The Dirty Sole Society's Summer Barefoot Gathering '97 Information Filed by: Paul J. Lucas & Jamie Tepes Location: Ocean City, Maryland, USA Dates : July 18-20, 1997. THURSDAY, JULY 17 ================= I few into Salisbury airport on Thursday, the day before the official start of the gathering. Jaime had already been in Ocean City for a few days (he vacations there every year) so he volunteered to pick me up from the airport. I arrived and waited a while: Jaime was a little late. Eventually he pulls up in a convertible and introduces himself. I hop in and we proceed back to Ocean City. The weather for the entire weekend was forecast to be sunny and in the mid 90s. Living in the San Francisco bay area as I fo now I forgot that the east coast is *humid*! Jamie and I had dinner at The Dough Roller, a pizza and pasta joint on the boardwalk. The seating waitress was wearing flip-flops. This was a good sign. We were seated and served with no problems. We ordered a pizza. FRIDAY, JULY 18 =============== Don and Phelps arrived at about 12:30 driving up from North Carolina. Stan arrived in the early afternoon driving down from Massachussetts. All together there was: Barry, Bill, Don, Jaime, Paul, Phelps, Ron, Stan, and Ted. What most of us did this day was to wander around the Ocean City boardwalk and amusement pier. The boardwalk is quite long: a couple of miles, easy; and the amusement pier has various rides. I had heard a few legends about the boardwalk in that it gets ones soles really black really fast. It turns out it's true! Never before has I seen so many dirty-soled bare feet in one place. It was cool. There was one of those rock-climbing towers there with small outcroppings to get both hand- and footholds on. You had the option of doing it in bare feet. Naturally Don has to give it a try. A few of us photographed Don from underneath and got his dirty soles on film! We had lunch at the Tides Inn, a little ways down and behind the boardwalk from our hotel. The place was deserted. Perhaps because we were the only ones there, the owner, a middle-aged man with a heavy Turkish accent, talked to us, at length, about all kinds of off-the-wall subjects. Ted had the patience of a saint in politely answering his questions. The rest of the day, and well into the evening, we just continued to wander around, see the sights, and talk to other barefooters. Jaime adds: > I was sitting on a boardwalk bench with [Paul] doing some barefoot spotting. > It was after midnight and the shops were all closing. Employees were > bringing in the wares from outside. I looked across the boardwalk and > noticed a female employee of a T-shirt shop climbing a ladder to bring down > shirts from outside. I noticed that she was clearly barefoot and that the > bottoms of her soles were pitch black. By the state of her soles I could > tell that she didn't just kick her shoes off temporarily. I went over to > talk to her and she hates shoes and never wears them, even to work. She had > very strong and healthy looking feet. I was suprised that she was allowed to > go to work barefoot because part of her job includes waiting on customers. I > guess the owner could care less how his employees dressed, which I think is > cool! I made plans to take her to luch on Saturday, but somebody called in > sick at her job and she had to work without a lunch break. SATURDAY, JULY 19 ================= We had breakfast at the Summer Place adjacent to the hotel. Good breakfast food and no problems with bare feet. The waitress did make a comment something to the effect of, "How come you all can be barefoot if I can't?" Although Friday was a good day, the weekend was when many more people would visit the boardwalk area of Ocean City. More people means more barefooters! I did pass out many "Love going barefoot?" Dirty Sole Society cards to barefoot people. I also gave some cards to others to hand out at their discretion. Most recipients thought it was really cool. I gave cards to a group of two young guys and a gal. One of the guy's responses was: "Forget wearing shoes -- get calluses!" He also turned up one of his soles to show it: it was pretty black! Stan went to pick up Barry at the airport in the afternoon; Barry flew down from New England. We had lunch at the Firehouse Tavern not far from the hotel. It had reasonable food which we ate while barefooted. During a conversation with our waitress, she said that she too loved to go barefoot. There was also this young guy Steve, probably in his late teens. He did an impressive flip over a bench. Since he was barefoot, I gave him a card. He was probably one of the most enthusiastic recipients of the whole trip. He talked to Bill Shakely and me for several minutes and he was eager to hear everything we had to say. He told of of some ill-informed people who said going barefoot would cause flat feet. he showed us the sole of one of his feet: his arch was clean whereas the rest of his sole was dirty proving that his arches hadn't fallen. Some of us decided to venture off to the Delaware State Fair in Georgetown, about 90 minutes away by car. On route, we stopped by the Salisbury Mall. Jaime said that he had been barefoot here a few times without a problem. Jaime adds: > I would like to mention that I went there on Thursday. I wore ski-pants and > got away with shopping as if I were wearing shoes. One of the mall security > officers even saw me and said nothing. I even went to a clothing store where > one of the clerks thought it was cool that I was barefoot and even made a > date with me. However, I don't think the mall was quite ready for several barefooters at once. After entering the mall proper through a department store, we stopped at the restrooms. It was at this point that we got caught by mall security. We were all handled little "Code of Conduct" cards. They didn't mention bare feet or footwear specifically, but item #5 read: 5. Failing to be fully clothed, or wearing apparel which is likely to provide a disturbance or embroil other groups or the general public in open conflict. Of course by our definition we *were* fully clothed; but they wouldn't buy it. We were escorted to the mall exit. We were told that their chief would come talk to us. We waited around a few minutes. Don expressed concern that they were instead calling the police on us for trespassing, but I pointed out that we had complied with them and left the mall. Within a few minutes, this security chief comes out. He was *way* over dressed for mall security. He looked more like a state trooper. (It's often the case that people in positions of small authority try to exercise it beyond their capability.) Naturally, he didn't buy our argument either. So we left. We arrived at the fair and entered: no problem. There were rides, food and craft booths, and animals. We wandered around the rides first. Don and Stan were brave enough to get on a ride that spun you around high in the air while seated at the bottom of a long swing. There was another ride that had a few "No" rules one of which was "No open-toed shoes." Of course, being barefoot, we complied with that rule, but joked with the attendant anyway. He seemed somewhat amused. While walking by a game of chance booth, the attendant said something to the effect of, "Hey, try this: you could win some shoes." Collectively, we noticed only a few other barefooters: some women and a few children. Don and Bill got into a conversation with one of the women. She was in the agriculture building, with some cows that she was exhibiting. SUNDAY, JULY 20 =============== By Sunday, some DSS members were leaving. Don and Phelps left just before noon. By Snday evening, only Bill and I were left. At a shop called Book World, Bill noticed a young lady getting one of her bare feet painted with decorative body paint. Bill and I chatted with her and a coworker, who went by the name of Catfish and was also barefoot, for a while about barefooting. We left them each with a "Love going barefoot?" card. MONDAY, JULY 21 =============== Bill and I woke early and had a quick breakfast before leaving Ocean City. Bill was nice enough to take me to the Philadelphia airport rather than leaving me to my own devices to get to the Salisbury airport very early that morning. (My flight connected through Philadelphia.) - Paul