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Dare to be barefootDes Moines man goes without shoes as a show of self-expression. By MIKE
KILEN Dave Wolz's size 11 feet are bare, his toenails dotted with a rainbow of polish. The lunch-hour crowd dressed in suits and skirts stare, their eyes dropping to his feet, as they walk past Wolz in the downtown Des Moines skywalk. Wolz has become known as the barefoot guy. He may be on a Sierra Club hike, or eating at a Chinese restaurant near his home on the east side, shoveling snow or picking up sidewalk cigarette butts with his toes to deposit in the trash can, but he's always without shoes and socks and has been, he claims, since 1997. The answers Wolz gives about himself are these: * He is not mentally unbalanced, homeless or too poor to afford shoes. * Because he wants to, that's why. * He champions wiggling your toes any darn place, even the place where you are eating, and will get in very loud public discussions with security people about it, because he says it's a fundamental American right. The 47-year-old redhead with bushy sideburns and pop-bottle eyeglasses is one of the prized oddballs that populate true cities. He may choose a different word, being a college-educated man. "Iconoclast is the word I like to use," he says. "I decided I'm going to live my life like I want to, rather than the way others do." Wolz is part of a barefoot brigade touted by The Society for Barefoot Living, which has a Web site that has nothing to do with foot fetishes and everything to do with walking everywhere without shoes, as nature intended. About 700 people are on its mailing list. While a handful of other barefooters live in Iowa, Wolz's enthusiasm for voicing his tootsie rights are likely unparalleled. He carries around a letter from the Iowa Department of Public Health in his hip pack. It says there is no state health regulation against being barefoot in food establishments. There is no Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals regulation, either. When managers try to kick him out of their restaurant or grocery store, he shows it to them. "They always say it's against health codes and that's fraud. It's not," Wolz says. Officials at the state and county health departments confirm that there is no state health regulation against going barefoot. Des Moines has no city ordinance against it. A business has a right to enforce its own dress codes. Wolz says that's not his beef, though. He's fighting their claim that it's against the law. On this late summer day, he has agreed to walk around the skywalk to gauge reaction to his foot flashing. The skywalk was chosen because security escorted him out not too long ago. Before any confrontations, it's helpful to know Wolz a bit more. He was not born poor in the Kentucky foothills. He was adopted by the late Donald and Inez Wolz. His father was a loan officer and World War II veteran. "He was a Puritan worker," Wolz says. "Your work was your life." Like any child, he enjoyed running about without shoes and couldn't figure out as he grew up why it became a big deal not to wear them. He plopped around Roosevelt High School in socks until school officials made him wear shoes, he says. He tromped his leathery dogs across the Iowa State University campus, pretty much unmolested, he says, because this was a time of acceptance in the 1970s. Along the way, he acquired some tendencies that his parents didn't understand, chief among them bisexuality and the breezy joys of the nudist lifestyle. As a sidelight, he has chosen a nonworking status. "Trust fund," he says. He tried the rigors of temporary work here and there, even considered using his college math training, but to enjoy his full nudity and barefootedness requires less restrictive environments. So he hangs out at home. Neighbors occasionally knock on the door and he is discreet enough to shield his nudity behind the door. "He's an all right guy," says Bonnie Harrold, a longtime neighbor. "He was always discreet. Nobody had a problem with him." His nudism, primarily practiced in his home, car and at nudist retreats, and publicly naked feet are about "the freedom of being unencumbered" in a society not comfortable with uncovered body parts, except belly buttons. Wolz isn't without goals in this regard. "I'm trying to reach 15,000 miles driving naked," he says. "I'm at 11,700." He pled guilty in 1993 to public exposure on one of these trips in Des Moines and was stopped one time driving in the buff by a trooper in Wyoming. So barefooting has became his public show of bare civil rights, one he's dabbled in for years but grew more serious about in 1997. Since then he hasn't worn shoes anywhere, to church, to the store, even in the dead of winter. People stop him on the street, thinking he is homeless, offering him shoes and socks. He claims bare feet are neither uncomfortable nor unsanitary. The feet get tough. Fungus grows on covered feet, not the unshod. "What do you wash more often, your feet or the bottoms of your shoes?" he asks. Many establishments in Des Moines will accept him, as is. His favorite spot to eat is at the Bidwell Riverside Center, which offers meals to anyone who wants one at whatever price the person can afford. "We're more concerned about him than what he's wearing," says Sammy Palmer, operations manager. "We get some characters in here and our job isn't to change them." A few businesses have given him the boot. He's called enough corporate offices to own a practiced speech about the natural, healthy ways of a barefoot lifestyle. This is what happens in the skywalk. People look at his feet. A few whisper. He walks into one eatery and no one says a word. He buys some juice and makes his way out. The next establishment isn't so forgiving. The host comes to seat him, then looks down to his feet. "I'm sorry sir, you are not allowed in here," says Rich Russo. "State regulations." "Actually," Wolz answers calmly. "That's not true. If you say it is a state regulation, you are committing fraud." A manager joins the discussion. "I will call security and have you removed," says Dallas Knopic, "if you want to go that direction again." Wolz has been booted out of this diner before. The manager says he just doesn't want him in here cutting his foot and getting blood all over. He doesn't want him suing after he falls on a cup of spilled coffee. Wolz, after yelling "This is fraud! This is fraud!" claims his tough dirty black soles are tough enough to walk on broken glass. A security guard isn't convinced. He tells him to leave the Capital Square, where it's policy to wear shoes. Wolz says prove it. The security guard, clearly angry, leaves to check the policy and several minutes later returns. "You win," he says with disgust while walking away. "Goodbye." Wolz has two wins and one loss on this little trip. "Notice how I said it loud enough so the customers could hear?" Wolz says. He is asked why he pushes the issue of exposing his little piggies in the market. "It's the ideal that society shouldn't restrict self-expression," he says. "It's an enlightenment matter."
On the WebThe Society For Barefoot Living can be found online at http://www.barefoot.org/. |
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