July 12, 2000

The Barefoot Seek Wiggle Room

By PAM BELLUCK

Members of Barefoot Hikers relaxed on a recent trek on the Slide Mountain Trail in the Catskills. The group has 17 chapters; at least one member has hiked all 46 High Peaks of the Adirondacks.

	Photographs by Will Waldron for The New York Times

OMBARD, Ill. -- "From the ankles up," Gordon Hlavenka said, "I'm a fairly normal person."

Sure, because from the ankles up, Mr. Hlavenka is fully clothed.

But his feet -- sans shoes, sans socks -- were on a kind of kamikaze mission in this well-heeled Chicago suburb recently, padding into a bank, a market, McDonald's for a cheeseburger and fries, and Wal-Mart, where an employee barked, "Can't walk around here without shoes -- that's against the law."

Shrugging off such shoeism, Mr. Hlavenka politely replied that barefooting is legal.

"I'll take a bullet for the cause," said Mr. Hlavenka, who runs an electronics store, barefoot. "Usually I only have my shoes on about an hour or two a week."

The barefoot cause is apparently gaining ground. Hundreds of otherwise conventional people are baring their toes in unconventional places, saying it is comfortable, liberating, environmentally friendly, even spiritually enlivening. Some like the adrenaline rush of rebellion that spices their lives. And they like feeling through their feet: pebbly sidewalks, grainy dirt, velvety moss, polished floors. Many do it year-round.

Gordon Hlavenka of the Dirty Sole Society, a group that shuns shoes, says, "From the ankles up, I'm a fairly normal person."

	Todd Buchanan for The New York Times

Elliott Adams, mayor of Sharon Springs, N.Y., near Schenectady, has gone barefoot in museums, restaurants, at his logging company and walking to Village Hall.

"I try to be shod when I'm being mayor, try to remember to wear shoes," said Mr. Adams, 53, who owns size 12 wingtips. "But often I just don't have them."

Marnen Laibow-Koser, 25, a violinist from Peekskill, N.Y., has barefooted nonstop since May 5, playing concerts in Manhattan in tux and toes. Alicia Poe, 28, of Queens, with her daughters, ages 2 and 3, barefoots everywhere from Fifth Avenue to the Bronx Zoo.

And the Rev. David Vallelunga of the United Methodist Church in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., enjoys secular barefooting so much he performs services and weddings that way -- "my exodus," he calls it.

"Bare feet is symbolic of innocence and simpler times," Mr. Vallelunga, 39, said. "The Greeks fought barefoot. Everything changed in the world when you could step on the dead body of a foe with impunity. We pay more for sneakers in this country than people in some countries make in a year. Plus, I feel very confined and out of touch when I'm in shoes."

Then there is Robert Neinast of Pickerington, Ohio, and his Gandhiesque standoff on a vacation to Washington in the summer of 1999. After barefooting to the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials ("the marble steps are just so nice to step on"), he was forced into flip-flops by guards at the Smithsonian Institution. He wrote the museum to complain, enclosing proof that barefooting there is legal, received a conciliatory letter, and revisited with 10 barefoot compatriots.

"You need a thick skin, not just on the soles of your feet," said Mr. Neinast, 45, a software engineer at Lucent Technologies, where, he said, barefooting in the halls sent him to "a psychological evaluation." He added, "Now I just do it at my desk."

Mr. Neinast's civil rights victory notwithstanding, barefooters are not numerous enough for, say, a Million Toes March (although that is only 100,000 people). But the Dirty Sole Society, dedicated to "helping one another to get along in a shod world," has attracted more than 600 members since its inception a few years ago. There is Parents for Barefoot Children and 17 chapters of Barefoot Hikers, whose practitioners include Mr. Adams, whose toughened, calloused feet have hiked all 46 High Peaks of the Adirondacks.

"It's one more sensory avenue," Mr. Adams said.

"You pick up a lot of information through your feet. Wearing shoes is a little like wearing mittens or a tie. If you don't have to, why wear them?"

Many say the Internet emboldened them to shoe-tree their loafers. The www.barefooters.org Web site debunks the widespread assumption that laws ban barefooters from driving or entering most stores, restaurants and workplaces. (Businesses may set no-bare-feet policies.) While most podiatrists say shoes are essential for protection and support, the Web site quotes articles suggesting bare feet are less prone to athlete's foot and hammer toes and are healthy unconstricted.

As for stepping on filth or broken glass, the site advises, "Watch where you're going!" People constantly scrape their hands and "no body thinks, 'This would not have happened if I wore gloves,' " it says. The site suggests retorts to critics and lists barefoot-friendly businesses, including a dentist and a barefoot real estate broker in California, and a beer-brewing supply store in Georgia.

"It shows you that you're not alone, you're not that peculiar," Mr. Neinast said.

"The Web site is an enabler," said Mr. Hlavenka, who keeps backup size 11 1/2 EE sneakers in his car. "It's like, 'Hello, my name is Gordon and I hate to admit this but I wore shoes yesterday.' "

Like many, Mr. Hlavenka, 42, began tentatively, after sneakers he bought three years ago made his feet smell. He barefooted around the block at night so neighbors would not see. He went to self-serve gas stations, eventually going inside for milk. Now he says he primarily reserves his shoes for church, and when his wife makes him "chameleon" it. He even shovels snow barefoot.

Some barefooters push society's envelope; others avoid confrontation, especially when shod friends and family members are along.

Paul Lucas, founder of the Dirty Sole Society, wears soleless sandals to restaurants. Jill Hamell of Parsippany, N.J., who says barefooting eased painful foot problems, has tackled Penn Station and Midtown Manhattan, but slipped on sandals for Starbucks. (Tip: Women carrying shoes get fewer glares; people assume they are resting sore feet.)

Mr. Vallelunga wears shoes on hospital visits and at funerals. Mike Berrow, a Web designer, meets vendors and prospective employees barefoot but wears shoes when trying to sell clients.

"I used to try to talk places into letting me stay, sneak in or hold a bag so they couldn't see my feet," said Mr. Berrow, who founded Parents for Barefoot Children and whose son sometimes barefoots to his alternative high school. "You realize most of the battles are within your own mind, your own feeling like, 'Oh, my God, I'm going to stick out like a sore thumb.' "

But there are war stories about people who sneer, assume the barefooter is poor, uneducated or worse.

Ms. Poe said that while she was driving in her Queens neighborhood last fall, six men who recognized her hurled barefoot insults and "tried to break into my car and drag me out." Mr. Laibow-Koser, evicted from the Peekskill library, may consult a lawyer.

Mr. Lucas of Mountain View, Calif., was ejected from the Billy DeFrank Lesbian and Gay Community Center in San Jose, which said it feared liability for possible injuries. (Barefooters say they are responsible for their injuries.) And Marian Rosenberg, 19, of Baltimore, was convicted of disorderly conduct and other charges after tangling with a security guard over barefooting in a drugstore, where she had gone to buy sandals for Rosh Hashanah services.

The other day, his soles dark with dust, Mr. Hlavenka anticipated rejection on his store rounds. But aside from the Wal-Mart imbroglio, not much happened.

At McDonald's, despite a sign erroneously banning bare feet "by order of the Department of Health," employees let him eat. At Cub Foods, an assistant manager, when asked, said it was against store policy, but "his feet are no dirtier than shoes."

But in the market's tuna fish aisle, contemptuous customers shot him what he calls "the look."

"They're the ones that have their toes pointed in the wrong direction," Mr. Hlavenka said. "And they have bunions."