From: Paul J. Lucas
Subject: 4th of July weekend
Date: Tue, 5 Jul 1994 08:52:24

	Hello all -

	For those in the USA, I hope you all had a great 4th of July.
	I had an interesing one.  Of course, it involved bare feet.

	Yesterday, I was at the Taste of Chicago, a week-long food and
	music festival on the streets of Chicago around Grant Park (the
	one that has the "Married With Children" fountain in it).  It
	was 80-something degrees and mostly sunny...great barefoot
	weather.

	Shortly after I arrived in my bare feet, I started seeing
	others barefoot, all walking on the grimy, dirty streets made
	dirtier from the refuse from the festival, seemingly not
	caring, enjoying the summer, food, and music while barefoot and
	comfortable.

	I lost count of the number of barefoot young women.  One was
	very interesting: she had a toe-ring, typical ankle bracelets
	on one ankle, and a bibbily ankle bracelet with little jingly
	bells on the other that jingled as her fot fell to the ground.
	I guess she wanted to draw attention to her bare feet.  I guess
	it worked since even I noticed her feet.

	There were also plenty of barefooted guys.  I lost count
	somewhere around 25.  At one point, I was following one guy,
	then another past me in the opposite direction, so I turned
	around, then another past me going back the other way!  Talk
	about sensory overload!  One pair of barefooted guys had only
	slighty dirty soles; I saw them again later and noticed that
	their soles had gotten considererably blacker.  Nice, bare feet
	set against black asphalt look marvelous.

	There were two barefooted guys in jeans playing frisbee on one
	not-so-crowded section of the street.  They were running,
	jumping, and frolicking with no regard to the fact that they
	were barefoot.  It was a natural ballet watching their feet
	function naturally, unfettered by shoes: bending, molding to
	the surface, toes gripping.  It was beautiful.

	My soles got exceedingly black.  The grime has encrusted itself
	into a nice layer on them.  My feet look and feel great.  I
	spent about 5 hours there and left *right* before it started to
	*rain*.

	- Paul