Barefoot in Beverly Hills

How about some barefoot music this morning?

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Saturday Comic

Our cartoon for this weekend is from Off the Record, which was drawn by Carl Kuhn from 1935-1940, and by Ed Reed from 1946-1984. This one ran on September 20, 1968.

Off The Record, September 20, 1968

While women all-so-often wear high heels, sometimes they do have a remedy.

 

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A Refreshing Sign

We’ve all seen the “No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service” signs.

They’ve really never made a whole lot of sense.

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Give Your Youngsters Chance to Go Barefoot

Here is an interesting column written in 1932, when barefooting kids were starting to disappear in the United States, particularly in the cities.

It is written by an educator named Angelo Patri.

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Toys

Slate recently had a feature on photographer Gabriele Galimberti, showing young children with their most prized possessions.

I guess it says something about how much I’ve come to expect even children to be wearing shoes that I was pleasantly surprised that about half of them weren’t.

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Deerie Me

When I was out in the yard yesterday, it was clear that some of our trees had been damaged.

It wasn’t hard to figure out how.

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Another “Barefoot Boy”

It seems there are a few folks who want to claim to be John Greenleaf Whittier’s “Barefoot Boy”. One of those was Hans Peter Bertelsen.

Add to that Francis D. Marston.

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Saturday Comic

Our comic for the weekend comes from Toonerville Folks. It is from June 17 of 1932, and really reflects the times.

Toonerville Folks, June 17, 1932

Remember that kids were dependent on when their mothers allowed them to go barefoot again after the winter, so they couldn’t ease into it like adults would be able to. Thus, they would really overdo it when they got the chance.

 

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Was Whittier His Own “Barefoot Boy”?

In Colorful Characters: Hans Peter Bertelsen, I wrote about how Hans Peter Bertelsen was considered the inspiration for John Greenleaf Whittier’s poem “The Barefoot Boy”. However, in a comment to that, it was suggested that Whittier himself was the barefoot boy.

What’s the real scoop?

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Puerto Montt

This’ll be my last entry on the trip to Easter Island and southern Chile. After this I will have pretty much exhausted my supply of pictures. For this post, I thought I’d comment on what things were like around Puerto Montt. I was fascinated by how much was different, and how much was the same.

And whatever you do, don’t take my comments on differences as criticisms.

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Men of Iron, Feet of Pudding

What do you do if you are a triathlete and want to run the marathon portion barefoot?

Well, right now it depends on who is sponsoring the triathlon.

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Colorful Characters — The Shoeless Wonders

Back in the 1920s there was a High School football team in Lynchburg, VA that went undefeated for 8 years.

And oh yeah. They played barefooted.

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Saturday Comic

Here’s our spring comic. It again features Funny Floyd, from the strip Sam and Silo.

The comic is from March 21, 1979.

Sam & Silo, March 21, 1979

 

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The Archetype

I came across this newspaper column from 1966 that I think pretty much sums up and explains why going barefoot is so reviled by so many. It illuminates all too well the mindset of those who put up so many roadblocks back in the 1960s, and who continue to do so today.

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Lahuen Ñadi

Southern Chile, that is, the Puerto Montt area, is not only similar to northern California in climate, but it also has trees very similar to sequoias and redwoods. Well, similar climates produce similar responses.

In this case, it’s the alerce, or Fitzroy Cypress, also called the Patagonian Cypress.

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