This girl's skin was so uniformly pale one could reasonably assume she had never sunbathed, neither swimsuit clad or naked. Was this her public nude sunbathing debut? Visible evidence pointed in that direction. She could have chosen a secluded rock in one of the dozens of slag piles scattered all over the property but instead she charged headlong into the heart of nudie country, Sundown Quarry. She may have feared being alone and isolated would have left her vulnerable so, for safety's sake, she spread her towel in view of others.
On that sultry Saturday morning in July, Sundown was sparsely peopled; a half-dozen reclined in the eastern slag pile and a twentysomething couple floated lazily on air mattresses. Walking past on the south shore trail, Catman stopped and, unbeknownst to the girl, gave her full-frontal nakedness a thorough ogling. He didn't intrude on her space; having visually consumed his fill, he turned and walked away. The day was young and he had many more quarry holes to inspect to see what sort of voyeur opportunities awaited.
Pale girl must have felt herself becoming sunburned; an hour after arriving, she got dressed and departed. Or maybe she left because more and more people kept arriving and she felt overly exposed.
After this one visit I never saw her again, not at Sundown or any of the other quarry holes. Perhaps she decided that public nudity wasn't her cup of tea.
The Budweiser bottles weren't discarded by pale girl; someone else dumped them. I never could understand why someone could carry in a heavy cooler full of beer (or whatever) and then, at the end of the day, not be able to carry out the lightweight empties. Trash was an ongoing issue at Packinghouse. I did my part by picking up and bagging trash in the immediate area where I was on any given day. And Mocha was always willing to transport the full bags to the dump in his van.
Others pitched in and helped with trash removal. The core user group at Sundown consisted of about 30 individuals who had a vested interest in keeping the quarry a clean, safe, civil place to hang out. Barbara was one of the long-time female core users. Her recipe of vegetarian diet, stress management, fresh air, yoga and full-body exposure to sunshine (in moderation) kept her physique youthful looking and her attitude on the positive side of the ledger. This petite brunette never divulged her exact age but I could estimate; once in a while she spoke of skinny-dipping in the quarries during her undergraduate years when LBJ was in the White House.
Barb always brought a sturdy, stiff-bristled push broom she used to sweep broken glass and detritus off the rocks where people spread their towels. And whenever needed, she swept broken glass off the south shore trail before anyone cut their bare feet. I can't speak for the other quarry holes, whether or not they had a dedicated patron like Barb. If they didn't, perhaps cleanliness was one of the reasons Sundown was so popular.
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