Fall Reminds Me Of....

Lately I've been doing all of the harvest duties because my Mom has moved to St. George. It has been a good learning experience, we always helped with the garden process as kids, but I realized I didn't know how to can beginning to end, so I've had a second chance these past few weeks to learn the whole process. This last week I made and canned applesauce and pizza sauce.

The applesauce day was last weekend when it was chilly outside, overcast, and the house was filled with the aroma of apples and cinnamon. I watched Little Women while I worked and all of the fall coziness and old fashioned canning made me miss Lynette.

She and Drew are on tour and a lot of my "cozy" memories in my Mom's house she is part of and it would have been great if she had been there, loving it also.

As my mind was thinking of Lynette, I saw the pumpkins. Immediately my mind went back two years ago. We had just moved to Missouri and Lynette called with the greatest story. This past week I've been laughing every time I see a pumpkin, and missing Lynette terribly. Today I called her and asked her to retell me the tale. We laughed as we remembered it and so here is her story, shared with her permission:

It was Lynette's first semester of college. Just 18 and fresh into the world of living without siblings and parents. She chose to attend college in the southern half of the state, giving some distance from her family in the north half, but remaining close enough.

She'd declared Art as her major, but being a freshman, her schedule was filled with required general courses and no art. To her delight, she learned of open art session in the evenings. Anyone could attend, a display would be organized, and a professor would be there.

Being October and Fall, Lynette assumed they would have a still life display of leaves and pumpkins for her to sketch. She arrived in the classroom and was one of five students. There was a podium set in the center of the room, "Odd," she thought "that they didn't have it all ready to go."

As she arranged her art supplies, she was surprised when a young guy entered the room. The professor introduced him as the model for the day's session.

We'll now go to the telephone conversation I had with Lynette two years ago as she told me the rest...

"The 'model' went into a closet and came out in a robe. I thought for sure this kind of thing requires a speedo for guys and a bikini if it was a girl. He climbed up on the platform and the professor told him we were ready and he dropped the robe...HE WAS TOTALLY NAKED. I was kind of shocked and looked down. I didn't know what to do, should I grab my stuff and run the crap out of here? But I told myself this was what I was majoring in and I would just have to deal with it sooner or later, I could be professional about this and avoid certain areas. So I decided I should stay.

The professor came over to me, because I guess I was blushing or something and he asked: "Are you OK?" I told him yes. "Is this your first live display?" I said it was. He laughed and said: "I could tell."

At this point I pictured poor Lynette's virginal eyes glued to her sketch pad and hesitant to look up. I asked her what the model did.

"He was really awkward, apparently I wasn't the only one new to "live displays". They told him to pose, and he kind of just stood there with both hands shielding his crotch...so they gave him a prop."

"You've got to be kidding me. What kind of prop do you give a naked man?"

"They gave him a staff to hold, but he was still pretty awkward. So we began drawing, I chose to focus on the upper body and torso...obviously. They would have him hold a pose for 10 minutes and then he gets a break. After a few poses, he apparently got more comfortable and started chatting with the group. We found out where he served his mission, that he was a football player here and oh...that he went to LPHS."

At this news I exploded. What? He went to high school with us?? Yes he did. She told me his name: D. R. At this point I recognized the name but couldn't remember the face. Holding the phone I ran up to my storage boxes, tearing through memorabilia until I found my year book. He had told the art class the year he graduated so it was easy to find him. We were both busting up laughing....but back to her story.

"Another thing, there was this Asian student that was doing a project on light, and the contrast with shadows...anyway, he was loving the whole session too much for me. The model would pose and this guy would say: 'Oh I love it, move a little to the left. OH PERFECT!' basically posing the naked dude verbally and being really excited about the art. That was kind of annoying, but what really put me over the edge was the model. I think by this time he was a little too comfortable and so in between, on his breaks, he'd stretch."

He'd stretch? Like stretch his back?

"No. I wish it was only that. I would think, you're standing totally nude in front of strangers. On your breaks, common nude model courtesy would be to hop off the podium and put your robe back on."

Wait...he stayed on the podium? Naked? And he was stretching???

"Yes. Raised up above everyone in the middle of the room...stretching!"

But what kind of stretches was he doing?

"Like deep lunges. The kind like Molly Shannon in Saturday Night Live where she says she likes to 'Stretch, kick, and stretch.' Full on lunge, legs separated, genitalia just....just hanging!!!"

What? I shrieked.

"He also did that stretch for your butt where you cross your ankle on to your opposite knee and kind of sit in the air with your knees separated, sticking your hip out."

Oh my heck Lynette! I can't believe this and he's just stretching away on a platform as he chats away?

"Yes Jessica. Just totally comfortable with it all. Once he started stretching, though, I just couldn't take it anymore and I got up and left."

The rest of the conversation we discussed how much he got paid, if posing nude, even in the name of art would be appropriate according to our religious beliefs, if the door to the art classroom had windows for the unfortunate passersby, whether he was in shape or not, any trace memories I could dig up from high school, and a lot of laughing.

Later upon further inquiry with others that grew up in our area, we found out he was married and for some reason, it added a new dimension to the story...Lynette and I concluded they must have been hard up for cash for his wife to consent to her husband's contributions to the art department.

Lynette loves writing poetry, and one of her collections has been published. Here is her poem from this experience:

"Shocking"

by Lynette

went to free draw

because I haven't

been to a drawing class

in quite a while

I anticipated a still life

of leaves and a pumpkin

there was a model

in the center of the room

he removed his drape

and with it

my innocence to the

male figure