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Chapter 87 - Cleaning Up

That evening after the volleyball match, Tamara asked Winnie if she had given any thought to choosing potential colleges.

“Well, I did decide that the Clarke Scholarship was kinda beyond reach,” Winnie chuckled. “I get the physics, but the math is a bit much for me. A lot of that isn’t taught until college!”

“Yep, I know,” Tamara agreed. “Emma’s plan was to look for seriously advanced students. Super-nerds, you might say. But I was amazed to see that most of the Clarke Scholars are fairly well-rounded. Look at Peter, for example. You’d never think of him being a nerd. Or Terence.”

Winnie laughed. “I sure agree. I’d never take either of them for a brainiac. Or you either. Or Emma, even. I’m so, so lucky you found me and made me part of your amazing family...”

“Hey. How did we get off of the college topic?” Tamara smiled.

“Yeah. I’ve been thinking about athletics and college a lot now. I know that Dawn would just love to recruit me for Maryland and my guidance counselor says that’s a great school. You saw that our matches are being scouted by some D1 colleges too and several girls on the team have coaches interested in them and from good schools too.”

“Yep, and besides Dawn, you’ve still got people from those other schools who want to talk to you and me,” Tamara said. “Your stats are tops for kills and blocking percentage, but even better, your play is both explosive and exciting to watch.”

“Yeah, I know. I love the game, I love competing, I love winning. Even so, it’s just a game; it’s not the world. But when I speak to most of the D1 coaches, I feel something different from them. Winning is everything at those schools and their goal is a national championship. I don’t mind pressure but I don’t like it when it’ll be that kind of forced pressure.”

Tamara nodded. “So you’re leaning away from a D1 school, then.”

“Yeah. But you know, there are lots of D1 schools with super academics too. When I looked at them, though, it seemed like the athletes tend to be kept apart, somehow, and I don’t care for that. Athletics is a great part of college, though, but it should just be a part—not the emphasis. I love my sport but I want college to be all about studies, not sports. I suppose I could go for a scholarship in either volleyball or track and cross-country, but the feeling I get about sports in D1 schools is that for the kids on scholarship, the sports are the priority. I don’t care for that.”

“So if you could go anywhere you wanted, what school, or even part of the country, would you want to consider?” Tamara asked.

“Um, definitely my top choice would be right here, Tamara. Hopkins. I’m sure I could get on their volleyball team and you’ve told me that the tuition and other costs shouldn’t influence my choice. So that would be my top choice. Second would be Westphalia; they’re a D2 school but have a great rep for their emphasis on academics over sports, kinda like I understand D3 schools do. And truthfully, having family close by means more to me than living a distance away.”

She went over to Tamara and hugged her. “I want to be where I can see you every day, Tamara. Moving away for college has no appeal.”

“I love that you consider us family, sweetie,” Tamara told her.

“Well, you are. You’re like both a sister and a mom to me and Peter is like a big brother. I can’t see him like a dad to me,” she giggled, “but your own dad feels like a real dad to me. And your mom is just awesome, so loving. You’re all family. Even on Peter’s side.”

That resulted in another hug.

Then Peter came in and looked at them. “What did I miss? You both look teary-eyed. Is everything okay?”

Winnie giggled and went to him and hugged him too. “I was just telling Tamara how much of a family all of you are for me.”

“Of course you are, Winnie. Remember, we’re always here for you,” Peter said.

“Sweetheart, Winnie and I were talking about colleges she’s interested in and she’s picked Hopkins as her top choice,” Tamara remarked.

Peter smiled. “Shows that she’s got good taste. Top grades and she’s athletic too; if she wants Hopkins, she’ll be accepted, no problem.”

“Peter, do you think she should go for early decision?” Tamara asked.

“Um, that’s something we’d need to think about. Probably we all should visit the admissions office for advice. If I recall, there’s a November deadline.”

