Munich brings on a Cape Cod reminiscence

After our room cooled down, our daughter decided she needed to make some calls home. Her friend and Strong With A Spear went out for a walk. After about twenty minutes they found themselves in a park – The Englischer Garten – by the river Isar that flows through Munich. A lovely park. Tall shade trees. Picnic areas. Trails. Grass. You know, basic park surroundings. Plus one extra attraction.

It being lunchtime, business people, both men and women, in suits, were arriving in great numbers to take a break from the unbearable heat in their offices. Once they reached the banks of the river, they would take off their jackets and carefully fold and lay them down in the grass. Then they would loosen their ties. Then unbutton their shirts, unzip their slacks, step out of their underwear, strip off their shoes and socks and dive into the river. After which they would emerge and just lie around, naked, presumably studying the Börse (the umlaut is altogether proper here) reports.

Even in California this rarely happens during the normal business day. If it does, I’d like someone to let me know where and when. If you have pictured this scene accurately, you might try going one step further and remember, if you will, that French Impressionist painting where people (well, ladies actually) sit around in the grass naked with a picnic spread out around them. The men in this famous painting, Le Déjeuner Sur L’Herbe, are fully clothed, much to my mystification. I guess Manet felt that a guy being naked at lunch was just too outrageous even for pre-WWI France. But the gals, that was okay. It’s a well established fact that women often take off their clothes to eat, weather depending.

I once took off all my clothes to go swimming in a public place. Every stitch. It was on my honeymoon. On Cape Cod.

We were like that June Carter, Johnny Cash song, we got married in a fever, hotter than a pepper sprout, Strong With A Spear and I. We chose Wellfleet way out on the Cape because I had spent a lot of time there and knew it well. On our third day of married life we found our way down one of those sand trails that is more a buggy lane than a road and ended up at one of those crystal-clear ponds formed eons ago when the Ice Age pushed all the sand and a few huge chunks of ice from Northeastern Canada all the way down to the outer edges of the east coast and formed the sand spit now known as Cape Cod. The ice got trapped under all that sand, forming perfect fresh water ponds in the middle of sand surrounded by the salt water of the Atlantic Ocean and Cape Cod Bay. Today those ponds are as fresh and clear as they were then and you can still see clear to the bottom no matter how far into the middle of the ponds you go.

The pond we found that day was deserted. We laid out a blanket at the southern edge under some pine trees. Pretty soon the sun broke through the branches, touching us with spattered light. After an hour or so a man riding a bike showed up. He got off and leaned the bike against a tree.

“Nice day,” he said to us.

“Yes,” we agreed. We smiled.

He wandered over to us and squatted down next to our blanket. He was a bit shaggy looking. Like an artist maybe.

“You ever been here before?”

“No,” we said.

“I come here a lot.”

“Really? Do you live on the Cape?” Now we were interested.

“Yeah. In the summers. I work in the city during the winter but a lot of painters from New York come to the Cape in the summer.”

Confirmed. He was an artist. At that point I noticed that his sandals had some paint splatters. And his nails had paint under them.

“Are you visiting friends?” he asked us.

“We’re on our honeymoon, actually.” Strong With A Spear shared this information. I don’t think I would have. But it was okay.

“Really? That’s great. Congratulations.”

“Thanks.” I laid back down on the blanket and closed my eyes. Where else was there for this conversation to go after all? I had done my part. Now it was up to the guys.

“Hey, do you mind if I take my clothes off and go for a swim?”

I sat up again.

“I mean this is the free pond you know. The park rangers and the locals have an unwritten understanding. If we don’t use the bigger ponds where the tourists go to swim, they leave us alone here.”

“Oh sure. No problem.” We both nodded.

So he took off his clothes and went for a swim and then got out and dried off in the sun for a little while then got back on his bike and took off down the sand path. He waved goodbye once. For the rest of the day people wandered in, sometimes alone, sometimes two or three of them, went over to a remote spot under the trees, stripped, swam for a while and left. Not a whole lot of people. They were all quiet and peaceful. No loud music. No beer. No picnics. No outdoor grilling. Just the crystal clear pond and the pine trees and every once in a while some naked people. So we decided why not join them? We took our clothes off and swam in the cool clear water. It was lovely.

Strong With A Spear took a picture of me from the side standing knee deep in the water, my long hair hanging down my back. We still have it. I had an eight by ten print made and hung it next to our front door with a lot of other pictures of our babies and some flower pictures he took. It made a good ensemble. Our children’s friends always wanted to know who the naked person was standing in the water. You couldn’t really tell it was me. It was not exactly the standard Sears portrait.