NAKED ARMS

In the Old Country, a.k.a. Vermont, here’s how it works. From September through mid-May, unless you’re in a sauna or a swimming pool, you never see a body part other than the head, neck (and only sometimes, the neck) and hands.
If you're outdoors, from November through mid-March, even those parts are on restricted viewing. More often, you see hat, gloves and face… or, when it’s really cold, eyes peering out from a facemask or scarf.
Then, one fine day in late May or early June, bam — skin! Guys walk into class or the office, stunned. “Man. You know what I just saw? Bare arm, man. I saw bare arm!”
That’s Vermont.

With it’s year-round mild weather and its California attitude to exposed flesh (“Duh. That’s what it’s there for.”), the sight of bare arm does not a headline make. Muslim women, shielded from the gaze of others like a Vermonter in a January blizzard, that’s what draws the gawkers, not bared bicep. Out here, elbows just aren't news.
Neither is décolletage. In Vermont, that vertical road between the twin hills would draw every eye in the joint. In San Francisco, it’s just part of the landscape. A pleasant landscape, oh yes, but nobody in this town would confuse it with the Grand Canyon. It’s not even a photo op.
Unless, of course, the décolletage was strolling down the Embarcadero side-by-side with a burka’d Muslim woman.
Or, a Vermonter.