stone bruise noun a bruise on the sole of the foot, especially the heel, from going barefoot and stepping on a stone or other hard object; an abscess resulting from such a bruise.
1915 Dingus Word-List VA 191 = any bruise on the sole of the foot. 1933 Miller Healing Gods 475 The familiar “stone bruise” of barefoot days is relieved by binding on it a live toad with the abdomen split open. 1957 Combs Lg Sthn High: Word List 96 = a serious bruise on the sole of the foot, usually the heel. A barefoot boy sometimes acquires this inconvenience by jumping. c1960 Wilson Coll = a sore on the underside of a foot, said to be from bruising (mashing) it on a rock. 1982 Slone How We Talked 101 = a kind of boil that came on the bottom of the foot, usually on the heel, caused by going barefoot and bruising the foot on the sharp stones. Cure: Stick the heel in a warm cow pile (fresh cow manure); a mixture of salt and meal scaled with hot water, or any other cure used for a boil. The skin of the foot was made more tough by going barefoot, causing the infection to be more difficult to get to beak and drain. A stone bruise was very painful, and could cause one to have to stay in for long time and not be able to walk for months. 1990 Cavender Folk Medical Lex 31-32 an abscessed sore on the heel of the foot caused by a severe bruise, common among children who go without shoes in the summer. 1997 Nelson Country Folklore 92 The very worst thing we had from going barefooted was stone bruises. There was a lot of pain from these. The bottoms of our feet became tough and thick. So when we had a stone bruise they had to be opened with a razor blade. We dreaded it, but his was the only way we could get relief from the pain.
—Dictionary of Southern Appalachian English
When Paul and I were little we went barefooted all summer long. The worst things we had happen to our feet once they got tough enough to run up and down the gravel road was honey bee stings, stone bruises, and stubbing our toes on something hard which stoved them up and left them sore for several days or more.
These days I would be hard pushed to run the yard barefooted much less the rocky ground. But I did manage to get a stone bruise recently.
Thankfully Paul and I never had a stone bruise that became abscessed like the ones in the dictionary entry. Granny would have had a fit if someone had told her to tie a toad to our foot or let us step in a cow pile 🙂
When we injured our feet or stepped on a bee, Granny would fix us a place on the couch to rest and prop our foot on a pillow.
Last night’s video: Eating Fried Jelly Sandwiches in Appalachia.
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My Mom grew up in the Depression Era when barefoot was the norm and stone bruises were common. She had Uncles who were more like big brothers ……. I’ve heard her tell of them bribing her to let them open it, one of them to sit on her and another to do the “surgery” with a razor blade, just as described!
Do you suppose any kids go barefoot in the Summer any more? I don’t remember the last time I saw one barefoot. Come to think of it, I don’t remember the last time I saw any playing outside; but this IS Texas and it HAS been 110 recently! :frown:
As kids growing up in town (Raleigh), we had the May 1st rule, too. I can remember coming home from school, shedding the shoes and socks and heading outside. Kids in the neighborhood – the gang – used to compete to see who could toughen their feet first. We had a regular trial that ended with walking on hot asphalt-paved streets. By late Summer, some of those streets would become so soft you could leave your footprint in them.
Now, at 80, I don’t walk outside barefooted and don’t do it much in the house; but I wear ‘hippie’ sandals all the time. Of course, I’m a few hundred pounds heavier these days, too. 😀
One thing we learned not to do as kids was to go blackberry picking barefooted. And the copperheads and rattlesnakes always seemed to like sunning themselves in the most unusual places. We would always like to walk on a shady blacktop road wherever we could find some. The best spots where they had put down copious amounts of tar, which was especially smooth and soothing to sore feet Keep those good stories coming, Tipper.
Growing up in the countryside of Western Kentucky, I always went barefoot in the summer. One reason I always hated going back to school in the Fall was that then I had to wear shoes! I still have a large scar on the bottom of my foot from having stepped on something in a ditch (probably broken glass or a tin can). I can still remember how much it bled when my mother washed it off in a basin of water. I definitely remember getting the honey bee stings from accidentally stepping on the poor bees when I walked through clover. Nobody has mentioned another hazard–poison ivy. I was always getting the poison ivy rash between my toes. And by the way, we always called what cows produced cow PIES, not cow piles. You can buy a commercial candy called Cow Pie, and also you can find recipes to make “cow pie candy” yourself. Although it’s made with chocolate, just thinking of where the name comes from keeps me from making it!
