Chapter 8

You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. {Quote from Steve Jobs}

The third Sunday in July found the extended Farrell clan in Faith United Independent Church for the eight o’clock morning service. Waif was due to work her lifeguard job by ten, and Whale was to leave for his football camp at Philadelphia University of Fashion Industries and Technologies, also known as PFIT.

His mother Ruby, and sister Rita sat in the aisle seats. Ruby Richards sat in her special wheelchair and her daughter, Rita, was in the pew alongside her holding her hand. Her son, Richard, sat in the pew just in front along with Ruth Andrews, Katherine Farrell, Wendy Ann Ingrid Farrell, and the twins Amy and Tammy Farrell sat and watched the recently appointed pastor of the congregation lead the worship service.

Mark Dunn was preaching on the topic of ‘Idols blocking our faith,’ this would be the third in his series of sermons. His wife, Dorothy, a statuesque brunette hirsute consenting nudist, sang the solo before the sermon then returned to her seat in the front row to sit beside her friends Andrea and Duane and the five children the two couples shared.

Dorothy and Andrea had been nuns together at a Catholic college. Mark had been a priest and Duane a cheerleading and gymnastics coach who was now a professional exercise physiologist. Mark left the priesthood and sought credentials in a faith-allowing marriage. After associate pastor tenure at a large suburban church, the committee seeking a full-time clergyperson for the Shoreside Park Faith United Independent Church had called Mark to pastor this flock.

Now married four years and childless though wishing children of their own, Mark and Dorothy opened their hearts and home to three orphaned children of mixed parentage ranging in age from six to eleven. All three children had the same mother now deceased due to an accident behind the wheel while drunk but each father was a different one-night stand taking advantage of a drunken woman of uncertain morals. The other two girls were Andrea and Duane’s three and five-year-old girls.

Duane and Andrea stood out from most of the mixed nude and textile congregation, not for their nudity, but as they had declared themselves ‘complete absolutes’; as such they wore no jewelry and had laser removal of every follicle of hair from their bodies, leaving both bald from head to toe. When Andrea had left the order one of her exit penalties had been an order to shave head to toe. She found she enjoyed the freedom and a wealthy friend from college had, as a wedding present, given her the laser depilation treatments. Duane followed her about a month later, having grown weary of shaving himself daily.

“What, then, are the idols that separate us from our spiritual wholeness? How may we overcome them and become the complete beings the Almighty wishes us to be? Let us look together at these issues as we look at the Tikkun Olam, the healing and restoring of the world.” Mark was midway into his sermon and Waif had begun paying attention again after drifting off into her own thoughts, “We, the caretakers of this world have allowed it to spoil by turning away from the One Plan of the Almighty and allowing our idols to distract us from the work at hand.

“Each of us, in prayer, needs to repent of our individual idols. Idols, you ask, what are our idols? What do you spend the most time on? Is it important or is it a diversion in your life from the closer contemplation of the true meaning the almighty has for you and your world?

“Watch too much television or play too many hours of video games? A great many of the young folks may be squirming in the pews if they think of those distractions, and I remind you a distraction is an idol.

“Do you spend so much time at your employment that you neglect your family and its needs? You justify that by saying, ‘Pastor, I’m providing the money so they have the things they want,’ and you are correct; however, think on this, are the things they want the things they need, or are they idols that you with your paycheck enable your family to covet?”

“New cars can be idols. Clothing and jewelry can be idols, many of us when we chose the path of committed nudity or absolutism came to realize our investment in fashion trends was money better spent on the needs of the world around us. To some job promotions and advancement can also be an idol. Before I took this position as your shepherd I asked in prayer was this an ego move that would turn this building and all of you into an idol distracting me from my calling as a servant or was this flock where the Almighty wished me to be of service, to lead you away from temptation and into the good pasture with good water we spoke about last week when we opened up Psalm 23 and looked at it.

