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From the Washington Post Magazine Sunday November 9, 2003 Story by Tyler Currie
HomeFront
"Yeah, sure looks like it, doesn't it," Workman fires back. The clerk, shushed by Workman's
sarcasm, returns to his cantaloupes, and the shoeless man continues toward the bananas.
Workman, a 45-year-old musician who lives in Columbia, has not worn shoes since graduating from
high school nearly three decades ago. He does everything barefoot, whether grocery shopping, raking
leaves or playing keyboards in one of his two rock-and-roll bands. He's braved blizzards in bare feet
and played at the Kennedy Center shoeless.
Though his black curly hair is pulled into a loose ponytail that ends in the middle of his back,
he insists that he's no hippie and that his shoeless style reflects, simply, an abiding distaste
for footwear. "The psychological underpinnings of all this? I was made to wear orthopedic
shoes as a young boy. I really hated those things."
Unfortunately, Workman's liberated feet have not been universally welcomed. Once, a Safeway security
guard kicked him out of a store. (The manager later called to apologize.) He's been bounced from
bars and concert arenas. Last year the principal of his daughter's school called the cops when he
refused to shoe himself for a student performance. He "can be obnoxious" to those who
challenge his lifestyle, he acknowledges.
"I greatly appreciate when someone is genuinely concerned for my safety. For example, when
someone points out that the floor is covered with glass." Workman has stepped on glass but
says he has never been cut, perhaps because of the calluses on his feet.
You actually have to touch his feet to appreciate the toughness of his skin. The soles feel
surprisingly smooth, cool and dry. "They don't smell at all," he says after walking
across the Safeway parking lot with his groceries. "My wife will attest to that."
- Tyler Currie
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