Our Cafe prices will be high enough so that if a Member takes a friend any other place he will be considered rather a short Sport. Each member will have his Private Locker (including a Corkscrew), where he can change to his bathing Suit. There will be a wide Veranda under awnings where Members may dine in their Suits, and other Tables which are not protected from the Rays of the Sun, where the more Hardy Members may sit and acquire a Tan.
Of course one item of expense in connection with these Clubs which will require me to expend quite a tidy sum is having Ocean Sand transported to these Towns and then by Truck to the center of the City.
This sand must be spread very, very thick, as the principal pastime of the Members and Guests will be to lay right down in it and try and cover each other entirely up. Oh, it’s a ripping experience that you in the inland Cities have missed, if you have never tried it.
Mind you, this 500 dollars which I receive per each will not all be profit as I will be called upon to purchase a Medicine Ball or so. That is a Beach Sport that only the most Athletic and reckless of our Membership would dare enter into—tossing this ferocious Ball from one to the other. I have seen a Game of it last, if there were Female Spectators, as long as three or four minutes.
Then, for the more skilled, there is Baseball on the Beach which is played with a Rubber Tennis Ball. I have seen men graduate from that right into some of our best Tea and Cake Hounds.
We will have beautifully striped Umbrellas placed at intervals over the Beach for those who become fatigued in parading. When there is a big crowd and you have to walk by everybody in your Bathing Suit it tires one more than the uninitiated would think. And we’ll have a Life Guard (perhaps a Native of Honolulu if we can procure one). At any rate, we will get the most sunburned one we can, for the less fortunate ones to compare their Tan with. He will be provided with Smelling Salts, and other restoratives in case a Wife should unexpectedly discover her own Husband with some other One Piece Suit Female Companion.
There will be Life Lines across the sands, so the more fore-sighted of the members can find their way during the afternoon back and forth to their Lockers.
Now, I think I have enumerated all that is required to successfully operate one of these Beach Clubs. Of course, most of them heretofore have had Water but in all my experience (which runs over a term of years) I have never seen a Member willfully enter this Water. Years ago at one of the Eastern Beaches they claim a man went into the water, but this has never been verified, and so far as the ladies go, there hasn’t been a swell Bathing Suit wet since Kellermann retired.
Now you see my scheme. I have laid it before you. Nobody ever thought of it because they were not a close observer like I have been. They just naturally thought Water was required, but it is the most unnecessary thing connected with a Beach Club. Of course, Showers are provided for those who do not care to sleep with sand in their bed.
Just think of a Club right at your door where you can run down and change Clothes and display your figure without having to go to Palm Beach or Del Monte! Besides, I am showing you how you can display it to the People who you want to see it—not to a lot of strangers. Show it right where it will do you the most good.