May 5, 2006
A dip in the ocean (1)
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It is obligatory, when you ride across America, to drench your back wheel in the Atlantic. And so, as a group, we set off to Yorktown to do it. Other than a drop out of Williamsburg, it's flat all the way. The ride serves not only as an excursion to the sea but as a shakedown ride to confirm we are reasonably likely to last out at least another couple of days.
Yorktown is much smaller than Williamsburg and would be almost as pretty had someone not decided to build a concrete bridge to take the highway only metres above the prettiest houses. But there is still much that is good.
The road from the memorial and the viewpoints at the end of the road from Williamsburg drops down a short but steep dip and levels out on the sea front. A pleasantly short distance further on is a café that could satisfy an army of caffeine and ice cream lovers for a month. And all along the other side of the road, the beach was full of teenage girls. And possibly teenage boys, although my research didn't stretch that far.
It's not until you go to America that you realise how much you take it for granted that at least some of the girls on a beach will be topless. In America they never are.
I don't suppose anybody knows why American girls are the West's last to doff their tops. Some say it's because the nation was founded by pilgrims and stern religious dissenters, although that overlooks all the libertarian changes that have taken place since. Not to mention the countless thousands of immigrants who were neither pilgrims nor religious dissenters and had few morals about establishing the Mafia, whisky stills and heaven knows what else.
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So, America holds out and it reminds me of a girl I once knew, Jane, who became a stewardess (or flight attendant as they now seem to be called) with TWA. The job seemed perfect because her passengers were tired by day and sleepy by night, leaving her little to do but serve them a meal and pump up their pillows and be prepared to get them out of the plane quickly if things went wrong.
In between times, she had exotic layovers in places like Miami and the Bahamas and elsewhere where the sun shone a lot more than ever it did back home in Wales.
Jane told of how once she had been for a dip in the pool of the hotel that the crew were staying at in Florida. She settled back on her sun lounger only to notice that the vast, blue-haired woman sitting next to her in a spectacularly floral swim suit seemed unusually distraught.
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At first Jane tried to ignore her, but the flustering grew too much and it was clear that the woman wanted to speak. So she looked over inquiringly. To which the vast one said discreetly and very slowly: "Pardon me, my dear, but I think your nipples are showing."
Now this was the 1970s and it's true that attitudes even in Europe were less liberal than now. But Jane's bikini was of a reasonably substantial size and she felt sure that it hadn't slipped while she was swimming. Nevertheless she looked down to check and, sure enough, all was in place. She looked back at the woman, smiled sweetly and said nothing.
"But my dear, you ought to know", the woman persisted.
At which Jane had a longer look and noticed that yes, indeed, the white towelling top she was wearing had indeed turned the slightest bit transparent and that close inspection - which this woman had given it - would detect faint dark smudges where Jane's nipples were.
Jane said reassuringly that she really didn't mind. At which the woman looked as horrified as she was impressed.
"Oh my," she gasped in a slow drawl, "you European girls are so NON-cha-LANNT!"
Jane told the story, with exaggerated American accent, for the next ten years.
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