Katherine Vaccaro has a great sense of adventure and a disarming sense of humor as evidenced in Driving Naked, her debut memoir. Whereas I knew someone who actually drove to McDonald’s naked, Katherine’s naked driving is more metaphorical; she and her husband loved nudist camps and collectible cars.
Kathy met Eddie at a Mensa event in the East Orange Mobile Home Park in central Florida, which she somewhat reluctantly attended because she had convinced herself to retrieve a pair of sandals she had left in a friend’s van. Eddie introduced himself to her before she even got out of her car “Hello. I’m Eddie Hardman, Grand Poobah of Central Florida Mensa. Welcome.” She was pretty instantly smitten. When she later spotted a bumper sticker on his bookshelf that read “A Hard Man is Good to Find” she immediately registered the triple entendre and giggled.
As their story unfolds, Kathy tells it in such a way that suggests that you could be sitting next to her in a restored BMW on a backroads trip through Florida. She unabashedly and frankly relates the story of their relationship without being dramatic; her descriptions are evocative and relatable.
“… I arrived home after work, hot and sticky from wearing pantyhose in the summer heat. I grabbed my mail on the way in. At my dining room table, I flipped through envelopes with one hand while pulling down my pantyhose with the other. An envelope with the Mensa label stopped me. I ripped it open. The salutation, ‘Congratulations,’ said everything …… I reached under my skirt to resume pulling down my pantyhose, which clung just above my knees.”
I doubt there are very many women on the face of this earth, who ever wore pantyhose, who didn’t do just this very thing when they walked in their door.
The relationship was well under way, with no turning back, when Kathy found out that Eddie was seventeen years her senior, a fact he never mentioned. When she questioned him about his omission, he prevaricated and foreshadowed, “What keeps me young is I’m not scared to croak.”
Within the year, they decided to get married. Their honeymoon was spent going to the annual BMW Oktoberfest car meet in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This pretty much sets the scene for their life together which involves car restorations, car shows, Mensa events, and naturist resorts.
A little bit later, Kathy has a life “coming-of-age” realization:
“At Eddie’s urging I’d taken other steps toward becoming myself. I gave up my aqua contact lenses and went back to glasses full-time. Their big, iced tea-colored frames became my trademark. He’d also encouraged me to wear my hair longer, and it was now down to my shoulders. Combined with my ‘new’ vintage wardrobe, my confidence soared.”
We accompany Kathy as she guides us along the twists and turns that every long back road, and every long relationship follows. Although their lives held other nuances, Kathy is optimistic and vigilant as she gives us a glimpse of her world of all things related to cars, naming inanimate objects, the nudist corner they created for sunbathing in their backyard, and her favorite beaches.
When a friend asks her what it is like to visit a nudist colony, Kathy answers this way:
“Oh, we’ve been going to Playalinda, the nude beach at Cape Canaveral, since before we got married.”
“MJ let off her throaty laugh. ‘That’s amazing. I always thought of you as Miss Prim. So what was your favorite thing about the place?’”
“I relaxed, relieved she accepted the idea. ‘The swings. They have a playground there, so I spread my towel on the seat and really went for it. Swinging’s delightful in the nude.’”
Their time together went on basically interrupted, until it didn’t. Futures had to be faced and decisions had to be made when Kathy and Eddie’s life trip took an unplanned detour.
Katherine Vaccaro
Katherine Vaccaro invites you into her story about love, choices, and chance encounters, which is what real life is all about.
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