Some of us would hustle the married women we were seeing out here. It was 30 miles away. Besides the privacy, we all figured that it would take at least another day for the rumors to get back to town. It hasn't changed one bit on the inside. Ah, the memories.

]]> http://blog.twolaneroads.com/2010/08/16/the-bayview/feed/ 0 http://blog.twolaneroads.com/2009/08/15/whispering-pines/ http://blog.twolaneroads.com/2009/08/15/whispering-pines/#comments Sun, 16 Aug 2009 02:45:58 +0000 RF http://blog.twolaneroads.com/?p=2069

The Whispering Pines Motel

I would have wandered around the grounds of the long-deserted motel and taken more pictures, but I had a feeling that someone was watching from the leftmost second-floor room, so I departed.

Palm trees rustle, pine trees whisper

I was sitting with a woman I was “sort of” seeing at the time. There was a breeze blowing. The palm trees surrounding the oasis were making those sounds that they make when the wind blows.

“Whispering,” I said to her, thinking of an old motel that I was familiar with.

“Palm trees don’t whisper. They rustle,” she replied.

She was right, of course, and I didn’t argue with her. But, some weeks later, in the dark, while in bed, she tried to shove a knife into me. More than once. I didn’t take it personally, but I left town in a hurry and didn’t look back.

Who’d have thought that whispering pines and rustling palms would have had such an effect?

Or, perhaps it was the other woman I was seeing who worked in the same bar. They hated each other’s guts, but obviously they still talked.

Women — can’t live with ‘em, and can’t live without ‘em.

Men — stupid.

Anyway, that’s the motel I was thinking about when I blurted out the whispering palms in obvious error. It’s closed now, of course, and has been for a very long time.

I’m covering some old territory here when I used to ride south to Florida in the early 80s. I remember stopping on the east side of Chicago for gas. I asked the attendant (yes, they had gas jockeys back then) for a quick place to eat. He told me about this truck stop down the road on the 65, just off of U.S. 10, called Naked City. Of course, I just had to check it out. It was in the middle of a nudist club, and the staff were members of the club. It wasn’t anything special, other than an oddity. The owner of the place, Dick Drost, was later charged with exploiting children in California.

Naked City closed in 1986.

Dick Drost, former owner of a Roselawn, Illinois nudist camp called Naked City (previously known as Zoro Nudist Camp), promoter of Mr. and Miss Nude Teeny Bopper Universe Pageants, and proprietor of Naked City West in Southern California was booked on 5 felony and 4 misdemeanors charges on April 7, 1990 in Riverside, California. — Naked City’s Dick Drost