BARE AND FREE

On Saturday, August 9, the small pond next to our lake was the scene of a rare event.  A female deer stepped out of the underbrush and began drinking.  Then an alligator rose up and grabbed the deer by the head, pulling it under.  The deer squealed frantically as it struggled.  Suddenly a buck with a large rack of horns leaped into the water, reared up on its hind legs, and slashed the alligator several times with its forefeet, before his back legs began sinking in the ooze, and he had to concentrate on freeing himself.  Meanwhile, the alligator pulled the doe underwater, and it was not seen again.  Several members, including horrified children, watched the whole thing.  It was over in about a minute.

No one has ever tried swimming in the pond, because it is too shallow and too mucky.  We had never seen an alligator there before.  But we have frequently seen alligators this summer sunning themselves on the clay bank across our lake.  As usual, they have pretty much stayed away from people.

The next day after the deer incident was our board meeting.  We decided the time had come to call the state alligator removal service (which we had done once many years ago).  The hunters found nothing in the pond, but did take out one big alligator and two small ones from the lake.  That was the night before Tropical Storm Fay hit.

Thompson Valley Road flooded, blocking access to our land that weekend.  (Paul did hike the mile-and-a-half each way to make sure our new storage shed was still above water.)  The pond overflowed into the trees.  The lake, which had sunk to record low last summer, is now back up to normal.

We have not seen alligators in the weeks since.  Whether the hunters got them all, or whether they just left because they didn't like the high water, we don't know.  We do know that they move around from one body of water to another, and will return--probably someday soon.  We just go on, living in harmony with nature.

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Angel Attended Youth Ambassadors

This summer, Angel attended the AANR Youth Ambassador Program for people of college age at Cypress Cove near Kissimmee.  You remember Angel; he won the male athlete victory wreath at this year's College Greek Athletic Meet.  He carried his enthusiasm to the Youth Ambassador program, and the counselors loved it.

Shauna attended the program last year, and found new confidence.  This year's emphasis shifted to making clothed recruitment videos for posting on the internet.

Angel appeared in a clothed picture of the group in Tampa Naturally.  Then came a nearly full-page picture of him nude at the beach in Naturally magazine.

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Caliente Is No Longer Family-Oriented

Just four years after they opened, officials at the luxurious Caliente resort near Tampa decided they can no longer afford to operate as a family-oriented club.  So they are advertising for swingers.  (They received 100 new applications the day that news broke.)  When AANR officials began investigating and insisting on standards, Caliente withdrew from AANR.

This abrupt change came just a few months after the unexpected death of Chuck Foster, the guiding force behind the resort.

Residents who bought the expensive houses at Caliente feel betrayed.  Club officials told reporters that only a few residents were complaining.  Well, several hundred of those few have filed a court challenge for breach of promise.

One analyst wrote that Caliente fell victim to a bad business plan--building too close to Paradise Lakes while trying to attract the same type of people.  The borderline sexiness at Paradise Lakes has long worried traditional nudists.  After Caliente pulled out of AANR, you never heard such holier-than-thou talk from Paradise Lake officials.  They don't get to do that very often.

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Other Pasco County News

Doug, our treasurer for 14 years before he moved to Tampa, is now serving as treasurer of the Pasco Area Naturist Development Association.  Every three weeks, the group puts out a newspaper covering all of the AANR clubs in central Florida.  We have it at the lake.

Some members of the PANDA group are talking about building an assisted living place for aging nudists.  The need for such an option has come up before, but this time investors are giving it serious attention.

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We Hear From Our Neighbor Clubs

The Bay Bares, north of Panama City, called to announce that they are now open seven days a week.  They had been open only on weekends, like us.  And many winter weekends, they didn't open at all.  Because they had a heated (but smoke-filled) clubhouse, a hot tub, and a fire ring, we used to visit them each winter.  We gave up because of their erratic schedule.  We may try again this winter.

Hidden River, at McClenny over toward Jacksonville, got a two-page spread in the July AANR Bulletin.  In addition to their annual Nudie Blues Festival, they are making plans for a new-age event with lots of workshops next spring.

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There's Trouble in California

For decades, California State Parks operated by the Cahill Policy.  That meant no hassling of nude sunbathers and swimmers, unless somebody specifically complained.  On the rare occasions when that happened, the nudists were told to get dressed for the rest of the day.  The next day, they could be nude again.

Now the Park Service has announced that they are going to start arresting nudists at San Onofre State Park.  State law requires public hearings before any such change of policy.  The Naturist Action Committee of the Naturist Society took the Park Service to court, and won.  The judge said there must be hearings, and everything must meanwhile return to normal.  State officials say they will appeal that decision.  But when the Park Service failed to take down their No Nudity sign, NAC sued them a second time.

There is still the danger that California will hold hearings, then ignore them, just as the State Park System did in Florida.  That was in 1989.  They scheduled just one hearing--at Christmastime in Tallahassee--as inconvenient a time, and as far from most of the beach groups as they could get.  For the first time, Florida's resorts and beach groups acted together.  From the other end of the state, they converged on Tallahassee.  Thirty-nine people spoke at that hearing, and every single one of them spoke against the proposed nudity ban.  The Associated Press sent that news around the nation.  But when the proposal later came before the governor and cabinet, someone asked what had happened at the hearing.  The park official said, "Oh yes, somebody wrote in about bee-keeping, and we accommodated his concerns in the proposal."  It passed unanimously.

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Our Wish List Continues to Shrink

Thanks to the generosity of members like Deana and Paul C., equipment keeps showing up in our storage shed.  Special thanks go to new member Michael, who  donated a brand-new lawn mower.  We have now replaced most of the things lost in last year’s fire, but still lack these:

• folding stand
• badminton net
• games and toys
• books--including children's books
• gardening tools--axe, fork, hoe, grass sling, saws
• a few more kitchen utensils
• broom and dustpan
• swing set
• pair of handheld weights for Greek athletics

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Announcements

Now that our storage shed is filling up, we need to be careful about putting everything where it belongs.  Even if you are in a hurry and it's starting to rain, please take the time to put stuff where it belongs, so the next person doesn't have to do it for you.

Two of the three political candidates who visited our Open House are still in the running for November.  Watch for our next Voters' Guide.

A new group, Friends of Playalinda Beach, has taken up where the nearly defunct Central Florida Naturists left off.  None of the three Brevard County commissioners who voted for the infamous anti-nudity ordinance are running for re-election.  The club is openly backing three friendly candidates for those spots--as well as a new candidate for sheriff.

Our article in our last newsletter on Scott's housecleaning enterprise has been reprinted in the current issue of Naturally.  We have it at the lake.

Naturally is the same magazine where Paul's art history column ran for twenty years, until he closed it out this spring.  The magazine plans to publish those columns as a four-volume book.  Paul put his final touches on the manuscript a few weeks ago, but progress at the other end has been slow.

We have still not seen the full program for the Southern Naturist Gathering at Lake Como in October.  If you are interested in attending, talk with Paul.  This is the second attempt to hold a fall gathering.  There is always a bigger one at Sunsport Gardens near Loxahatchee each February.

Don’t forget that we have AANR and Naturist Society guidebooks to nude beaches and clubs on sale at the lake--now at sale prices.

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