In
this issue:
We Lost the
Small Piece of Land
AANR Considers
Reorganization
College Group
Forms at Valdosta
Why I became a
naturalist - Paul's story
Why I became a
naturalist - Jamie's story
THANKS,
from Sunny Oaks Haven Nudist Club/RV
Park
Announcements
Calendar
of Up Coming Events-Pool party at Cal &
Jennifer's
The Lake is
Available Every Weekend ALL Year
Tallahassee Naturally is a non-profit
organization dedicated to the advancement of naturist
recreation in north Florida and nearby areas. The club is an
affliate member of both the Naturist Society
and the American Association for Nude
Recreation.
Bare and Free is the official
quarterly newletter of Tallahassee Naturally. It is alos
available through e-mail by contacting us at tbaredev@tfn.net. Articles
appearing in Bare and Free may be reprinted by other
naturist publications, provided that credit is given. Photos,
however, may only be reprinted with written
permission.
Club members are encouraged to submit
ariticles, news items, and photos for publication. Please
address all submission to: Tallahassee Naturally, P.O. Box
6866, Tallahassee FL, 32314 or To the Editor, 502 Airport
Drive, Tallahassee, FL, 32304 or smithj7@yahoo.com.
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We Lost the Small Piece of Land For almost three years, we
have been trying to buy two adjoining pieces of land near Lloyd. The
smaller one has now been sold, and somebody is building a house on
it. It had beautiful home sites with big trees, a small pond, and a
building that could have served as a temporary clubhouse.
The
remaining piece of 17 acres has a bigger pond, a well, and
electricity--but no building. Two lots crowded with smaller trees
could possibly serve as home sites, leaving room for eight
trailers--one of which would probably be for the
caretaker.
The board is now considering whether we are still
interested in the 17 acres, with no hope of ever expanding. We have
always been aware of a long expensive fence line between the two
properties.
The loss is filled with ironies. Three years ago,
we had an investor willing to buy the small piece completely, but he
got scared off by quarrelsomeness.
A year ago, we were just
$2,000 from agreeing on a price to buy that same small piece. But we
pulled back when we realized that renewals were not coming in as
expected, and we no longer had the membership base to support the
mortgage payments.
But we kept working on the project until
we figured out a way to bypass the banks and buy land through
investors. We needed just one more investor to make an offer on the
small piece. So we advertised in The Bulletin. An investor called
us--two days after we learned the land had already been sold. We
have not heard from enough investors to buy the larger
piece.
The board will be re-examining all of our
options--including our second, third, and lesser choices of land.
Once the board can make some recommendations, there will probably be
a membership meeting to decide where we go now.
Time is
running short. The offer of $15,000 in matching funds from the
Thalheimer estate expires at the end of
January.
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AANR Considers ReorganizationThe American
Association for Nude Recreation is considering the biggest
reorganization in fifty years--one that would eliminate the regions
(such as FANR). The rationale is that the organization has grown two
big for volunteer efforts, and should rely on the full-time people
at the AANR office. The AANR president would be downgraded to a
one-year chairman limited to two terms. The Board of Trustees would
retain ultimate authority--with 4 of the 14 seats reserved for the
very biggest clubs that paid $3,000 or more for the
privilege.
The plan calls for clubs--as well as members--to
pay membership dues. Our current level of involvement would cost
$100, and would probably mean higher AANR fees for our club
members.
Though a lot of thought went into it, the plan comes
without warning, and too late for any friendly amendments before the
AANR convention in August. Some clubs around the country are
complaining about feeling stampeded.
Details have been hard
to come by. Paul has been asking, and so far the answers sound
reassuring. We read that the seven regions would be redrawn into
seven districts of equal population. That sounded like splitting
Florida, and taking Tallahassee out of the state. But we have been
assured that Florida will not be split. Though the plan made no
mention of student rates (which our club worked for years to
establish), we are told that they will remain unchanged.
Some
of Paul's other questions have gone unanswered--such as what clout
the members will still have, other than waiting two years to vote
somebody out of office. He has questioned why any club would pay to
send a delegate to a convention where nothing is decided except the
winners of sports trophies. And he has questioned the wisdom of
limiting candidates to the self-proclaimed, rather than having a
nominating committee seek out the most qualified.