Then the three of them got out Winnie’s computer and looked at the college website.

~~~~

The next two weeks passed quietly. Tamara and Winnie continued with their routine of morning runs and Peter frequently joined them. As she had been doing since Winnie’s school started in the fall, Marks would arrive at Tamara’s apartment at 6 a.m. to join her and Winnie for their morning run at 6:15. And when Peter ran with them, another Cornelius agent would join Marks to shadow them, ever watchful for their safety.

Beginning in the last week of September, Peter had a eight-day trip scheduled to go to Caltech; it was for the research project collaboration on nanomechanical and nanoelectronic systems that he had arranged two years earlier. But for the past several days before Peter was to leave, both Tamara and Winnie again began sensing a discomforting feeling, another premonition of danger, but again, Peter wasn’t as strongly affected.

“I hate to leave you,” Peter told them a day before his trip. “I think that since you’re getting that premonition and I’m not, it means that something’s gonna happen to you.”

“I think so too, but you need to get this done to complete this phase of your work. The Japanese group that’s cooperating will only be there this week, right?” Tamara asked.

“Yeah. But still...”

“We’ll be okay. Janice drives Winnie back and forth to school and I have an agent with me, even when I’m on campus and at the APL. We’re not going anywhere in the evenings or nights except for Winnie’s games and we’ve got Janice plus another agent with us then. We’ll be fine.”

They were fine until the first Wednesday in October. As usual, Marks arrived for their three-mile run on the campus route which Tamara had been running for years. In their usual routine, after their run, a quick shower, and breakfast, Marks would drive Winnie to school and either return to escort Tamara during her days at Hopkins or another agent would bring her to the APL. Depending on schedules, Marks or another agent would pick up Winnie and bring her home. This week, with Peter away, just Marks would accompany the two women for their morning runs.

That morning, after some quick stretches, the three left for their run. When they reached the building’s lobby, Marks pushed open the door and, informed by her security training and procedures, scanned the area.

Tamara called to her, “Wait, Janice, look. Look over there near that corner, to the south of the building. There’s someone there.”

Marks let the door go and came back into the lobby. “Yeah, saw him. He was hanging around the building when I got here earlier.”

“So when I saw him, I got my flash of premonition and a feeling of evil...”

Winnie interrupted, “I felt it too, Janice.”

“Okay, want to scrap today’s run and I’ll try to check out that guy?” Marks asked.

Tamara shook her head. “Hell no. I’m damned tired of this sneaking around and hiding like a scared mouse, afraid of the lurking cat. I wanna be the wolf that catches the effin’ cat. This may be a good chance to go on the offense for once.”

Marks grinned. “You’re so much like your dad it’s amazing; you’d make an awesome Marine, Tamara. Against my better judgment, let’s try this. Since they didn’t use firearms at Winnie’s school, they just used Tasers, I don’t expect that they’d use deadly force against you. Let’s go back upstairs and get your vests on—I’m wearing mine—and then we’ll go out. Remember, that vest will stop handgun bullets and short out Taser darts but won’t protect much against knives. But if something happens, let me handle it, okay? I’m only doing this because Winnie’s good at self-defense—what she did back at her school shows that—and I’ve watched you and her working out at the dojo. You both can handle yourselves defensively. But no heroics, right?”

They agreed and went and got their vests. When they left the building, that man was still there, trying to look innocent, but Tamara stiffened as she felt his eyes on her.

Winnie shot her a thought, “Evil man. But I can’t sense much more.”

“I feel it too,” Tamara responded.

“Janice, something’s about to happen,” Tamara warned as they jogged to the crosswalk on the main street, leading onto the campus proper. “My sense just went into high alert.”

“Can’t believe they’d try something during a workday in the open,” Marks replied. “Even if sunrise isn’t till 7 a.m., there are still a fair number of people about.”

After crossing the main street onto campus, they began running along the well-lit sidewalk paralleling the entrance road, when they heard the sound of a vehicle approaching. A panel truck pulled up to the curb in front of them, stopped, its side door slid open, and three men wearing ski masks jumped out.

Shit, just like the Russians in Cambridge, Tamara thought. No guns visible though. Or Tasers. They want to do a snatch.

She shot a thought to Winnie, “You gonna be okay?” and got a “Sure” back.

