It was just me, my wife and the duck, same as always. : The Naked Parade

Every community has identifiable traits formed over a period of time by the social activities of the people who live there. You will find the inhabitants of various neighborhoods either hosting annual Easter egg hunts for the kids, decorating every house on the block with twinkly Christmas lights, sponsoring Little League baseball teams or trading wives and parading around the yard naked.

Topanga, for instance, comes to mind.

I am in possession of a letter to the editor written to the Topanga Messenger, a periodical of wit and spirit dedicated to those free and lively folks who abide in the Santa Monica Mountains.

The letter is a kind of scattershot outcry against Dogs, Noise and Sewage, which are the three muses of Topanga, but then settles down into an angry dissertation against sin and hypocrisy, to wit:

“Having sent Junior off to Boy Scout camp to learn the virtues of healthy living and respect for law and order, here we see the mommas and poppas of Topanga at home cultivating hashish, trading wives, parading around naked in the front yard or displaying various other kinky habits pursued exclusively for the sake of nonconformity. . . .”

I am interested in the letter because there has been such a monumental effort lately to categorize Topanga. It is a focus caused by a proposal to build what the locals perceive as a combination hotel, pro football stadium and missile silo in the hills just north of the Bent Oak (a bar, not a diseased tree), off Topanga Canyon Boulevard.

All eyes are turned toward the Santa Monica Mountains to see if the people of Topanga have what it takes to prevent a builder from tearing into the verdant hillsides, and the attention naturally invites an attempt to define the community.

I am surprised, however, that such a stinging appraisal comes from within. I have lived in Topanga for several years and have never once paraded around the yard naked. Sometimes I will step out on the porch in my shorts, but that, I am reasonably certain, is of no what-the-hell to anyone.

Furthermore, I have no interest in trading my wife. She is smart and good-looking and works just fine. I feel equally confident that she is not interested in trading me, unless someone should offer a Toyota truck in exchange. That would concern me somewhat because she has always wanted a Toyota truck.

Additionally, we never sent our son to Boy Scout camp to learn the virtues of healthy living and a respect for law and order. We sent him to Boy Scout camp to get him the hell out of the house.

But even when he was gone, we did nothing very unusual, and certainly nothing I considered to be sexual kink. It was just me, my wife and the duck, same as always. Well, yeah, sometimes there was the spray paint, but only when we both had a few days off.

You need time to rest up after both the duck and the spray paint.

I spent an afternoon looking for the person who wrote that letter to the editor but couldn’t find him. So I went searching next for the moral depravity of which the writer spoke, notwithstanding the pervasive presence of Dogs, Noise and Sewage.

“Excuse me, sir,” I said, coming up behind a man standing in front of his house in the Fernwood district.

He screamed “Don’t shoot!” and threw his hands in the air.

I assured the poor soul I had no intention of shooting him.

“You don’t?” he said, lowering his hands. “Then what’re you doing wandering around?”

“Looking for moral depravity,” I said.

The man, who later identified himself as Henry, chuckled. “No moral depravity up here. Just a bunch of us decent farm families tending the fields. I thought you were a narc after our . . . uh . . . crops.”

“You mean families do cultivate hashish in the mountains?”

“No, man,” he said, thinking fast. “When I say narc, I’m talking about the National Anti-Farming Resource Coalition, a terrorist group.”

I would have pursued the matter further, but a woman stepped out of the house. She was totally naked. Not even a ribbon in her hair. Henry stared at her appreciatively and said, “Wow, who are you?”

“Fool,” she said, “I’m Gloria! You traded me Thursday for Nancy-Ann!”

“Oh,” he said, trying to remember. “I thought Nancy-Ann belonged to Bo.”

“She did, but you swapped her for Ellen in the Freeman-Caldwell Exchange.”

He frowned. “Who was Ellen?”

“Your wife!”

“Oh.”

“Anyhow, I’m sitting in there bored to death.” Then, with a seductive smile, “Isn’t it about time you came in?”

He got the message immediately and turned to me. “As you can see,” he said, “we’re just friendly family farmers trying to get by. Now if you’ll excuse me. . . .”

He started up the stairs toward the naked woman who, a moment before she stepped through the door, turned to him.

“Henry,” she said in a voice as soft as a butterfly’s wings, “why don’t you bring the duck?”