[bcochran]

I am not sure this is the kind of thing to post here so if there is no interest or someone tells me it should not be here I will delete it or I guess the admin can delete it.
This is what I can remember about the 1982 Treehouse Mr. & Miss Nude California pageant. It’s been thirty years since so the memory is fading.
In previous years there were no men in the pageants. I was told that there were some grumblings that the pageants did not represent family nudism but were just allowing Bill & Fran to make money showing off naked women to anyone with the price of admission. So to counter that thinking they added men to the pageants. The main purpose of pageants was to promote Treehouse and family social nudism. The winners accompanied Bill and Fran on their promotional tours for the following year.
I was living in a nudist apartment building in Los Angeles. The apartment manager worked at Treehouse restaurant on weekends. Her husband had been in previous pageants and was going to be in the next one in May. They asked me if I would like to be a contestant. Everyone told me it would be fun so I agreed. We had a photographer living there. He did photo shoots for “MS” magazine and he took my picture for the pageant program. I always hated that picture. For the next couple of months I went with our gang to nude beaches, either to Blacks or Leo Carrillo to work on our tans. I also was a member of Elysium and Glen Eden so that wasn’t hard to do.
I took the week of the pageant off and on Monday I headed out for Treehouse. I had never been there before. It is in Devore CA in Cajon Pass near Victorville. Today it is called Dear Park.
12 men and 12 women met, most of us for the first time in, the restaurant at Treehouse. Bill & Fran told us the plan for the week. We got tee shirts to wear that said “Mr. & Miss Nude California 1982 Treehouse Fun Ranch” along with a drawing of a nudist family on the front.
We all piled onto a bus and headed for the Los Angeles Press Club. We took part in a news conference and while there we met Dennis Weaver who was getting a star on the walk of fame. The girls tried to get Dennis to come to the pageant but he said it wouldn’t be good for his image. Then it was off to Palm Springs. There we were on a radio talk show, rode the tram and just hung out around town. Our tee shirts told tell people why we were there drumming up interest.
I remember that about this time we were starting to become very close to each other almost like a family. I think that was because we were doing something novel which to most of us this was new. We were excited and anxious and needed each other’s support. There we no husbands, wives, boyfriends or girlfriends along, just Bill & Fran and us. We were having a ball and enjoying the reactions and the attention of the people we met. We also shared in common being nudists out in public promoting our life style which wasn’t always greeted with acceptance.
Later that day we headed back to Treehouse and the Jacuzzi. It was the first time we all were nude together in our natural environment. We had dinner on Treehouse and just hung out getting to know each other better.
Some contestants stayed at Treehouse all week and some of us commuted to Treehouse from home the next three days.
The girl in the group photo standing under the letters SHI and I decided to commute together since we both lived in LA. On the way back home one time we stopped into a VONS store. We had on our Mr. & Miss Nude California tee shirts. As we waited in line at the checkout, people were looking at us and one man asked if we were Mr. and Miss Nude California. We told him not yet but soon we would be and invited everyone to the pageant. The store manager came over and opened up another lane just for us. I think he wanted to get us out of his store.
We all spent the next three days at Treehouse lying around by the pool working on our tans.
This is what I can remember about the female contestants. They were all the greatest, friendliest, classiest of women. None of them felt shame or embarrassment being in a nude pageant even though they knew it was open to the public and most of the crowd would be non-nudists. But for a few, they had never been in a pageant before and none were models or actresses. They were just like any young woman you’d meet anywhere except for being nudists. Most were members of one of the clubs in the area and some grew up as nudists never having learned to be modest or ashamed of their bodies. Olive Dell, Glen Eden, Mc Conville and the Swallows were all within a few hours driving distance from Treehouse.
