Newport nudes

Or maybe Nudeport news. Either way, this little Maine hamlet handled its moment in the national spotlight as The Town Where a Woman Took Her Shirt Off and Mowed the Lawn with commendable aplomb and sophistication.

No reason to get all in a foofaraw, seemed to be the civic sentiment. Just a minor fender bender between one person’s exercise of personal freedom and another’s sense of morality. Town officials took the eminently mature position that this is not a matter of public indecency, since cutting grass is not a sex act. (Well, it is to a middle-aged guy who just blew the family savings on a really big John Deere, but that’s a different story.)

Alas, it was too good to be true. It turns out this is not about life, liberty and the pursuit of the perfect tan. It’s about junk cars, unlicensed dogs and faulty septic tanks. Phooey.

Shirley Davis, mother of the groundskeeper en deshabille, is a tireless crusader against those aforementioned blights. Mary Thompson, the neighbor who made the complaint, is an alleged blight owner. Stripped down to the bare essentials, this might be just another rural grudge.

Not to take sides, but it’s hard not to like Mrs. Davis. She believes the right to get the best tan the Maine sun allows should be gender-neutral. She has no sympathy for anyone who peeks through her hedge. She says she’d mow that way herself if she had her adult daughter’s figure.

Now, Mrs. Thompson has a point as well. While it’s unlikely the topless trimming of the Davis lawn will send the children of Newport spiraling into the abyss of depravity, she may be right to worry that the sight could be a hazard, and not just from the scratches, scrapes and insect bites that come from lurking in a hedge. Unsuspecting motorists, Mrs. Thompson suggests, could become so discombobulated by the sight of something forbidden everywhere except on most cable TV shows, new movies and popular magazine covers that they might lose control of their vehicles.

On the other hand, there is timely evidence to the contrary, possible proof that naked people may promote traffic safety. For some months, New Jersey authorities have gotten complaints that a billboard employing a nude woman (arms strategically placed) to promote a clothing store is a hazard. New data, however, shows that this stretch of highway formerly high in accidents is now one of the Garden State’s safest, presumably because drivers are slowing down to leer.

Just imagine. Instead of wasting a fortune advising drivers of hairpin curves, blind intersections, bumps, dips and jaywalking wildlife with warning signs no one heeds, Maine could lead the way to a new era of safe motoring with signs showing the silhouettes of shapely women engaged in horticulture. Traffic would slow to a crawl, but getting there would once again be half the fun.