"Well, Frances," I asked, "how was your camp last weekend?"
This was 1980, I should add, and Frances was my square dancing partner. She was a strong Roman Catholic, rather prim and proper in some ways, and she was studying to join the Roman Catholic school system as a teacher. The previous week she had informed me that her class was going to a camp, or rather, one of those youth centres with dormitories, kitchen, and hall, the following weekend - hence my query.
"Oh, it was all right," she replied, "but it was rather primitive. We had to get water from outside taps. Also, I'd forgotten my swimsuit, so I had to go in with nothing on, and I was embarrassed until I got into the water."
That set off a light in my brain. "It was an all female group, I take it?" I asked.
"Oh no," she replied. "It was a mixed group."
"Wait a minute!" I demanded. "How come you bathed naked in front of men?"
"Oh," she said, almost off-handedly, "they were just friends - nobody I was romantically attached to."
