were still a rarity. In fact, they were enough of a rarity that adults who regularly went barefoot out and about had some degree of notoriety. And that meant the media wrote about them. Hence my series: Colorful Characters.

Today’s colorful character is Billy Barber.

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Pilot Mountain

I spent the weekend in Winston-Salem in North Carolina. As part of the visit I had a chance to do a nice little hike (about 3.1 miles) around Pilot Mountain just a bit north of the city.

And other people in the park had a chance to see two barefoot hikers.

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Saturday Comic

Today’s comic comes from a strip called Smidgens, written by Bob Cordray. The sources I looked at said that the strip ran from 1962 to 1974, but this one appeared in newspapers on March 14, 1975.

Smidgens, March 14, 1975

The usual phrase is “barefoot from the neck down”. But in either case, I wonder, were they wearing a mask? Or were they really barefoot from the forehead down? (Or up to their hair?)

 

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Dictated by Customs

You would think that after all these years of going barefooted, I’d no longer have concerns about whether to go barefoot and that worries would be behind me.

But there is still a niggling in the back of the brain.

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Colorful Characters — The Harrison Boys

You know how some people just keep having more boys while trying to have a little girl?

Well, meet the Harrisons from Johnson City, Tennessee, when they took a visit to New York City. Thirteen barefoot boys.

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Merry Christmas

 

 

And a song, Barefoot Santa Claus, from Sonny James.

 

[A repost from last year.]

 

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Penny Arcadia — Part 3

Let me wrap up the story of Arcadia, CA’s 1965 attempt to ban bare feet in all civic buildings. It was a win . . .

. . . but not really.

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Penny Arcadia — Part 2

I’m going to continue looking at the attempt in Arcadia, CA to pass an ordinance banning bare feet in all city buildings. On Friday we saw two articles from just before the City Council was scheduled to meet in June of 1965.

But what started it?

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Saturday Comic

This weekend’s cartoon comes from Zits. It’s dated December 18, 2006.

Zits, December 18, 2006

Nails it.

 

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Penny Arcadia — Part 1

During the barefoot time of the 1960s there was always a set of authoritarians who thought governments ought to get involved to ban bare feet.

Today I have the story of Arcadia, California.

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Library Rules — 2001

I happened across some old files on my computer and discovered that I’d made a list of library rules way back in 2001, predating my lawsuit.

There were more than I remembered.

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A Change of Latitude

In yesterday’s repost, Give Me Some Latitude, I noted how the northwest coasts of both North America and Europe were similar due to ocean currents, and how that probably led to their similarity in having barefoot cultures.

But there are more ocean currents, and at least one other place in a similar situation.

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Give Me Some Latitude

In a couple of comments to my entry about the Hasidic dress codes, Victor was curious about how people dressed in New York (or even much of the eastern United States) in the late 1800s, early 1900s.

Weren’t they hot?

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Battle of the Bans

When all of the barefoot bans started occurring in the late-1960s/early1970s, not everybody just took them lying down. There was a fair bit of discussion about them in the newspapers.

And there were letters to the editor.

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Saturday Comic

Our cartoon for today comes to us all the way from 1950. November 23, to be exact. It’s from the comic strip Barney Google and Snuffy Smith.

I suspect a lot of folks here will empathize.

Snuffy Smith, November 23, 1950

 

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