Category: Personal

Not everything is about selling books…

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The Naked Egalitarian

Throughout history, clothes have served three basic purposes, only one of them truly practical. As a protection against the cold or too much sun, clothing is genuinely useful. Freezing to death, sun stroke, and skin cancer are all bad. Also, it can protect you against the hazards of your profession. Certainly, a blacksmith is better off with his heavy leather apron than without it. I also wouldn’t recommend that a gardener operate a weed whacker without at least some long pants. And I’m grateful that the people preparing my food or performing surgery on me are wearing the proper attire.

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My First Visit to Black’s Beach

I don’t really have a bucket list to speak of, but there are a few things that I have never done that I still want to do, such as travel south of the Equator. I suppose I had better put that list in some sort of order, so I can start checking them off, but at least today I took care of one item that had been on my list of things to do for quite a while. I visited Black’s Beach, the largest clothing-optional beach in North America.

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William R. Eadington (1946-2013)

When I was a kid, Bill Eadington was the likeable low-key guy who married my godmother, Margaret Dean. The Deans and McElligotts grew up next to each other on Coronado Drive in Fullerton, California. When I was little, Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners were cooked in both kitchens and passed over the side fence. On the Fourth of July, our two families, plus our neighbors on the other side, the Bakers, and another family down the street, the Marcons, managed to spread the party across all four yards. It wasn’t exactly Norman Rockwell, but it was close enough.

Bill EadingtonIn our little town, Bill was descended from citrus industry royalty. Back when the land around Fullerton was just one big orange grove, the Eadingtons and the Bastanchurys were the kings of the Valencia orange. There are still streets named after both families.

To rest of the world, for most of my adult life, William R. Eadington, Professor of Economics at the University of Nevada, Reno, was the go-to guy on the subject of the gaming industry. I’ll let his own school say it:

Eadington is the current holder of the Philip J. Satre chair in Gaming Studies, a professor of economics, and director of the Institute for the Study of Gambling and Commercial Gaming at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR). He is an internationally recognized authority on the legalization and regulation of commercial gaming and has written extensively on issues relating to the economic and social impacts of the industry.

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