I will use the group photos here for reference since I can’t make out their contestant numbers. The girl I commuted with (standing under the letters SHI) worked in the entertainment business as a choreographer. The blonde (under the word TO) was the youngest, she had just turned 18. She was married and with her husband ran a movie theater. He was very proud of her. The girl second from the left (under the “) was Bill and Fran’s daughter. She had been in previous pageants and was very helpful to the other girls teaching them the ropes. The girl next to her third from the left lived at the Swallows the nudist club in San Diego. I went to visit her there a couple of times that summer. The girl under the (N) had also just turned 18. She had been in the Miss Teen pageants at Treehouse and moved up to the big leagues so to speak. (The teen pageants were never open to the public.) The girl next to her under the (G) contestant number 10 worked as a stripper in San Diego. I think the place she worked at was called Big Daddy’s. She was proud to work there and always said she could never make the same money being a secretary. She got engaged to a Marine from Pendleton and they and my fiancé, who I met at Glen Eden in 1984, went to the Swallows and to Blacks beach for a couple of years. She and her Marine moved to Christ Church, New Zealand. I don’t remember much about the women.
On Friday it was photo shoot day. We all moved to Treehouse for the weekend. We stayed in the “bird houses” which was what they called the rental cabins. The general public was invited to come and take pictures of the contestants for a price of course. Each male contestant was assigned to one of the women. We were to stay with them during the photo shoot. Our main job was to let the women know when they were posing too suggestively and to keep the photographers at a proper distance. The shooters would request poses and the subjects would oblige out of naivety. Many of the shooters were trying to get the women to pose in ways that weren’t very supportive of the ideals of family social nudism. In other words they wanted spread shots. I don’t think you will ever see a Treehouse pageant photo that is suggestive and this is why. I’m pleased to read here that you guys see the female contestants as wholesome young women which they were. They just wanted to promote their nudist life style and hopefully win a beauty pageant. I guess we men did our job well.
The only people who wanted photos of us guys were Japanese tourists who wanted to get a picture of their wives standing next to a naked man.
On Saturday the pageant began. In the morning there were professional makeup and hair stylists. We each took our turns getting spruced up.
We were all introduced to the crowd one at a time and our bios were read. If we belonged to a nudist club we were presented as a representative of our club. Treehouse was always favored and their contestants got the most applause. There were breaks when we left the stage and mingled with the crowd. We were all asked to sign the programs next to our pictures. It made you feel like a celebrity.
Then we had lunch with the judges. At this time we all were very supportive of each other because the anxiety started to build up inside of us. The men felt it as well as the women though we knew we were not the main attraction and didn’t have as much to lose.
After lunch we met one on one with each of the judges. They asked us questions and took notes. Two of the judges were actors. One was a Hollywood stunt man and I don’t remember his name. The other was the guy who played Wally on the Ozzie and Harriet TV show.
There was a demonstration by the famous Treehouse nude sky divers. They were always a big hit. Also the Treehouse cowboys put on their Wild West shootout in the western town set.
On Saturday evening we dressed in formals along with our male or female escorts. We were judged by how we looked with clothes on and as a couple. There was a dinner dance which was a lot of fun.
Sunday was the big day. Again we were introduced to the audience and were asked questions on stage individually. Back stage this was the most anxiety prone time. The women did lots of hugging and were being as supportive as they could of each other. All of us helped each other look their best by fixing hair and smearing on the baby oil. There was no rivalry among any of us. There were terrible biting deer flies at that time of year so we mixed insect repellant with the baby oil.
Finally the winners were announced. The hardest part of being in a pageant is to not be a winner and not let anyone know how bad you feel while congratulating the winners. The contestants are under pressure investing so much time, energy and effort to present the best image they can to everyone they meet for a whole week. They are always in the spotlight so to speak. The end of the pageant is a relief even if you don’t win. The show is over and the crowd starts going home and the excitement is gone. Your just one of the crowd again, nothing special unless you were a winner. The winners celebrate and the losers go home.

That week was one of the best weeks of my life and if I could go back and do it again I would a hundred times and I wasn’t a winner. Being a part of that group of 24 naked friends is one of my fondest memories.