From the post about oil drilling in the Everglades you know I was friends with reporters at our local newspaper. Margaria Fichtner was the section editor and came up with a fun idea for the Sunday paper. I WAS wearing a bathing suit, but that’s not disclosed in the article! The next week one of the students came into class at Miami Dade College and handed me a small 5×7 package in a brown paper wrapper.

“What’s this?”

“You KNOW what that is!”

Well, Sunday morning I heard from my MOTHER!

“How could you do such a thing and embarrass us like that!”

Then she hung up.

Practically at dawn their phone was ringing off the hook. I do not remember how long it was before they spoke to me again! But the real fallout was my little sister in elementary school who was greeted Monday morning with:

“Hey! Ruthelen’s brother Philip was naked in the Herald yesterday!”

Humiliation? She hasn’t spoken to me in 50 years!