"I'm Nude, You Prude!"
By Unknown Author
Initially published in Campus Humor in 1957
(Approved by the Dean's office but with the added proviso that anyone caught driving with a nude will be considered for dismissal from college.)
It is deplorable today the American's attitude towards nude-dome–deplorable and extremely unhealthy. The general opinion nowadays is that the nudist merely wishes to exploit his or her body because he or she feels that their friends have become tired of looking at the same old face. People are shocked at the sections of naked anatomy walking around loose; it simply isn't the thing to do.
Kindly and decrepit old Victorians give feeble excuses for the rise of the nudist: either the nudist has a bad case of glands or he simply can't afford to spend any more money on clothes. All this, of course, is utter tomfoolery-bilious billingsgate. Man is consciously striving to get back to basic nature. It is the true aesthete casting off his tailored loincloth and her form. fitting fig leaf. It's simply Nature asserting herself.
Before recounting to you a bit of social document by way of illustration, just a word more - something that has been rankling in my soul for a long time—to be taken for what it is worth. To wit: "The Hell with Salt Peter.” (The Government needs it all for gun powder in National Defense anyway.) There now. I feel better already.
All of which brings me to a little documentary opus excerpted from the works of that well-known nude commentary Thorntius Smithia. It is entitled Comparative Anatomy or Ronnie's Revelation (this is the more literal translation from the original Aphrodisiac).
Ronnie Clabs packed his steamer trunk with assiduous care. He was making preparation for a long-planned trip to Oskacogee, the favorite spa of the White family whose son Clarence was Ronnie's roommate at college. Ronnie assembled his cherished cravats, cummerbunds, cutaways, and cashmeres with a good deal of elan. He was anxious to display these stuffs in the White menage. Little did he know.
Ronnie arrived at the Oskacogee depot and descended to the platform to greet Clarence. His sapphire cuff links tinkled opulently and the saniform rubber heels of his new white buckskins sucked possessively at the concrete pavement as he squeezed the bare flesh (note the significance of this phrase) of his room mate's hand.
"How are you, old man,” said Clarence. "Tiptop, old man,” said Ronnie doffing his coconut straw at the sudden appearance of Clarence's mother and two sisters from around the corner of the depot. Salutations were affected. Ronnie's trunk was lashed to the radio aerial of Clarence's open car and the group started out for the White's lodge.
During the drive Ronnie allowed his eyes to wander from his manicured person and quite suddenly became unpleasantly aware of the shocking paucity of clothing the Whites sported. Clarence's navel was painfully perceptible above his abbreviated khaki shorts, his sole article of apparel. Mrs. White and her daughters were a shade more modest in their two-piece white satin bathing suits.
Mr. White resplendent in a beige pair of Jockette swim trunks were on the porch of the lodge to greet Ronnie.
At this point, to give Ronnie credit, he had a vague impression of a lot of loose flesh being left uncovered, but he attributed it to atmospheric conditions and forgot it for the time.
Ronnie dressed meticulously for dinner that night – dinner coat, maroon cummerbund, maroon tie, maroon handkerchief, etc. However, he was chagrined to find, upon going downstairs, that the White family were still in their dishabille condition with the exception of a few desultory bow ribbons in the White daughters' hair and a pair of mohair huaraches on Mr. White's feet from which protruded the full quota of toes.
Ronnie was not an avid participant in the table conversation that night due to the fact that the birds and the bees were the dominant topic plus a short digression at dessert on the nudes of Titian.
Before turning in that night. Ronnie, bedecked in his favorite lounge robe and satin carpet slippers, knocked on Clarence's door and being admitted, immediately put the question that had been bothering him for some four hours past.
"I say, old man, what is all this beastly 'back to Nature' stuff. You never practiced it at the academy."
"Too rotten conventional and the bloody Dean wouldn't have it," replied Clarence petulantly. "But now," he continued with sudden enthusiasm, "jolly old Dame Nature has us all to herself." Then with a sly wrinkle of his abdominal muscles, he said, “You'll find out," and plunged his naked form into the bedclothes.
Dressed cap-a-pe Ronnie descended the stairs the next morning whistling cautiously. He felt that there was something in the air which he was not quite aware of. He looked all over the house but no one was to be found. Ronnie finished off what little breakfast was left in the dining room, napkined himself carefully, and ambled out on the front lawn. Human Voices could be heard emerging from a grove of trees not far off. Ronnie made for that direction. Rounding the corner of a wooded path he came upon a startling scene. Quickly he concealed himself in a convenient hydrangea bush.
The White family were splashing about in a pool completely without clothes, to use a crude but descriptive colloquialism. Hallowed bits of anatomy were paraded before Ronnie's frightened eyes. Just then Mr. White collapsed from the springboard, descending rump first into the water and thereby causing a minor tidal wave. Clarence, scrambling out of the way, suddenly caught sight of two burning orbs glistening from a nearby hydrangea bush.
"I say, Ronnie, whatcha doing, old boy."
"Gathering gooseberries," said Ronnie grasping at straws.
“Come out and cleanse the old body," continued Clarence. Meanwhile, the whole of the White anatomy arrived at the scene and was chanting in satyr fashion:
“Sing a hey, sing a derry Come away from those berries Come, off with your clothing Start right in disrobing Sing a hey, sing a derry, etc."
Then suddenly they wriggled off like tadpoles into the water.
Ronnie was on the verge of an emotional crisis. However, he did not stay for the treat, but turned on his heel and sped swiftly from the scene.
The final catastrophe came later on in the day. Just before dinner that night, Ronnie, seeing an opening, hurriedly entered the White family bathroom for a quick shave only to find daughter Bathsheba calmly chinning herself in the nude on the shower rail. To Ronnie's strangled gasp, she replied simply, “I'm a nude, you prude."
Right then and there Ronnie's mind cleared; he understood. Ronnie was not seated at the White dinner table that evening. He was lying prone out on the terrace, quite naked, his bosom pressed tightly against the clayed sod. A few hundred yards away the embers of a former clothing pyre were flickering. Ronnie munching contentedly on the fresh grass was burbling effervescently to himself, "Nature, it's wonderful." From the dining room the lingering strains of “Sing a hey, sing a derry," floated out over the terrace. Mother Nature smiled
Well, gentlemen, can I say more? Emollients can be bought at your nearest pharmacy for poison ivy and poison oak and antidotes are available for snake bites.
I am sure that Bennington would be glad to comply.
- Purple Cow
