Going Barefoot
A big rainstorm was a summons for my girlfriend Carol and I to rush out and find the puddles that appeared right after the rain stopped. Little puddles were a delightful invitation to splash, stamping and jumping with five-year-old bare feet. Spray and splatter showered shorts and t-shirts. We threw our heads back hooting and giggling with laughter. We waded through deep ditches as we bent forward at our waists and paddled with our hands through deeper darker water.
In 1949 rural kids had the freedom to roam all summer in bare feet. Mothers had distinctive whistles that called their children home. One child might be expected to respond to one long sound, another to three short bursts. We loved exploring our world with bare feet.
The dictionary defines a puddle as: “a very small pool of usually dirty or muddy water.” This definition does not convey the glee and pleasure a puddle can make for a child. A barefoot child understands puddles in a way that requires no teaching, no learning from a book, but rather, by touching Earth and nature. Puddles are understood better with bare feet.
Carol and I dumped our shoes for the summer. Our feet were tender and soft after being in shoes for the school year. But we began to toughen them up each day. We squished our toes in the cool mud at the edges of the farm pond on her property as we watched for tadpoles, frogs, and tiny fishes. The reeds growing in the mud were slippery on our toes. The mud was soft, mushy like oatmeal, and it didn’t stick to our feet.
The dictionary defines mud as: “a slimy sticky mixture of solid material with a liquid especially with water.” This definition does not capture the essence of mud squashed under the toes of a child exploring the edges of a pond. Mud is understood better with bare feet.
During that summer of my fifth year, I often dangled my bare feet in the rippling water of the brook behind the farm fields. I sat on the bank in one spot, where the shallow water rippled over rocks and pebbles, while in another place, a pool was tranquil and cool. Sitting by the little stream I felt the pebbles, smooth and polished on the bottoms of my feet and the water rushing around my ankles. Then, sitting by the pool, I lowered my legs to the smooth gravel of the creek’s bed. I loved this peaceful stream, made more special by experiencing it with bare feet.
The dictionary defines a creek as: “an inlet in a shoreline, a channel in a marsh, or another narrow, sheltered waterway.” This definition does not capture the essence of a brook flowing around the feet of a child appreciating for a moment the solace on its banks. A creek is understood better with bare feet.
In the morning, the sidewalks in town were chilly underfoot when Carol and I rode our bikes downtown, but by afternoon, they were heated so hot that dismounting felt like a hot stove burner on our feet. Panting and sweating, we walked our bikes up the hill in the gravel beside the concrete too hot to step on and noticed that the bigger stones were warmer than the smaller ones. Sometimes we cooled off in the cemetery on the way home. Under the shade of towering trees, large polished gravestones, flat on the ground, remained at a lower temperature until later in the day. After checking the temperatures with our bare feet, we lay, cooling off in the afternoon heat, on these granite markers.
The dictionary defines cement as: “a powdery substance made with calcined lime and clay. It is mixed with water to form mortar or mixed with sand, gravel, and water to make concrete.” A gravestone is described as: “a stone that marks the place where a dead person is buried and that usually has the person’s name and birth and death dates on it.” Gravel is defined as: “a loose aggregation of small water-worn or pounded stones.” Cement, gravel, and granite are understood better with bare feet.
We felt our bright green lawns with our bare feet. Yards were cool and slippery with dew early in the morning and turned brittle in late summer, and finally to a rough stubble—no soft white clover flowers, no dandelions sparkling yellow in the sun. Field grasses that were once like gleaming green feathers passing over our legs as we dashed through playing “Cowboys and Indians,” were later brown, rough, and scratchy on our bare feet.
The dictionary defines grass as: “vegetation consisting of typically short plants with long, narrow leaves, growing wild or cultivated on lawns and pasture, and as a fodder crop.” Grass is understood better with bare feet.
Throughout summer, Carol and I went on picnics and explored neighboring fields and woods. We noticed with our bare feet that some plants had broad, shiny leaves while other leaves were soft and fuzzy. Once we sat in a spot where our bare feet crushed the leaves of mint plants releasing a fragrance that pleasantly surprised us. In the forest, the floor was covered with a soft spongy mat of pine needles, fresh ones giving off the pungent evergreen scent we loved. We tried to walk across every fallen log, some with large bracket fungi, others with soft green moss, and other logs rough and rotten that scratched a bare foot when slipping and sliding on the bark.
The dictionary defines a plant as: “a living thing that grows in the earth and has a stem, leaves, and roots.” Plants are understood better with bare feet.
By the end of the summer, the bottoms of our feet became so callused they looked like impermeable leather. Still, there were hazards when going barefoot: bees in the clover and lavender, sharp twigs early in the summer, tent stakes or rusty nails, and very dirty footprints that, at the end of the day, parents did not like on kitchen floors. But the benefits were countless: among them, a sense of freedom gained without feet confined in shoes and learning about the natural world in a way that can be done only by going barefoot.