“If what you are doing is taking time away from what you know you should be doing for the good of others and the Creator, then what you are doing is an idol. Dorothy and Andrea, my wife and her best friend held a youth retreat on the beach early Saturday morning. Many of the youth of this church are ‘water babies’, surfing, swimming, sailing, and fishing are ingrained in the fiber of this community. It makes its money as a haven for those seeking the serenity and tranquility of a seaside haven.

“Dorothy reported to me later, “The waves were coming in, in sets of four, the mid swells were averaging five feet and the break was to the south with a north-east breeze,” Mark paused while most of the congregation laughed, giggled or in two cases snorted, “Dorothy knows naught about wind, wave, or water. She does recognize when something else in a youth’s life is more important to them than the task at hand. That is the very definition of an idol in my dictionary.

“So, the recommended reading for all of you this week is what our Jewish neighbors call the Tikkun H’Klali, the ten psalms that by recitation at the recognition of an idol or sin in your life should be recited to ask the Almighty to forgive your sinful pursuits, Psalm 16, 32, 41, 42, 59, 77, 90,105, 137,150.

“Also my friends, seek the truth in your hearts and if there is that one something that keeps you from the service of a servant of our Creator, then pray for that idol to be cast away and the time and energy devoted to it be spent in humble service to those in need around you.”

A short benediction and the service ended. The early flock, usually the larger of the services in the summer as those who worked in town catering to the vacationers as well as those vacationing had other plans for the rest of the day.

Waif turned to her mother and said, “I really like this new pastor. He makes sense and I learn more about living life from him than ever before.”

“I, for one, cannot disagree,” Katherine responded and Ruth nodded affirmation, “Just his charge to look into what might be blocking our spiritual awareness showed his desire for us to learn and grow into better servants serving others, as he puts it.”

Ruth added,” I liked what he said last week about submitting without becoming submissive.” She paused and added after a moment’s reflection, “Waif is an example of that as are all the children and adults who have shed their clothing in Shoreside Park. We have become empowered by the very act that most would see as an act of submission. By baring our bodies to the world and accepting the vulnerabilities our nakedness creates, we each become stronger as individuals, as a family, and society.

“The vacationing textiles that shed their clothing and ‘parties naked’ lose the true meaning of the lifestyle. It is not about showing off for sexual display or enticement. No, it is rather the spiritual connectivity of the bared body and soul to the oneness of the world we exist in and seeks to improve.”

“Well, philosophy and spirituality aside, Mom and Gramma, I need to meet the rest of the guards for our workout before we open the beach,” Waif kissed each older woman on the cheek and called over to Rita, Amy, and Tammy, “Hey, Bugs, I’ll be in tower four today, I’m working with JoAnne so bring enough in the cooler for both of us to share, okay?”

The younger girls had the task when Waif was working to bring her lunch and cold drinks from home. Most weekdays Waif manned a tower alone, but on busy weekends such as this week, the guards worked in teams of two with a dune buggy riding roving patrol to assist as a backup if needed.

“Okay, Waif, we’ll use the wagon and the large cooler. Would you rather have iced Tea or seltzer today?” Rita called back and the twins argued whether bacon, lettuce, and tomato on whole wheat bread or salami, provolone, and pepperoni on Italian bread were better lunch choices for the guards.

“Some of each if you would? Remember that in case the sandwiches have to sit out a while if we get busy, no mayonnaise on them, okay?” Waif called back and Rita nodded her head indicating she understood.

JoAnne Puglia was on the sand stretching when Waif arrived. “Hey, what kept you? Our run and swim starts in five minutes.”

“I went to church with the family, Jo, and came straight here from there when services ended. Whale leaves for school this afternoon and it was my last chance to be with the whole family until I leave for freshman orientation the last week of August.” Waif explained.

“So, are you going to marry that great hunk of naked manhood, or are you just going to live in sin at school?” JoAnne teased.

