Tag Archives: swimming

dogs, memories, nostalgia

Repost: Beach Days…

And here’s a repost that was originally posted on May 24, 2018… Just a few memories of growing up near Virginia Beach, Virginia, and some other stuff. I miss the beach so much. I also miss really good seafood. And I especially miss Zane, the ray of sunshine wonder beagle, who has been gone for a couple of years now…

I grew up about an hour from Virginia Beach, Virginia.  The county I lived in was also richly blessed with brackish rivers that were full of jellyfish.  I’m surprised I never learned how to waterski, since I definitely lived in an area where it would have been easy to do. 

When I was very young, I used to love it when my parents or my sisters would take me to Virginia Beach.  Because I was so young, I didn’t understand why the waves were so much bigger there than they were at Yorktown or Gloucester Point beaches, both of which were on the York River.  Although the water was salty, it was full of jellyfish and I’d always get stung.  I never had to worry about that in the Atlantic Ocean.  There, the water was too rough for the jellyfish…  It wasn’t too rough for the sharks, of course, but I never worried about that.  I never worried about sunburns back then, either, though I definitely got my fair share.

Yesterday, I was hanging out in the Tidewater Flashback Facebook group and it occurred to me to ask the people in that group if they could refresh my memory.  You see, because we lived about an hour or so from Virginia Beach, we’d always go there just for the day.  Mom and Dad would very occasionally book cottages near Nags Head, North Carolina if they wanted to stay longer than a day.  Virginia Beach has public beaches, but my parents always went to a beach that was intended for military patrons. 

I remembered we paid to park in the lot after showing our I.D.s, then had access to the clubhouse, which had cabanas and rafts to rent, showers, and a nice snack bar.  I couldn’t remember the name of the property, but did remember it was near a tower and it had a lifeguard on duty.  I asked the people in the Flashback group and they said I was thinking of the Naval Officers Beach, which was affiliated with Fort Story. 

I think there are still beaches for military folks near Virginia Beach, but that particular property closed some time ago.  I was fondly remembering my time visiting that beach.  I think the last time I went was sometime in the early 1990s.  I think now, they have cottages for rent there.  They look pretty nice.  Maybe someday, we’ll get back to Virginia and rent one.  Or maybe not.

I also remember going to the Fort Eustis sand pools when I was a kid.  They had two of them for years, but then closed one.  In 2007, they closed the other one because a child drowned.  Someone in the Flashback group said they were working EMS that day and remembered the tragedy.  It’s a pity, because that was a fun place to visit.  They were basically freezing cold manmade lakes with floating docks you could dive off of.  There was sand on the “beaches” and the shower houses were kind of gross.  I still remember a lot of fun picnics there with friends.  Germany actually has some lakes like that, too.  Maybe sometime, I’ll convince Bill to visit.  He doesn’t like to swim as much as I do.

I’ve been feeling a little out of sorts lately.  Zane’s right front paw, which he had surgery on last year, has been giving him trouble.  It looks like the scar tissue is irritated.  He has another lump on his side, which could be a lymph node or another tumor.  He’s acting fine, though.  In fact, he’s as chipper as ever.  I still worry about him because he’s my baby.  I woke up before 4:00am and immediately started feeling anxious.  I know I should relax and enjoy him.  There will come a day when he truly will be in trouble and my concerns will be legitimate.  It’s probably a good thing I didn’t become a nurse. ETA 2022: Zane died of lymphoma on August 31, 2019. I miss him.

We’re going to France again tomorrow… back to Ribeauville.  We’re staying in a studio sized apartment because the big one we usually take is spoken for.  It was a last minute decision for us to go.  I just wanted to get out of town again.  I find it’s good for my sanity.  Hopefully, the dogs won’t bother anyone this time like they did last time.  I have some ideas of new things to do and places to see.  Even though we’ve been to this part of Alsace several times, we still haven’t seen and done it all.  Ribeauville is close enough to Stuttgart that it almost feels like it’s part of the area, even though it takes a couple of hours to get there.

Of course… it would be nice if we were near a beach.  I mean a real beach, not a river or a lake.  I would love to take a trip to Croatia and hang out for a week, eating good seafood, lying in the sun with 80 SPF sunscreen, and just chilling out.  But this is the year of the concerts, so I guess I’ll just have to be contented with lots of shows.

Maybe later, I will think of something to rant about… or maybe I’ll finish my latest book.  For now, here’s a boring post, except for those who remember the Tidewater area the way I do.

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Germany, musings

Repost: The things I see and hear when I visit the textile free area…

I am reposting this piece I wrote for my original Blogspot version of this blog. At the time, we still lived near Stuttgart. We have since left there, and moved to Wiesbaden, where the one spa I’ve been to is completely textile free. Unfortunately, we haven’t been since before COVID struck. I miss it. Anyway, this post is from June 25, 2018, and appears as/is.

The featured photo is one I took in Sweden in June 2019, when we stayed at a wonderful hotel before we picked up our Volvo from the factory. That pool jutted out from the building about 23 stories up. I could see through the glass floor the parking lot below. It was not textile-free, as Swedes don’t go in for nudity like the Germans do. But, for obvious reasons, I don’t have any photos of the textile free facilities we’ve frequented.

Yesterday, Bill and I went to the Mineraltherme, which is a spa not far from where we live.  The Mineraltherme is not like a day spa.  You don’t go there for pedicures, manicures, or facials, although they do offer massages.  Basically, it’s a complex that has a bunch of pools of varying temperatures, saunas, steam rooms, and lounges. 

I love going to spas, but Bill is not really a fan.  He doesn’t like to be seen in his bathing suit.  He especially dislikes the “textile free” areas, which require everyone to be nude.  I mean, yes, you can wear a robe or a towel when you’re sitting on a lounger.  In fact, the staff prefers it that way.  But when you’re in the sauna, steam room, or pool, you have to lose your bathing suit.  Bill is bashful about going naked, but we both admit that once you do it, it’s no big deal…  Or is it?

Yesterday, I wrote about our visit to the spa on my travel blog.  That piece was mostly about lunch and how annoyed I was that there were grade school aged kids in the textile free area.  I mean, I know it’s Europe and people are freer about their naked bodies here.  I guess it just surprises me that people want their kids looking at some of the junk on display down there.  And it also surprises me that the people who are hanging out in the spa want rugrats running around while they’re trying to catch some rays.

In yesterday’s post, I mentioned that I saw one guy with a large metal ring hanging off the end of his junk.  I saw it even though the guy was trying to conceal the jewelry on his family jewels.  Bill and I were sitting at the foot baths, which isn’t far from the turnstile where one enters the textile free area.  It’s six euros to come in and that allows you to frolic in the buff to your heart’s content.  So we’re sitting there, soaking our feet, wrapped in our bathrobes and enjoying the lingering effects of wine. 

A tall man passed by.  He had a towel wrapped around his middle, but it didn’t quite cover everything.  As he passed, I could see his schlong.  I was about to avert my eyes when I noticed a large shiny object at the end of his penis.  I could see that it was a thick, heavy, silver colored hoop.  It kind of looked like a very wide banded wedding ring.  I cringed and wondered if it hurt to wear it as he casually strolled outside.  Then I wondered how much it had hurt to have that part of his body pierced.

Then I turned away and noticed three young kids milling around.  I was under the impression that people under 18 weren’t allowed in that area, but it turns out they can be there with adults.  It suddenly occurred to me that in the United States, people would be having a conniption about kids hanging around adults in the nude.  It was just one of those odd cultural moments, I guess.  I didn’t see any Germans acting inappropriately, other than the few who were making out in the pool.  I did, however, see a few American teens acting inappropriately. 

