<!-- Subject: my answers to "poetic flow" -->
<!-- Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2017 11:16:08 GMT -->

This is my separately-hosted entry for BarefootPoetAdvocate's A Barefooter's Interviews collection hosted over at Wattpad.  This is likely far easier to read, and for reasons described below resides here in a much more accessible format instead of on the Wattpad site.


Original intro text format:

There are many different people from all over the world who like going barefoot.  Some people like doing it as a hobby.  On the other hand, other people who go barefoot as a tradition or as a part of their culture.  Apparently, there are many who like going barefoot are unable to share their stories.  So, this will be a long interviewing series while talking to people who are from all over and let them speak about their barefooting.

So, welcome another barefoot interviewee, Hobbit.  He is a mostly-retired network geek, and still actively participates in theatre production and other technical efforts as a consultant and general worker.  He lives in the Boston area, and maintains his own web area packed with useful techie stuff. He has been going barefoot as much as possible for close to 40 years, and more recently has become a bit more activist about it -- primarily because of all the recent positive knowledge that the internet has made much easier to find.  Here is what he has to say about living unshod.



What inspired you to go barefoot?

Convenience -- at college, I didn't see any point in putting on shoes to go one building away for class.  When the snow started flying, I kept doing that and it felt great.


What are some of the reasons you like going barefoot?

Health, agility, situational awareness, education, avoiding the typical foot and related problems that so many people have.


Name some places you like going barefoot.

Hiking!  Over the roughest sharp rocks and gravel that I can find sometimes, just for the challenge.  Also, on loading docks huffing heavy stuff in and out of trucks, where the "closed toe shoes required" crowd would be horrified watching me.  Garbage, splinters, glass, wheels with hundreds of pounds rolling on them -- all part of a day's work, no problem.


Where would you like to try and go barefoot that you haven't done so?

Courtrooms.  Not that I ever hope to actually have to be in one at all, but that would be a tough nut to crack in the face of the typical "dress codes" without getting cited for contempt.  Oh, and maybe Disneyland, but I don't like that place for a multitude of other reasons.


Why do you think people should go barefoot more often beside at home and the beach?

Same reasons as my own, pretty much -- general health and comfort.  Also to increase general social acceptance, be more visible, etc.  *Normalize* the lifestyle preference, just like not wearing a hat.


Give us a story of a time you went barefoot and had a lot of fun doing it.

Heck -- several outings over summer/fall 2017, banging around in some local parks.  And educating many people who asked in wonderment...


Why do you think some stores have banned going barefoot?

Prejudice and discrimination, that's the only reason.


If possible, please share any of your barefooting experiences.

I've got a whole site full of them, which you're already reading: http://techno-fandom.org/~hobbit/bf/


Since going barefoot is healthy, why do you think people deny it?

They're still brainwashed by fifty-year-old "fake news".


Finish this analogy: Someone who does not want to go barefoot is like...

someone who keeps latex gloves on all day.  Yuck.


What would you say to someone who thinking going barefoot is gross?

Well, there are probably plenty of things I could find about them to make snide comments about too, but in a polite society we don't do that to each other. It's part of being out in public.


Conclusion.

I put this together because it contains the answers I submitted to a survey put out by "Poetic Flow", yourmathtutor2015@gmail.com whose real name might be Lew Sterling, who was soliciting responses [Read: continually spamming] via Fecebook and the SBL list.  After a best-effort on my part to contribute, including emailing my answers because the form didn't work, he [?] refused to publish my entry simply because I declined on principle to provide an age and birth city.

How dumbass is that?  Neither of those items are relevant, and after assuring him that I had provided all the information I cared to he basically just blew me off.  Make your own judgement, if you can even get that silly Wattpad site to work at all in your own browser environment.

I will close with similar advice to Poet's, however: we all need to support going barefoot as a good and healthy thing.  Defend your human rights, speak your mind, and happy barefooting.

_H*   171213

[Endnote:  The collection is up to almost seventy interviews as of the time of this writing.  It is tempting to just rip the HTML content out of all of them, much of which seems buried in obfuscated Javascript constructs and/or kept behind some kind of membership-wall but is relatively easy to extract, and re-post the entire collection here just in the interest of actually making it more accessible via the search engines.]