Yep, I was a barefoot in the summer kid and yes, I got stone bruises. The stone bruises were terrible but oh so worth it. It was wonderful to run without the hindrance of shoes!
At the age of 78, I still go barefoot outside and inside; I hate shoes, always did, and I feel better when my feet touch the earth. I can still walk on gravel without limping. I no longer garden barefoot because my feet would get so black, I couldn’t get them clean-looking. I miss walking barefoot in the freshly plowed ground, though. Believe me, I get a lot of comments from people who come to our place and see me walking barefoot. I’ll bet they just think I’m a crazy old woman.
My grandpa had a habit of saying, “Come here & I’ll help you up” as a funny to the fallen. My little brother was running to meet Grandpa who had come to visit, when he stumped his bare toe horribly & went down! Grandpa said his funny line without realizing the toe stumping that happened. It took several weeks before my brother would have anything to do with Grandpa.
We were always warned about stone bruises & of course we hurt our feet often. Our yard was full of clover and honey bees & we got stung all the time–I still remember the stinger still being in the wound. My worst injury was a plum thorn in the heel which broke off deep. I was held down while the thorn was picked out.
My Dad never let us go barefooted outside. He said, “If you go barefooted, your feet will be wide as a duck’s & look like your Mother’s, & you will get cuts, infections, stings & worms. There is nothing good about it.” My Mom had always gone barefooted outside as a child, but my Dad never did. I remember going to the country to see my cousins, & I was amazed how they could run barefooted in the gravel. My sister, little brother & me wanted to be like them, so we would sneak & take our shoes off. We would try to walk on the grass & even that hurt our tender feet. Our cousins would kill themselves laughing at us. My family always called it stumping your toe instead of stubbed.
I don’t even go barefooted in the house, but I might walk around with socks on. Glad to know about ammonia for yellow jacket stings. I got stung twice the other evening & my whole hand & knee swelled & the pain was like hot coals & lasted 5 hrs. I iced the areas off & on for hrs. My grandmother would put snuff or chewing tobacco on our stings.
Tipper, you mentioned that Granny called folks who thought they were really something, “stuff.” My family always called it “stewed stuff.”
My brothers and I were barefoot most of the summer, unless we were off to church and then we had to wear “street shoes” as we called them. I don’t remember ever getting any stone bruises, but we got plenty of stickers here in Texas. My feet never got tough enough for stickers and it always left us hobbling back to the house. Nowadays, my feet are too tender and I don’t even go barefoot in the house.
When we were growing up, the saying was you couldn’t go barefooted until May 1st. Don’t know how that came to be but us kids thought it was a rite of passage and couldn’t wait. I remember coming home from school and the very first thing I did was take off my shoes and go run around the yard. I went barefooted some in the summer but after one stone bruise and a bee sting, I would at least wear flip flops or some sort of canvas shoe, but now at home inside, I never wear shoes. If I run errands or am outside, as soon as I step in the house, the shoes come off.
There is a place called Ledford’s Trading Post on Springs Road in Hickory that sells and repairs guns. I went in there a while back looking for a blackpowder cap and ball pistol kit. I talked to an older man who told me they didn’t sell the kits any more. When I asked him where I might find one he didn’t but “my son might let me get him he’s in the back.” Out comes a completely ordinary looking middle aged man wearing normal attire except he had no shoes. I left the store without the gun or any idea where to find it but I had a story to tell.
I was talking to my brother in law who also had an interest in primitive firearms and mentioned the shoelessness. “Oh, I’ve known him all his life. He won’t wear shoes! Summer and winter, hot or cold, wet or dry, he won’t put on a pair of shoes. He never has!”
I have always cultivated tough feet by going barefoot as much as possible and the wearing sandals when it wasn’t possible. Three years ago I learned they weren’t as tough as I thought. I accidentally locked myself out of my house late one July afternoon – a triple digit Texas summer afternoon. I keep a key hidden outside, but someone – probably a grandchild – had used it and hadn’t put it back. My next door neighbors have a key, but they weren’t home. I didn’t have my cell phone in my pocket either. A friend who lives a couple of blocks away has a key, but that required crossing a very wide blacktop road. I went across that road as fast as a seventy-something can, but I burned the soles of both feet badly – totally blistered everywhere and took a long time to heal.
