Naked Oldies

So apparently there is a new rite of passage in American manhood. Sometime after buying your own house and sometime before becoming a resident of a retirement home, there is a transformation that men are supposed to go through. No one knows exactly when or how it happens, but at some point a man tells himself, "you know, I think I've made it to that milestone in life where I don't have to wear clothes in the locker room anymore."





It is certainly a strange phenomenon, and one that probably no one can understand until the feeling actually hits them; sort of like love, I would imagine. Is there a natural urge to air out the boys so strong that it causes old guys to throw away all sense of decorum and social consideration?





A friend of mine thinks that there isn't a transformation in the old man's beliefs over time vis-a-vis his own spotted ass in others' line of sight. She thinks that the birthday suit runway show is a product of a bygone era when showering naked and taking one's time to find a towel were encouraged practices. Ah, yes... a simpler time. A time when men were accountable, when they loved their country without question, when they played catch with their sons in the backyard while the apple pie cooled off in the windowsill, and a time when displaying your fruit bowl for all to see was business as usual at the old family-owned neighborhood gymnasium.


Chalk another mystery up to the old nature vs. nurture debate, I guess. Is the urge to air dry a biological impetus that strikes along with the urge to buy a Buick and go to bed at 6:30? Or is the public elephant walk our little window to the past when men liked their beer cold, their commies dead, and their asses untrammeled by the cruel touch of cotton towels? Like the tootsie pop narrator once quipped, "the world will never know..."