“Liberate the pool!”
We presumed naked meant free.
We didn’t know jack.
Notes
The year: 1970.
Location: A liberal arts college with a reputation for being a little “out there” situated in the upper Midwest.
A delegation of hometown friends make a long journey up to pay a fall break visit to a group of their high school friends who inexplicably all had happened to enroll in the same Liberal Arts College with a Reputation for Being a Little “Out There.”
It’s great to see old friends. Partying ensues. Someone (remembering with fondness the skinny-dipping escapades back home in the bucolic farm ponds and rock quarries of west central Missouri) suggests that a group be formed to go “liberate the pool” on campus.
It seemed like such a good idea at the time.
The word goes forth through the hallways of the dormitories of the liberal arts college with a reputation for being a little out there.
A party is formed, and the pool is “liberated.”
The campus police are called, and the liberators are duly cited for their violations of civility.
I’m not saying who was, and who wasn’t actually there. Or who was a participant, and who was just an observer. Perhaps, you were not available, but you would have gone had you been available. Perhaps, you were horrified at the mere suggestion. Memories get fuzzy when seen through the gauzy veil of so many years.
But, I’ll let the following people explain to their families and descendants just what role they actually played that evening in the notorious Macalester College Skinny-Dipping Affair of 1970:
- David DuBois
- John Swisher
- Marty Swisher
- Rob Greenslade
- Robert Lee Van Arsdale
- Ann Heinzler
- Sheri Fritz
- Paul Thompson
- Alison Williams Coulson
- George Cossette
- Becky Roberts Kabella
- Alan Ballew
John Marquand, I’m pretty sure you were not along on that trip. But if you had been, I’m also pretty sure you would have been right there with the other liberators. This is your chance to set the record straight.
Poetic Champions 