Chapter 12. Family meetings

Angi finished working her full shift for Willie, having actually worked an extra hour when her relief was late arriving. She changed her shoes and walked around the lake at Phipps Park. She often walked the approximately one mile path around the lake, either for exercise or to meditate.

About halfway around the lake, she took a seat on bench and looked over the lake. She really was not focusing on anything specific, but was enjoying the summer afternoon and the breeze coming off the lake. She greeted people passing for about ten minutes and was preparing to get up when she noticed a group of three people coming from the direction most were not going. They seemed to be a young couple likely about her age or maybe slightly younger, and a woman in her forties, likely the mother of one of the couple. It would not have seemed unusual except that the older woman was wearing shoes and cut off jeans which almost reached her knees but the only thing on her top was a softball cap advertising one of the popular brands of beer. The younger people were also wearing shoes and softball caps, but only shoes and softball caps.

The man greeted her, saying “Peace” and she returned it with “Good afternoon” and they proceeded on. Angi found herself wondering what was happening. The older woman’s toplessness was not really common, but she knew it was legal, but the younger people were both naked and legal nudity was not allowed until N-Day, Thursday. She wondered if this would be more common by the end of the week and also found herself wondering what legal problems the younger people were letting themselves in for by their premature display. It was the first time she had seen anybody jumping the gun like this, although she had overheard a couple of stories at Jim’s.

After finishing her walk she returned to her car and headed home, arriving at about five thirty. She felt tempted a bit to remove her shirt before driving away, but decided that removing both shirt and brassiere was just too much to do for so short a drive.

Arriving home she found Linda and Cyd in the backyard grilling bratwursts. Linda was wearing dark blue shorts and a sleeveless shirt of a lighter blue. Cyd was wearing shorts of an even lighter blue but was topless. Angi knew that this was nothing new, that although Cyd really was not an exhibitionist that she often did not bother covering her top in the backyard when the weather was nice and nobody was expected to come by.

“It’s nice. We decided to eat out here,” Cyd told her. “There’s some more of that cole slaw inside, some brats pretty quick, and also some potato salad we picked up coming home from church. How did your day at Willie’s go? Ever think of going back full time?”

“Pretty routine,” Angi answered. “Had to work an hour extra, but things were pretty much normal. But as I say, I need the job with Jean. She’s a foul-mouthed and vulgar bitch, but I need something I got myself. That’s still important. I think Willie knows that. I really want something where I can sit down more before I get much older, but I’m playing with the cards I’ve dealt myself. Walked around Phipps on the way back. You do anything interesting today?”

“Not really,” Linda told her cousin. “Pretty much the usual. We did check out that new antique store on the other side of Monticello after church, but didn’t find anything on our list. Then when we got home we started calling and sending emails out to some of the people we know trying to figure out how much backlash the nudists may get after all this N-Day stuff goes through and what spin off retaliation might come to people like us.”

‘What do you mean? You think there will be a backlash?”

Yes,” Cyd answered, “If the backlash brings in the wrong people, they likely will look for LGBT people next.”

Linda added, “We hadn’t thought about that at first and it seems that a lot of people we’ve been contacting this afternoon didn’t either. I guess it’s been on some of the blogs, but we hadn’t been looking close enough, I guess. But if you stop and think, it’s just natural that we need to worry a bit. I’m sure that our legislature will make it so that next year’s elections have a constitutional amendment designed to bring out all the same kind of people who have showed up before to tell us who we can love and who we can’t and get some of their folks elected too. And other states may take their own similar actions, just to go along with the sentiment. How many states did referenda against gay marriage after the Massachusetts ruling? They didn’t hold them to get human rights people to the polls. Once these folks get through with the nudists they will turn to their unfinished LGBT stuff.”

“It really doesn’t look good,” Cyd added. “Basic rights should never be subject to majority rule, but we’ve always known that this is not the way it is. And since most of our enemies are religious bigots, they attack with terrible zeal. It’s not entirely Democrat and Republican, but it looks like maybe half the legislature could turn over next year and most of won’t be in a way we like.”

“Half?” Angi wondered. “That’s an awful lot. You think there’s that many people that upset over whether a few folks let it all hang out?”

“Well, remember,” Cyd answered, “that they won’t all be turned out for this. There is always some normal attrition, but probably one big thing will be those who get turned out not for the nudity issue per se, but because this whole thing seems to prove what people from a lot of angles have been saying for a long time, that the legislature is pretty dysfunctional. They had a whole special session to do something and they didn’t get anything done.”



With Deanna’s help Alicia Bowman had just finished clearing the supper table and putting the dirty dishes into the dishwasher. Tim was taking his mother home and Derek was walking the dog.