Depending
on the additional answers we get, we may have to send a delegate to
the AANR convention in Tennessee this August. A question-and-answer
period is scheduled at the end of the FANR convention in June, but
nothing will be decided there. We had not planned to attend that
one.
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College Group Forms at ValdostaWe have
been contacted by an internet discussion group called Valdosta State
University Naturists: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/VSUnaturist/.
They have about 40 members--most of them students from this area.
(Anyone under the age of 30 is invited to join.)
The
organizer attended our Greek Athletic Meet last year, and visited
our lake again later in the summer. He has been trying to organize a
group visit, but so far, the group has been mostly talk and no
action. We are inviting them to join us at our next Full-Moon
Skinny-Dip.
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Why Am I a
Naturist?--Paul
Reporters frequently ask me why people
become naturists. My answer is that few people join a naturist
organization for a single reason; it has to make sense for several
reasons before they try it.
I have no memory of a traumatic
first naturist experience. I didn't become a naturist; I was born
naked. I believe most others were too, but somehow the continuity of
their lives got broken. In my case, my mother used to set the big
wash tubs in the back yard, to heat in the sun on hot summer days.
There was a bare-butt photograph of me and my sister getting into
the tubs at about ages 3 and 4.
That same pair of tubs served
for mixed bathing in the kitchen on Saturday nights. First my little
brother and sister, then me and the sister near my age, then my
parents. My parents' bedroom had a huge double door that was never
closed. The outhouse was a two-seater. My grandparents' wealthier
family had a three-seater. So far as I know, that was the way most
people lived in the countryside. We got an indoor bathroom just
before I reached puberty, so I don't know how much longer the old
arrangement would have continued.
Two creeks joined on our
farm. Unfortunately, the water dried up to a trickle during the warm
months, so real swimming was impossible. I remember a hot day when I
was six, and my father sent me and my sister to take off our clothes
and lie down in the cool water. For me at least, that cooling-off
method worked all the way through high school and college. I also
discovered that when the huge cornfields grew tall, I could take off
my clothes and go native in my own jungle. There were few spare
moments in busy farm life; those moments had to be
savored.
At age nine, I discovered the thrill of sleeping
nude. But public nudity was an entirely different thing. Once a week
during the summer, the school bus would take us to a lake. I
remember the changing room. With my shirt hanging down around me, I
would face into a corner and slip into or out of my swimsuit with
great speed. Then came pubic hair, and I was ready to show the
world. The pants came off first, and went on last. At this same age,
some boys decided the floor was dirty or wet, and insisted on
changing on top of the benches--at eye level. I never went quite
that far, but I had successfully passed the age of shyness.
I
read Walden at an early age, and realized the importance of living
simply in nature. I increasingly felt a near-religious awe of
nature--a respect that developed largely through my experience as a
Boy Scout. During the 1960s and '70s, no Boy Scout campout seemed
complete without a skinny-dip. I worked several summers at a camp
where we hustled the kids out Saturday morning, so there would be
time for a staff skinny-dip before we also left for the
weekend.
One summer, I worked at a camp in Ohio with a
separate staff beach. We skinny-dipped nearly every evening. On one
Saturday night, most of the younger staff members without cars were
stuck in camp--along with me, who lived too far away for a trip
home. So we dreamed up an adventure bolder than anything the older
staff could brag about. We stripped down, canoed across the lake to
the Girl Scout camp, and skinny-dipped in their swimming area. At
the Baptist camp down the road, parents came each Sunday morning for
a worship service. That morning they found a new camp sign: Body
Beautiful Nudist Camp. The cabins had cutsie nursery-rhyme names.
The one closest to the road was labeled "The Three Bears." We
altered that spelling. Parents enjoyed a good chuckle, but they
never could figure out who pulled that prank.
In 1970, I took
off traveling around the world. In Belize, the second country on my
itinerary, I first experienced skinny-dipping with a group of both
sexes. There were several other natural experiences in nature--from
Costa Rica, to Greece, to Australia.
