Yesterday’s entry, Déjà Vu All Over Again, gave us a very interesting view of how restaurants reacted to bare feet back in the 1970s.
But of course there is always the sordid side.
The article, which surveyed a bunch of restaurants in El Paso, really hit almost all of the high points. For instance, we got this comment:
“I think the reason for not serving barefooted people, is that they want to keep hippies out of there.”
That excuse was well-recognized even back then.
We also got the eminently logical . . .
“Shoes can be just as dirty as bare feet,” said a Desert Hills Restaurant employe. “Although we don’t get too many barefooted persons, we will serve them,” she said.
“WE’RE PRETTY democratic around here,” said E. L. Stevens, owner of the Big Fisherman Restaurant in El Paso. “We’ll certainly serve the shoeless. We get them often and have had no health or other problems.”
But there are also the people out there, and we’ve encountered them too, who are horribly offended and hate anything that is the least bit different.
The restaurant article naturally generated a letter to the editor.
If you have high blood pressure, I’d suggest you just stop reading now, or go take some pills.
Approves Cafe Ban on Bare Feet
EDITOR: With reference to the article by Bob Ybarra Jan. 5, entitled “Some Cafes Refuse Barefooted Patrons . . ‘
As visitors who have come to spend the winter in El Paso, the recent survey that your reporters made on the “no-no” of certain restaurants to serve barefooted individuals was read by us with great interest.
We are in complete agreement with those restaurants who refuse to serve such exhibitionists.
It has been our observation that the same type person who defies tradition either in dress and/or behavior is the same type who is constantly waving his placard in front of the TV camera, or lying down in protest across the entrance to something, or shouting down a speaker he didn’t go to hear in the first place. “Revolution” is his middle name. The subject he is protesting doesn’t matter. Again referring to the survey mentioned, quoting, the staff member of the UTEP campus paper, the Prospector: “Some time ago students complained about ‘Denny’s’ giving long haired students a hard time. Now they got the ‘no barefoot’ sign.”
Whether or not the local businesses concede to the demands of these radical few will really make little difference to them. Their search for new subjects about which to agitate goes on ceaselessly. Their purpose is to destroy Tradition. Destroy the Establishment. Destroy the Country. DESTROY! So their demands will be insatiable: More ‘Public Nudity! More Public Obscenity! Exhibitionism of all or any form(s) so long as it is public and publicised!
We are tempted to stay, not “just another day” in El Paso, but several months to see how the local citizenry will react to future demands of the vocal minority.—Mrs. Nina L. Ellis, BOX 321, Edgewood, Texas 75117.
(By the way, Edgewater is near Dallas. So these people head south for the winter to El Paso? Huh?)
I guess that illustrates all too well what we face. We just cannot peacefully go barefoot. If we are barefoot we are exhibitionists trying to cause trouble of all sorts.
But those are the sorts of people we encounter all too often.
Barefootin’ may be a “no no” when it comes to being served in some El Paso restaurants. Health officers see no health problem in it. Foot doctors see it as healthy for bones and arches. Restauranteurs, however, reserve the right to refuse service to the shoe-less.
Ahcuah 
It is Edgewood, in Van Zandt county, under a couple thousand population that the Texas Almanac lists as principal economy “commuters to Dallas”. Van Zandt is historic because it seceded from the Confederacy, and Canton’s “First Monday”, one of the largest garage sales anywhere. Parasitic (no visible means of support) small-town attitudes would be expected.
Wow – I thought I just liked to be barefoot. Turns out I’m a serious malcontent bent on destroying society as we know it. Who knew?
On an unrelated note, I’ll bet Mrs. Nina Ellis was a lot of fun at parties back in the day.
Is the title “Déjá P.U. …” referring to somewhing? What does P.U. stand for?
The letter of Nina Ellis makes me wonder what we and our ancestors struggled for in recent centuries: For an open society that allows individuals to make their personal choice about lifestyle without having to conform. We might have made advances compared to where we were a few hundred years ago, but maintaining this requires an ongoing effort. Im under the impression that if people are living in a vague state of fear, they will reject anything that is different from their personal way of life, and take it as an offense even if it not meant so.
It’s a shame. Every single one of our problems would have been solved if your constitution and our laws just included one line about freedom of appearance.
But I bet they wouldn’t put that in because, yknow, poor people and slaves.
unci, P.U. comes from from “pew”, meaning “an expression of disgust in response to an unpleasant odor.” If you exaggerate and extend pew it comes out peeyoo, or “P.U.” See Wiktionary. They guess it is related to “putrid”.
That reference to “the same type of person” is telling. The aversion to bare feet is rooted in notions of class much more than cleanliness.