There were three young guys next to us in the pool.  They were Americans, two of whom spoke fluent Spanish.  At first, I wondered if they were in the Army.  They looked like they could be old enough to enlist… just barely.  But then I realized that two of them had hair that was too long and one guy was a bit too heavy.  The heavy guy was covered in ink and was going around squirting water with his hands like an oyster.  He had his hands together, fingers laced, and would close them to force water through.  I began to suspect these guys were military dependents.  The only other time I’ve ever seen anyone do the “oyster squirt” at a pool is on military installations.  The heavy set guy appeared to be the ring leader of the three.  He was talking about bringing a date to the textile free area of the Mineraltherme.  I kind of wondered what his mother might think about that.

The Mineraltherme is located very close to Panzer Kaserne, which is one of the US military installations in the area.  One of the reasons I had kind of hoped Bill wouldn’t want to go to Panzer yesterday is because you never know who you might run into.  I don’t think a lot of Americans use the Mineraltherme, but enough do that you might find yourself looking at your husband’s boss’s junk… or that of your stairwell neighbor’s.  There are other spas in the area that aren’t so frequented by Americans.  However, the Mineraltherme is slightly better for American sensibilities, since there are areas where you wear your bathing suit.  Germany does have a lot of spas that aren’t all textile free, but there are some where bathing suits are pretty much outlawed.  Americans are kind of leery of that.  I’ll admit I was too, at first.  But I think I’m probably a natural nudist.  I find skinny dipping kind of liberating.

Because I write a somewhat popular blog, I do kind of worry that I might be spotted in the buff by someone who’s read my stuff.  It’s happened before.  Last year, we went to the annual Weindorf, which is an event held to celebrate the area’s many locally produced wines.  Someone came up to me and said, “You’re Jenny, aren’t you?”  Sure enough, it was someone who follows my travel blog.  It stands to reason that I could be sitting in the textile free area buck naked and someone will come over to ask me about my blog.  I guess that’s not such a big deal, except for the naked part.  I mean, I know I often bare my soul on my blog, but baring my body might be more than I, or anyone else, can stand.  The lovely thing about Germans, though, is that they truly don’t care what you look like under your clothes.  If you hang out in certain areas, you’re liable to find out, whether you want to or not. (ETA in 2022: My blog is no longer popular for a lot of reasons. I’m happy about that, in part, because of what I wrote in this paragraph.)

After awhile, I got tired of listening to the English and Spanish yammering of the young lads who were thinking of bringing a date to the Mineraltherme.  Bill and I emerged from the pool and went into a sauna.  Saunas are a serious thing here.  There’s a whole culture and etiquette practiced.  We went in and sat down… and Bill forgot to arrange his towel so that his bare feet weren’t on the wooden bench.  I noticed a few disapproving glares from Germans and discreetly whispered to him to fix his towel, which he did.  I don’t usually like sitting in saunas, but I will admit that it felt good yesterday.  Ten minutes later, we emerged from the sauna, I took a quick shower, and then there was this wonderful rush of endorphins that came over me like a comfortable blanket.  I smiled.  I’m sure it was a beatific smile, though I can’t say for certain it was.  That feeling is why I come to the spa…  And with that, our visit was done.

Later, I got Bill to use his foot to work some out some of the knots in my lower back.  Because I sit on my can a lot, I always have sore back muscles.  He doesn’t really like doing that, but he’ll indulge me because although it hurts when he presses, afterwards I get a rush of pleasure.  Pressure against sore muscles feels great.  I guess it’s because all the crap trapped in the muscle fibers is forced out as blood rushes into the tissue.  Someday, I will invest in a massage chair so Bill won’t have to use his feet on my back anymore.  And maybe someday we’ll have our own pool, so we can go naked without having to see Prince Albert piercings or listen to teenagers talk about molesting their dates…  I can dream, can’t I?

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nostalgia, true crime

Juicy threads!

