They’re My Pants I’ll Wear ‘Em…Up

By the time you read this, days will already have begun to shorten. At first, the change that came on June 21, the first day of summer, will be barely noticed. In a month or two, we will notice evening falling a bit sooner, dawn coming a tad later. Fortunately, man has thus far been incapable of meddling in that grand scheme.
I stood at the back door one evening last week watching sheets of rain pelt down. It reminded me of the first time we visited DisneyWorld in Orlando, Fla. I never recall seeing rain come down as hard and fast as it did then, then, wondrously, in about 15 minutes, it was over. Our weather seems to be getting a bit more like Florida with each season. We are never happy, too much rain, we complain, too dry, we complain. I’d rather shower and drink water than dust.
Those are among the things over which we exercise no control. Then we have what I referred to in a headline as “tumbling trousers.” Every other media this side of the Nile River used the term “baggy pants” or “droopy drawers,” so I did the English route and called ‘em trousers.
Wildwood commissioners, much to their credit, are trying to bring civility to an uncivil crowd. They took their recent action, banning, in effect, too much skin, or underwear waistbands or more, from the boardwalk in an attempt to maintain the city’s family atmosphere. After all, they reasoned, tramcars full of money are being spent in metro markets to attract families to Five Mile Beach. Once the visitors step foot on the famed wooden way, all they might see is a lass with less on than an old Sears catalog underwear page, or a guy’s crack, resembling what some term a “plumber’s butt.” Neither is attractive to young families pushing baby carriages, or trying to show their little ones the beauty of the Wildwoods’ from the boardwalk.
Because it’s Wildwood, the Philly media were all over the new rules like mozzarella on pizza. Some wonder who will enforce the regs. Others want the thing to be challenged in court (what else is new?). My bet, a member of the robed judiciary will likely look at the rule and rather see more of just Jockey or hefty Hanes than less, all in the name of personal freedom.
Still, dear reader, it comes down to personal pride, plain and simple. Modesty is more endangered than the piping plover (that’s a wee seashore bird in case you didn’t know). The Wildwood solons are doing their best to maintain a level of decorum amongst a youthful population that literally cut its eye teeth “sexting” ¬– via cell phone – all sorts of images that would have made Playboy Playmates of old blush.
While naturists among us (you might be one of them) would be quick to point out, “What’s wrong? The human body is beautiful.” They are right, however, so is the Grand Canyon, yet we don’t see all of that in one shot either. Frankly, some things are a lot better left to the imagination, for both young men and young women.
The cold hard facts of life: Bikinis and Speedos look great on some folks, and downright disgusting on others. Discretion is often lacking in both, thus we see the out falling, often to our utter dismay. Let Supreme Court justices rule on that obscenity case! Perhaps they could offer a black robe as cover.
A few weeks back, a semi-viral video was making the email rounds. It was of an old, black-and-white vacation film about the Wildwoods. So old it was you could fly here on U.S. Overseas Airways to the County Airport. Do the math.
It was almost comical to see the beach attire in those early days (maybe the very late 1950s or early 1960s). From one of those ladies’ bathing suits could be made a dozen string bikinis that we see as commonplace today.
Armed with such risqué scenes, some very old timers recalled an even earlier time when, if plans included strolling on the boardwalk (any one) in the evening, one had better be properly attired, and I don’t mean in duds that even showed skin except the hands and face.
So, like the days which had been lengthening until June 21, we have again spun around in a full circle.
The next thing the Wildwood guys might want to consider tackling is the, shall we say, suggestive scribbling on some T-shirts. I would blush to try to explain to my grandchildren what some of the wording means on clothing for sale on the boardwalk. Yes, it is First Amendment, but decency should rule. Foul is foul and there is no cloaking filthiness, and families worry about that kind of stuff when planning where to spend their hard-earned vacation dollars. Some frankly state they prefer Ocean City’s boardwalk over Wildwood for that very reason, they feel safer and the overall climate is less harrowing. Take it for what it’s worth.
A parting thought, Wildwood’s regs also call for shoes to be worn at all times on the wooden way. That’s no infringement on anyone’s rights, just a way of keeping splinters from lodging in tender tootsies or knobby nails from gouging a toe or two. This being Wildwood, they’ll probably beef about that too.