“Grab a seat in the family room, kid,” she told Deanna. “When your father and brother get back we’re going to have a family talk.”

“Aw, gee. We’ve been here all day and you wait until 60 Minutes is on?”

Alicia knew that her daughter didn’t really care much for that show, but that she knew that she and Tim usually watched it and was probably hoping that reminding her of that might help to avoid the family talk. She wondered what Deanna thought they were going to discuss that she didn’t want to talk about.

Derek returned. He had left the dog to run in the yard a bit more.

“You better sit down in the family room,” his sister told him. “Mom and Dad are going to talk to us. I don’t know what we did, but it must have been you and it must have been good. They’re going to miss 60 Minutes to do it.”

Alicia overheard and interjected, “Nobody’s in trouble. Nobody did anything – at least not that I know about, but since you are so fearful maybe I’d better check on a few things. We just need to have a family talk.”

Derek had a sinking feeling. The last time they had had such a formalized family talk it was when their parents had told that they were going to be sending them each to a week at church camp. He hated that week. He had known he would because he had hated it last time and nothing he could say had changed that. He had gone and he had returned unhappy. Deanna had enjoyed her week but Deanna was different. She was a girl and she was still young.

Tim walked in and noticed that they had all found seats in the family room. He took a seat in his usual chair, reached into the end table and pulled out his pipe and some tobacco.

Derek and Deanna both knew what that meant. They really did not mind the smoke or the smell, but they knew that the lit pipe meant that their father was intending on a long meeting at which he expected to be listening more than speaking. They hoped that it meant that their mother, not they, who was to be doing most of the talking. Neither knew of any unidentified infractions to confess to, so they just sat apprehensively.

Tim started the discussion. “Well, kids, do you know what’s going to happen Thursday, well probably going to happen, anyway?”

Derek knew and he was sure his sister did too. They had discussed it briefly between themselves, but he was sure that Deanna did not appreciate the utter horror he felt about some of the things some of the other guys had been telling him might happen. But neither child answered right away, both of them shaking their heads.

Alicia jumped in, “Well, I’m sure you heard. It’s been in the paper and on television news. Pastor Julia even mentioned it in a way this morning. It looks like at noon on Thursday there won’t be any law making people be dressed.”

“Oh, that. I heard about it,” Deanna said. “What’s the big deal, though? They aren’t going to make us take our clothes off.”

She paused for a second and then added a little less confidently, “Are they?”

“No, no. You won’t have to take your clothes off. But you might be seeing people without their clothes on, children and adults. You might not see anybody or only see one every several days or so, but they again you might be seeing dozens of naked people every day. We really don’t know. But we wanted to talk with you about it. We wanted to talk with you and see what you were thinking. Even if we all keep all of our own clothes on, it really might be a big change in how we live our lives”

“And we will, won’t we Mom. We will keep our clothes on, won’t we?” Derek quickly asked. Tim and Alicia could both detect panic in his voice.

“No, nobody is going to have to take their clothes off,” Alicia assured him. “What this means is that if somebody does that they won’t get arrested and taken to jail. There are some exceptions, but nobody is going to have to be naked in front of anybody else if they don’t want to.”

“What does that mean there are exceptions?” Deanna asked.

“Well, there are some people who won’t be able to take their clothes off. People like some of the people we have been warning you about, for example, people convicted of certain sex crimes” Tim said. “Of course, a lot more of them may try to do it since they figure that they won’t get caught.”

“Remember that we have always told you to beware of strangers. This will still be the rule and it might help to be just a bit more careful when you see any naked stranger because you don’t know what they may be up to. I would suspect that any grownup you see naked that you don’t know is somebody that you should stay away from unless your father or I is with you,” Alicia added.

‘Are you going to go naked?’ Deanna asked.

“No, I don’t imagine that we’ll be going naked any more than we already do, which is pretty close to never,” Alicia answered. “But maybe if they allow it, we’ll be able to go to Yankee Joe’s and swim without our suits. You might like that, but we wouldn’t let you do it unless we were there.”

“Sounds cool,” an obviously exuberant Deanna answered. Derek’s stomach suddenly felt very uncomfortable. Being naked in front of guys his own age in the showers at school or camp was bad enough. He sure wasn’t interested in going about naked in front of friends and neighbors of all ages at Yankee Joe’s.

Tim could sense his son’s discomfort.

“Well, we’d never make anybody do it, not even as a punishment. There are some things that you just have to choose on your own. A lot of people think that things like nudity should only happen in places like doctor’s offices and at home and a lot of people don’t think it should even happen there and they will be free to keep their ideas. I guess we’re not quite that puritanical about the bodies and the differences between men and women and boys and girls, but we still wouldn’t want either of you to do something you don’t want to do. In fact, we’re telling you not to go naked unless we are there and approve. Understand?”

