A tree-canopied gravel road leads to Valley View Recreation Club’s swinging metal gate, just 30 miles north of Janesville, Wisconsin, where a handful of club members clutching clipboards await visitors to the club’s annual car show. They collect $35 from each guest and give them ballots for selecting their favorite cars. The guests then check their courage and their clothing at the door.
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About 20 of the club’s 55 acres are reserved for activities and dual 17-acre plots of soybean fields and woods buffer the naked from the clothed–or, as they call it at Valley View, “textile”–community. In 1948 a farmer named Herman Olson donated the land to the club. His will stipulates that if Valley View moves or disbands, the property must revert to his heirs. Down to about 30 members just three years ago, this seemed a possibility. But Valley View has managed to double its membership since then, and 700 visitors drop by at least once a year for a try at the total tan.
Some auto enthusiasts drive several hundred miles in their classic cars for the chance to show off their wheels during the weekend-long event. Last year 57 cars competed for prizes in categories ranging from “pre-1950 stock” to “ladies’ choice.” (First-time guests qualify for a Cottontail Award, given to the man and woman with the least-tanned butt on the lot).
No one warranted ejection at last year’s car show. The most risque spectacle was the Saturday-night dance. It took a while for a Madison-based hard-rock quintet called Johnny Law to defrost the largely Tony Bennett-era audience with its repertoire of “Hair of the Dog,” “Mississippi Queen,” and “Tie Your Mother Down.” But once properly thawed, the dancers flailed away.
A retired cop has been coming to Valley View with his 1962 Ford T-Bird Sports Roadster for four years. He won the convertible category.