“If he’ll have me with all of my genetic flaws, knowing we can never have children, I will happily marry him. Right now, with his sister and Mom living with My FAMILY, it is like we are a huge extended family. I would not want to crap on that relationship for any reason, Jo, for the twins and my mom’s sake as well as Whale and Rita and Ruby. Come on, let’s get the run in then we can swim back to our tower. The twins are bringing lunch later so don’t worry about that, okay?” Waif ended as she jogged into her run warming up as she went.

JoAnne Puglia was a true sight to behold, three steps in front of Waif on the half-mile run down the beach. JoAnne refused to go nude when on duty, preferring to wear the traditional nylon one-piece red female style guard swimsuit made famous by Farrah Fawcett and the Bay Watch girls. She had the soft rounded body of southern Italian heritage, firm not fat but curvy nonetheless. The cut of the suit high on the hips left a Brazilian-style bottom to her suit, one that barely covered JoAnne’s derriere when she was not on the move and one which had now completely disappeared into the crack of her behind leaving a pseudo thong in its place. Waif laughed to herself as she drew even to JoAnne and saw the sway of the girl with whom she was partnered as her generous C-cup breasts tried to escape the relatively low-cut top of the red suit.

As JoAnne cut to her left and plunged into the surf, her breasts finally escaped their confinement. Waif dove into the waves just behind JoAnne and as she rose to the surface was confronted with the small scrap of nylon fabric floating in front of her. Oblivious or ignoring the fact she was nude, JoAnne was freestyling her way up the beach aided by a following current. Knowing the suit clutched in her hands would slow her down Waif tossed the suit onto the beach and carried on with her swim.

Reaching the tower at which they were stationed, Waif stroked to shallow water, stood, and waded out of the surf line onto the shore. JoAnne was nowhere to be seen. Waif turned to find her partner still neck deep in the surf, and she was calling Waif to her.

“What’s wrong, Jo?” Waif responded.

“I’m naked,” came the reply from the water.

“Can’t hear you, the waves are too loud, come here and tell me,” Waif responded.

Shouting loud enough to alert every sunbather on the strand, JoAnne bellowed, “I’m NAKED!”

Whistles and cheers came from the small crowd on the beach many of whom were full-season regulars and had hoped since May when the beach opened that JoAnne would finally relent and guard in the nude as did eight out of ten of the guards on the beach this year.

Molly Malloy pulled up on the ATV with a Guard Supervisor decal on it and had a surfboard on a roll bar rack and a rescue can secured to the front a full EMS kit residing where the rear seat would be in a civilian dune buggy.

“JoAnne, get out of the water and on your tower, Waif cannot run this beach by herself today.” The teacher/guard supervisor demanded.

Slowly, and reluctantly a very embarrassed JoAnne Puglia emerged from the surf. The cold water and perhaps fear had puckered the nipples of her breasts into pencil eraser stiffness. The tattoo of a triskele entwined in a heart just above her pubic area pointed to a completely denuded pair of tightly closed nether lips. Her head bowed so her gaze was at her toes and not at the people on the beach she shuffled up to Molly and Waif and sputtered, “I lost my uniform suit in the surf, how can I work today,” and began to wrack dry sobs from her chest.

“The same way we all do, sweetie, and the first day is always the toughest on us,” Molly told her subordinate, “Just smile carry your rescue can, and wear the grease penciled GUARD on your arm and leg. By the end of this shift, you will wonder why you never allowed yourself to work this way before. Am I correct, Waif?” Molly asked her young friend.

“Honestly, I cannot imagine ever wearing a swimsuit again, Molly, now that I’ve been nude for a year. Besides that, who wants nasty white patches of skin to break up the perfect tan of a summer on the beach?” Waif added. “Think of not having to use body makeup to cover white spots when you want to wear a formal or a sundress at school.” Waif winked at Molly at that one. If JoAnne fit the profile, once you got her working au naturel she would become a consenting nudist with only the tan lines from her sandals to worry about ever again.