Both children nodded their approval and Alicia picked up the discussion, “I think there are a lot of dangers in there and we don’t even want to talk about them all right now, but just consider this a family rule. You don’t go naked unless one of us is there and we say it’s OK. And we promise that we won’t ever ask you to go naked. It’ll be something you’ll have to want to do and even then I don’t know if we’ll let you. There are too many unknowns right now for us to say anything else.”

“Does that mean we can’t go to Yankee Joe’s and swim naked, after all?” Deanna asked, her voice showing disappointment.

Alicia answered, “Well, we’re not even sure that they’re going to allow it. Even if they do, we may never do it. I probably spoke too soon, because it’s just something to think about and it needs a lot more thinking, not just by your father and I, but by you too. I gather that you think you’d like to try it sometime, though.”

“It sounds exciting. I probably shouldn’t tell you but at camp Shelly and I and a couple of girls from Monticello got out of our cabin at night and went to the pond and swam without our clothes on one night. It was fun and the water felt so different. It seemed wetter.”

“I am sure it was fun,” her mother answered, her mind thinking briefly of her own experiences. “But it was not smart to do it. You didn’t have a lifeguard or lights and I don’t know the other girls, but I don’t think Shelly swims that well. And what would you do if you had met some boys who were doing the same thing? I suppose now that I better tell Shelly’s mother, don’t you?”

Deanna didn’t like finding herself becoming a fink this way, but answered truthfully, “I don’t want you to talk to Mrs. Michalski and you really don’t need to bother. Shelly already told her. Shelly tells her mom everything, but she don’t believe her. And I don’t know what we would have done if we had saw some boys. I imagine that we would have run away or maybe they would have.”

Alicia nodded. She knew that what Deanna said about Shelly’s mother was true. Mrs. Michalski didn’t believe anything bad about her kids, even the bad things they told her. Sometimes Alicia wished she would. Shelly seemed to be a good kid, possibly slightly wild, but her older brothers were well known throughout the town to have problems. She was glad that Derek wasn’t friends with either of them.

Deanna then asked another question. It was one her parents somewhat wished she had not felt necessary to bring up, but it also made them good to know that she was aware of the possibilities.

“Is one of the reasons you want us to stay dressed is so we won’t get raped?”

“Well, of course we don’t want our kids or anybody else raped! But whether you’re dressed or not or whether they’re dressed or not, you have to be on the alert for that kind of person all the time,” Tim answered, a little disconcerted by the fact that his daughter used the word “rape” so matter-of-factly. Alicia and he had always advocating giving their children all necessary warnings and to use correct words, but Deanna’s tone of voice made it seem like rape was a subject she was more familiar with than they wished she was.

Tim went on, “I don’t think these new rules will make much of a difference as far as rape is concerned, but you always need to be aware that there are bad people and there are other problems that might come up.”

“Like my naked pussy on the internet?” Deanna asked.

Tim and Alicia were both disappointed at the question. They had taught their children to use the correct anatomical words for body parts and indicated their distaste for the more sexually gross colloquialisms.

“You know we don’t like that word,” Alicia replied calmly. “But finding yourself on the internet is something you need to be thinking about. Pictures that get on the internet stay there. Maybe not on the same place, but somewhere. People all around the world can see them and babies who aren’t even born yet will see them when they are old people. You know that your father’s picture is in several places on the store’s web site and mine is there a couple of times. In a few years everybody’s picture that’s there might be put onto a picture of somebody else’s body by somebody who knows Photoshop or something. But maybe we don't have to make it easier for them. But what do you know about pictures of naked people on the internet? We would be very disturbed if pictures of either of you like that ended up there, you know.”

‘I haven’t seen anything since I got that SPAM you helped me get rid of last spring. But I know that there’s a lot of pictures of naked people out there. Shelly says she’s seen some stuff her brothers have seen and says it’s awful. Icky. They were so bad that she told her mother, but I don’t think she believed it. She told me that there was one place where people posted pictures of their ex girlfriends naked and some seemed to be only thirteen or fourteen. She figured that they were Photoshopped, at least most of them. She said she’d sent them to me, but I told her not to.”

“Maybe I’d better talk to Mrs. Michalski, anyway,” Alicia said.

“You won’t tell her about Shelly and me going swimming, will you” Deanna asked.

“Probably not. It seems like she has bigger problems. But you and your father and I may have a little more to say about it later.”

Deanna was mostly relieved. She didn’t figure that her parents would do much more than talk to her more about her confessed naked swimming and really didn’t want Shelly to think of her as a fink. Shelly wasn’t her best friend, but they had been friends as long as either could remember.

She turned her head to Derek. “You’ve been pretty quiet. Do you have any questions?”