Then she tried “pushing” confusion and fear at the men coming toward them, but in the darkness, couldn’t see their eyes very well. But something took because she did see them hesitate just a second.

As the men came toward them, they each moved toward the closest woman. Suddenly Marks went into action, turning into a whirling dervish, and with one quick movement, did a spinning hook kick at the man in front of her, connecting with his jaw; he dropped like a rock. Moving out of the kick and still in rapid motion, she was facing toward the man approaching Tamara. He had been moving warily; being closest to her “push,” he was still slightly confused, and now a little concerned at seeing her assume a defensive posture. Marks’ motion as she recovered from her first kick allowed her two quick steps toward him and, coiling her body, lashed out at him, whipping her leg around in the high arc of an axe kick. Her heel caught the man at the junction of his head and neck, dropping him instantly.

While Marks was busy with her opponents, Winnie had engaged the third man, who had rushed at her, intending to grab her. She took him down with a basic hip throw and then dropped onto his prone body, put him into a hammerlock, and while holding his elbow against his back with her knee, applied a choke hold.

Movement behind her caught Tamara’s attention and she turned to see a man rushing at her. It was the person who had been watching her apartment building entrance. As he reached for her shoulders, she let him grab her and then leaned back; that pulled him off balance. Gripping his jacket collar with one hand and his opposite sleeve with the other, she executed the osoto gari leg sweep that she had practiced at almost every dojo session. But now she was extremely annoyed and, instead of just letting her opponent drop in front of her, she pushed him down hard, and the back of his head hitting the concrete sidewalk knocked him out. As she took him down, an echo of her father’s words appeared in her thoughts: if someone interferes with your passage, then end the threat. And never look back.

It was all over in about twenty seconds and, before the van’s driver, who wasn’t in direct view of the action, could react to what had happened, Marks had leaped inside the van and subdued him. There weren’t many passers-by in the immediate area this early but there were several who saw the fighting; they had called 911, and within several minutes, while Marks was zip-tying the last of the five assailants’ wrists together, the first campus police car pulled up.

Tamara ran over to the police car.

“The jerks tied up on the ground tried to snatch the three of us,” she called as two officers jumped out of their vehicle.

“I’ll call for backup,” one of them told the other.

“Get an ambulance too,” Tamara called. “Three with head or shoulder injuries.”

“Just you three gals here? Are you all okay?” one officer asked, looking around. “You took out four men?”

“Plus one in the van,” Tamara told him. “We’re all fine. The woman over there is a private security agent and a martial arts expert.”

The officer looked at her and said, “Well, damn. Stay here; we’ll need to get your statements.”

Winnie ran over to Tamara, coming around from the driver’s side of the van.

“I saw you do that takedown, Tamara,” she said. “That was a cool move. I did what you taught me with the jerk that I threw—I gave him a compulsion to tell whatever he knows. Then I clipped him to knock him out—Janice showed me how that’s done. I ran over to help Janice but she was already tying up the driver’s wrists. So I did the compulsion thing on him too. I hope that this is the end of that bunch of losers.”

“Fantastic. Quick thinking, sweetie. I hope this ends it too.”

“Why do you think five of them came after us, anyway?” Winnie asked. “Janice thought that there’d just be two, max.”

“I’m guessing that when you got away from two of them at your school, it made them more cautious. But they didn’t expect that we’d have anyone with us who had the kind of training that Janice has. You probably didn’t see her do it, but in maybe ten seconds she had put two of them down hard. The first probably has a broken jaw and the second, I’m guessing a broken collarbone. I heard a crack when she connected. Maybe also a broken...”

She was interrupted by an officer.

“Either of you gals injured? Do you need a paramedic to check you out when they get here?” the officer asked.

Both Winnie and Tamara told him that they were okay.

“Okay, Miss, we’re getting your friend’s statement now,” he asked Tamara. “I’ll need you to tell me what happened here in your own words. I understand that this young woman,” he indicated Winnie, “is a minor and you’re her guardian.”

“That’s correct. But she can add what she did when her assailant tried to grab her, right?”

“She can. So what happened here?”

