‘Barefoot Bob’ Boasts Worldwide Audience
It’s easy to classify Bob Hardison as a crackpot after a look at his bare-bones existence and a read through his online ramblings about the U.S. Constitution and survival.
“Some people think I’m insane,” he says. A few missing teeth show through his 63-year-old smile.
He may be, but he also could be a modern version of Thoreau, depending on the generosity of the person sizing him up.
“I’ve chosen this life so I can do what I want to do,” he says. “I’m happy sitting on a tractor and listening to the staccato of the diesel engine, enjoying the sounds of joy and serenity in my own mind.”
He’s part poet, philosopher and preacher. When he’s not turning the soil on his mother’s acreage near State Line, he’s a slave to the computer that takes up a third of the tiny trailer in which he lives.
He churns out thousands of words every day - a lifetime of poems, thoughts and analysis that never went beyond his pad of paper until the Internet came along. The Internet gave Bob the worldwide audience he craved.
“It’s the closest thing I have to putting it in print,” he says.
Bob spent his first 50 years in the mainstream. Writing was his stress reliever from his job in engineering, but so was alcohol. Both were in his bloodline.
Sobriety in 1974, then bankruptcy, sharpened Bob’s focus on life. At 50, he took off with his son on a six-month canoe trip from North Idaho to New Orleans following Lewis and Clark’s route. They lived off the land the entire time.
Bob tried to rejoin the mainstream after the trip, but gave up. A few years later he moved into the trailer near his mother, who’s a healthy 80-something, and “simplified the hell out of my life,” he says.
Since then, he’s poured his energy into writing a curious blend of hippie/ survivalist sermons under the computer name “Barefoot Bob.”
For example, “I want to be around when you find that your religious leaders and your political leaders have ALL been lying to you to control your mind and your pocketbook for their benefit,” Bob writes at the start of a 31-page lecture. Then, he ends with “Peace is in every step. We shall learn to walk hand in hand.”
He also studies the U.S. Constitution via computer, comparing new versions to old, finding errors, analyzing changes.
“I’m trying to forestall anarchy,” he says, his face disappearing in a whirl of fresh pipe smoke.
He doesn’t care that people think he’s crazy. They’re reading his work - and that keeps him happy.
Support of another kind
People who chose to change their bodies with silicone implants haven’t gotten much sympathy from a hard-hearted public after the implants were linked to health problems. Some doctors still are in denial. But not Dr. John Strimas, an allergist and immunologist in Coeur d’Alene.
He’s treated patients for silicone toxicity and knows people with implants want all the information they can find on its effects.
He’ll meet with Coeur d’Alene’s silicone implant support group 10 a.m. to noon, March 29, at the Center of Life Church on 12th and Sherman to talk about a blood test still in the research phase that links silicone implants and immune system disease.
The meeting is free. Call Barbara Gerry at 667-1854 for details.
Memorable moments
These dances that mix high school kids with seniors seem to be a big hit in the Panhandle. In Post Falls, it’s the high school’s Sentimental Journey dance and in Coeur d’Alene, it’s the St. Patrick’s Day dance at the Lake City Senior Center.
Don’t think these different generations can’t dance together. Post Falls kids took ballroom dancing lessons and the senior center crowd wouldn’t let the kids off the dance floor.
Coeur d’Alene seniors laughed as much as the kids they tried to teach to dance. But, in the end, old and young could fox trot.
What’s your funniest dance story? Trot out something for Cynthia Taggart, “Close to Home,” 608 Northwest Blvd., Suite 200, Coeur d’Alene, ID 83814; fax to 765-7149; call 765-7128; or e-mail to cynthiat@spokesman.com.
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo