June 10, 1981 was the date at which Europe was looking at Bonn, the German
capital at that time... During the cold war, and the nuclear armament program
in Western Europe, a large movement for peace and nuclear disarmament had formed.
And on that day, the big Peace March and open-air convention was scheduled to be... Thousands and thousands of people gathered at the starting point, among them a 14-year-old with the joy in his eyes to take part in such a great event: me!
I wore shorts, a multi-colored T-shirt and sandals, but on noticing several
barefoot people within the March rows, I decided to get rid of my sandals,
and put them into my backpack... That was not even half on the way, with
quite a few kilometres still to go to the open-air area, at which the
convention and concert was supposed to take place...
It felt delightful to walk barefoot there, both because of the tactile
sensation of it and because of the feeling of solidarity between me and
other barefoot peace activists, who, on noticing my bare feet, smiled
and waved at me...
This was, as far as I remember, my first longer barefoot walk, and the first time I felt
the joy of barefooting and being hailed for it by fellow barefooters... After
coming home, and seeing the news on TV, reporting about hundreds of thousands
of people being part of the June 10 Peace March in Bonn, I felt elated...
I was there, had seen it, heard all of it, and felt it, every step
of it, in fact (in a pleasant manner of speaking, of course...)!
It was surely not the last time I wiggled my bare toes in delight, letting the whole world see them... :)
I dedicate this first entry to my barefoot diary to my late father,
who lived through World War II as a youth, and as an adult, engaged
himself in the peace and disarmament movement. Had it not been for his
effort, his home town, Dinslaken, would not have been proclaimed a
nuclear weapon-free zone officially... This peace march in 1981,
which he, my elder brothers and I attended, meant a lot to him,
as it did to me...
A milestone in his engagement was, for sure, his candidating for a
seat in the 'Bundestag' (the German Federal Parliament) for the peace
movement party 'Friedensliste' in 1986. The party did not make it
into the Parliament, but he reached many ears during his campaign.
It was one of the very warm early summer days, which allowed me to cycle
to school in the morning wearing no more than shorts, T-shirt, and flip-flops...
Living in Dinslaken, I had a 4-km bicycle ride to do from my parents' home to
school, and I rode that distance every weekday... However, just shortly before
reaching the school, one of the flip-flops broke so unfortunately, that it was
beyond repair (they were rather worn and old ones...), and so I shrugged,
disposed of them, and decided to cycle the rest of the way barefoot,
and hence spend a barefoot day at school, meaning: being barefoot in
class, in the hallways, on the school grounds, everywhere... Fellow
students regarded me with odd looks and giggles (and an occasional
nasty comment...), so nothing too unexpected happened (unexpected
from my current barefooter's point of view, that is...).
However: In the break at 9.30, after the first two lessons, one of the teachers
(not one of mine, but still...) spotted my bare feet, as he went from the
classroom buildings to the teacher's sanctum (their meeting and work area...),
and approached me, saying - with a rather disgusted look onto my feet:
"I wouldn't allow you attending any of my classes looking like this !"
I explained the fact to him, and that getting spare shoes from home would
have cost me about an hour (getting there, getting the shoes, getting back,
in rush-hour traffic...), hence making me miss classes... and I doubted that
my teachers would have accepted my broken shoes as an excuse... It has to be
noted, that that teacher was the only one objecting against my bare feet...
Others even smiled at me encouragingly (especially my arts teacher, and my
phys. ed. teacher, who saw my bare feet and grinned hugely...).
Why did that one teacher object to my bare feet...? His subjects are
chemistry and physics, so I presume he had security in mind, when telling
me that (although boys and girls wearing sandals without socks attended
chemistry classes without teachers objecting... if he feared acid dripping
onto my bare foot, that would have endangered them as well... he might
have had broken glass in mind as well, and that is a valid point,
as my bare soles were not that well-trained at that time...).
Anyway, that was the starting point for me to attend high school on bare feet
for the rest of the summer, without being hassled majorly for it...
Only at off-duty times, that is... I roamed the city center of Frankfurt more than once in casual clothing, wearing my favourite footwear (none at all). And this was only in the summer months of my 15-month service in the German Air Force (Don't worry, if you saw the pictures of me on this page and wondered... I was part of the ground personnel, of course!! - Doing Air Traffic Services Office duty... ripping paper off a ticker, and passing on NOTAM messages - Notam: Notice to Airmen... :))
On beginning my studies in fall '89, I realized that this college was rather carefree about the students' appearance (as long as no one tried to enter a class nude... except, of course, models posing naked for arts classes...). And so, I became a regular warm-weather barefooter, kicking off my shoes as soon as spring and early summer days were warm enough to do so... And ever since, students, lecturers and employees of the university had good looks at my bare feet...
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