What’s the deal with nudist colonies?
For the most part, those places should be closed down due to false advertising. When I was younger, nudist colonies were supposed to be a heavenly gateway to the female cast of “Baywatch” playing volleyball in the nude. I was with a small group of friends when we discovered the awful truth about these so-called “nude playgrounds.”
I remember hanging out at my house with a few friends when Billy Cottle showed up. Billy was cool: he had a huge 1981 Ford Lincoln town car. Billy’s version of a limousine was white with tan leather interior. There were several pieces of duct tape that held the passenger side headrest together. For some reason, to this day, those pieces of tape still haunt me. Billy stopped by to ask us if we wanted to go hang out at a nudist colony that was a few cities over from where we were. It seems that Billy had some kind of connection that would allow us total access to the place. Of course, we all jumped at the chance to go. In our young minds, this was a dream come true: "Baywatch" babes were waiting for us to arrive.
We all split up for about an hour to get cleaned up and ready to go. I had on my Sunday best: a Metallica “kill ‘em all” t-shirt, ripped up Levi jeans and a pair of Nike's. The long hair added that extra special touch needed to complete my heavy metal costume. We were on our way: four young dudes riding in Billy’s limousine headed for the Promised Land. As we pulled up to the gate, I noticed the giant privacy walls surrounding the compound. Numerous signs were nailed to the walls warning that anyone without permission to enter would be shot. No problem, Billy had a backstage pass for all of us.
Billy hit his horn a few times. After what seemed like forever, the gate slowly opened. “Oh no, who is that?” An old lady in a dirty house dress that looked like she just woke up to check the mail slowly approached the driver side of the car. “Can I help you boys with something?” Billy pulled out a piece of paper from his wallet and handed it to her. The dirty house dress lady looked into the car at all of us: “You boys better not be here to cause any problems.” I thought to myself, “Yeah, yeah, lady, open the gate.”
She slowly disappeared behind the gate. After a few minutes, the entire gate began to open. “Oh man, this is it!” As our limousine began to slowly enter heaven, the first individual that we encountered was a woman that must have been around eighty years old riding a bicycle with a huge basket on the front of it. We all sat in complete silence as Billy slowly drove by her. We soon came up to what looked like a clubhouse for the residents. The front of the structure looked abandoned and run down. We suddenly began to hear voices coming from the side of the building.
As our poor man’s limousine made the turn toward the voices, we noticed what appeared to either be a giant cloud of smoke or dust. Whatever it was, the voices were coming from inside of it. Unfortunately for us, it was dust. The reason for the dust is what made it so unfortunate. Billy slammed on the brakes. Once again, we sat there in complete silence. As some of the dust settled, we witnessed pure horror. We witnessed our broken dreams. Three very old men were playing horseshoes, naked. Well, not entirely naked. They were all wearing sandals. The one that really stood out was the overweight old man wearing sandals, a belt with a canteen attached to it, and a skipper's hat. I was the first one to break the silence.
I yelled out of from the back of the limousine: “What the hell? What is this? I don’t understand, where are the babes? Why do you have a belt on with no pants? Why does this headrest have duct tape on it?" I actually understood the canteen attached to the belt bit. It was hot outside and the guy was probably thirsty. But I didn’t understand the damn skipper’s hat. There wasn’t a boat in sight. We were nowhere near a lake or ocean. The skipper’s hat was making me angry.
At that point, another lady that looked to be around 90 years old came out of nowhere and asked all of us to join her inside her place for some drinks. I slapped Billy on the back of the head and screamed, “Drive, Billy! Get us out of here now!” Billy slammed on the gas pedal and headed toward the entrance of the compound full speed. Suddenly, I could see the dirty house dress horror locking the gate with several locks and chains. Billy slammed on the brakes. Were they trying to keep us in there? Wait, this is how horror movies start out. “Billy, you know what you have to do.” Billy gripped the steering wheel with both hands. He once again slammed the gas pedal and continued heading for the entrance.
Right about then, everything seemed to move in slow motion. As Motley Crue’s “Shout at the Devil” was playing loudly on our limousine cassette player, Billy drove right through the gate. We tore down the wooden gateway to hell! We were all bouncing off the ceiling, doors opening and closing, total chaos. The front bumper came off and was dragging on the side of the limousine as we escaped certain personal disaster.
About a mile down the road, the giant sparks and friction finally caused the front bumper to fall off. We didn’t take any chances. We didn’t stop until we made it back to the safe haven of our city. We never spoke of that day again. We acted as if it never happened. Fast forward to today: whenever a rerun of “Baywatch” comes on, I’m reminded of the day that the dream died. I’m reminded of the horror. The horror.