“One of you has to explain this to my Mom if she comes down to the beach today, promise me you will? I have honestly wanted to try this, but my parents think nudity and sexuality are the same thing and drilled into me and my sisters that only hookers run around naked.” JoAnne chattered out her nervousness making her shiver despite temperatures in the mid-eighties.

By the time Waif’s twin sisters and Rita Richards wheeled the cooler chest to the side of the lifeguard tower, JoAnne had completely forgotten her nudity. A lost six-year-old safely returned to her mother, a skimboarder with a foot cut open on a broken sea shell and an older gentleman knocked down by a wave and struggling to get back up had occupied her full attention.

The older gent remarked with a grin, “Nice ink, sweetie, my late wife had the same tattoo but it was on her left butt cheek.” No one remarked about her nudity, though the lost child’s mother mentioned a reapplication of sunscreen on slightly pink parts.

The girls took turns eating and watching their water. Molly came by at two o’clock to give them bathroom breaks and at six p.m. they closed their tower and ended their shift for the day. Tipping the chair down, signifying the beach was closed as the guards were off duty, the two girls walked up the beach toward beach control headquarters.

Loretta was working the control desk. She looked up at Waif and JoAnne and reported, “Someone turned in a red Tyr one-piece suit they found in the surf line near tower seven. Are you missing something like that, JoAnne?”

“Possibly,” she took the suit and looked at it, “Mine didn’t have all these holes and rips in it though.”

“Oh, the owner had to wrestle it out of his Labrador retriever’s mouth,” Loretta reported matter of factly.

JoAnne grinned and dropped the ruined suit into the waste bin beside the communications desk in the lifeguard office. “Well, if Mom asks I can honestly tell her the dog ate my suit and I HAD to spend the day nude.” Loretta and Waif laughed with her at that, as both had spent the summer naked as JoAnne now found herself.

The three guards walked off the beach and onto the street where Waif had Whale’s beloved Jeep Comanche pickup truck, lovingly restored to mint condition by Whale and his dad before the fatal crash that took his father’s life and his mother’s legs, now left for her use until she, too, departed for PFIT where freshmen were not permitted automobiles. “Come on, then, I’ll give you both a ride home,” Waif told her friends.

“Drop me first, please,” JoAnne asked and then quietly asked if the two other girls could walk her in so that her mother would maybe react less angrily seeing JoAnne nude for the first time in public.

Mrs. Puglia met the trio at the door when she heard the truck pull up.” JoAnne why are you bare?”

“Hi, Mrs. P,” Waif interjected, “She had a bit of trouble with a large dog while on duty and her suit got ruined. Ms. Malloy had her finish her shift this way so the beach would not be shorthanded. We are very grateful to her for making such a big sacrifice and knowing you might disapprove. But she really was needed today.” Waif went on to explain about the lost child and the old man in trouble in the surf.

“Oh,” JoAnne’s mother softened a bit, “You girls are always naked, why is that?”

The older woman laughed hearing the story of how Waif came to be a full-time nudist and how as the granddaughter of Ruth Andrews she had become the benchmark for the newly passed clothing-optional clothing-free ordinances of Shoreside Park. “And no I am not promiscuous as a result, though I am in a monogamous relationship with my boyfriend, who is away at college football camp now.”

“I met Waif when she was posing as a twelve-year-old to cover for her being stripped bare by the ocean; I was there when that happened, actually. I became friends with Waif and gradually accepted the clothing-free life after it became legal. I also attend high school nude and will be a senior this next September. I am also not promiscuous, Mrs. Puglia, I am a virgin and intend to stay that way for a good long time.” Loretta added.

“I was at the eleven o’clock service to hear Pastor Dunn preach, I saw his wife sing naked in church and I saw him lead the service naked save for his stole around his shoulders. I spoke to many people clothed or not and I am having my eyes opened to the fact that clothed or naked God is present and working in good people’s hearts and minds. The shame should be in and on those people who pervert nudity in lust and seek to use permissiveness for perversity.” Mrs. Puglia said with a sigh in her voice. “I said to JoAnne when she spent her birthday money on that tattoo that it would turn her into a tramp because in my mind only a tramp got a stamp on her body like that.

