Health Codes

I’ll sometimes see barefooters proclaiming that “there are no health codes prohibiting bare feet in stores or restaurants”. That’s not quite right.

There are a few, and most of them are in Massachusetts.

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They Just Make This Stuff Up

How about a good fisking? There’s an article from last year on CarInsurance.com asking Is barefoot driving legal?

One has to wonder how it can be so right and so wrong at the same time.

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When do the Teens End?

I’m in the mood for revisiting an over-10-year old issue.

It is now 2014, and when does the decade of the Teens end? Of course it is December 31 of 2019, and the new decade of the Twenties starts with January 1, 2020. And that is clearly how all the decades work. Yet, back in 1999 we were told we had to wait for 2001, and that there was this huge decade/century/millennium mismatch, supposedly “because there is no year zero.” Thus we were told by the pedantic. Supposedly, Arthur C. Clarke’s “2001” has that name for the same pedantic reason.

Well, the pedants were wrong. Here’s the right answer.

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Saturday Comic

Today’s comic is from Red and Rover.

It features the 10-year-old Russell McLean (“Red”) and his dog, Rover. The strip is set in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and it’s a time when small boys really did still go barefoot most of the summer, and so we’ll see Red barefoot quite often (not the rarity that we see with Dennis the Menace).

The author of the strip, Brian Basset says that he is “retro” kind of guy, so I’m guessing that’s why he gets the barefoot boys of the late 1960s right.

Today’s strip was published on July 5, 2010.

Red and Rover, July 5, 2010

And I think we all can see why Red is so good at climbing trees.

 

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A Treat for the Senses

I really don’t know why I haven’t gotten more into bog-walking before this. It really is a delight for all the senses.

I had a chance to do another bog-walk two days ago.

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Followup to “False Imprisonment”

Here is a bit more information on the situation I talked about yesterday, with an acquaintance being detained by police for being barefoot and shirtless late at night. I also got some questions that I would like to address.

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False Imprisonment for Being Barefoot?

A barefoot and shirtless acquaintance of mine from south Texas was recently detained by the police, simply because he was barefoot and shirtless (outside). He would like to know if this was false imprisonment, and whether had has a cause of action to sue them.

The answer, as is so often the case in these situations, is

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In A Lakeside Restaurant

I’m back up in northern Wisconsin (so I’m not sure how much blogging I’ll do—I should be out on the lake). But Saturday evening my wife and I went out to eat, and at the restaurant we ate at, I saw a patron with his bare feet resting on another of the chairs at their table.

You’ll never guess what happened next . . .

(Click bait! Click bait!)

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Saturday Comic

Saturday Comic

We’ve referenced Whittier’s The Barefoot Boy a couple of times recently, so for today’s comic, let’s see the take of Dennis the Menace on it.

This comic appeared April 4, 2004.

Dennis the Menace, April 4, 2004

[Click for the larger, more readable version.]

 

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A Thorny Issue

If you hike barefoot as much as I do, it is inevitable that at some point you will step on a thorn. Here are some thoughts on that.

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Shoddie versus Shoddy

I think that, within the barefooting community, we are all aware of the term “shoddie”. There are some who don’t like it, saying that it can be insulting to habitual shoe-wearers, but I do use it, and I think it aptly describes what’s going on.

I thought I’d start by tossing out a few definitions.

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The Barefoot Boy, Modernized

Last week we heard the story about the Children in a Democracy report cover that was torn off because it depicted 3 barefoot children on their way to school, and the government offical thought that reflected badly on the United States.

In one of the newspapers of the time there appeared a poem that mocked that decision.

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Barefoot McDonalds Redux

You all may recall the situation I reported on a month ago, in which a McDonalds employee in Newark, Ohio (my back yard) was photographed barefoot in the store. There was a big news story and the Licking County Health Department sent an inspector and considered it a health code violation.

I wondered what would happen if I tried to eat there barefoot. But it turns out that there is quite a bit more to the story.

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Saturday Comic

Today’s comic again comes from Sam & Silo. Here’s Funny Floyd, their philosopher/naturalist/post. This comic appeared on July 20, 1978.

Sam & Silo, July 20, 1978

For some reason, this particular comic rather tickles my fancy.

 

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Children in a Democracy

I have a picture for you to take a look at. See if you can figure out what was wrong with it, so much so that it was ripped off the cover of an official governmental report.

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