• Location: Vancouver, BC
• Mood: sleepy
• Music: Ray Stevens-"The Streak"

JQA's Skinnydipping Antics

According to historians, John Quincy Adams liked to go for a daily skinny-dip in the Potomac River. Washington being a small town in those days, the word spread about Adams' routine, and New York political king-maker Thurlow Weed decided to check out if the rumors were true. One morning he followed Adams on his stroll to the river and spied on the President as he stripped to the buff and dove into the river. Weed is quoted as saying that Adams "seemed as much at ease in that element as on Terra Firma."

Anne Royall was a female journalist in a time when there were no female journalists. She had been begging Adams for an interview, but the surly son-of-a-president had refused to give her one. One morning Royall also followed Adams as he went for his morning skinny-dip. While Adams was doing the backstroke, Royall gathered up the President's clothes and sat on them on the river bank. When Adams discovered what had happened and told Royall to give him back his duds, she refused to do so unless he promised to give her an interview. Adams agreed, and true to his word he did give the interview. Historians note that Anne Royall became the first female reporter to interview a President.Compared to her, Woodward and Bernstein were amateurs.