Yes, I know ... I lived in Orlando resort territory for about three years in the '90s. Understand that I'm a fifth-generation coastal Californian (the vast majority of the stereotypical "fruits and nuts" of CA are much like Pelosi, Boxer, and Feinstein, in that they are NOT from California, but are transplants from the east coast and the midwest). Cattle ranches, farms, and commercial fishing are the real California I know, along with the whole surfing gig, Beach Boys, all that. It is quite shocking for a person of longtime multigenerational Western pioneer-roots background to see, for the first time, a boy or man wearing pretty much any closed shoe, including deck shoes, let alone leather-soled loafers, without socks. About the only thing comparable are men who wear white mid-calf socks with sandals!! It is to every Californian I've ever known, when we are untravelled in the ways of the U.S., as an indicator of a tourist who is also kind of dorky; as we get older, we figure out that what it really is is something that's *shiver* normal on the east coast and in the midwest!
I'm sure that native (as opposed to transplant) Western states' fashion styles, such as tire-soled huaraches, untucked Pendletons, button-fly Levis, cut-off Levis for shorts that become frayed (they were cut-off for shorts in the first place because the knees had worn through, as happens with every worthy pair of Levis 501s) ... would be equally offensive to a midwesterner or an easterner, so please don't take offense. I just offered it here as a bit of levity, certain that at least a few Western-born folks like me would identify!
Au contraire .. I wasn’t offended at all. Just
answering the post about the stylin’ of it all.
I lived in FL for over 30 yrs .. and it’s very
common there, especially around the tropical,
beachy, resort locales,.