WORDS Tara Crutchfield
Letting it All Hang Out Streaking – we’ve all done it, right? In small towns like ours across the country, it’s a right of passage. How does one streak? Remove all items of clothing and take off running with a group of your best buddies. The objective? Feel the wind on your fanny and try not to get caught. Why do it – boredom? Love of the streak? Well friends, it’s time to stretch out those hamstrings and leave the sweatpants at home because there’s a new nudie club in town.
Every prominent figure in Polk County since its founding has been a member of a secret society of streakers known as the Order of the Illuminudie. This elite club extends membership to only the upper echelon of Polk County – judges, lawyers, doctors, leaders of industry, politicians, law enforcement officials, movers and shakers (in more ways than one). Legend has it that the Illuminudie draw their power by ceremoniously full mooning during a full moon.
Streaking has shaped world history. For centuries, our ancestors have done it – both building and breaking empires with the flip or flop of an appendage. It has influenced great artists and philosophers alike. As Descartes said, “I think therefore I am pantsless.” The art of streaking has influenced everything from cave drawings and Renaissance paintings to football games and the occasional wedding reception.
Butt… what about the rest of us? What of us blue-collar, working-class streakers? We are but humble folk who simply want to run around in the buff. In response to this unclad cabal of cheeky power players, a recent transplant to Lakeland, Andrew Weinerman started a movement of his own – The Swan City Nudist Collective. The Collective, open to the public, is a group of enthusiastic exhibitionists who get together for organized streaks. “I was looking for a sense of community. Through online forums, I realized there was this huge hobbyist cross-section of nudists who also happened to be runners in the area – my two passions,” said Weinerman. “People who aren’t in positions of power should have access to streaking-related activities within their communities. We’re equal opportunity streakers.” So, members of the Swan City Nudist Collective are bucking the system, and they’re doing it – buck naked. The SCNC is partnering with organizers of the Slow Roll and Ski Show in Winter Haven, a bicycling event in which folks meet up and cruise through town to the Saturday ski show at Lake Silver by the Cypress Gardens Water Ski Team. After watching the show, the slow-rollers make their way to Grove Roots for a beer.
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Polk County in the 70s
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