In keeping with one of the great themes of my life — If It’s Happening, It’s Not Happening Anywhere Near Me — I must take note of this.
I went out for some final-week Fellowship last night, and stayed out clear past 11, a curfew imposed more by my early-rising daughter than by my own circadian rhythms. But because this is my life and not that of a person lucky in such things, I was in the grown-up section of Ann Arbor and not the student neighborhood, and hence, I missed the Naked Mile.
deb said on April 21, 2004 at 8:05 pm
okay, i read the link, and i still have this question: where’s the nut graf? (no pun intended. really.)
since it’s “an 18-year tradition,” it didn’t start during the initial streaking era, which was in 1973-’74. trust me on this; you don’t forget seeing naked frat boys on the front page of your college newspaper.
what i find interesting is that, unlike those guys, the AA folks seem to be getting naked for political reasons. was this always a politcal thing, or when this started 18 years ago were they just reviving a wacky craze from the ’70s?
i have to say, though, i get a little misty-eyed at the idea of living in a town where a reference to “the naked mile” doesn’t even NEED a nut graf.
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Nance said on April 21, 2004 at 8:54 pm
My streaking days are long behind me, but I think the gist of TNM is this: It’s been a traditional end-of-term steam blow-off, that grew the way these things grow, and in recent years got to be quite the happening. But. With digital technology, photos and video from recent NMs have ended up on sleazy websites, alarming parents as well as students. The police stepped in and said anyone who ran would be arrested and potentially charged with a sex crime, a real downer.
The only political angle I could even sniff out was an impulse to return the event to its somewhat purer roots, when it was just a silly way to have fun, not an occasion to tangle with police.
I regret the Daily’s website didn’t run the photo that was in the paper today, which revealed that several of the girls had bound their breasts with Saran Wrap, for the effect of a sports bra but in the spirit of nakedness.
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Tom said on October 20, 2004 at 12:33 pm
I am doing a school paper on women running the Naked Mile. Do you have any photos I could use?
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