Swimsuits

I did it again.

I got stoned and posted the wrong blog yesterday with a song that I play, so here is another one from The New Riders.

You are wearing your original swimsuit as you are reading this blog.

That’s right.

No suit.

Au natural.

Your first opportunity to swim is sometimes by necessity, say, if you fall in a river or lake. Whatever you are wearing is your swimsuit. Cutoff Jeans will work unless you go to a pool with rules. Municipal pools, in my case, military base or Embassy pools where there were a LOT of rules.

No running.

No diving except on the diving boards. You had to prove your swimming abilities by passing the all-important swim “test” conducted by the lifeguards who all thought they were God’s Gift.

You had to be able to swim the breaststroke, freestyle, and backstroke and be able to hold the stroke for the entire length of the Olympic-sized swimming pool. This would earn you the all-important red patch, which indicated you were a proficient swimmer in the shallow OR deep end.

At seven years old, this was a requirement for chasing girls, especially the older ones.

There was another patch you had to earn to be using the diving boards, the highest being 40 ft. high.

I loved it.

At fourteen years of age, skinny-dipping replaced the rules.

I am not a big fan of swimsuits that are way too revealing (sexist statement alert: unless it is on a well-tanned, hot-bodied woman).

I mean there are only a handful of people who look absolutely fabulous in a swimsuit.

We are a small, but happy people.

If you have the body of say, The Rock or Nicki Minaj (or dare I say it, me), I say why bother with the suit at all?

I mean really.

Sports Illustrated magazine made a ton of money photographing his models in swimsuits in exotic locations and turning it into an annual event. The SI Swimsuit Edition was as eagerly anticipated as Christmas to some fans like me, willing to put up with a few pictures to be able to read the articles.

Right.

I recall watching beauty pageants with my family when I was growing up like the Miss America pageant and the Miss Universe competition.

For some reason, I remember being very interested in the swimsuit competition of the pageant.

I mean, I did listen to what the contestants had to say, (wait for it—another sexist statement alert: it just seemed better coming out of the mouth from the most gorgeous, well-built, intelligent, well-spoken woman on the stage).

Now I am the last person on this planet who will body or fat-shame someone.

Hell, I weighed 295 lbs. at one point in my life, and I wasn’t any taller.

But you wouldn’t see me entering the Mr. Universe competitions and that leads to another thing.

I am all for equality of everything: race, gender, body-type.

Equality.

But I kinda miss that in days past, you either had to be handsome or beautiful to get in front of a camera. Actors, actresses, TV personalities, even commercials did not have many “average joes.”

But things change.

Sometimes for the better.

Stay well.