Monday, January 10, 2011

Refuted some misconceptions within my own family

This saturday was my grandmother's funeral. Much to the agony of my feet, I had on Cole Haan formal shoes with what felt like wooden soles. I went through the entire three or four hours of the funeral events until we finally got back to my grandfather's house to all relax and eat some food. Naturally, my shoes were off before I even got to the door of the car. My brother quickly followed and we both strode through the snow covered driveway inside. I got a lot of questions from concerned family members and changed a lot of opinions about shoes (I think/hope) I think I had some additional traction to my arguement considering just about everyone kicked off their pointed toe heels and penny loafers at the door for the same reason as me.

Anyway to the misconceptions. I had to excuse myself to go pick up my girlfriend from school because the funerary events had gone on longer than expected. My brother and I both left the house barefoot and on getting into my car a relative of mine said "You know it is illegal to drive barefoot." I told her thats not true and she said "Yes it is you cannot drive barefoot in the state of Rhode Island." I told her I did my research and that was a myth and I also informed her that there were no health codes against being barefoot even in restaurants.

Before school let out my brother and I ran the track barefoot which was easier for me than him because he is just starting to try winter barefooting. We picked her up and brought her back to meet parts of the family she had not yet met.

Later that night some members of my family wanted to go out to dinner I was in the kitchen with an aunt, my mother, and my grandmother's best friend. Naturally one of them piped up and said "It's against health code to be in a restaurant with no shoes." I said no its not and quickly got a response of "Yes it is." I said that that is a myth and shockingly of all people my mother chimes in "It is actually not a law he has done a lot of research on it and has documents proving it isn't a law." So that was fun. I'm glad to see that people are starting to at least talk to me more about it within my own family instead of just holding their questions in. I know what I'm doing isn't the norm. I would love any chance to correct any misconceptions about what I do. Maybe then they might try testing the waters a bit and see how much better their lives could be.

As always,

Barefooting is easy
Barefooting is good for you
Barefooting is NOT illegal
Join the revolution
GO BAREFOOT

Please comment!

2 comments:

  1. I wonder what your girlfriend thinks of your barefooting. It took my wife quite a while to stop getting embarrassed by my bare feet in public situations.

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  2. shes not really happy about it. but at the same time she respects that its for health reasons and it makes me feel better. She still gets embarrased and thinks im attracting too much attenditon to myself but its alright. Shes getting used to this what i call "such a tiny change in my life." at least i think and hope she is

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