From: Terry
Subject: Tennessee Trip
Date: Sat, 9 Jul 2005 06:07:40 -0700 (PDT)

Hi, everybody:

It's been quite a while since my last post, although I
have been reading the posts regularly.

Just recently, I took a wonderful trip to Eastern
Tennessee (Knoxville and Erwin [near the North
Carolina border; think Mayberry in the Andy Griffith
Show]). Like my last two trips, my wife, son, and I
drove down there from New Jersey and I didn't even
bring shoes with me. I call this yearly trip "My
vacation from shoes.

I went grocery shopping practically every day at
Kroger's and Food Lion, and I also visited a
Walgreen's, and a convenience store in Erwin. I also
did some camping in Erwin, and took a nice hike on the
Appalachian Trail. I never encountered any problems,
but I did notice that my barefeet attracted a few more
looks in the Knoxville Kroger than usual. People in
Erwin could care less.

One funny incident did happen. My family, my wife's
brother Rick, and his family and some friends of his
took in a Tennessee Smokies baseball game. Near the
end of the game, Rick's friends Jack and Debbie (whom
I had just met) decided that we were all going to go
out to dinner after the game. They described the
restaurant of choice, Puleo's Grille, as "semi-fancy,"
so I piped up and said that I hope they don't have a
problem with bare feet. Jack and Debbie seemed
surprised that I didn't have any shoes with me. Jack,
a transplant from Pennsylvania, even seemed insulted,
commenting that "We're not THAT backward down here."
I, unfortunately, didn't get a chance to respond that
people are pleasantly laid-back about bare feet down
there, and that's what I like about the area.

Anyway, Debbie decided when we arrived at the
restaurant, everyone would group around me so that the
restaurant staff wouldn't notice that I was barefoot.
We eventually arrived at the place, which is off
Interstate 40, and my niece Faith offered to give me a
spare pair of girl's flip flops that she had in Rick's
truck. I decline because I wasn't going to wear
obviously female shoes into a restaurant. She then
offered to give me her gender-nonspecific sandals and
take the flops herself. I considered the offer
briefly, but then I got upset and said that I didn't
come to Tennessee to wear shoes, and in fact, the
restaurant visit wasn't my idea. It felt good to do
that.

As it turned out, the group did their little huddle
around me, we walked in and were seated, and the meal
went off without a hitch. In fact, I'm pretty sure
that the hostess noticed that I was barefoot, but she
didn't say anything.

So, all in all, my trip was 10 days of barefoot bliss.
I did notice, though, that the number of barefoot
sighting was down considerably over previous years. I
saw no one barefoot in Knoxville away from their homes
(I usually see at least one fellow barefooter in
Kroger), and I only saw two barefoot young women in
Erwin (one was hanging out with friends by the fire
department, and another had just been pulled over in
her car by the police).

Take care and keep 'em bare,
Terry
NJ USA