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Business gathering goes on sans suits

The nudists' topics are dry as a credentials committee meeting, but their president leads a parade with a Lady Godiva.

By JAMES THORNER
Published August 11, 2005

LAND O'LAKES - The hair on Pat Brown's head is frosted white, as befits a middle-aged nudist.

But to advance the lifestyle of eating, sleeping, exercising and socializing in the buff, she's willing to drop several decades off her official age.

Wearing a baby bonnet and bib, shaking a rattle in the back of a wagon, Brown was pulled around the grounds of Caliente nudist resort Wednesday afternoon.

More than 200 nudists affiliated with the American Association for Nude Recreation - AANR for short - are gathering this week for a bare-skinned convention in Land O'Lakes.

As the 74-year-old organization's elected president, Brown helped lead a parade that included Lady Godiva on horseback, complete with a platinum blond floor-length wig.

"I know I will be harassed the rest of the convention," Brown joked after losing the baby getup on the patio beside Caliente's palm-lined pool and waterfall.

Playing off the translation of the Spanish word Caliente, the theme of this year's convention is "Hot, Hot, Hot." But, as is the case with most conventions, official business tended to be dry, dry, dry.

Here's a snippet of the agenda: "Consideration of Rules and Order of Business," "Appointment of Special Committees," and "Credentials Committee Reports."

At least they spiced up the selection of national anthems by including O Canada with The Star-Spangled Banner.

Seminars appealed to insiders, such as Wednesday's session on "AANR's Member Verification System." Attendees listened with bare fannies planted on towels. Nudist etiquette demands as much.

You couldn't blame conventioneers for skipping the meeting room to soak and sun themselves in and around Caliente's version of the blue lagoon. The 90-degree weather demands as much.

Susan Weaver, spokeswoman for the nudist association, leads a reporter over to Caliente's outdoor pool table. She wants to introduce an English visitor.

Jimmy Murly-Gotto stands out from the crowd. First, it's his South London accent. Second, he's a fraction of the age of the average conventioneer.

Murly-Gotto, a second-year student at Oxford University, claimed dual motives for being at Caliente: To enjoy a clothes-free vacation, of course, but also to research a university thesis titled "Nudity Exposed."

Murly-Gotto said Britain generally shares America's uptightness about social nudity, an attitude not shared in France and much of the rest of continental Europe.

"It's fantastic here," he said during a break from pocketing billiard balls. "But I'm getting a bit burnt up. It's my English skin."

Toward the other end of the nudist spectrum, Jack DePree, a nudist since 1959, marched in the parade as Father Time. That meant hooking a long fake beard over his chin and carrying a plastic scythe. And no pants.

"Hey, it's the Grim Reaper," one bystander yelled as DePree came up the walkway to Caliente's clubhouse.

"I feel grim under this beard, I'll tell you that," DePree said as he escaped the sweltering sun.

Ahead of DePree, Lady Godiva popped off her heat-trapping wig and clip-clopped away atop a real horse.

Portraying the bare lady from English folklore was a Caliente bartender who gave her name only as "Li'l Bit." No one seemed to know her real name.

Joked DePree: "A lot of people don't know that after Lady Godiva left Coventry, she went to bartending school."

[Last modified August 11, 2005, 00:43:15]