Fast Food Hunter-Gatherer

    I fantasize about the same thing every evening in the quiet, warm, semi-darkness of my man-cave. I try to finish before my family comes bursting in. Afterwards, I feel more relaxed about what is facing me just outside my door. I suppose my fantasy is probably not much different than many other cave-dwelling moms and dads who just want to come home from work and relax. Let me share my fantasy with you -- I'll make it a quickie since the hungry wolves are at my door: "ohhhhh...ahhhhh...mmmmm...feels so nice..." imagining how good it would feel if fixing dinner for my family came easily.

    Choosing food for dinner each and every night is a mammoth task since nobody in my family wants to eat the same thing at the same time. They are under the influence of a crazy notion that home cooked meals are chosen from a menu as if home-sweet-cave were some kind of restaurant. By the time everybody has disagreed about everything planned for dinner, I feel like clobbering my head with a club and dragging myself by my hair back to my man-cave for more fantasy time.   

    I do admit that I am also guilty of complicating this dinnertime ritual of disagreement because I try to follow a Paleo diet as closely as possible. My wife says I have always eaten like a caveman and that watching me feed like Fred Flintstone has totally turned her off to the Paleo way of eating. And our two teens both say that they would rather eat fossilized dinosaur turds than go Paleo. So instead of arguing the evening away about what to eat, I become "fast-food-hunter-gatherer-dad" and off I go in search of food. My teenage son is ravenous for something from "McMastadon's;" my daughter is delirious for a Pterodactyl pan pie from "Pizza In A Hut;" and my wife wants me stop by the "Saber-Tooth-A-Lot" for an ice age dinner. I just want to stop by the local watering hole.
     
    Sometimes I fantasize about what it must have been like for the original Primal hunter-gatherers when dinnertime came around. Did they sit around banging their heads with rocks trying to think of what to have for dinner? -- I use my cell phone 'cause it's usually up there anyway with my kids constantly calling me about what's for dinner! Or, did supper roll around as easily as those new rock-chiseled square wheels that were becoming all the rage. In some ways it had to be easier than today -- there probably wasn't as much variety on the menu to cause any disagreements over what to serve for dinner. You just went outside, thumped something that was grazing on the head, and dragged it back to the cave.

    I actually do enjoy living a Primal lifestyle, which is one reason I also enjoy being barefoot as much as possible -- just like our ancient ancestors. But in our modern society, that's not always possible. And that leads me to the notion that Paleo people had another plus over us: they didn't have to wear shoes while out and about grocery gathering. I guess they didn't have to wear much of anything, which probably made scavenging for food a whole lot more fun! They probably also weren't hassled by "KaveMart" managers ugh'ing about the dangers of being barefoot while shopping. Everybody was barefoot so nobody was being told to either slip on that pair of furry flip flops or leave "WallArtMart." Those pesky NO SHOES/NO SERVICE signs hadn't been invented yet -- maybe NO LOIN CLOTH/NO LOITERING -- but barefoot was acceptable.

     If only modern-day society's prehistoric perspectives about barefeet were actually more prehistoric in practice, then that would be "ohhhhh, ahhhhh, mmmmm, feels so nice!"

The Long and the Short Toe of It

I have been a "barefooter" for more than a couple of years now, and there are many times when I run out of the house and forget to take a pair of "just-in-case" flips with me. Somewhere along the way to where I am going, I realize I left home empty-footed. I don't notice much anymore that I am barefoot because it has come to feel so normal being sans shoes.

Since I go many places and do many things barefoot, I thought maybe I could even type my blog posts barefoot -- I mean actually type with my bare toes. Now that is on a whole different level of being a true barefooter! It took some practice but I finally got the "Hang Ten" of it. I have become so proficient at typing with my toes, that my fingers lost their touch and have forgotten how to type.

This has been working just fine until last month when I stubbed my blg typing toe. And that is the long and the short-toe of why I have not posted for several weeks. Typing toe is feeling better now.    