Tamara described how she had heard that she had become a target of a human-trafficking ring after she had rescued Winnie. She mentioned the attempted break-in at her parents’ home and what she had learned about the ring’s plans. Then she described the current encounter with the men in the van. Winnie added her own description of what had happened at her school and her handling the man who had tried to grab her.

“I took him down with a hip throw; he wasn’t expecting that all three of us know martial arts,” she chuckled.

The officer shook his head. “Yeah, I guess you all surprised them—five guys, and just three of you gals. Your security person though—damn, she’s damn scary.”

While they were talking, an ambulance pulled up, and a minute later, a second one.

Tamara and Winnie went over to Marks, who was finishing up talking to a detective.

“Okay, Tamara and Winnie. Great job, you two,” she said. “Tamara, I see that the time you’ve spent at the dojo’s paid off. I knew Winnie could go one-on-one—but I could have never handled all five of them by myself. I was really surprised that they had so many perps here for this attempt ... anyway, this is Lt Hevery from the state police. He’s the person I’ve been coordinating with on your protection detail. Lieutenant, these are Tamara Alexandre and Winnie Nelsey.”

“Hello, Misses Alexandre and Nelsey. Col Marks was describing how you subdued those perps; excellent job there. The governor will be very pleased to hear that you’re safe after their attack.”

“Do we really know if that’s the entire lot?” Tamara asked.

Hevery had a slight smile as he answered, “I don’t really know what’s going on and don’t want to know—I was told not to ask—but two of those perps are spilling their guts about what they know, even after they got their Miranda notice. They’re the last members of that Virginia ring, and one of them’s even fingered the mole that’s been passing them info from the Virginia troopers and AG’s office. So it looks like you should be safe now.”

“What were their injuries?” Tamara asked. “I’m afraid that I was kinda rough when I took that jerk down with a leg sweep, but I was really pissed off at having to hide from them for six to eight weeks. I planted him on the pavement really hard.”

“That must be the one with the concussion. He’s also got quite a laceration on the back of his head; he’ll survive though. Another perp has some significant abrasions on his face and hands and can’t move his right arm, probably a rotator cuff injury, like maybe he was put in an extreme hammerlock after he went down?”

Winnie smiled faintly. “Not saying.”

Hevery grinned. “The colonel did the most damage. One with a broken collarbone and a probable neck fracture and the other with a smashed jaw. The van’s driver’s only injury was a wounded pride—but his torso was all taped up. He apparently has a few busted ribs. He gave up when he saw the pistol she had pointed at him.”

“Damn, Janice, I didn’t know you were carrying,” Tamara grinned at her.

“They didn’t produce firearms, so immediately escalating the situation wasn’t wise,” Marks said as Hevery nodded, smiling. “Random shots and ricochets also can cause collateral damage.”

Winnie grinned mirthlessly. “That driver’s the jerk I took down at the school. I kicked him in the chest then. I’m surprised that he can still move—I hit him really hard.”

While Winnie was speaking, a Baltimore officer had come over and waited until she was done and then Tamara saw a car pull up, stop, and then red and blue lights began flashing in its grille. Its occupant didn’t immediately emerge.

“Are you finished here, Lieutenant?” the Baltimore officer asked. “We’re just about done. Do you think that the state police wants to be involved in the booking?”

“The State Police Department got involved at the governor’s direction to coordinate with Miss Alexandre’s security person, not to make an arrest if the chance came up. My information is that any prosecutions are to occur in the relevant jurisdictions. The state’s attorney for Baltimore City should handle this case.”

While he was speaking, the vehicle occupant emerged and Tamara saw that it was Wilkins. The Baltimore officer left Tamara’s group as she came over to them.

“Good morning, Lt Hevery,” Wilkins said. “And hello, Tamara and Winnie. Janice, good to see you; thanks for taking care of these fine people.”

Marks chuckled. “They did a damned fine job of taking care of themselves, Sarah.”

Wilkins grinned. “You don’t say. I was headed into work and this incident came over the radio. From the location, I figured that Tamara was involved. So five perps are in custody?”

Hevery answered, “They are. And your office is getting involved now—one of the perps is really singing; I heard that he was fingering another trafficking operation in North Carolina and Tennessee.”

“Got that message as I arrived, John. I’ve assigned an agent to this case and we’ll need to contact our offices in Asheville and Knoxville to get them started on that new ring. Tamara, when we met, I told you to leave your excitement back in Miami, didn’t I?”

