courtesy Volkswirt

Bare feet ain’t just for country folk

My hometown of Roanoke, Virginia is nestled in the valleys of the Blue Ridge Mountains. As mountain folks, we’ve had our share of pick up trucks, mullets and, yes, nasty bare feet. There, I said it; nasty bare feet. Crazy that it would take a trip halfway across the world for me to put my foot down on this grimy topic.  For my parents, my parent’s parents and all the country people in possession of their own teeth striving to exemplify dignity, there are places nary a bare foot should tread.

Here on the northern beaches of Sydney, Australia I’ve found folk more country than the most backward, tobacco chewing, tar spitting, ragged-pant-cuff having hillbilly rebel ever could be.  How could I call folks in this cosmopolitan culture backwards? Easy, I’ve never seen a group of people more prone to stroll in bare naked feet. You’d think maybe it was just the kids. You’d be wrong.

What makes barefoot nasty

On a recent trip, we pulled over in one of those rest stops on the road. The ones where you guess the janitorial staff must live in an RV and travel up and down state roads cleaning new toilets everyday. I couldn’t help but wonder if they had cursed this particular rest-stop making a pact to never step foot in the cold cement enclosure ever again. The  flies were meaty, like little hummingbirds. The flies were so big they seemed to bump into people as folks walked into the bathroom. Other flies lay motionless in the off gray sink, basking in the dim haze of an overworked florescent bulb.  I wasn’t sure if they were dead or sleeping it off.

courtesy Nick Sherman

In much of Australia, they’ve gotten smarter about men’s toilets. Rather than develop individual stalls, they’ve taken the cattle call approach. Two adjoining walls that eventually run together in a corner are fitted with aluminum panels that run down into a trough. Water trickles from the aluminum walls to wash everything down the drain. Of course, men are not known for their accuracy in this department and this invitation for indiscriminate placement might seem to help. It doesn’t. Everywhere is wet. I can’t help but do my business mindful to touch nothing and avoid eye contact with everything if I can help it. The soap dispenser should have been filled with penicillin instead of soap. It was filled with neither.

As I’m standing outside, waiting for my son to come out, I see a young boy jump out of a van and dash into the same restroom. He has no shoes on, only bare feet. There is no running after him pleading, “for the love of all that is sacred, put your shoes on.” Nothing. My son comes out, his eyes wide as he points in the direction of the kid that just went into the bathroom.

I’m flabbergasted. From an early age boys and men instinctively know not to stare at a man in the stall next to you; I wanted to violate the rule to be sure I saw what I thought I saw. I Didn’t do it, but that kid did. He went into a public restroom with no shoes on. Ehhhwwww.

Courtesy ColorBlindPicaso

Later the next day we stopped at a gas station. There ahead of me pumping gas into a late-model silver Ford Falcon a man casually crosses one foot over the other. He would be the epitome of cool if he had shoes on, but no, he doesn’t. So his is not.

By this point, I’ve got to figure it out. Isn’t it bad to walk around barefoot? Especially in places where there are chemicals that can blow up or places that harbor body fluids?

When did shoes get so popular?

I give my kids grief for any journey outside of the house not accompanied by the shoes we’ve worked hard to put on their feet. I inherited this aversion from my parents who in turn learned from theirs. If you think about it though, somewhere up the line, some whining, whinging wimp couldn’t suck it up and wrapped some leaves around his feet, giving rise to shoes. For hundreds of thousands of years, the human race has lived without shoes.  I’m reminded of this every year during Black history month when I watch the mini-series, Shaka Zulu. There is a scene where Shaka Zulu eschews shoes, demonstrating the superiority of the human foot by stepping on a hot coal with his bare feet.

Researchers still debate exactly over when footwear was invented. The plant and leather material used for early shoes degraded quickly, leaving few clues for archeologists say scholars. You can look at their study of feet here.

However, researchers at Washington University in St. Louis examined partial skeletal remains of feet in Dolni Vestonice in the Czech Republic. The feet were weaker, which was explained by the introduction of shoes.

This ” shows the reduced lesser toe strength, all dating to about 26,000 years ago,” said Washington University scientists.  In other words, shoes are actually bad for us. Yikes.

“I discovered that the bones of the little toes of humans from that time frame were much less strongly built than those of their ancestors while their leg bones remained large and strong,” Trinkaus said. “The most logical cause would be the introduction of supportive footwear.”

Shoes can’t be all bad, can they?

So there it is. Scientists say, wearing shoes weakens your feet. True, but the bottom of my feet coming in contact New York City subway station concrete weakens my knees. The idea of skipping without shoes next to pumps at a gas station nauseates my understanding. NOT, GONNA HAPPEN!!! Don’t care how weak my pinkie toe gets, I’ll duct-tape that sucker till lack of circulation turns that puppy blue.

In his  stellar article, You Walk Wrong,  journalist Adam Sternbergh crushes myth after myth about walking bare foot. In his article, he explains that adding padding to our feet dulls the more than 200,000 nerve endings in our feet preventing them from transmitting vital information to our brain which in turn coordinates the entire body’s reaction to our feet. Without this information, the brain allows the body to absorb more stress than it should and eventually leads to foot problems.

