Sunday, May 29, 2011 by Dick.

I’m not pregnant.

But I AM™ barefoot.

And despite all the photos to the contrary, I do not have a foot fetish.

But I certainly spend much of my time without shoes.

According to Wikipedia, “being barefoot is regarded as a human’s natural state, though for functional, fashion and social reasons footwear is worn, at least on some occasions.” Like when shoveling snow. “Many people do not wear footwear in their home and expect visitors to do the same.”

Perhaps it is a modern thing. Ötzi the Iceman had, well, shoes. And, of course, Errol Flynn died with his boots on.

Until the early 20th century, “the bare foot had been perceived as obscene, and no matter how determined barefoot dancers were to validate their art with reference to spiritual, artistic, historic, and organic concepts, barefoot dancing was inextricably linked in the public mind with indecency and sexual taboo.” Ruh oh. Salome shocked 1908 London with a barefoot dance of desire; Maud Allan became the lust object of the world.

Turns out I’m not alone.

Sandie Shaw was the Barefoot Pop Princess of the 1960s. Adele Coombs dreams of it. My hero Jimmy Buffett regularly performs barefoot. Deana Carter, Jewel, Patti LaBelle, Cyndi Lauper, Anne Murray (Anne Murray!), Linda Ronstadt, Shakira, and Ronnie Van Zant all have embraced freedom and splinters on stage.

According to the Society for Barefoot Living, neither OSHA nor state and local health departments require people to wear shoes in stores, restaurants, and other public places (the current regs apply to employees, not customers).

Say? Can I get some service over here?

Posted in About Me, Sociology, Random Access | 3 Comments »

Monday, November 15, 2010 by Dick.

Teenage clutter is one of the common threads in the Zits comic strip.

I have raised two (now-thankfully-former) teenagers, so I relate to the clutter but I don’t remember my own teenaged years quite the same way.

See, back in the days that marked my own adolescence, when we walked three miles through the waist deep snow to school, uphill each way, we didn’t have that much stuff.

My parents spent their teen years in the Great Depression and it defined them — and me — in many ways. I have reused and repaired and recycled if I couldn’t reuse or repair far longer than Kermit the (green) Frog. I hate to throw anything away that might be somehow handy later. And I don’t buy materiel without due … consideration. As a kid, they (and later I) wanted for little. We eventually had a teevee. We had an end room full of books. We had a boat. We had a garden and two cars. We ate and dressed as well as anyone else I knew. I still wear khaki slacks and blue cotton button down oxford shirts, of course. I didn’t get a used dog until I was nearly 50; nothing but new dogs before that. And I gave away our only used cat.

But we didn’t have a lot of stuff.

Oh, sure, we had washing machine and a dryer in the kitchen because that’s where my mom wanted them. And two vacuum cleaners, one for upstairs and one for downstairs.

It surprised me to learn that the U.S. had a small boom in middle-class home ownership before World War II. The post-war boom apparently built on that, and on the pent-up demand from the Depression. The war stopped the fledgling consumerism and it took several years for the factories to gear back up, years that many returning G.I.s spent in college. Consumers started finding stuff to buy again in the 1950s. My folks bought an brand new 1950 Ford convertible. The television didn’t come until 1955. Got the “little boat,” a 21-foot cabin cruiser, in 1957.

But we didn’t have a lot of stuff.

Oh, sure, I had a Rawlings glove but it lived in the “toy box” on the back porch. There was no plethora of cleats and Air Jordans and walking shoes and running shoes and everyday sneaks and splashing-around-getting-mucky sneaks and sandals and Crocs. I had a pair of Keds. In the closet.

We had two phones in the house. I never had one in my room.

The 80s brought us the boombox. I truly have never owned one although I did borrow my dad’s transistor radio to carry to school in fifth grade.

Motorola sold the first cellphone in 1984. I didn’t have one. Or a computer, or a smart phone, or a TV in my room

We didn’t have a lot of stuff mostly because there wasn’t nearly as much stuff to have.

In Zits, mom Connie Duncan needs a metal detector to find her car keys in son Jeremy’s room. Maybe the Duncans “gotta move, gotta get a bigger house. Why? No room for [their] stuff anymore.”

I didn’t need to move until much later in life. Back then, I didn’t store my clothes on the floor.

Posted in History, About Me, Society, Random Access | 3 Comments »

Tuesday, November 9, 2010 by Dick.

Did You Pass Math? is a blogware plug-in that “restricts comment spam by throwing the commenter a simple math question.” It works about 100% of the time against automated coments. Unfortunately, it also works about 50% of the time against real coments. When it fails, it eats your comment. I think it fails most often around suppertime.

Here’s the scoop. Either include a nice, Dunning-sized scoop of rum raisin ice cream with your comment or write your comment in a separate app like Notepad or your word processor of choice, then copy and paste it into the comment field.

Thanks!

Posted in Writing, About Me | 5 Comments »

Wednesday, March 4, 2009 by Dick.

I would like to be remembered as the little kid smart enough to recognize that the emperor was butt naked and ugly to boot.

Posted in Quickies, About Me | 2 Comments »

Saturday, July 19, 2008 by Dick.

Some regular readers know that I have “long-ish” hair. Anne has cut my hair for most of our 30 years of marriage but she quit when I started renovating the kitchen. See, with the house in an uproar, she had nowhere to cut it. And in fact, my hair has been growing out since 2003.

I’m lucky to have so much hair.

My mom lost hers when she went through chemotherapy. She bought a fright wig and loved it. Read more…

Posted in About Me, Random Access | No Comments »

Friday, February 8, 2008 by Dick.

Contact ought not be a verb.

Contact Page

Posted in Contact Me, About Me | No Comments »