THE OFFICIAL OUTFIT OF SUMMER

SUNLIGHT TUESDAY

Some mornings it's nice to wake up with the sun. Warm light against skin leads to touches. A great way to start the day.

COASTAL COLD

It's so much cooler on the coast. Along HWY 101, tourists pull off at the scenic veiwpoints. They get out of their cars and walk to the fence, look out at the Pacific. Someone with a camera holds it up, and the other person knows what to do. Look at the camera, smile, wait for the click. The wind off the ocean, cold, salty, bracing.

FLASHBACK

You have to understand that before the digital cameras and the internet and cel phones, taking nude photos was totally different. First, it cost money for film and developing, and then, when you dropped off your film for processing, you'd have to wait a week. If the lab decided the film was lewd, it could confiscate it. You never knew if a prude got your print and destroyed it, or if some geeky part-time employee found it and took it for his own onerous purpose. In any case, Polaroids were teh only way one could be sure the pictures were kept private. Sending them, was another story. They couldn't be emailed or texted like today, but had to be mailed.

In college, my girlfriend and I attended different schools. Before cel phones, long distance was ridiculously expensive. Before emails, our only contact was letters. We'd see each other on breaks and fuck like bunnies, trying to pack in all the sex to last us another few months. This only served to make the breaks even more unbearable. Our letters became the primary outlet of our pent up sexual frustration. I was an English major and would pen detailed erotica for her. She was an art major and would sent sketches of us in various positions.

This is a side note, but before the 1990s, women did not shave their public hair. Sure most trimmed up the bikini lines, but bushes were thick and full. Once the '90s hit, shaving not only became the trend, it became the norm. This last generation has not grown up with bushes. But my generation did. They had big bushes as did each generation before them, and so the idea of shaving off one's pubic hair was so radical and so totally uncommon, that it became for many boyfriends, the ultimate sexual fantasy.

So, to wait weeks between letters, to get an occasional sketch or even better a polaroid, was how we had a sex life back in college. It was a thrill to see a new letter in the mail box, to save it all day in my book bag, waiting through class to go back to the dorm room to open it in private. How shocked, overwhelmed, and turned on I was to find a new polaroid enclosed. This latest one showed my girlfriend on her dorm room bed, leaning back on her pillows, her legs spread. My eyes went immediately there, and instead of seeing her tuft of sandy blonde curls, I saw bare, freshly shaved skin. It was the first time I'd ever seen a woman shaved bare. It would remain for the rest of my life, the most indelible and most erotic, and most romantic gesture.

Of course, at the time, I masturbated so often and so hard to that photo, it never crossed my mind that Polaroids don't have self-timers. When we were together it never occurred to me someone must have taken the photo. Was it her roommate? Another guy? College was a time of sexual experimentation and awakening. Clearly my girlfriend was making more strides forward, faster, than I'd even realized.

BACK TO NATURE

There is something about camping that makes people revert to their animal nature. In all the millions of years of human history, it's only been a few generations of electricity and indoor plumbing. Something about sleeping on the ground, not showering, cooking over an open stove. And all the sensory of bird songs, pine pitch, cold night air, and dew at dawn. People start smelling, looking, more wild. No showers, women stop shaving, let hair sprout again. Get on all fours, want to be mounted. And the men, barbaric, take them.

OUR PRIVATE YEARBOOK

My high school girlfriend was the photo editor of the yearbook. I'd stop by after track practice as she finished up printing. I watched with great curiosity as the images slowly appeared in the developer tray. She showed me each step of the black and white darkroom, setting the timer on the enlarger, making test strips, and the three trays filled with developer, stop, and fixer. She even let me try, and soon I'd gotten the hang of it.

Let's do some nudes, I suggested. Where? she asked. Here, I said. She wasn't the only one with a key to the yearbook darkroom, but since it was a darkroom, anyone would knock before opening the door. Still, it was dangerous, and getting caught could mean suspension, or even getting expelled. The darkroom was small and cluttered, so we hung a sheet for a backdrop. It wasn't exactly professional looking, but it helped, and in truth, we were both so turned on that photography wasn't the first thing on our mind. She stripped quickly and began to pose. Our hearts were racing with the excitement of taking nude photos and the danger of getting caught at any second. I snapped a few photos, trying to concentrate on the art, but sporting a hard boner in my track shorts. She could plainly see my excitement and was wet herself. She tugged me onto her and we made love then and there in the darkroom on the floor. It was fast and passionate, and when we were done, we quickly dressed and returned the sheet.

It was the only time we made love in the darkroom, but the pictures remain as a wonderful reminder.

KNOTTY

When I was in high school, I earned money mowing lawns for the rich people who lived in Lake Oswego. I always wondered what really happened inside the large homes, if the people were really happy with all their trappings of material success, or if they were (as I suspected) that much more bored. I never found out, but I did learn that even rich housewives like to suntan nude. Through a wooden fence, I could spy through a knot in one of the planks, which afforded a clear view to the neighbor's pool patio. If this were a Penthouse Letter, the story would entail the house wife catching me and then forcing me to have sex to keep me quiet, and it'd be a coming of age story. But of course, that's not how it happened. I watched without being obvious; she never knew. I saw her nakedness and fantasized about her seducing me, and that was all. But it was enough. What I wouldn't give to be that innocent age again, peeking through the fence.

SHOWER SHAVER

WYOMING OPEN

This is what 30-something wives do in Wyoming. Husbands may be rancher, roughneck, road crew, smoke jumper. Gone on site for weeks, the driving distances measured in 100s of miles. The lady's gotta entertain themselves somehow. In Wyoming there are so few people that large tracks of land are still technically classified as "frontier" by the US Census Bureau. Marriages last or they don't. Folks grow up with graduating high school classes of a dozen students. The lines of who dates who cross and cross again.

SKINNY DIPPING WITH FRIENDS

Skinny dipping is always more fun when shared with friends!

THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS

AMERICAN CLASSICS

STAR SPANGLED

Oh say can you see
by the dawn's early light
what so proudly we hailed
at the twilight's last gleaming...
Happy birthday America!

WOOD PANEL

THE GRASS IS ALWAYS GREENER