“Probably not as long as you’re sure that nobody can make me go naked when I don’t want to. You mean that nobody can make me, right? Not you, not a teacher, not the principal, not a cop even if I get in trouble.?”

“That’s right,” Tim and Alicia answered in unison. They both wondered what kind of trouble with the police Derek was worried about, but neither wanted to digress to that subject at the moment.

“Then how can they make me shower in school or at camp if I don’t want to?”

“Well, for one thing, don’t you want to be clean?” his mother asked. “And they only do it when there are just boys around.”

“But I thought you just said that I didn’t have to anytime.”

“Well, son, we were talking about the changes coming Thursday and those changes won’t make you undress in front of anybody else. The other things already happen and I guess the new rules won’t change them,” his father answered. “There are some things you will just have to get used to. But maybe if you get to see a lot of other kids you’ll realize that nobody looks real good when they’re naked or at least almost all don’t look very good then. Actually, most of us look worse naked. Most of the people who go naked are going to be people who think it’s a hassle to get dressed all of the time, not people who have good looks and want everybody else to admire them.”

They talked a bit more on the subject. Tim and Alicia confirmed what they thought they would learn, that Deanna was cautiously optimistic about the changes coming up and that Derek was dreading them.

After the children had been dismissed, Alicia and Tim continued talking.

“Maybe we should take the kids on a trip pretty soon,” Alicia suggested.

“Where to?”

“Someplace else in this state where there is a water park or beach where the kids, especially Derek, won’t have to worry about meeting somebody they know, maybe that nice little water park in Binghampton.

“That’s an hour and a half away,” Tim noted.

“Exactly,” his wife replied.

They discussed it more but decided that they wanted to see how the first few days of the new situation developed before planning anything or talking to the children about a trip.



Family meetings similar to this Bowman family meeting were being held around the state in the days as Thursday approached. The largest paper in the state, the Capital Communicator, had taken to calling Thursday N-Day and the Sunday edition’s main headline was “N-Day Minus Four.” Parents and children discussed the changes from the perspectives they had.




Another family meeting taking place at the same time as the Bowman meeting was taking place at Jackson House at the Compound. Several members of the extended Mays family had assembled in the large gathering room.

Those who came to this meeting demonstrated well by what they wore or did not wear the laid-back dress code of the Compound. The residents of the house, Emily Antonelli and her daughter Christina Cedar were there. Emily was dressed in a smart pair of brown slacks and a lighter brown sleeveless shirt, but Christina was totally naked except for a small, frilly serving apron. Emily, who unlike most in the family actually liked cooking and baking, had actually prepared hors d’oeuvres and muffins and she and Christina were distributing them and serving them to the family members as they were arriving and engaging in miscellaneous discussion, mostly small talk.

Edna was there, topless, wearing a pair of pink patterned Zubas. Donald was present, wearing gray business slacks and a white dress shirt without a tie. Gordon Mays had come over from Madison wearing a pair of jeans and a striped polo shirt. He brought regrets from his stepmother, but few had expected Jane Alpek to come anyway. Brenda Allan and her daughter and son-in-law, Amanda and Antoine McIntosh had come. Brenda was totally naked, showing her tall, relatively athletic and moderately, but allover, tanned body and her nicely trimmed nether hair. Amanda was wearing the bottom of a dark blue bikini with a floral wraparound and her husband was wearing a J.G. Cherry basketball uniform. Connor Fredricks, sr. was there. His wife had not come. He was wearing slacks and a polo shirt. His daughter Anna had come with him as far as Edna’s pool and was sunning her naked, chunky, short body in the early evening sun.

Anna Mays Mills and her husband Miles had come over from Quincy. They were wearing matching light blue tennis outfits. Anna’s daughter Maria Bullingworth was with them wearing a light blue terrycloth robe.

When it looked as if everybody who could be expected was there, Emily suggested that they all grab seats so the discussion could start. Donald had been chosen to get things started and he started to give them all an update on how the family’s various financial interests were planning for the next Thursday. Everybody seemed to understand that it was about to be boring for a while. Christina stepped out for a moment. She had seen something which had surprised her and came back in and interrupted Donald.

“Uncle Simon’s coming,” she told them. “His nurse is pushing him up right now.”

Emily immediately got up and headed for the door, saying to her daughter, “For heaven’s sake, get the door for him.”

Donald and Edna both got up and headed to the door also. Nobody there had expected Simon Simon to come to the meeting. He was always given notification of things like this, since he was the family elder and a significant owner in many of the family interests, but he had not been actively involved in any family business matters for about a decade and had not been to any house on the south side of the Compound since his last big stroke, so nobody had really expected him.