“You did, but admit it—aren’t the cases I bring here way more interesting than what you usually get?” Tamara grinned at her.

Wilkins and Hevery laughed. “Gotta say you’re right, Tamara,” Wilkins grinned back.

The three of them didn’t get to do their run that morning, but Winnie did get to school on time.

When Tamara was alone, and with Marks’ assistance and that of her agency sincerely thanked, she called Nadine and then connected Wilson into a three-way conference call. It was still too early to call Peter on the west coast.

“Hey, maybe you heard about it already, but the traffickers’ gang is now locked up,” she told them.

Wilson was the first to respond. “Great news. Don’t tell me, though. You and Winnie were in on the takedown.”

Tamara chuckled. “You know me so well, Dad. But it was Janice’s show. I’ve never seen anyone move so fast. I thought that after seeing Kevin in action in Cambridge, no one could move faster, but I was wrong—Janice was a blur and took out two men inside ten seconds. And she wasn’t even breathing hard.”

“I wonder why they went after you like they did,” Wilson mused. “They could have just lay low and rebuilt the operation instead of risking being exposed.”

“Maybe they felt that their mole in Virginia could give them cover,” Tamara responded. “Gave a false sense of security about not being caught.”

“Good thought...”

Nadine managed to break in, “You’re both okay then? No one hurt or anything? After Winnie was hit by that Taser, I’ve worried about you both.”

“We’re great, Mom, and Winnie’s in school now. She’s bubbling with excitement now that this crap isn’t hanging over us. She can do stuff with her friends again. Oh, I haven’t told you that she’s decided that she wants to go to Hopkins. She’s passing on schools with big athletic programs. She can still do volleyball here, and with her athletic ability, she’ll be a star. I’m really happy for her.”

“You have an instant sister in her,” Nadine commented. “She really adores you. Peter too.”

Tamara laughed. “You know what she told me? I’m like a sister and a mom to her. And she thinks of you and Dad as her mom and dad too. She calls us her family.”

“That’s so sweet,” Wilson said. “And you and Peter taking her in like you did—that was such a generous thing to do.”

“And I’m so glad that I had the ability to do it, Dad. She was so beaten down but I could see the spark of an awesome person in her. Listen, I need to call Peter now. He should be getting ready for the day about now.”

“Send our love.” ... “Bye, sweetie and take care.”

Tamara decided to try a mental call to Peter next but couldn’t tell if he had sensed her contact, so she called his cell phone.

“Hi, darling, good morning,” Peter answered. “I had the strangest feeling that you wanted me just before—is everything all right there?”

“Actually I did try to contact you by mind-speak to see if it could work so far away,” she answered. “I couldn’t tell if you ‘heard’ me. So you felt something?”

“Yeah, I did. It was like a question popped in but then it was gone.”

“Well, that’s kinda cool,” she mused. “Maybe there’s a way to make contacts stronger... anyway, enough of that. Good news; the trafficking gang is no more. I mean, they’re locked up now.”

“No shit? Fantastic! What happened?”

Tamara told him about their morning encounter and how everyone in the gang was now accounted for.

“And I haven’t seen Winnie so happy for months. This was really wearing on her; I suspect that she was worried about getting into the clutches of that gang.”

“Yeah—I felt that from her too,” Peter remarked. “And I sensed that she missed being able to socialize with her friends.”

“She did mention that to me when she left for school after we finished with the cops here,” Tamara told him. “Finally we can get back to a normal life. Well, what passes for normal with us.”

“Yeah, right. Hey, I’ll be able to return two days early. We got a lot done, way more than I expected, and the Caltech part of the project is just about finished. And the Osaka University group is leaving tomorrow; they’ll continue the collaboration with us. We’re on the verge of being able to build autonomous robots for manufacturing now.”

“Excellent. Is that something you think we could add to our manufacturing portfolio?” Tamara asked.

“Possibly. We’re using the same control systems as the ones I designed for the prosthetics. Our research use here was cleared with the attorneys, you’ll recall.”

“Oh, right. Of course. Damn, I almost forgot—Lisa Farrell, my new PA, just started work two days ago and I need to meet with her. I put her off till today, so I need to get going to see her. Bye sweetie, travel safe, and see you Friday, right?”

“Yep. Love you, honey. Bye.”

Tamara went off to her factory location to see Farrell. It felt strange driving herself once again.