“Well, I was wrong about the tattoo and I guess I may be wrong about public nudity as well. But I am worried that your sisters will want to follow your example, JoAnne.” Her mother concluded.

“Mom, you know that Fabiola will be spending a month nude for school this year, and Carmella as an eighth grader has many classmates already going clothing free. The only example I can set for them is the acceptance of what they have as beautiful and to embrace themselves as more than clothing and jewelry and fads.” JoAnne told her mother, “And who knows maybe after the summer, I may want to wear clothing again once in a while, or not or maybe never go nude again or not, but I have the choice. Like Waif keeps telling me, this is the house you live in if you are proud of your house you don’t hide it under a huge tarpaulin where no one can see it.”

A dialogue ongoing between mother and daughter, Loretta and Waif excused themselves and left the Puglia family to plan a future befitting life in Shoreside Park.

WAIF AND WHALE AT PFIT 1ST SEMESTER: Storm Orphans

As with many colleges and universities, the name by which the institution is known in the public domain is not the name on the official documents. PFIT started as the Philadelphia Fashion Industries and Technologies Institute. It began as a two-year institution, training young women to cut fabric, match patterns, and stitch and sew fine garments for the Pennsylvania upper crust of society.

Girls graduating from the two-year institute found employment in the households of the wealthy as dressers and seamstresses. A few, a very lucky few, became the owners of the Main Line couture shops to which the rising middle class flocked for wedding and formal wear.

As industrialization replaced hand craftsmanship, the institute began adding engineering courses and admitting men so that the new factory machinery could be designed, maintained, and upgraded. PFIT attained college status and began granting four-year degrees in the 1920s. When a graduate of the Wharton School became chancellor of PFIT in the 1930s, a course of study in business management was added to the curricula. Further expansion via endowments from graduates who achieved success in their lives added fine arts, theater arts, and technical theater and a humanities department that tied anthropology, sociology, and psychology to fashion and the arts.

Now, officially, The Greater Pennsylvania University of Fashion, Fine, Industrial, and Theatrical Arts, granted degrees up to and including the Doctorate of Fine Arts and is well respected for the sculptors, painters, musicians, and yes, fashion designers, churned out by its educational system.

Perhaps, but only perhaps, PFIT is also famous or infamous for being one of the rising number of, and one of the first, campuses that are clothing optional and for some subjects nudity required.

Wendy Ann Ingrid Farrell walked through the halls of her dorm clad as she always was, save for the required sandals to protect her feet, au naturel. No one noticed, as eighty percent of the males and females on her dorm floor were similarly nude. What had begun as the lifestyle model movement a decade before had now become the norm. The odd-clad student usually reflected a commuter or a work-study semester student who in their forays into the community needed to be clothed to meet community standards.

Nude did not mean unadorned to the students of PFIT. Body jewelry is prominently on display in nasal, ear, belly, nipple, and genital piercings as part of the college experiment toward maturity and possible rebellion against parental stricture and structure, is very evident among the lower class students, freshmen, and sophomores not being readily tempted to the permanent body changes scarring branding, and tattooing bring. Several students adopted the ABSOLUTE look, both male and female removing all hair from their bodies including their heads.

Others adapted to the HIRSUTE style and allowed all body hair to grow without trimming or cutting. Consenting Nudists, such as the commuters living in less liberal off-campus communities or at home, would arrive on campus clothed and strip for class and university activities. These folks both faculty and students would clothe themselves before leaving campus.

TEXTILE students and faculty tended to be those who aspired to and who taught clothing design and theatrical costuming. As Heidi Klum said in her commencement address the year before, “If everyone was nude twenty-four/seven, there would be no Project Runway and I would be out of work, both as a model and a host.” The comment drew a big laugh from the audience.