Christina opened the door and Simon entered, sitting in a wheelchair pushed by a nurse. Christina stooped down and gave Simon a peck on the cheek as the old man excused his nurse saying that Donald would take him home. The nurse, a slim black woman of about 40 whom most knew only as “Jennie” acknowledged him and stepped outside. Christina mentioned in low voice that the nurse could join Anna at Edna’s pool if she cared to swim and the nurse gave a polite no thanks. Emily grabbed Simon’s chair and pushed it into the gathering room. Every one of his relatives present got up to meet him and shake his hand, hug, or plant a kiss on his cheek. They all wondered what made the nonagenarian family elder decide to attend the meeting.

Simon had once been the unquestioned elder voice of the Family, but time had changed things. He still felt that he could expect people to listen to him, but knew now that they did not always listen as well as they once had and often considered him a relic. He could mentally accommodate that part of it was because he knew that he was older and less involved in the family enterprises. He remembered that he and his brother-in-law Donald Mays, jr. had made his parents’ not particularly modest achievements into a great fortune and sometimes wondered whether the younger generations appreciated all that had been done. He was chronologically removed from them. The closest relatives here were great-nieces and great-nephews and the oldest of them, Donald, was more than four decades younger than he was. He sometimes wondered whether he had been around too long.

But they were family and Simon loved them all, so even though speaking was much more difficult for him, he decided that tonight he ought to make the extra effort to attend the meeting and leave his warning, even though he expected that, after giving him the appearance of courteous listening, Connor and Donald and Edna go ahead with what they were planning.

Actually, he had to admit to himself that they all treated him politely. They kept him up on the memos and emails which he had his nurses download and print for him. When she was in town, Christina visited him almost every day. He liked Christina but thought she seemed to ambitious and he was not sure what the target of her ambition was. And, although he and his sister and brother-in-law had been in the innovators of the clothing-optional arrangements for the Compound, he did wish that Christina would dress once in a while and he detested pubic shaving. He had not used the freedom personally lately and never had been its greatest user, but he still believed in it.

As Edna wheeled his chair into the room and helped him to a chair at the table and he heard the room quieting and felt every eye present on him -- even Antoine McIntosh, a young man he had barely met – Simon decided that he would leave them in suspense a bit longer/

So when the room was quiet he spoke but briefly right away. His voice was an old man’s reedy voice made more wavering as the result of his strokes. He clearly did not have and missed the volume and timbre of his younger voice, but he was assured that the others would all have to be quiet and observe some decorum, but he expected them to grant him the courtesy of pretending to listen.

“I believe I interrupted you, Donald,” Simon said. “Please go on. I do wish to talk with you all tonight, but I don’t want to interrupt.”

Donald expressed his thanks. He suggested that what he had to say could wait until after Simon had spoken, but Simon insisted that he could wait. So Donald went on giving updates to the family about what had been planned so far and how the others could help in implementing what was going on.

Donald’s personal and business style was to emphasize collegiality in his business and social actions, so although he had already received her report in both private and family memos toward the end of his report, he turned to the tall, naked woman down the table on his left, “You just got back from the legislature, Brenda. Do you have any insights on why those guys didn’t do anything to stop this day, what is being called N-Day, from happening? Did they think that some judge was going to bail them out? What is the prognosis for any future action?”

The tall, naked, brunette woman answered, “Well, I think the press and the responsible blogs have pretty much summarized things. It wasn’t much of a party vs. party thing. It was more that there was a strange coalition of those what might be called neo-libertarians who see clothing optional as a new freedom and the group which the governor called “robe burners,” who want to keep a lot of judges they don’t like in a bad spotlight so that when the judicial reform amendment passes they can go after them. These groups made use of the dysfunction of the leadership in both houses and both parties who would rather let ideas die than let somebody else get part of the credit. And Becker’s refusal to allow more signatories than the rules allowed probably cost him a couple of additional votes from a couple of senators whose approval was conditional on their appearing to be leaders on this rather than followers.

“Pretty much all they did was pass some of the lesser, more ancillary changes, such as banning student and staff nudity in public schools unless the local board specifically approves it and giving local authorities some control over parks and public places, although they really aren’t clear on how much authority the local authorities might have. Public sector employers are allowed to require employees to be clothed and private sector employers are not allowed to require nudity as a condition of employment unless they could before. They also passed a section specifying that non-religious employers cannot take action for an employee’s nudity if it takes place off work premises and has no connection with what they do, although some of the legal people up there with me didn’t think that last clause was strong enough to stick your neck out for. And they also passed a ban on commercial use of nudity, although it is written in such a limited manner that I can’t understand and no lawyer I have talked to thinks he or she can understand what it actually stops, if anything.

