On National Nude Day, we honor Olympic’s part in the “Nude or Not Nude” debate in Seattle

Today is (no joke!) National Nude Day. The official origin of this day to celebrate being in the buff appears to hail from New Zealand. It’s rumored that, in the early 2000’s, rugby player Marc Ellis led the charge to streak in front of the country’s then Prim Minister Helen Clark. Nudists clung to the commemoration, and some still celebrate to this day.

When this came across my radar, it made me smile. It caused me think back to the early days of Olympic when Alice, one of our co-founders, hit up a columnist for The Seattle Times to help her with her “research” of a very important topic connected to hot tubbing: “Nude or not Nude?”

Actually, Alice had already done most of the work. She decided to pose this very question to a number of Olympic customers and find out whether hot tubbers deemed wearing a suit in the tub to be a necessity or an absurdity. She had well over 200 responses to her query. And, to her delight and surprise, some of those who answered her question did so with poetry! This is where John Hinterberger, who had a column published in Pacific Magazine in The Seattle Times, entered the picture. She reached out to ask him to judge the prose and pick a winner, and he agreed—in exchange for some chlorine for his own hot tub!

The results of the poll? Only thirteen of the 200+ respondents said they wore a suit in the tub—less than 6%! I wonder if the results would be any different today.

As for the winning poem selected by John, here it is from the column that was published January 10, 1982:

We oldsters consider it rude

To take a hot tub in the nude

But those young or single

Bare bodies do mingle

And do not consider it lewd.

P.S. But when alone, whether

In fair or foule weather

We shed our suits and troubles

In the hot steamy bubbles

And soak in the altogether.

And so, on National Nude Day, share the bare-naked truth: Will you be in your hot tub in the buff tonight? (I in fact just might!)