The Most Unusual Summer Job
A news item is making the rounds today, concerning the investigation of naturists (nudists) by child welfare. Unlike many of my esteemed broadcasting colleagues, I have first hand experience with the nudist lifestyle. This isn’t something I normally reveal unless there’s some form of drinking in the immediate vicinity.
I was a live-in employee at 4 Seasons Nature Camp in Freelton for several months between high school and college. My high school records got screwed up and I had to go back to get one more credit. I was so pissed off because it was a start-of-year semester, leaving me the second half of the year with nothing to do before my broadcasting course began at Niagara. I had already been accepted so I was faced with killing time. I’m not one to sit around idle, so I opened the paper, applied for the job in a blind ad, aced the interview and moved up to Freelton.
It was back-breaking work! The owners figured out how to stretch the work-day to 14-16 hours by plopping lots of 2 and 3 hour breaks in the schedule. I cleaned the sauna, I changed bedding, I washed down the work-out equipment, I was a short-order cook and a waitress in the fine dining room. My feet swelled up to twice their usual size and I was constantly exhausted. But I also got to see a kind of lifestyle most people only speculate about. (My parents weren’t thrilled, by the way. My Dad didn’t talk to me until I quit the job but my Mom was more curious than anything.)
Once you get over the fact that nearly everyone you see is starkers, they want you to believe it’s just another lifestyle choice, a freer one. Maybe it is for some, but the stories I could tell are not fit for this kind of public forum. I can guarantee you would absolutely not believe a few of my observations there. I’d feel like someone who took a ride on a UFO trying to convince her friends that it was real. No, I’ll keep those crazy tales to myself but I will offer three observations.
The lion’s share of the members were oblivious to each others’ naked parts and those who acted too interested, were asked to leave and given their money back. It was, indeed, very creepy to have little kids running around nude. And those people knew how to party – they dressed for weekend dances and dining!
I did not become a nudist. In fact, I unwittingly became a bit of a camp curiousity because I wouldn’t fall in line with the “norm”. Even my deeply religious and mousy female roommate eventually tossed off her knickers and got sunburns in strange places but I wasn’t interested. I observed it, I hung out with them (or rather, they hung out while I stayed tucked nicely in) I got to know them and I worked with them but I happily remained an outsider in their world.
