YANKEE MAGAZINE July 1995, pp. 106-107 The Happy Hoofers If you happen to be walking along Connecticut's Mattituck Trail and come upon a group of people hiking barefoot, don't be alarmed. They are a friendly group and man even invite you to doff your shoes and wiggle your toes in the soil with them. The club is the Barefoot Hikers, and it was started by Richard Frazine of Thomaston as a vehicle for bringing together people who enjoy walking through the woods sans shoes. Frazine says he has largely lived without footwear for a quarter-century. "Since I was five or six, I remember having dreams of meeting barefoot hikers," Frazine recalls. In his later teens and early twenties, Frazine began meeting other people who went barefoot as a lifestyle decision. Now, besides the club he heads, Frazine lectures on the subject and has written a book entitled The Barefoot Hiker, an instructional and philosophical guide to woodland walks on bare feet. He takes weekly unshod hikes, often joined by his wife, Joanne, and young children, Beth and Charlie. His club's Saturday hikes draw regulars, as well as newcomers, curios about hiking without shoes. "There are some people to whom it would not appeal at all, others who are really attracted to it," Frazine says. "Many people go barefoot all the time, but are afraid to do so in the woods, though it's probably safer than most places where they do go barefoot." He hikes on a variety of terrain--soft forest floors, boulders, small stones, and even melting snow. "I have by this time," he confesses, "developed very toughened feet." Frazine does, however draw the line on where he won't go barefoot: to work or to church. -- Michael Lanza