My other feet story might make you smile. Between 5th. and 6th. grade, my dad’s employer transferred him and we moved from Kentucky to far northern Illinois. Not far on the map but culturally a totally different world! “Y’all” became “youse guys” and the first time I said “yes, ma’am” to my teacher, she said curtly “A simple ‘yes’ will suffice.” Our social studies book that year had a statement to the effect that “southern children have hookworms because they never wear shoes.” The book was probably published in the 1920s – or maybe during Reconstruction . Even a sixth grader like me recognized the prejudice in that statement.
My parents both grew up going barefoot in the summer. I would go barefoot sometimes in the summer, but a time or two stubbing my toe hurt something awful. I have high arches and when I was in my 50’s I had Planter Fasciitis. I could make it through the day and fixing supper and then had to get off my feet. Pain was a 10. Podiatrist tried to hide needle when he was going to give me a shot of cortisone. I said doctor, I’m in so much pain right now that I’m not afraid of that big needle. The next day that pain was gone, but I had to have orthontics made for my shoes and I did my exercises EVERY morning before I put my feet on the floor. Once the inflammation was gone, I was so much better but I was told not to go barefooted only when I got in the shower. I listened, and thankfully I’ve not had any more problems with my feet.
Lord, I remember my best friend and I would go barefoot all Summer long except of course when we went to town. We may have stepped in a few dog piles, and that was bad enough but cow piles, intentional, UGH!!!
We were constantly warned of stone bruises when jumping barefoot, but never got any. Thankful.
I never went barefoot growing up. I couldn’t stand the way it felt plus I was tender footed. I suppose if I had made myself go barefoot my feet would have toughened up. Except for sandals I cannot even stand to wear shoes without socks. I do, however do some grounding barefoot but only when sitting in one place and not walking around. I wonder if grounding in a “warm cow pile” would make it even more beneficial 🙂
No stone bruises for me, barefeet only in the house. I like pedicures, polished toes, pretty sandals and tennis shoes for summer. I’ve stepped in a few cow pies with boots on and a definite no on the road thing.
As a child I ran barefoot all the time and even did it around my yard as a young adult. I had my share of stone bruises, but never but a frog on it or stepped in cow poop to make it better. They just healed on their own. It just wasn’t summer if I didn’t walk around barefooted in the yard. Them days are long gone and my feet are so tender now there is no way I could walk outside or even inside barefooted. This blog made me miss them youthful days of going barefooted in summer.
I have heard it said that the reason all the kids I know went barefooted was that the parents could only afford to buy one pair of shoes a year. The new shoes were usually made with stout leather and meant for cold weather wear. I’m not sure if that was the reason my sisters and I tossed our shoes on the last day of school and didn’t wear them again until the beginning of a new school year. Our biggest challenge was to walk on the freshly sealed asphalt road as were went to visit our friends a mile or two away.
Yeah, I remember bare feet and stone bruises!!
I’m like you Tipper. I never had the really bad stone bruises. I had plain old bruises from going barefoot. Until this post today I never realized how bad a stone bruise could be. Glad I escaped those but I’m not sure how I did. Never did hear growing up about the critters that could get into you from cuts either. Another possibly narrow escape because stubbin’ my toes several times each summer was common. I still remember very well what doing that felt like. It didn’t hurt just when you did it but you knew by the feel you had peeled your toes. I dreaded to look but you might as well.get it over with then you could just ignore it and keep agoin’.
I expect I have posted this before but my Grandpa (who I never knew) went barefoot so much he could bust a chestnut but with his bare heel. I can see how someone who went barefoot that much would find shoes to be very unfriendly. That’s probably the story for many of the southern soldiers in the ‘late unpleasantness’ (as some called it). They could do better without shoes. But I guess to northerners it was understood as poverty rather than choice.
I never went “barefoot” in the summer but I went “barefooted” all summer long and I never “stubbed” my toes. I “stumped” mine!
I like to go barefoot too. For a long time after I got to be an adult, I would take my shoes off just as soon I got home from work or were ever I had been and go outside barefoot.I still go barefoot year round in the house but no longer outside. Like the rest of you, i had stone bruises, stumped toes, nails in feet, cut feet and briers in my feet, seems like at least one foot was always sore. I never tried any of the above remedies for a stone bruise. I have and will still tie or tape a salty piece of fatback over a brier, splinter or something else stuck in my foot or hand that I can’t dig out and it helps draw it out. It was hard to to hobble about when both feet were sore at the same time.. I joke and tell people the reason I grew so big was because of going barefoot and chickens running loose when I was a kid. We would soak our feet in salty water to help with the soreness.