~~~~

The rest of October was a busy time. The Nobel Prizes for the year had been announced and Tamara couldn’t stop herself from thinking, “Been there, done that, have the ...” and instead of “tee-shirt,” she thought, chuckling to herself, “medals.” The factory building was completed and equipment was being installed. Much of the specialized equipment wouldn’t be received until December and the big hiring push would commence in January. It was in mid-October when her management team had planned to begin recruiting their human relations department personnel. That time had come, and now Cooper McKinnon, the new executive assistant just hired at her manufacturing and research plant, the Alwin Systems Corporation, with the rest of the management, would begin that task and Farrell’s primary job at this point was to assist in the recruiting and screening of candidates.

October was also the busiest volleyball month; most of the regular-season matches occurred now, and between Tamara and Peter, they attended every game. Through the month, Winnie’s team led the regional division with all wins and only one non-divisional match loss. They had qualified for the regional matches.

The preliminary site work on the old quarry property was essentially complete now, and preparation work had begun on the research park area of the property. The site’s terrain had been sculpted and landscaped so that the research buildings could not be seen from the school site. The meeting to introduce the nudist school concept to state officials and educators in the region was set for the first Thursday in November.

The school site work would begin in late November with the finish grading, soil sampling and boring to ensure that the fill compaction was properly completed, and marking the construction perimeters. Footing construction would occur as weather permitted. Once the actual construction began, building completion was expected in 18 months.

~~~~

The informational meeting for the charter school was about to start. Before the formal presentations, an hour meet-and-greet session with light snacks had been planned and Tamara was going over some last-minute items with Kevin and Barbara, who would also be speaking.

“So I hear from Barbara that you added a section that’ll be a bit controversial?” Kevin asked Tamara.

“Sure. You know about Jay hearing comments from several school board members who insist that nudism is immoral because of what it says in the Bible. So I want to address that issue head on. I figure five to six minutes and I’ll also ask that questions and comments be deferred to the end. That will give them time to cool...”

Tamara was interrupted by Denise, who came over to them.

“Everyone’s here now so let’s go next door and start,” she told them.

Tamara went up to the front of the room and looked around.

“Welcome to our presentation. I’m Tamara Alexandre and the chair of TNA Foundation, one of the groups that’s funding this school project. It’s so nice to have such a large group of people interested in our venture, which many of you are considering revolutionary.”

There were many agreeing nods and a few derisive snorts.

“I don’t have to tell you what this is about; you’ve all received a copy of our prospectus. This meeting is to allow us to go into detail and after our three presentations, we’ll open the floor for discussion. Now, everyone here has a strong interest in primary and secondary education, whether as a professor of education, a school teacher or administrator, a school board member, or a political figure with a progressive education interest.

“So those in my group here, our names and expertise are covered in our prospectus, have a first-hand experience with primary and secondary education, obviously, but we’ve all had certain experiences, and some of us even formal training, that convince us that we have an idea that can help children better reach their full potential through making certain changes in their primary and secondary education curricula. Many of you are concerned by our plans because you’ve focused on a single element of it: nudism. But nudism isn’t the objective of our plan; it’s simply an element of it. The entire country had no difficulty accepting, or at least tolerating, the discredited Naked in School Program. There, the nudity was the objective—the only one, and that’s a major reason why it failed. Something much better was created in its place. Now we believe that our project can take the things we’ve learned from the failure of that naked Program to move educational psychology even further ahead.

“But first, we need to deal with the issue of nudism. You all know, I believe, that public nudity in virtually all of Europe is no big deal. There are plenty of beaches there that have nude sections and many European countries’ public parks allow nudity too. Simple nudity in public isn’t prohibited in most places either. There are plenty of organized activities which can be done nude, such as bike rides, foot races, and naked hiking. But in the U.S., whose colonies were in large part originally settled by the Puritan sect, public nudity is a venal sin. Why is that? Why has the viewpoint of a very small minority of people come to dominate our country’s culture? I have no answer for that.

