Should She Apologize to Her Young Staff for Taking Off Her Clothes, Running Around Naked and Enjoying the Hell Out of Herself????

Dear E. Jean,

A couple years ago my husband and I were on “the vacation of a lifetime” in London, England. We did all the normal touristy things, and while we were doing the high-spots, we stumbled on a charity event called “the world naked bike ride.”

In a "you only live once" spirit (not normal for me) we decided that because we were in the UK, we might as well do something insane for once in our lives.

The event was a load of fun and we were happy to support the cause as well. However, a few months after we got home to our small South Carolina town, my husband found a picture of me on the Internet. It was of me naked on the bike ride. Originally I didn’t mind that much—I look fine and I thought nobody I knew would see it anyways.

However, I did make the mistake of telling a few of my friends, and recently somehow, the word of my picture has gotten out and has been spreading around town. A ton of people have asked me about it (most of whom tell me positive things, thankfully).

I’m writing to you because word has now reached my mostly college-age female staff at the bar I own. The picture has been posted on a few local community group social media pages, and people have been commenting both good and bad.

Honestly? I really don’t think I did anything immoral or wrong. I don’t look terrible, so even though I’m slightly embarrassed, I feel I’ve been handling it okay—and, I’m not going to lie, sometimes I enjoy the attention especially the positive comments.

However I have been grappling with one massive question. How on earth do I set a positive example for my female staff? I have not acknowledged to them that I know this picture is floating around; but I am aware they’ve been chatting about it. Part of me wants to tell them how I really feel, which is that I’m not ashamed, and I’m just trying to embrace living life to the fullest.

On the other hand maybe I shouldn’t encourage irresponsible activity and I should apologize to the young ladies on my staff for causing a distraction and tell them that as their 47-year old boss I should know better then to take risks like that.

Or, maybe I should say nothing? I’m really stressing over this because I want to empower young women and set a good example. I feel our culture needs to change in a more progressive way on issues like this. —Free Wheeler For a Day

Photo from Wikipedia

Free Wheeler, My Giddy Sprite!

I will answer your “massive question,” but, first, let old E. Jean “set you an example:”

Before I achieved the startling beauty of my current 80-year old bod—I, myself, once pulled off my pants and ran mad.

This electrifying event took place on a 16-women, no-men, white-water rafting trip down 96 miles of the Colorado River which, at the time was foaming and spitting between 19,000 cubic feet per second and a rambunctious 45,000 CFS.

We began each day with the cry:

Hail! O mighty river goddess! May our passage be safe!

It was 125 in the sun.

On the first day many of the women took off their clothes. On the second day, more woman took off their clothes. On the third day, we moored the rafts and hiked up a steep, gnarly, winding trail to a waterfall.

As we were scaling the rocks, slipping and sliding up the mosses and lichen, by Goddess! if every damn woman didn’t start stripping! I watched fascinated as they begin ripping their shorts and shoes off, hurling their underpants gawd knows where, leaving their bra’s hanging from trees like musk melons, and running and shrieking and climbing and pulling each other up, up, up to the top of a ledge, heaving themselves off and flying naked down, down, down, down, down into a cold mountain pool.

Modest Reader! Was I not the woman who trekked across Papua New Guinea so totally swaddled in fabric that the entire population of a five-hut village near the border of Irian Jaya, catching sight of my naked arm from the elbow down, mistook me for a ghost?

Reader! Has anyone, my ex-husbands included, ever seen me from the rear, naked?

Bah!

So you will be surprised to hear that when I jumped off the ledge, and hit the cold water,