Genealogy is today
researched mostly by computer. Back then, it meant filling the car
with cheap gas and driving across the country from county
courthouse, to township clerk's office, to overgrown cemetery.
Sometimes I stayed with new-found relatives; sometimes I camped
beside a creek in an abandoned woods. An open-air bath in the
morning, and I was on my way to another day of research. If I had
missed my morning bath, or if the day turned hot and sweaty (without
car air-conditioning), I could pull over by nearly any river and
bathe undisturbed under the bridge.
I had skinny-dipped in
eight countries and a dozen states before ever setting foot in a
nudist resort. That came in 1982, when I began doing dissertation
research at the American Nudist Research Library on the grounds of
Cypress Cove in Florida. My topic was the ancient Gymnosophists, or
naked philosophers of India. I was on my way back from Christmas
vacation, and it must have been the coldest day of the year.
Everyone was bundled up. I did see one nude elderly couple in the
dining room. I resolved that my next visit would be during the
summer. On that next visit, the librarian invited me to strip down
and jump in the pool. It all seemed so natural.
But I still
was not an official card-carrying member of any naturist
organization. That came in 1986. I was negotiating with The Naturist
Society on the publication of some of my research findings, when
they received an inquiry from Steve about starting a local naturist
group in Tallahassee. They asked me to check him out. Three of us
met for our first outing the next weekend, and that's how I became
one of the founding members of Tallahassee Naturally.
The
rest has been a history of public service. I got to be another
founder when the Florida Association for Nude Recreation formed in
1991. (I happened to come up with the name, which has since gone
national.) As state Education Chairman and national Youth Chairman,
I started the JFANR Camp--the longest-running youth camp in AANR
history, and now spreading nationwide.
Then I was prevailed
on to serve as local club president. It took me seven years to shake
off that job--during which time membership quadrupled from 32 to
131.
A thoughtful person has many interests. I have been free
to pursue most of them, but the freedom to live naturally demanded
an increasing portion of my time, because the current frontier of
individual liberty had been drawn there. My writing turned more and
more to nudity-related topics. The newly formed Naturist Education
Foundation asked me to direct a national task force that produced
Naturists: Upholders of Strong Family Values for distribution to
state and local lawmakers nationwide. In 1988, I started the "Art
Follows Nature" series on nude art that runs in Travel Naturally.
Fifteen years later, I am now writing my fiftieth article in that
series.
No, there was no sudden moment when I became a
naturist. It has all been a natural
continuity.
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Why Am I a Naturualist
As the editor, I
requested that folks share why they became a naturalist. Only one
person responded. However, since I asked others to share, that I
should tell you why I am a naturualist. I was pretty much raised in
a very strict fundamentalist home. (Yes, you took your shower with
your clothes on.) Plain and simple, nakedness had a direct
correlation to sex and therefore “bad” or “tainted”. I hadn’t given
much thought to the idea until I had my first child.
At that
point, I wanted to be sure that my first born would not feel
uncomfortable with his body. I didn’t want him to have the same
teaching that I was taught. However, at that point the idea of
naturalism had still not entered my mind.
Later, I was
blessed with a daughter. Her birth mom drank while she was pregnant
with my precious little lady and my daughter ended up with some
alcohol related brain damage. The area of the brain dealing with
judgment is affected by this prenatal disease. I learned from the
internet groups consisting of parents with kids who had similar
brain damage that many of these kids grow up and go to jail for
inappropriate sexual behavior and behaviors labeled as indecent
exposure.
What I saw was that my little lady did not like to
wear clothing and enjoyed being natural. She did not seem to know
WHEN it was OKAY and WHEN it was NOT OKAY to roap around the house
in her birthsuit. On internet list group, I would hear stories in
which parents were becoming distraught over situations that appeared
to me as perfectly innocent.
For example, one family had a
summer home in Michigan. There was a lake behind their house. Their
10 year daughter anxious to go swimming, peeled off her clothes and
jumped in the lake. Her parents were outranged and concerned wanting
our advice. I asked if there were other people around that were
offended. Their response was no, just the family. I secretly
wondered if the girl was a boy would they had been so upset. I
feared that these parents would teach their child what I had really
learned in my home – to hate my body.
