Chapter 6

Walking in a Winter Wonderland

The second of the three, ‘town-stopping events’ at Bayside Regional High School [home of the Screaming Gulls] is the mid-winter basketball classic tournament.

To be fair, before political correctness, the event used to be called the Christmas Basketball Classic. Now it is the Mid-winter Basketball Classic. It is run, much as is the NCAA March Madness tournament. Twenty high school teams which normally do not have each other on their schedules due to conference or regional differences are invited. Play begins the day following the closing of school for the winter break and continues until a champion is determined on December 31st. Five games a day involving ten teams each on the first two days of play. This round is a single elimination loser going home, the winner advancing to the next round. The ten teams left go into pool round-robin play over three days. The six teams with the worst records leave after this round. The four teams with the highest win average then play each other to determine the champion of the tournament over the next two days.

Most of the town of Bayside is involved with hosting and hospitality of visitors from the competitor’s schools and player families. The spillover into the eight sending school districts is quite large as well. Shoreside Park, with its rental bungalow and bed and breakfast business slack after the summer peak welcomes many team families who will remain to see the tournament even if their teams have been eliminated.

Two things changed in the Anderson/Farrell house following Homecoming weekend. The first was, of course, Richard “Whale” Richards was now a regular visitor and surrogate family member. The twins adored him and Grandmother and mother approved of him. Yes, they knew he was Waif’s “first” and neither woman minded particularly after seeing what a gentle giant of a boy Whale was with all three of the girls. The Jeep Comanche became a regular fixture in the Anderson driveway, starting after the finish of football on Thanksgiving Day. The players grabbed letters from the Scrabble bag in the locker room and Whale drew an “A”. He smiled shrugged and toweled off to meet Waif stark naked.

The twins were even more impressed than Waif. Whale was their first ‘big boy’ and they had all types of personal questions. Whale proved he was comfortable with them and the family by not turning away a single one and answering them all in a way the eight-year-olds understood. Whale’s home district of Ocean Pines was not as liberal as Shoreside Park within its elementary feeder school. Rita Richards, Whale’s ten-year-old sister often came to play with the twins when Whale visited when she did she took the opportunity to practice being nude in a nonjudgmental setting.

It was as serious a high school romance as such an intense first round of real loving emotion became. Waif and Whale were everywhere together and very comfortable with each other. Coincidentally, Waif had felt ill a few days after the couple did the deed. She spent three days in bed and another two just lazing about the house with every joint in her body giving off aches.

Usually, a family marks a growth spurt with the suddenly shorter skirt or pant leg on the growing child. When you live life naked there is no such artificial marker. Waif realized on day five of her ‘illness’ that things in the kitchen storage cabinet she once stood on tiptoe to reach were now easily within her grasp flat-footed. She yelled for her mother to bring the tape rule that was kept in the tool kit and stood in a doorway while her mother confirmed the new height with the measuring device. The once four-foot ten-inch tall Waif was now a full five foot two [158 cm]. Katherine Farrell also pointed out the swelling of Waif’s bust line indicating the beginnings of breasts. The twins noticed a few wisps of hair around her pubic bone. Puberty had finally struck the eighteen-year-old and it was welcomed as a final indication her medical problems were behind her.

Late in November, about the time of the final football game, Waif experienced her first cramping. No flow, just the bloated cramping nasty menstrual symptoms she had avoided for most of her teen years. Wisely anticipating what might happen the next month Ruth Anderson came home one afternoon with a package of Hanes Her Way boy briefs and a box of sanitary napkins ‘just in case.’

The need came in the middle of the night on day three of the Mid-Winter Basketball Tournament. Waif reappeared from the lady’s room clad in aqua boy briefs and asked Whale to take her home. Tea, toast, and Grandmother Ruth’s back rub helped her get through the first night of misery and cramping. All was normal by day three and the family was able to watch the two semifinals and then the championship and consolation games together. The cheer competition following the championship game found Bayside tied for second place with Mountain Grove High while the overall championship cheer team was awarded to Mountain Creek High School.

The teams and cheerleaders from the schools in the tournament were invited to the awards dinner and dance, many of the visitors spending time with Bayside students reviewing the policies this district had concerning nudity in school and the community.

Waif became the most popular student sought out to discuss Bayside Regional High School policies. One girl, the cheer captain from Mountain Creek High, named Lisa Ki-Moon, talked about how happy the ‘naked kids’ appeared in Bayside High. “Our kids are always being touched and stopped for requests; it makes them feel dirty and confused. If the purpose of the Program is to allow people to feel comfortable in a clothing-optional society, then what does that have to do with sex?”

“Good point and the clear answer is; not a thing. It gets confusing with the reading of the law, Lisa,” Waif responded, “My Grandmother fought with the state legislature to have the ‘request’ portion of the law struck down. However, the national model law passed by Congress and signed by the President to make it the law on federal lands allows for ‘stimulation for educational purposes’. Grandmother told our legislature that allowing for something did not equate to a mandate in favor of it. So the state has allowed each school district to implement parts of the law the locality feels are within community standards. Some school boards failed to recognize their discretionary powers and just pushed the whole package on the schools in their districts.

“Here we do not publically paddle, although it is on the books as a possible punishment for gross misbehavior. The eight feeder schools for the high school allow paddling by a parent of the child to be punished only if the offense was one of a physical nature against another student. The young ones soon realize that hitting or tripping will get you naked over dad or mom’s knee at the Friday assembly and all the kids in the school will witness your punishment. My sisters go to Shoreside Park Elementary and this school year there has only been one such incident. My boyfriend, Richard comes from the Ocean Pines district. His sister, Rita, told the twins they have had three disciplinary assemblies this year. One girl slapped another during a basketball game, who after her ten with a ping pong paddle, cried then hugged the girl she hurt and went on to be best friends with the girl. The other was a boy known to be a bully. When he repeated the same offense against a weaker boy taking the boy’s lunch money and pushing him to the ground he was given fifty by his mother who then signed the paperwork to have him remain naked for the rest of the school year.