Half Naked Truths
While taking a shower this morning, I was thinking about now that I’m a mom, what kind of advice I will be giving my child. Throughout my childhood, my mother was always giving some kind of advice. There is one quote of hers that helped me out on two different scenarios. Ironically, both included a lake, the cops, and me being naked (technically half-naked). Her advice was this, “If you’re up to no good and the cops come around, YOU RUN. You don’t sit around to get caught, no. You always run from the cops” Now, I know this doesn’t sound like “the best” advice, but my mother knowing me and teenage shenanigans, running always did seem to be the better than the latter.
The first scenario of this advice paying off happened somewhere around my Sophomore or Junior year of High School. It was just the beginning of the school year and we were soaking up the final days and nights of the “Indian Summer”. I recall myself, four of my girlfriends and then four or five other guys smashed into this old rusted station wagon. The driver named his vehicle the “wa-shtion-stagon” due to the endless amounts of beer cans consumed while wandering around the gravel roads that surrounded our small town. On this endless summer of nights, we were trying to find the gravesite of “Mary Anne Twenty” known for a little girl who died many decades ago. Mary was known to wander in her white gown at night around her gravesite, which was under some big oak tree next to a lake. Or maybe it was next to a large field off of an abondoned farm site . See, the problem was, we weren’t quite exactly sure how the story went or how to find her gravesite, so we ended up next to a lake drinking beers in the moonlight. Soon enough one of the teenage boys had the bright idea of going skinny dipping. His argument stating, “it IS almost the end of summer after all”. Myself being quite the free spirit, got into the water, while keeping my underwear on. (Note: I always keep my underwear on while skinny dipping due to my weird phobia about NOT having underwear on while in a body of unclean water). Anyway, so there we are half-way-nake, in a lake, drinking cheap beer. Suddenly we see this car slowly coming down the long gravel road that led to the lake. As it approached we could see that this car was indeed in the shape of a cop car. Turned out it was the shape of the County Sheriff car. In this sudden moment of panic, all I could hear in my head was my mother saying, “You don’t sit around and wait to be caught, you run”. So run I did. My final memory of this night was me crouching next to the cattails that ran along the shoreline and the flashlight from the sheriff just missing to expose my half-naked teenager self hiding below them.
The second senario happened about ten years later. This time in the big ol’ city of Minneapolis. There was a spot known as “Hidden Beach” which wasn’t really hidden at all and where local hipsters and hippies would go to bask in the sun and do things at their leisure without the pressures of society breathing down their back, man. Anyway, this time I am hanging on my porch with my bandmate and his girlfriend. It was a scorcher of an evening and we were sipping on more gin than juice and more than likely slamming potentially the same kind of cheap beer from my previous story. It came to the point where hanging on the porch was no longer adventurous enough and we needed to do something more “exciting”. I presented them with the idea of going to Hidden Beach, and as it turned out, the bandmates girlfriend had never been there so we HAD to go. And we had to jump in my car to get there. Soon enough we found Hidden Beach and this time stumbbled upon the scene of a small gathering of people already naked in the lake. Looking back at this night, there is a slight possibility that we unknowingly crashed some kind of swinger, naked party, but then again we will never know. All I recall is that everyone was naked under the moonlight and so we started making our way into the lake (me again with at least my underwear on). This time there wasn’t any cop car slowly creeping down a long gravel road. Nope. This time, the lights went off and SURPRISE everyone was “busted”. Once again, my mothers advice entered my brain. “RUN”. For a moment I watched all the naked bodies that looked somewhat like drunk zombies slowly trudge their way onto the shore to collect their evening ticket. I, however, dipped under the water and swam as far as I could with one breath towards the middle of the lake. And I stubbornly stayed there treading water, until the final cop car left. Soon enough I found myself amongst the cattails along the shoreline, making my way back to my summer dress and car keys. I looked and looked and could not seem to locate them anywhere. So there I stood on Hidden Beach in my underwear, with no clothes or keys. One would think I’d be mortified and maybe I slightly was until by the graces of God; a pile of towels. I grabbed the larger of the two, wrapped myself up, and took off running. [End scene: blonde girl running down city street barefoot with just a towel wrapped around her].
If there is any moral of this story: Listen to your mom.
If I had always listened to her, I would had never jumped in the station wagon and I would had never been at Hidden Beach at night. But by the graces of God, I have been able to bless you with my stories of half naked truths.