Having known Paul for a
long time, I decided that I needed to introduce my little lady to
naturalism. She would have a place where she could feel comfortable
being free and unashamed. She could learn that we live in a society
that had people in it that felt uncomfortable with the naked body
and learn WHEN and WHERE rather than it is WRONG.
I know I
made the correct decision. As time went on and parents had the same
issue of their kids not wanting to wear clothes, I periodically
brought up naturalism as a lifestyle choice for their kids. I
learned that the Europeans who did not seem to have this complaint
already took their kids to nude beaches. A couple of Americans
e-mailed me privately and said that they had found had come to the
same conclusion but were to shy to let others on our list know that
they were nudist.
It is so sad, that often in the name of
modesty, we can make our kids feel uncomfortable about their bodies.
I didn't want to pass on that feeling to my children. So now you
know pretty much why I became a naturalist.
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THANKS, from Sunny Oaks Haven Nudist Club/RV
ParkWe want to thank everyone that came out to enjoy our
Memorial Day Weekend Cookout and let the others that were unable to
be here with us, know to make your plans for our next event. As many
of you already know new additions and improvements have enhanced the
park’s attractiveness. The new overnight trailers have come in very
handy over the holiday weekend. A single vacant RV site found good
use as a walk through from activity to activity and tents doted the
available spaces. The canopy pavilion and screen room filled by day
and by night. While the pool was crowded from time to time it was
constantly in use. Sunday brought the grill out with ribs and
chicken sufficient to stuff all. Baked beans, potato salad, and
assorted other contributions accented the feast. Florida, Georgia
and Alabama were represented. New friends from Tampa, South Florida,
Macon, Valdosta and many other locations were here.We are always
having a cookout and Karaoke singing/dancing every weekend, so come
and PARTY WITH US.We are a LEGAL zoned Private Nudist Club/RV Park
here in Suwannee County, in north central Florida close to I-75
& I-10, Live Oak,Fl. Stay abreast of activities from our web
page:
www.geocities.com/tom695us/nudist_lifestyles.html
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AnnouncementsThe lake will be
open on Friday afternoons during June, July, and
August.
Small group of members meeting month to make
suggestions for our website. Your input would be appreciated. E-mail
or call. Contact information on the website.
Needed articles
for newsletter. Some suggestions: Still would love to see stories
on: Why you became a naturalist (name not neccessary). Also read my
story. Their was a little 10 year old female that peeled off her
clothes and jumped into the lake. I feel her parents would not have
been as concerned if she were a boy - What do you think? Are girls
taught earlier that they should be modest?
The AANR park
guide, The North American Guide to Nude Recreation is now on sale at
the lake. The price is $13. This is a plain-text book without the
pictures of earlier editions--available at half the price.
We
may have been premature in withdrawing our recommendation of Navarre
Beach after it was designated a future parking lot for a state park.
(The state parks have been vehement against any nudity.) We are now
hearing reports that the park system has been slow to take over,
while the sheriff's department has somewhat backed off of land where
park rangers should have the authority. It's still a cat-and-mouse
game, but the game continues.
The Gator Sink was included in
the land St. Joe Paper Company sold to Wakulla
Springs.
Female nudists - Check out http://www.keeper.com/. A
suggested product that can allow, us females, to participate in nude
activities, including swimming and hot tubbing all month long with
no hassles and no messes.
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2003 Calendar of Up Coming
Events
June:
5-13 Nude U, Lake Como
near Tampa
8 Board meeting
8-13 JFANR camp, Lake
Como
13 Full-Moon Skinny-Dip. Call Paul at
222-1886.
13-15 FANR Convention, Lake Como
28 Pool party
at Cal & Jennifer's. Directions came in the e-mail
notifying you of this newsletter. Plan to arrive anytime after
3:00. We will eat around 7:00. Bring a dish to share.
29
Picnic. Grant will host.
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July
4 The lake is open,
starting at noon.
11 Full-Moon Skinny-Dip
11-13 National
Nude Weekend. Campout
13 Open House & board
meeting
26 Pool party at Doug's
27 Picnic & seminar.
Doug will host.
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Check
calendar updates on our web page:
http://www.tallanaturally.org
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