I don't know why your mentioning of bare root reminds me of bare foot.

I'm not kidding when I said we went bare foot when I was young.

Here's a class picture from 1958, a year before Hawaii joined the Union.
I'm in the second row, second from the right (unfortunately cropped off).

The girls went bare foot even in their pretty dresses.

I must be older than dirt, we didn't have color pictures back then!

Not!