July 10, 2001 — When I walked into Moose’s Poolside Cafe it was lunchtime. Customers sat on stools and enjoyed veggie burgers, cheesesteak sandwiches and waffle-cut french fries. Nothing unusual about all that.
But when the patrons rose from their seats, the round imprint of the stool remained on their rear ends. And I couldn’t help wondering where they carried their money. You see, everybody around me was totally naked.
Twenty minutes later, I was naked too.
So began my 20-hour stay at Serendipity Park in Cleveland, touted as North Georgia’s premier family nudist resort. I traveled to Serendipity on Saturday with the intention of giving nude water volleyball a try — this is Nude Recreation Week, after all. I left on Sunday, still trying to digest one of the most oddly enlightening days of my life.
“The game’s starting, Dan. They’re waiting for you,” Christy, Serendipity’s activities director, said.
Christy is 31 years old and married, a resident of Gwinnett County, and a nudist for the past seven years. She has no tan lines.
Serendipity is a clothing-optional resort. Although upon my arrival, I appeared to be the lone person taking advantage of that option. The entire poolside population was stripped down to its skin. And I was the only one who seemed to notice.
I was overwhelmed.
But the people in the pool were waiting for me. And in there, clothes are not an option. So I dropped trow, hit the showers — that’s a park rule — and hopped on in. Nobody gave me a second look.
And that’s what makes the initial minutes of nervousness go away. If your nudity’s not an issue for everyone else, then why should it be for you?
“You don’t really think about it after a while,” Stuart, Christy’s 36-year-old husband, told me. “In fact, you start to feel odd wearing clothes.”
The notion of my nudeness never totally left my mind, I’m fairly certain of that. And for a good portion of the afternoon I, for whatever reason, chose to cover up with a towel. But as the hours wore on, as day turned to night, I began to feel more self-conscious with towel on than off. It’s a question of conformity, I suppose.
Volleyball was a nice diversion during the day. When that yellow ball is speeding your way, it’s difficult to dwell upon anything else. There are several other activities at Serendipity — lawn bowling, horseshoes, beach volleyball, hiking — the kind of stuff you would expect to find at any other mountain resort, except without all the apparel.
But pool volleyball is the park’s No. 1 activity, pants down. I believe nudists would rank it right up there with nudism itself.
“A lot of people come for the water volleyball,” Stuart said. “And if they could, they’d play it all day long without a break.”
But we had breaks. And with each one, I became a bit more accustomed to my surroundings. The bodies at Serendipity are not air-brushed. They are old and young. They are big and small. They are regular. They are real.
“It’s not sexual. It’s relaxing,” said Bob, a 50-year-old power company employee from South Carolina, who wishes he and his wife had discovered nudism long before last fall. “You’re born nude. You’re going to die nude. The only thing that makes it dirty is people’s minds.”
The nudists I met appeared comfortable and confident. And that is what I found attractive. There are no barriers. Vanities vanish.
“You get out here around people of like mind and it doesn’t matter what your physical appearance is,” said Billy, a 24-year-old Richmond County resident, who has been making the 175-mile drive to Serendipity nearly every weekend since his first foray into nudism three months ago. “It boosts your ego. It boosts your self-esteem.”
At Serendipity, a doctor and a ditch digger can stand side by side. And it’s hard to tell the difference.
“It doesn’t matter what kind of person you are,” said 19-year-old park resident Matt, who wore on his head a Rebel flag bandana and a Chevy Racing NASCAR cap. “Whether you’re a suit-and-tie or a blue collar that sweats in the shop all day. When you get here, everybody’s friends. Everybody’s family.”
And that occurs immediately. It did with me. I wasn’t planning on spending the night at Serendipity. It just kind of happened. One minute I’m playing water volleyball, the next I’m being offered a T-bone steak dinner outside the camper of a couple I had just met a couple of hours earlier.
Chris is a 30-year-old firefighter. B.J. is a 38-year-old paralegal. They met at Serendipity and got married seven weeks later … on the way to the Super Bowl of nude volleyball in Pennsylvania. And they serve up a darn good meal — certainly the best one I’ve eaten with a group of naked people.
B.J.’s teenage daughter has been a nudist since she was six weeks old, and was one of several children at Serendipity on Saturday.
“We have a more open relationship than I think textile mothers and daughters have,” B.J. said. “Many kids sense that there’s something bad about being nude because mom and dad are hiding it. It’s the kids that it’s hidden from all their lives that have an awkward view of sex and sexuality and nudity.”
Serendipity’s vice president George Muss, a 57-year-old retired police officer from Pennsylvania, grew up a nudist. His parents were nudists. His grandparents were, too. He said it was a healthy upbringing for a child.
“We didn’t have to experiment,” Muss said. “We didn’t have to play doctor. It’s there. You see it. We didn’t have to pay any attention to it. Your curiosity is satisfied at an early age.”
There are four nudist resorts in Georgia. And they’re all less than an hour’s drive from Gainesville — conservative country, the red part of the political map, Bush territory.
“I was shocked,” said Bill, a 41-year-old Habersham County electrical contractor, who thought he would have to give up nudism when he moved from southern Florida to the area. “I was shocked. I mean this is the Bible Belt.”
Paul Jones, former CEO of a large Atlanta-based information technology company, opened Serendipity in the mid-1990s. A closet nudist for much of his life, Jones knew the lay of Serendipity’s 43-acre plot prior to buying it. He used to hunt and fish there.
“Actually, this is a laid back area, which surprised me,” said Jones, 53. “The prevailing attitude here is, ‘You leave me alone, I’ll leave you alone.’ The sheriff lives right around the corner. He’s been here.” — not in the nude, it should be pointed out — “I’m on a first-name basis with him.”
Doing the Bible Belt in the buff. Who’d have thunk it?
I know, I know. This column ended up having very little to do with the sport of water volleyball. Well, so did my stay at Serendipity.