I belong to a Facebook group that is dedicated to us old fogies who went to Longwood University when it was still Longwood College. I love nostalgia groups. I have a really long memory for obscure details and I like to share them with people who can add to them or are amazed by them. Yesterday, I really got on a roll and started three threads in that group.

The first thread was about the Tea Room at Longwood. It was basically a “fancy” restaurant for students. For five bucks, you could have a steak dinner… or something like that. I only got to eat there once. I didn’t know it existed for most of my time there. I was in a music fraternity for women (Sigma Alpha Iota) and a regional representative came to visit our chapter. We took her to dinner at the Tea Room. I remember enjoying the experience.

Sadly, a few years after I graduated, the building the Tea Room caught on fire. They rebuilt the Rotunda, but I don’t think the Tea Room survived. A bunch of people had memories of it, though… and lots of people like me didn’t know it existed. I’m glad I had my one chance to try it. Longwood actually had good food in the 90s, though.

The second thread was about French Pool. In my day, French was a dormitory, but I guess at one time, it was a gym, and I believe right now, it’s a computer lab. When I was at Longwood, French had racquetball courts and a pool. Other people said that it also had a basketball court, but I don’t remember ever seeing that. I do remember swimming in French Pool one time. It was an indoor pool, but there were garage doors that opened so that you could get some outdoor weather. The pool at the Natural Bridge Hotel and Conference Center was also like that, back in the day. And, just like the pool at Natural Bridge, they also closed the French Pool.

When I was at Longwood, the French Pool was kind of on its last legs. It was often closed. However, it was a really pretty pool– very old school, and kind of small. I read that Longwood got rid of its other pool, which was in what was known as Lancer Hall when I was a student, but is now called Willett Hall. I remember swimming in the pool at Lancer Hall when I was a freshman. A friend of mine was a lifeguard there. We used to go in the evenings and I remember doing flips off of the diving board (which I figured out how to do quite by accident). That pool also had a natatorium, which allowed people to watch swimmers from a window under the water surface.

I guess the pool has been drained because it looks like the college is going to open a new convocation and events center and the old pool is obsolete, having been opened in 1980. Hopefully, they will include a pool, since I doubt people want to have to go to nearby Hampden-Sydney, a private men’s college, to use their pool, or rent an apartment off campus to have pool access. Especially since the “Hamsters” can be a bit snobby about Longwood. The funny thing is, when I was at Longwood, you had to pass a swimming test in order to graduate or take a swimming class and pass it. Now they don’t have a pool? WTF!

And finally, there was more talk about Erin McCay George, whom I have written about a few times on this blog. Erin George, author of the book A Woman Doing Life: Notes from a Prison for Women, was editor of the school newspaper when I was at Longwood. She abruptly left school before graduating. Word on the street was that she left because she was caught embezzling money intended for the newspaper to fund a trip to England to meet her boyfriend, James George. She met James George on the Internet when it was still in its infancy.

I posted about how Erin had run a couple of really controversial stories in the paper that had the whole campus outraged. I wrote about that in this post, which includes links to two posts I wrote for my original blog about how I came to realize that Erin had written a book about prison life that is now being used in a lot of criminal justice classes. Anyway… after reminiscing with people who were at Longwood at the time and knew Erin, I’m beginning to think that the spicy newspaper stories from 1992 that so upset people on campus were, in part, intended to be a distraction from what she was doing with money that she had allegedly stolen from the student newspaper.

Longwood had, and probably still has, a strict honor code. Lying, cheating, and stealing were not tolerated. Since she was evidently creatively using college funds to enhance and advance her relationship with her British boyfriend, it could be that the scandalous news stories were intended to shift focus from her alleged illicit activities to the content of the newspaper. Or maybe it wasn’t…

Erin went on to marry her boyfriend and then, just six years later, shot him in the head at point blank range for $700,000 in insurance money. She was eventually sentenced to 603 years in prison. Of course, she won’t serve that many years because it’s impossible, but I think it was mainly passed down to ensure that she is never released. Parole was abolished in Virginia in 1995, although some convicted felons can be released from prison early if they meet certain requirements, and if they committed their crimes when parole still existed. Erin committed her crimes after parole was abolished.

