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The question arises from this most recent illustration I drew, “Are you saying, Mickey, that kids can learn better if they go to school naked?”

No! Are you crazy?

I used to teach middle school students. Can you imagine kids from this current modern culture being given license to come to school starkers if they wish to do it? In the middle school world of half-brained sub-intellectuals passing judgement on everything? Especially judgments about appearance and attractiveness… or non-attractiveness? With brains fueled by hormones and the questionable values taught by TV and movies? Chaos! Fires being lit! Real and metaphorical! Windows being broken! Derisive laughter! Tears and sobbing from the offended! And that would just be the teachers.

But the truth is, if we look at the studies of B.F. Skinner and his recommendations for child-rearing in his Utopian propositions in the book Walden Two, children not taught to be ashamed of their nakedness from early on would develop more peacefully and naturally into perceptive and intelligent learners if allowed to be openly and happily naked.

Skinner, an experimental scientist, believed everything in life should conform to findings from scientific observations and scientific experiments. How loony is that? Why would we do something that is practical, natural, and beneficial just because it might enhance your ability to learn and enjoy your experience of the world?

In my illustration, I was actually intending to convey a notion of the relationship of openness and innocence to learning. The two children sharing the big danged book on the floor are nude because they are willing to approach the material with a sensory receptivity that can only be hampered by the barriers and limits we put on ourselves, like the clothing that we shield and limit our bodies with. So, I would never suggest it was appropriate to learn things while naked. Or even that, with the right training and cultural shifts, that going to school naked would be a good thing.

Even I have nightmares about being naked in school. In my dreams I sometimes dream about forgetting to put on clothes before going in front of a hostile classroom to teach something they all find boring and awful… while I am naked and awful myself. I still have that nightmare even now that I am retired.

No, I would never suggest that. Unless, somehow, you can suggest something by not suggesting it. Surely I am not tricksy enough to try to do anything like that. And remember, I was an actual teacher in an actual classroom for many years where I merely thought of them all as naked, because kids are all transparent about their lives and motivations and can’t keep a secret even if they didn’t want me to know everything about them, even the bad kids, and even things they wanted to hide from the teacher.

Here is a link to B.F. Skinner’s book, Walden Two; https://books.google.com/books/about/Walden_Two.html?id=lMpgDwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button#v=onepage&q&f=false

Things are not so great right now. The recent doctor’s visit meant I have to start taking four new medications for diabetes, hypertension, and cholesterol. Which was actually a relief. Because I assumed when they called me to come in and talk about the blood tests in person, it meant the PSA test was showing a strong possibility of prostate cancer. And the list of possible side effects of the new drugs is half a mile long… for each one… ending with death as the last unfortunate side effect on every list.

And I was set up on my Chromebook to start learning to do digital art. I had a chance to use technology and a new touch-screen program to make up for the problems arthritic fingers are having on my artwork. But something fried my Chromebook while I was walking the dog a week ago. Nothing on the screen but a gray jumble, and the machine won’t reload or reset.

So, you can see, without the digital tools, I can’t do tennis shorts and shirts.

Damn! I have had a long life doing what I love. I am doing it wrong. Sorry, Alan.

But I sold more books this last two weeks than I have in the last three months. Six of theme. I know that’s a tiny drop in the bucket, but it’s better than two.

So, I have been complaining a lot about not being able to write much in a day. I got more done today than I have in a while. I guess learning that I am dying slowly of diabetes is better than knowing prostate cancer is going to take me out quick. Renewed writing energy! Small gifts from a large God I often don’t believe in. We take what gifts we are given.

I worry that so many bad things are happening now, and life has become so hard, that no magic is left in the universe to relieve our suffering.  I need to see a unicorn.

Unicorns are traditionally pure white magic.  They effect the forest around them, and no winter enters in as long as they dwell there.

And unicorns can be killed, but are otherwise immortal.  Their blessings last as long as we don’t kill them.

Surely a unicorn still lives somewhere… somewhen… somehow…

I need to see a unicorn.

Yep, the action figures all seem to agree with the dolls. It’s time to think about leaving Earth orbit and head for a new home among the stars.

Of course, if I agree with them, the only way I can follow them to infinity and beyond is to expire and leave my old body behind. That will make my wife happy. She can’t wait to have me cremated. Of course, I made a deal with her that she has to wait until I am provably deceased.