“Some of those who usually go with the morals people ended up allowing the freedom that we have generally supported because they want to overturn the judiciary. I really think that there are a lot of them who really feel that Judge Stevens will give in to pressure and bail them out lest she face an angry electorate or that they can get the matter in front of another judge. Judge Stevens is not likely to cave to pressure, I am assured. I really don’t know a lot about her but she is almost retirement age and has been a judge for twenty or so years and most of the legal types I talked with there say she won’t cave and that’s why the supreme court designated her to handle it. Bill Engel and Gordon both seem to share this assessment.

“But I imagine that when public nakedness starts that there may be a few legislators who will have changed their minds. We will be somewhat dependent on the resolve of the governor not to call an additional special session. He has said that this one was the only chance he was willing to give, that the whole session was a complete waste of taxpayer funds. Remember, he has been campaigning against this legislature for the last two years himself. But he may feel obliged to call one, anyway, probably not until extracting some concessions on a variety of unrelated matters. But the appendix to Bear vs. Beardsley made it fairly clear that the court would not extend any stay more than just these thirty days unless this session introduced the constitutional amendment and people seem to think that Judge Stevens reads that loud and clear.”

“So we are sure that Thursday will really be N-Day?” Emily asked.

“It’s virtually certain, I would think,” Brenda answered. “But how long people will have their rights is a matter of speculation. I really think that if we can get to the cold weather without any unfortunate incidents that there will be less pressure on legislators when they reconvene in January. But that’s a long shot. There are just too many sick people and they aren’t all in our population. We’re going to attract strangers from around the country and many of them will be really sick. That’s why we need to get more people here who aren’t. It probably takes a thousand or so people who are good to outweigh each one who is bad if we want the public to let us keep our new rights. And if we can show that is just good business that will help immensely too.”

“That bothers me,” Emily answered. “We are concerned about building up Conway Corners and our area as being nudity-friendly and I don’t know how well we are doing at it, but don’t we really want to be pushing for this statewide? Or are we doing something now?”

Edna interjected, “Well, we have been coming to that conclusion also. That’s why we have just begun communications with some leaders in other towns, mostly on the other end of the state where they really are appealing to a different out-of-state clientele. And, although we cannot market nudity commercially, some of our attorneys and theirs seem to think that there may be legal ways to spread the word in non-commercial ways. But we would need to make damned sure that we don’t get any of our commercial monies into this effort. But that’s why we have accountants and lawyers and I suspect that they will all be getting some overtime for a while.”

Simon felt he had listened enough. He grabbed the table and, although showing great exertion, he pushed himself into a standing position and started speaking. The gesture was even more dramatic since nobody else who had spoken had stood.

He looked around the room and called them all by name as they were sitting, partly because he wanted to assure them that he was still able to know who they all were, and partly to inspire a sense of equality which he suspected that Donald and Edna would be glad to work against.

“Donald, Edna, Emily, Connor, Christina, Gordon, Antoine, Amanda, Brenda, family all. We all know each other very well. I suspect that sometimes we wish we didn’t know each other quite so well, but we still all know each other and love each other. So let me get to the point of my coming to this meeting.

“You may be surprised to know how much I know of our attempts to support our community and still integrate something our family never thought possible into general society. And let me assure you that I appreciate your sentiments and what you are doing and why. We have always felt that the public should have the freedoms we have been able to enjoy including the right to live clothing optionally. But until a few weeks ago, it never seemed that we could ever have the opportunity to help the community by bringing that right. And, of course, we don’t. The right has been given by others. But it is imperative that we do what we can to help this right be kept. I suspect that keeping it is a long shot, but one worth taking.

“However, I see a lot of problems. I really just want to mention them. I imagine that some, likely all of you have thought of these, but I came to express their significance. Let’s review some of our history.

“The economy was going bad in 1930. Donald and Anna went to Chicago to a conference. They thought that they could learn tactics which could help them weather the economic challenges of the era. That conference didn’t help them, but they met some new friends who took them to a private swimming pool and introduced them to skinnydipping in mixed company. You have all heard this story, how they decided that they liked the sensation but did not like the sexual overtones which were brought in and how as we developed this compound we decided to allow us all choice in undress.

“Father still was running most of what we have and he was not thrilled when Donald and Anna returned with their discovery of this new lifestyle, but he let them take the first steps and when he and Mother passed on in a couple of years, Donald and Anna went on ahead and I went with them. I have never been as much into it as they were, but I do realize that it has been a nice freedom to have, and I believe that it and the expansion and general niceness of our compound has helped keep this extended family together.