“Originally, as anthropologists tell us, clothing served two purposes: protection and status. It protected people from adverse environmental conditions and also could serve as an outward sign of a person’s position in society. Eventually, nobles came to wear rich garments while slaves were mostly naked. When armies conquered a nation, the captives were generally stripped and paraded as a sign of their defeat—a loss of cultural status. Any status they had was removed with their garments; this was meant as a symbolic measure of defeat as well as a humiliation—a loss of personal status. Moving ahead to modern times, we don’t do the naked captives much anymore but we still use clothing as a status symbol. Wealthy people announce their wealth by wearing the garments that show it. We’re really no different from those hominids from 100,000 years ago who began to use animal skins to cover themselves.

“So the lack of garments, that is, nudity, as ancient times ended, eventually came to represent a number of related things: poverty, slavery or servitude, or humiliation as in a captive of war. In short, vulnerability. But nudity also represented innocence—after all, children in ancient times were almost always nude, even the children of nobles. And that brings us back to the Puritans. They, along with some other Christian groups, point to one story in the Bible which, they claim, shows that nudity is a sin and is against God’s wishes. Since they believe that the Bible says this, they want public nudity to be made illegal by secular laws too. Their reasoning is both incorrect and misinformed as well, and here’s why.

“The Bible has a passage at the end of the second chapter which says that in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were naked and ‘felt no shame,’ I quote. Think about that quote for second. Supposedly they were the only humans around; because the Bible doesn’t tell that any humans lived in the next county over.”

Laughter.

“So what was it that Adam and Eve could possibly have been ashamed about? Shame isn’t an internal emotion... it’s a reaction to the disapproval by others of one’s behavior which is outside the cultural or societal norm. There was no culture or society in existence to tell Adam and Eve that there was a norm that they had violated. So the meaning of ‘shame’ used here by the story’s author must be closer to ‘modesty.’ And since there is no other person in Eden to be modest for or about, the wording used in that passage is clearly directed to the audience; that is, the listener, since these stories were originally intended to be transmitted orally.

“So it could be inferred by the listener to this story that Adam and Eve were modest because they were like innocent children and therefore, they were subject to being duped. The story here is, in essence, portraying the couple as being innocent children, using the nudity imagery, because in ancient times, children were virtually always naked—even the children of nobles. So their nudity—that is, their having nothing to hide—tells the listener that Adam and Eve were childishly naive and their nudity serves as a metaphor for their innocence. That line’s a setup in the story for what happens next: meeting the snake.

“Childish innocence makes the person vulnerable to being deceived. One of the first lessons a parent gives his child about being in public with no parent is to be wary of strangers, right? Of course, right. But Adam and Eve had no parent to give them that warning. And in Eden, after all, who would deceive them? If you read the snake’s part of the Eden story carefully, it never tempts the couple nor does it even offer them the fruit. The snake simply asks Eve a question, and then when she gives her answer, the snake responds with a completely truthful reply. There were no lies, no coercion, no temptation in that reply. And if we accept that God is omnipotent and all-knowing, as the Puritans believed, then God should have warned them not to take candy from strangers; that is, take apples from snakes.”

More chuckles.

“But they did, didn’t they? Or else we wouldn’t have a story with a moral message. This biblical tale was a story about a moral lesson about innocence, not nudity.

“Going on from there, the Bible now tells us that when Adam and Eve saw that they were naked, they sought to clothe themselves and hide. The Puritans, and many other Christians, point to that passage, their hiding and covering up, as proof that they were ashamed and afraid, and therefore nudity is shameful. But most observant Christians believe that God is all-knowing and that must mean that God was totally aware of how the couple would get to eat that fruit. If God didn’t want them to do it, God had many ways to prevent it. He didn’t have to arrange an obedience test; he already knew the outcome anyway. That’s what being omniscient means. So the belief that the couple covered themselves with leaves because they were ashamed of their nudity shows a complete misunderstanding of what this part of the story is meant to illustrate.

