Men’s swimsuit calendar a hit in retirement community

Being retired doesn't mean you can't have fun showing off a little skin. At least that's how it is with 11 guys at Oaknoll retirement community. They're featured in the Men of Oaknoll 2010 Swimsuit Calendar.

“I think I was a willing victim,” says Herb Wilson, 82, posing as Mr. May in a grass skirt and coconut-shell bra. “We had a wonderful time.”

“I'm waiting for the phone to ring, but it hasn't yet,” says Mr. September, Bob Engel, 77. He flexes a little muscle in the exercise pool but jokes that he spells it “F-A-T.”

Hot off the presses Dec. 9, the calendar has already sold more than 200 copies, says Kim Haring, marketing director of the retirement community with 300 residents, ranging in age from 62 to more than 100. A wine reception was held with the men signing autographs.

“I think some of the women are a little jealous,” says Laura O'Conner, wellness coordinator, who came up with the idea.

They had their chance. The original idea was to have women pose in swimsuits.

It all began a few years ago with TOES - The Oaknoll Exercise Society. O'Conner would read a joke a day for the exercise sessions and, after four years, had them put into a book last year. Profits from the book sale went to the Oaknoll Foundation to benefit residents.

Someone suggested a new project could be a swimsuit calendar of women residents.

“None of them would do it,” O'Conner says, but one woman suggested asking men to pose.

As O'Conner inquired among her AquaCize class participants in the Oaknoll pool, she'd hear, “If Bob does it, I'll do it.” So she used that leverage to line up 11 subjects - Mr. August is Wilbur, her dog and the exercise mascot.

“It wasn't hard for me to get the men to be cooperative,” O'Conner says, laughing.

Some of the men, like Wilson in his grass skirt who has visited Hawaii several times, had specific ideas. John Strauss wanted to be Mr. July (his birthday is July 15), so he poses in the pool with a red, white and blue bow tie and American flags. Former University of Iowa Athletics Director Bump Elliot is Mr. December, striking his “Heisman Santa” pose while wearing an Iowa Hawkeyes Santa hat.

The calendar cover features the men dressed in tuxedos and smiling, except for one man who stands with his back to the camera. As Mr. February, he doesn't show his face in his swimsuit pose as “Mr. An Onymous.”

So, you wonder, what would former co-workers of these men say if they saw them in the calendar?

“They'd say, there's that screwball,” says Wilson, a retired engineer and entrepreneur who came from Chicago to Iowa in 1973 to build the Wilton steel plant.

“Wait until the next high school reunion,” says Engel, a 1951 Gladbrook High School grad and a retired professor and administrator at the University of Iowa. “Maybe it will be forgotten by then.

“They're talking about having a women's swimsuit calendar,” he adds.

Yes, says O'Conner. “We've got a couple of women rounding up the troops.”

In fact, these women have talked O'Conner into starting a special exercise class, so they can get into swimsuit calendar shape. Look for it in a year, right, ladies?