“So, as a family we have a legacy of three quarters of a century of believing that clothing should be a matter of choice. We all know that we can handle our choices pretty well. You have all been raised with the choice here at our place. It isn’t new to you. But this family has never put one dime into any attempt to influence clothing optional legislation and very little for public enlightenment about nudism. Donald got us into having pieces of several resorts which didn’t make us much money but did provide opportunities for people of lesser means to experience a little of what we enjoyed here. What I am getting at is that now everybody in the state is going to have a right that we have had here for a long time. But they’re getting that right without doing anything to get it and whether or not they want it. And I see some problems,

“There are those who will abuse this freedom and abuse it badly, who really don’t give a pig’s ass about the freedom but will surely use it as a cover for something else. When we had the resorts, our managers were always telling us of people they had to ban because they acted out too much, sometimes for especially odious reasons as they sometimes had children as their targets. It was relatively easy to ban them from private property and we did it. But every pervert in all fifty states and who knows how many other places will be coming here and we won’t be able to summarily deport them or kick them out of town.”

“Bare skin can get attention and it sells. We all know that. We have even used bare flesh in marketing for some of our concerns. But we have never used it in anything like the degree that we are going to see. Employees, especially female employees who have to see the public are going to find that nudity may become a bona fide occupational requirement, Harrison forms notwithstanding, because nobody ever voluntarily signed one of those things. I’m sure that Gordon suspects that too. Lawyers may save a few women, but most will be the losers. And there will be even a second round when some bosses – and I trust none of ours but am too old and unimpressed by human nature to think that there won’t be any – some bosses will find ways to make nudity a requirement for people we would never think would ever need to remove their clothes as a part of their job.

“The freedoms we have and have passed on to the next generations were obtained in a limited degree and to only a few people who have been educated in its use and history. In a few hours, really since what judge is going to send a guy to jail for doing something on Tuesday which technically won’t be legal until Thursday, especially when it is something the courts have ruled is a basic right, we will have people who are using and abusing their rights and won’t have either the appreciation or discipline to do so.

“And Brenda has it right about the politics and the likely repercussions, so we need to watch it. We all have enough to last us the rest of our lives. But we want that for those to come too? And don’t we want this community, which has been so good to us, to be prosperous and happy? I don’t have your answers or -- any answers -- for that matter. I don’t do that any more. I’m going to go home and call it a night. But I really wanted to mention some of my concerns to you.”

After looking toward Christina and sensing that she was bored, he turned back toward Donald and said, “I know I said that you would take me home, but I perceive that you have more to discuss, so if you don’t mind I think I’ll have Christina take me.

Donald had wanted to be the one to take his uncle home, not so much out of affection for the old man, as for the family position it would seem to designate, but he could hardly believe that Christina was any competition and he knew that there was more to talk about.

“Go ahead,” he told Simon. “Thanks for coming. We do indeed have a lot to talk about.”

Christina rose, slipped off her apron, and went to where Simon was sitting, and helped him out of the house. After securing his wheelchair onto his cart she passed Anna who was still sunning herself in the setting sun by Edna’s pool. She asked Anna to grab another cart and follow them as she returned Simon to his house and his nurse. As they entered the house she gave him a peck on the cheek, thanked him for coming, and turned him over to his nurse.

Anna asked as she was driving her back why she had wanted to go to the meeting, why she didn’t leave the business to the older people. Christina coolly and evasively told the younger girl that since it was being held at her house that she felt a duty to help her mother host the event. She really wasn’t sure herself why she wanted to sit in on a business meeting like this one, but did wonder if she might not pick up something which she might find helpful later. Whatever she had said must have made some impression on Anna and Christina was a little surprised when Anna joined her as she reentered the meeting.

While Christina was out, Maria Bullingworth had raised her concerns which had followed Simon’s. After Edna had made what Maria thought a gratuitous dismissal of Simon’s comments by saying that he had indeed brought important things to mind but that first they had to prepare for Thursday, Maria stood and opened her robe, showing her naked body with its neatly trimmed pubic area just below a butterfly tattoo, and started speaking.

Maria knew that her flashing would not attract much attention to this jaded group, but the move did give a dramatic punch to what she wanted to say.