I knew there was a reason why shoes are necessary

The research is not looking good for my paranoia. But at the root of my paranoia is the nastiness of walking around barefooted. You could step in spit, boo boo or on some dangerous animal like the hookworm. While spit and boo boo are just plain nasty, hookworms are bad news.

These nasty parasites hang out in the intestines of infected animals, then hitch a ride out of the bowels to see the light of day. Once at their final destination, they infect the soil and can infect a person walking bare feet.  The CDC has the gruesome details, check it out.

Like forgotten bogey men of our parent’s day, these nasty critters once prevalent in developed countries, are now, for the most part, ghosts of the past. But you never know when you’re walking on infected soil, do you?

On a serious note though, “Hookworm’s neglected status partly reflects its concentration among the world’s poorest 2.7 billion people who live on less than $2 a day,” says a report issues by the Public Library of Science. You can read the entire report by visiting here.

Knowing what I know about those critters, I’m sticking to my guns. Barefoot folks in gas stations, public restrooms and restaurants – I do not want to see crusty nasty soles while I’m eating my burger – are gross. Sorry, Robinson edict. Now everywhere else, I think I may get a pedicure and let me feet feel the pavement. Oh, and yes, I’ll be passing my misguided paranoia on to my kids, although I’ll let them get away with one now and again.

I’ve been in Australia for a little over a week and I must say I find it amazing. I spent some time detailing my first days. I awoke early in the am to type the words into my pc, only to lose my thoughts to an incoherent mind fumbling to recover from jet lag. I forgot to save the words before powering down. Note to self number one, no writing with bad jet lag.

Now relieved of that twanging sensation which is  not unlike a hammered tuning fork, I can think clearly free from the ill effects that such a long damn trip collects. Long being 24 hours traveling and sitting in small seats bolted into big airports with famous names.

The flight was interminably long. With a stop in Chicago and then one in LA, both beautiful cities, I was beat before the journey started. There were delays leaving Atlanta, roughly two hours.  Luckily the Chicago flight was only delayed by three hours so I only had an hour wait upon my arrival in the windy city. LA was another hour delay. It wouldn’t have been as bad if there were enough time to actually grab a deep dish pizza in Chicago or a Tommy’s tamale in LA. But, nope, tha wasn’t happening.

By the time the 16 hour flight from LA to Sydney was underway, I’d already spent 8 hours sitting or flying. Caught between something that vaguely resembled sleep and a knawing ache  running down the back of my spine and seeping just underneath my knee caps, it was less then comfortable. It was just uncomfortable enough for me to think about it, but not that uncomfortable that I actually got up and walked around the plane.

As is the recurring theme in my adult life, there were very few African-Americans on board. Walking around seemed to me an invitation for scrutiny from foreign eyes with alien ideas about just what my story was. Was I a ball player, singer or jumping bail to evade the long arm of the law? Funny thing is, I to had foreign eyes spying two other brothas on the plane. They travelled together and dressed in Lycra/nylon sweats and basketball shoes, their height seduced me into a stereo type: what team did they play for? Seeing them did comfort me though. It gave me the illusion I wouldn’t be alone when I landed in Sydney. There were now at least two other brothas in the country.

Not that I didn’t mind some eyes on me. Truth be told, I felt I was looking moderately fly in my newly acquired brown vest, smartly contrasting light beige ribbed shirt, and sufficiently dress-casual jeans. To top the entire ensemble off, there were a pair of brownish yellow pull on soft soled dress shoes adorning my feet. I thought I looked better then I had in years. At the end of the day in the consideration to walk or sit, sitting won out. I still got stares and unfortunately, it wasn’t because of my funky fresh gear.

The flight was scheduled for 16 hours, in the end, we did it in 15. Yea for great piloting. When I dragged my fresh dressed tired butt into Sydney, the weather was great and the scenery tropical. My eyes darted to and fro to greedily suck up any details they could discern. The palm trees waved in the wind and the overcast day promised a warm but gentle experience as I hoped in the waiting car and we drove the 45 minutes to my new home in Mona Vale, New South Wales.

How many MJ crosswalks can you count?

Along the way, I took in the sights and sounds that were Sydney. I saw cars that were familiar, but many more there weren’t. The first thing I was immediately struck by was what I perceived to be an unhealthy veneration and worship of Michael Jackson at every other street corner. In my American mindset, I saw signs at each crosswalk that hearkened me to the days of Thriller and I anxiously awaited street dancers to jump in the middle of the street popping locking and throwing down a bogaloo for good measure.

Turns out it was just a cross walk sign. There would be plenty more aha moments ahead for me if I could just survive the ride home. Again, my American mindset knew that in Australia the driving rules held that  “the left side is the best side and the right side is suicide.”  Despite the rules and conventions, the brain has certain elements of life that have become instinctual. Mindless violations of those instincts, without fail – for safety reasons- trigger alarms that widens eyes, tightens grips and causes a certain shallow breathing.

With every turn that we made, I couldn’t help but pause mid sentence, prepared to holler, “get on the right side!” Things have progressed though. Now not only can I sit while watching others drive Engilsh, but I can drive English and even navigate the unique round-a-bouts that seemingly hang out at the end of every street scattered across the greater Sydney area.