Feets of Magic

    Out on the streets, I am known as "Barefoot Magic Man" for my "feets" of magic. I have never actually heard anyone call me that, but I am fairly certain that's what onlookers are thinking when they see me sprinting down the street in my barefeet. My impromptu audience is amazed when they see me running sprints with nothing up my sleeves or on my feet except, well, nothing. That's right, barefoot sprinting in public conjures up an audience of disbelievers every time. "And now ladies and gentlemen, for my next feat of magic I will run on hard pavement in my barefeet." And just like ordinary folks being amazed by magician David Blaine creating magic on the streets, my audience will challenge me with the usual, “WOW, how do you do that?... that’s impossible!...doesn't that hurt?...and Wow, that’s unbelievable!” I am actually amazed by my audience that they can magically pull all those words out of their empty little hats and make them appear in one breathtaking non-stop sentence -- that is magic to me, how do they do it?!

I used to get asked those very same questions when I was a young magician performing feats of magic at clubs, restaurants, and parties. But now, I am no longer a magician of magic tricks, I just take my “feets” of magic out onto the streets and sprint barefoot. When asked by astonished onlookers where my running shoes are, I say I am a “street-feet” magician and I made my shoes disappear from my feet and then reappear way over there on that squirrel. I confidently exclaim this miracle while looking and pointing behind them in the distance using the magic of misdirection to make everyone look the other way. While they are still looking for the angry squirrel wearing my running shoes, I slip away quietly, no shoes/no sound, and when their blank stares return to where I had just been, I too have now disappeared. “WOW, where did he go?... that’s impossible!...and Wow, that’s unbelievable, how did he do that!” - but that squirrel would never tell.

And just like that squirrel, I would never divulge the secrets of how my illusions worked because it took me many hours of practice to learn how to perform them convincingly. So what’s the secret to sprinting barefoot I have been asked. Practice I will say. Like magicians have said for millennia, “Practice makes perfect.” If you are a beginner barefooter, practice padding around on the tiled flooring in your house in your barefeet until they become comfortable with all of the dirt, critter hair, sticky stuff, and crumbs now stuck to the bottom of your feet. Then stride on into the living room and share all of those goodies with the rugs in your house. Once you feel comfortable dragging all of that debris around on your soles, and you no longer cry out in pain if you step on a cornflake, then you are ready for steppin' on out.

It's time now to take your bare dogs for a walk outside when you walk your other dogs, you know the ones with fur on them. And if fur on them applies to your feet as well, you might consider a different lifestyle other than barefoot. Outside is where you will encounter the real world of barefooting adventure. This is where the magic happens. The more you practice going barefoot outside, the less you will notice when stepping on things like small rocks and pebbles, sticks, glass, screws, bugs, amphibians, reptiles, dog poop, snot rockets (more about those in an upcoming post), acorns, squirrels that are angry because you’ve stepped on their acorns, and any other lumpy, hard, sharp thing that you might encounter with each timid step taken.

It’s actually not that bad. I have stepped on just a few small rocks, and several large acorns, but that is it, and I have never been injured. Your feet will use the magic of proprioception which will minimize any pain or injury to the foot. And like a mind-reader, I know what you are thinking right now. You are wondering how does that proprio-something-or-other word help me survive being barefoot out here in the wild. A simple explanation of that term goes something like this: the nerves on the bottom of your feet will alert your brain instantly that you have stepped on something that might cause injury. As soon as your brain receives that message, it will instantly "tweet" the foot in imminent danger instructing it to perform a "Houdini" to escape from stepping hard on the object. This all happens in the blink of an eye.

Here’s another secret I will share with you. The best places to walk outside barefoot is on sidewalks or streets. Concrete and asphalt is actually friendlier to your feet than walking on grassy fields or lawns that can conceal many of those previously mentioned impediments to your bare-bipedal movement.

It doesn’t take too long (several weeks to a month) before your feet begin to toughen up to the terrain, they grow stronger as they build some solid muscle, and they become more desensitized to the rubble in the road. You will know when the time is right to take that first test run, and like the great shoe-guru says, “Just do it!”. Start with a short warm-up by walking the path you are going to sprint on, and check for any debris that can be moved. Stretch your leg muscles a little, and then start out with a slow jog until your stride feels easy. Be careful not to start out too fast and overdo it until your body becomes accustomed to running shoeless. Before you know it, you will be sprinting faster than you can say abracadabra! Now get out there and conjure up your own audience of disbelievers to perform your “feets of magic for. How do you do it?! Now you know.