Yep- I AM the barefoot woman. When I was a kid, I could walk or run in a gravel alley to my aunt’s house in quick time. I am NOT a shoe person. No matter what time of year it is, you’ll find me barefooted. When I have to wear dress shoes, dress boots or heels- that’s the worst! I’ve been stung, bit, had a stone bruise or 2 (none open) and hot asphalt is a torture. Other than glass or nut fragments, my feet dance happy all the time!!!I can’t stand bound up or stinking feet!!! Murrman complains my feet are tough, but he knows I got my pedi thing that grinds tough spots off and cleans my DOGS right up… lol I guess the Cherokee shows more than I realize. I’m barefoot now. I can’t stand to go to the manicurist or get my nails worked on by strangers… I have heard of Italians who account for and personally rid of their nails because they believe spells can be cast with your nails.
The only time we hurt our feet was stepping on a yellow jackets’ nest or other stinging insect. Granny put ammonia on the sting and the pain went away. Now “science” says that ammonia is just the right thing for stings and bug bites. Just shows you that Granny was the grandmother of good science.
I am glad to know that about ammonia. I recently got into a underground yellow jacket nest while cutting grass. I was lucky only got stung 4 times. I just kept on cutting the grass and thinking about how bad those devils hurt. Later on I poured some gas down their hole. If I was allergic to bees and fire ants, I would have died a long time ago.
I have allergic reactions to both, Randy, but I ain’t never died from it, yet! 😀
We used to pee on our stings. Human urine has ammonia in it. Maybe that’s why it helped!
Been there done that with the bruising…but cow dung???…not happenin’ especially on purpose, but I have done so accidently. I had never thought of the fried peanut butter sandwich, gotta try it for sure.
I remember being barefoot a lot in the summer as a kid, too. Once we got into high school, we wore shoes if we were going to be outside for more than half an hour. But we were always barefoot inside the house. Kids love just running free. They don’t have time for putting shoes on and off. I remember the pedals of my bike hurting my feet when summer began, but by the time school started, the bottom of my feet had toughened up. Now, as an adult, I still like to go barefoot inside my house, but never ever outside. Going barefoot outside totally ended for me once I was in nursing school. I had an instructor tell us about how little worms and other pathogens enter microscopic cuts in our feet – that ended walking in any grass barefoot for me. Sad, because there is nothing so cooling on a hot summer day than being barefoot in the grass under a shady tree.
Donna. : )
I remember running around barefooted in the summertime when I was a kid. I don’t recall ever getting a stone bruise, but cuts and scraps were common. Have you ever heard the expression ” barefooted as a yard bird”?
Our version was barefooted as a yard dog.
Can’t see myself stepping in a cow pile for relief. Lol
When my grandad was in basic training there was a good ol’ boy from the hills of Kentucky in there with him. He was having an awful time with blisters on his feet from the boots, due to all the marching they were doing. The sergeant was deriding him for always limping around, needing treatment & such. He stood up to the sergeant and told him it was cuz he didn’t wear shoes in the summer and “if he let him go barefoot he would march that sergeant’s *ss off”. The sergeant took him up on that offer. The Kentucky boy took his boots off and they both loaded up their packs and away they went. According to my grandad, the Kentuckian did indeed march the sergeant’s *ss off. My grandad & siblings did probably go about barefoot all summer, too. But by the time he was 16 he was employed in a wire mill to support his family during the depression. So he had ‘graduated’ to a point in life where he was wearing shoes regularly. Whereas this boy was still on the farm. That was the thing that amazed my grandad so much about going in the service – meeting people like him that had never left their little corner of the world for all of their 18yrs – it was an eye opener. When I go shop at my local Amish farm, I am always amazed at the types of work the father can do with bare feet. shoes hurt my feet so bad I think about giving it a try – but too much broken glass & rusty metal works it way out of the ground at my place (original barn burned & windows exploded. They dug a hole & bulldozed everything under & its always coming to the surface) A well placed blackberry thorn in your foot will give you trouble too!
Toads and cow piles-no thank you!
How did people ever survive their cures?
I have gotten a few dtone brusies. None bad enough for cow manure though. Most I temember is walking around on my toes or heel depending on where it hurt