“The author’s real intent was to show that—given the societal attitude toward public nudity of that ancient time, where nudity could imply captivity, loss, vulnerability, or, most importantly, innocence—the couple’s covering-up and hiding was not a sign of shame; it was a physical demonstration of their no longer being innocent and naive. It was a sign that the couple was no longer bound by the captivity of their innocence; after all, the fruit gave them the ability to see good and evil. That’s a merism, by the way, that’s a rhetorical term which, in this case, stands for ‘all moral knowledge.’

“So the author of this story intended that the listener would see that the story’s ‘moral’ was not that nudity was evil; the intent was to show that in order for the creation of humankind to proceed, humans would need to learn about morality—good and evil. So Adam and Eve’s covering up their bodies demonstrated that the knowledge which they had gained from eating the fruit was the knowledge of morality, until then an unneeded knowledge, since they were living in the perfection of Eden. But when they discovered morality, they had to leave Eden, the garden of innocence. And leaving Eden was an essential step for humankind’s maturation; it was part of God’s plan—this whole section of the Bible is a creation story, after all, intended to describe the creation of humankind.

“So this is why some early influential people in the Christian religions soon came to view public nudity as immodest or even shameful. Those theologians found in the biblical Eden story a reason to believe that God condemned nudity—after all, he clothed Adam and Eve with skins and kicked them out of Eden. But they were wrong—they weren’t banished because they disobeyed and ate that fruit, according to the story’s original author; they got booted because they jumped the gun, so to speak, and got their morality knowledge ahead of God’s schedule. So there was no reason for them to remain in the shelter of innocence any longer. They were now prepared to face the Real World. I said that with capital letters.

“In order to understand the true meaning of this Bible story, plus most of its other stories with moral messages, you really need to understand two things. First, about the Bible’s original language—not the highly flawed translations made some 2500 years after it was written by translators who used their current understanding of the Hebrew language, that is, the version which developed during the first millennium CE. But the Eden story was written more than a thousand years before that time—think about how much a language can change in a thousand years, even to the meaning of individual words.

“Second, the stories in the Bible didn’t arise in a vacuum. Using the snake as an example, when the Eden story story was written, the snake symbolized royalty and protection in Egypt. In Mesopotamia, the snake variously represented life and healing—the caduceus staff comes from that symbology—or wisdom, or craftiness, or protection, depending on the culture. A snake protecting a sacred tree is a widespread mythological symbol from many cultures. The association of Satan with Eden’s snake is a Christian invention and came 1500 years after the Eden story was written, and that interpretation allowed the church to alter the story’s original moral message. Since church bishops had no understanding of the cultures that existed when those biblical stories were written, they interpreted the snake’s role according to their own beliefs.

“It’s difficult to really know how these very early stories should be interpreted. After all, effective communication has three components: author, message, and audience. In reading the Bible now, we no longer have access to the author and audience—all of their cultural referents are gone, so we are left with a communication that effectively lacks more than two-thirds of its context. So now you know why in Sunday school, children are taught that the Bible says nudity is sinful. And now you know that it says no such thing.

“I’ll leave you with one final thought. The Bible itself says that God is a nudist. Where? Read Psalm 104, verses 1 and 2. A literal translation of the original Hebrew reads, ‘Bless my soul, God; God Lord, you are very great, with honor and majesty you are clothed; who covers yourself with light as with a garment...’ Unquote. Clothed in light. Sky-clad. That’s how nudists define themselves. Okay, that’s all I have and the next presenter is...”

There was a mixed response; a lot of people applauded; some sat on their hands, scowling. Some jumped up or raised a hand to comment.

“Please, everyone. Hold the comments for the end or else we’ll never get to the third presenter,” Tamara requested. “Be courteous and we’ll get to you in a bit. The next presentation is from Barbara Winsberg; she’s a doctoral candidate in psychology at Maryland and is doing a study of the Avery-Denison Program in U.S. schools. Barbara? All yours.”

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