Anyway, it’s clear that a lot of people didn’t remember the newspaper scandal in the 1990s, and even fewer knew that Erin was in prison and had written a book. I reconnected with someone who was at Longwood when I was and knew Erin, explaining that Erin had a friend in one of the few eccentric English professors at Longwood during that time, a man named William Woods. I had Mr. Woods for a couple of classes. He was a lot of fun. I seem to remember that in the early 1990s, when this was going on, Mr. Woods was obsessed with Madonna’s Sex book, an expensive “coffee table” book that was full of erotic images. At the time, it was considered very risque.

I remember Vanilla Ice (Robert Van Winkle) was popular then, and Madonna had dated him. I think some of their sexy pictures were in that book and Vanilla Ice broke up with her over it. According to a Huffington Post article about their relationship, Vanilla Ice said of Madonna to the British tabloid, News of the World,

“She was older than me and a great lover… But I broke up with her after she printed that book because I was hurt to be an unwitting part of this slutty package. It was disgusting and cheap. We were in a relationship yet it looked like she was screwing all these other people.”

Since Mr. Woods was supposedly Erin’s ally, and he was so fascinated with Madonna’s Sex book (as well as the Price Club), I wonder if maybe he influenced her to dedicate an issue of the Rotunda to “safe sex”, which included the free distribution of condoms in the paper. Of course, at that time, one of the fraternities at Longwood also used to have an annual “safe sex” party, which included t-shirts one could buy. I believe that fraternity was eventually kicked off campus for hazing. That’s just speculation from yours truly. I really don’t know where the truth lies. Still, so many years after all of that happened, I kind of wonder if the prosecutors who worked to bring Erin to justice ever looked at her time at Longwood, which led up to her relationship with her victim and his ultimate untimely demise. Looking back on that time, it’s clear that trouble was brewing years before it culminated in murder.

I read a couple of old news articles about Erin George’s case and they implied that she confessed to the murder, claiming that George would not give her a divorce. According to those articles, one of her former cellmates said that Erin told her that her husband, James George, “had it coming”. But looking at the evidence– George was buying insurance, but backed out because he was a smoker, and it would cost too much– and two days later, Erin falsified his signature on paperwork and paid the premiums with a secret account she had… and then claiming that it was “normal” for her to sign his name on stuff since she “handled the business in their relationship”, I can’t help but think of Bill’s ex wife. Bill’s ex, a narcissist who abused him, also “handled the business” in their relationship, to disastrous results.

I doubt very much that James George refused to give Erin a divorce. I think the issue was, she simply didn’t want to have to deal with him anymore and murdering him for insurance money was the easiest way, in her mind, to make sure he was out of the picture for good. She clearly wanted to split from him, but she wanted to make sure she got paid handsomely without incurring the high cost and personal risk of divorce… and would never have to deal with custody issues, his influence regarding their three children, or the children having a stepmother. But again– just my speculation, having been married to a man whose ex wife was also very destructive (though thankfully not yet murderous– that I know of, anyway) and similarly narcissistic. I will admit that I don’t know anything more about this case than what I’ve read and deduced on my own, based on my own dealings with this type of person. I could be wrong, and I doubt we’ll ever know the real story.

Sometimes, I wonder if I missed my calling as a true crime writer. On the other hand, looking back at Erin George, I wonder if, had she been slightly less narcissistic and antisocial, she might have had a great career as a provocateur or paparazzo. She clearly had little fear of publishing things that would upset people. Longwood, in the 1990s, was a pretty conservative place– though not as conservative as Liberty University, just down the road in Lynchburg, was– and still is.

Posting the link to Erin’s book for those who are interested. As an Amazon Associate, I get small commissions from Amazon when sales are made through my site.

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