The truth is, I am getting tired of this world myself. I am not anxious to die. But Canada is on fire. Trump is indicted, but not necessarily out of the running to become Prexydent again. (Yes, I know it is spelled P-r-e-s-i-d-e-n-t. but for four years he was NEVER that.) My body still works and my heart is beating well, but every step is painful, all my joints hurt, and life is full of physical impediments that keep me from running in the human race.

There are too many things complicating my life and making it frustrating to keep taking steps on my particular life path. I am limping on two feet.

But I will not simply give up. The Darkness must defeat me. It just is a coming battle that I must dread for the probability of failure.

I have no idea how much longer I have to live on this Earth. By the odds, I should have died during the pandemic with the health problems I have. But I went to the doctor today for an annual check-up, and I am surprisingly good compared to where I should probably be with my six incurable diseases and conditions, as well as being a cancer survivor since 1983.

Walking 7,000 steps a day, measured by my Samsung fitness app, combined with a 1500-calories-a-day diet, is keeping me off insulin… at least until the the bloodwork comes back with my current A1C.

I have given up nudism, at least for now, since I have very few places to be naked in, and more places that bleed and must be kept covered and out of the sun on the thing I want to be naked with. I am no longer the boy in the illustration anywhere in reality other than my imagination and nightly dreams. I have given up travel. When my family travels to Florida to spend the July 4th holiday with my son in the Air Force, the dog and I will be staying home where long hours in a car won’t further cause stress and pain in my lower back.

But despite the long, slow degradation of my health due to age, I am doing well. My house is not in order. My body is a painful mess. But there is still sunshine and life to look forward to.

The circus acts of being a writer are all swiftly breaking down. The man spinning plates on spindles is dropping more and more of the cheap white circus plates. They, of course, are made of plastic so they cannot break. Arthritis keeps me from performing the simple juggling tasks of using the keyboard, erasing and retyping the mistakes, and formatting the pages and reformatting the pages when the computer fails to save those details.

And as things continue to break down, I have to notice the circus tents of being a writer have lost more than half of their population of clowns. It worries me when there is less laughter than moans and tears and heavy sighs. The ideas are still coming fast and furious. But they are not getting transformed into paragraphs and chapters.

So, I’m still trying. The words are coming slower. But they are still coming.

I am never going to be a famous writer. My family hasn’t even read my stories.

Time is running out. The elephants are starting to take down the big top tents.

The circus of being a writer is shutting down.

Yes, health problems and eye problems and depression problems are cutting into my writing time. Again.

I am battling. It is not the last battle. But it is bloody (in a metaphorical sense.)

I will recover. But suffering builds character. I wonder which character I am building. It is probably a ghost in the Haunted Toy Store.

This is a short soliloquy about giving up being a nudist and practicing nudism.

There are many complicated reasons why I have to give up practicing nudism. It certainly isn’t that I have given up on my love for the feeling of walking naked in the dappled sunshine and shade of the cool green forest floor, or swimming nude on a summer’s day with other nude people. (My memory of that revolves around kid friends at Duffy’s Creek and the swimming hole near the railroad bridge.)

But it does involve my malignant melanoma in 1983. My family has long been susceptible to skin cancer. And even slathered with sunscreen, I do have the problem of sun-damage in old age increasing my chances of a relapse.

And it does include the fact that every nudist camp or park is far away from home, and long drives are harder now to do alone. My wife refuses to entertain the possibility of visiting a nudist park, even if she didn’t have to take her own clothes off. That is a religious stance that she simply will not compromise. My children, while they were not opposed to skinny-dipping in the pool when they were young, are embarrassed by the memory of it now that they are all adults themselves. I have no one to share it with.

I used to have the back yard to sit outside under the trees wearing nothing but sunscreen, mosquito repellent, and a sun hat. I liked to read good books that way, and even edit my own books that way. But now the wind blew down a portion of the privacy fence, and public nudity in Texas is a serious offense in a Baptist and Catholic neighborhood.

I am not claiming that I am no longer a nudist. I am certainly still that. But I am now nothing but an indoor, only-in-the-bedroom nudist. And though it stings a little, I have to accept that new reality.

There comes a time when you stop and realize…

My heroes are now long gone.

No part of my crumbling carcass is working well, and most of it will soon be dust.

My energy is at the lowest of levels, the fuel tank is full of leaks.

My most important work in life is now almost all done and in the past.

So, I now have to take stock of the few tasks still ahead…

I must still be a parent until I am breathing no more.

There are still a few tales, wisdoms, and words that I can still share.

And I must still provide the world with the rest of the love in my heart until it finally stops.