“Look at me.. I can do this. I can do this because I am part of this family. I can run around all of this compound with all of this flesh exposed and never worry about whether my uncovered body will get me in trouble. And since I know you all and am comfortable around here, I never need to worry about who sees me or what will happen if I am seen. But remember: My name is Cortez, or at least was until I found my WASP husband. I am a Latina. I just happen to be a rich Latina with more options than most others. But there are a lot of others who are going to find that they are not given these options. There choices will be made for them and they won’t really be their choices. Who cleans the hotels we stay in when we travel? Most of us don’t even ever find out their names, just leave a few bucks for a gratuity. But I have spoken to some of these women. I’ve had to speak in Spanish most of the time, but their stories are interesting. I even met one in Milwaukee named Maria Cortez. Our name was the same, but our stories were quite different. She was thirtyish and she worked hard and so did her husband so that they could provide for three children and a disabled mother-in-law. She had been groped by male guests and even had some of them expose themselves to her in ways she knew weren’t accidental, but hotel management wouldn’t do anything. Those who had complained too much had been dismissed before. When I discussed it with hotel management they denied it, but we’ve never stayed there again. Of course, that really doesn’t do Maria Cortez any good since her job depends on the hotel having guests. I have slipped her family a little money, but that is no solution for the bigger problem which exists, that management sees a better bottom line if it allows guests to harass low-level staff. Hotel maids will soon be naked or close to it. Hotels will say that the public wants it that way.

“Do we really believe that Maria Cortez or any other bottom level employee in hospitality businesses, will be protected by whatever legal things may be erected? that they won’t have to work in little or no clothing? We’re all relatively liberated here on matters of skin exposure, but would anybody here accept working naked in an environment you don’t control?

“You know the answer. If we think it over, we know that this whole Bear case thing is just disaster waiting to happen. There is not good outcome. Our state will either become the center of exploitation and perversion or the reaction will lead to a reactionary government which we cannot work with for other things we need. I for one am not happy about the way I think we are going on this. I really believe that we shouldn’t be doing anything to capitalize on this thing, that we should be preparing for our best fall back position for when the backlash comes.”

She closed her robe and sat down as Christina and Anna were entering.

Connor Fredricks spoke first.

“Are you saying that we shouldn’t let the general population have some of the rights we have? Does that seem fair to you? You know that I’m not really big on this privilege myself, but I understood about it when I got serious with Barbara and I think it is a wonderful deal for those who want to use it.”

“Well, as a practical matter, our position has been pretty much made. Your comments are well noted, but this has been a short time line and we have had to move quickly,” Edna noted. “I know that Bill’s been in the loop on this and you’ve been copied on almost all of the major emails and we never heard anything against it before.”

Maria answered, “I know. I’ve been late on this. But I guess that I wasn’t paying good enough attention. But I’ve been reading some sites for working women and men and I sense danger.”

Donald spoke up, “It is getting late, Maria. And the ruling and the legislation which was passed provide protection for working people. Gordon can fill us in on the details, if you would, Gordon.”

Maria spoke up before Gordon could answer.

“Working people are seldom protected by the laws that purport to protect them, not when they are too far down the labor chain or maybe minorities lacking English language skills. People like Maria Cortez have to take the conditions they are given, pretty much. Somebody else will take more grief for less money. None of us seems to have any religious compunctions about our nudity. We have even found ways to make it seem moral to go about naked as Adam and Eve. But most of the world has problems this way and this will not protect their rights. I’m not talking about the right to not see what they don’t want to see because I’m not sure that anybody really has that right, but their right to not be seen. And it’s all going to come down on us. So Gordon, unless you have something that wasn’t in the memo that Bill Engel sent out yesterday, save your breath.”

“Can I say something?” a voice from the back said. It was Anna Fredricks.

“Go ahead, Anna,” her Uncle Donald answered.

“Well, you all know that I am fat, that my body isn’t any great thing.”

Her father started to interrupt but she kept on going.

“Thank you, Daddy, I know what you are saying. But you’re my father. You don’t have a clear view or else you just don’t want to air it. I’m fat. I know it. You all know it. I give everybody a chance to see it quite often. I’m comfortable around you all. And I think I’m more comfortable at school and at the Y and at church and all over town because I am more comfortable around here. I don’t know that I’ll feel like doing anything at the picnic Thursday or at Yankee Joe’s on Saturday or any time after Thursday. I kind of doubt that I will. But because I’ve had the opportunities that I get here, I am a more comfortable person, a better adjusted person, a more social person, just a plain better person, and I wonder whether there isn’t some poor girl or guy in town who shouldn’t have the same chance. I really don’t think that most people will be like Christina and show it into everybody’s face, but maybe they’ll enjoy the opportunity to test theirselves once in a while.”

She turned to Christina, “No offense, Christina, but you are quite a bit more out there. None of the others here is shaved, for example.”

“That’s OK,” Christina said.

Edna picked up the discussion again.

“Thank you, Anna. That took a lot of courage. I am afraid that we aren’t going to make everybody happy. But I am confident that we are taking the best track possible under the circumstances. People are going to want to come to our town and spend money and we’re going to help them do so. I really think that with the cooperation of some of the business community that this will be a plus. But we have to make sure that we act quickly when the wrong people come by. And that’s part of what we’re working on.”

The discussion went on for some time longer. Nobody’s mind seemed changed and it still seemed that Edna and Donald were going to do what they wished.