Chicago Tribune to Oak Park-River Forest HS: The shameful girls' swimsuits have GOT TO GO. Now.

Oh dear powers above, please let today's Chicago Tribune article shame Oak Park & River Forest High School into doing something about their awful swimsuits.  They have been too flimsy, transparent, and unstretchy since Ernest Hemingway went there.  I think he may even have penned a short story about it - The Old Suit and the Sea, was it?

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-high-school-swimsuits-20120529,0,511782.story

The sheer (and I do mean sheer) ignominy of those suits is not to be believed.  Worse, when I was young, was that they had different colors for different sizes.  So a few really tiny girls got a specific color, and most people got blue, and then just 1-2 poor girls had to wear gigantic red ones.  They would pick red for the big suits.

A gargantuan dollop of shame on top of having to sport the suit itself, is the scowling appraisal you'd get from the locker room matron, as you stood naked in a line with a washcloth to cover you.
~EPIC SHUDDER OF SHAME!~

So, here's what you need to do right now, OPRF.  You need to set a standard for one-piece girls' suits, specify that they wear swim trunks and/or a T-shirt over, and have them shlep their own suits to/from school and wash them.  Chicago Public Schools does it systemwide, and I know Oak Parkers have more money than the average CPS parent.

Somewhere on the OPRF Alumni Facebook page is a long, cringeworthy thread on this topic, including even more awful things the boys had/have to do in swim class, including swimming naked and the infamous naked walk around the pool at the end of class.  My hand to God.

Just got irked enough after posting this to drop a note to the Principal and the Athletic Director with a link to my blog post.  We'll see.  I'm sure they'd welcome your email too in your ample free time:
Nathaniel Rouse, Principal - nrouse@oprfhs.org
Dale Craft, Head of Physical Education - dcraft@oprfhs.org (special thanks to Athletic Director John Seltzer for forwarding this to Mr. Craft)