CAMPOut: 

I took a walk up memory lane and into the Twilight Zone last weekend.

The place was the Chelsea Pines B&B in New York City, where I climbed toward heaven in a five-story walk-up and came face to face with memories of my high school prom. Yes, me in a dress. If staring at my old prom pictures didn’t make me feel ancient, schlepping up those guesthouse stairs surely did.

About a year ago, in a search of lodging in New York, I discovered that my former high school prom date Jay (Fay and Jay, it was cute) was now the proprietor of an internationally known gay B&B in the Big Apple. If we’d only realized then, what we both know now, we’d have saved ourselves a lot of angst.

But each of us, having found our way out of the closet in our own sweet time, reconnected last weekend and laughed our heads off about it.

When Bonnie and I arrived at the guesthouse, my high school honey’s front desk staff greeted us warmly, with devilish grins. "Where’s your corsage?" said the cute staffer. Uh, oh. Infamous. He smirked as he offered us a tour.

Jay’s father had owned a movie theatre, and Jay was the proud owner of thousands of fantastic old movie posters, hundreds of which adorned the B&B walls. Each room in the 25-room building was named for an old-time movie star, and the place was high homosexual and positively wonderful.

The general manager pointed us (up) to our fourth floor Donna Reed Suite to await our host. Like luggage-laden Von Trapp Family Singers, we commenced the climb from base camp to summit.

Oh boy, (pant, pant) to borrow a line from playwright Neil Simon, if I had known the people on the second floor I would have gone to stay with them.

Winded but no worse for wear, we arrived at Donna Reed, flung open the door and (cue the eerie Twilight Zone music) discovered why the front desk clerk smirked. Enlarged, grainy, frightening Xerox copies of my 1965 prom pictures, yearbook photo, and other assorted artifacts adorned the walls over the movie posters. Bonnie and I used up what little breath we had left laughing until we nearly peed.

I especially appreciated the Thelma & Louise-ish picture of me, behind the wheel of my parents’ sports car, wearing a ridiculous grin and humongous, dramatically pointy white sunglasses.

Actually, when I got finished laughing and gasping for oxygen, I was touched that Jay had saved all that stuff for, omigod, 39 (!) years. It doesn’t seem possible.

But almost four decades later it is. And while I haven’t changed much (Ha!) movie posters sure have.

"He knew her lips, but not her name..." "Backlash! Suspense that cuts like a whip!" and my favorite—certainly prior to political incorrectness—Donna Reed starring as Sacajawea.

The film was The Far Horizon, IN TECHNICOLOR no less, and it was a far horizon indeed to see my high school photo plastered in the middle of the poster. Bonnie, staring at the yearbook graduation picture laughed that she had Jimmy Carter type lust in her heart at the sight of that innocent young thing. Weird!!!!

When our host arrived, he came bearing flowers and a huge smile. We stared at each other, searching for our former young selves in the middle-aged gay people we’d become. I recognized him right away, even if he was letting his natural blonde grow in (!!). I noted that perhaps he’d forgotten I was always a red head.

We only had the afternoon to reminisce, because Jay lives the life we used to: he works at the Chelsea Pines during the week and then he and his partner flee the city Friday nights for their weekend home in the Berkshire mountains. We told him of our five years commuting to Rehoboth.

Jay learned that Bonnie and I were celebrating what would have been our 22nd anniversary, if we hadn’t eloped to Canada last August, creating a muddled anniversary date. I learned the fascinating tale of his buying a run-down rooming house filled with "bums" and slowly converting it to the now-thriving gay guesthouse. It was a lovely reunion and we talked of doing it again, maybe here at the beach.

As for the rest of the weekend, it had lots of blast from the past qualities. On Saturday afternoon we went to the Television and Radio museum on 52nd Street to see part of a documentary series on gay images on TV. The Saturday showing was The Early Years and included a 1964 episode of Espionage. Filmed in black and white, one year before my high school graduation, the program looked as prehistoric as my prom pictures.

Jim Backus played a diplomat investigating a rumor that one of his staff was (big wide-eyed intake of breath) "a homosexual." Lines like "You realize he is an expert in ... antique furniture!!!" (gasp!), and "Isn’t he a little ... light on his feet?" made the audience wince, then giggle. Frankly, as dreadful as the televised homophobia was, the treatment of women in the episode was even more disturbing, so lots of us have come a long way baby.

And we went a long way, baby, all weekend. For the record, we’d get dressed for the whole day in the morning, and not return to Mt. Donna Reed until bedtime. One Stairmaster session a day was plenty.

We spent time downtown in Chelsea and the Village, then uptown to Bloomingdale’s and Broadway. By Sunday, we toasted to our anniversary at a girl bar called The Cubby Hole on West 4th Street in the Village.

In a very back-to-the-future moment, we played the state-of-the-art satellite jukebox, which can summon every recording ever made, and chose "our" song from 1982—Ann Murray’s "Can I Have This Dance"

As we sipped a drink and, to quote Anne Murray, "swayed to the music," Bonnie slipped a bar matchbook over my way. She’d written our phone number on it, with the words "call me."

Cue the Twilight Zone music.

Okay, we’re back, if not to the future, at least to the present. It’s finally something close to Spring here in Rehoboth. We’ve got six months to argue about whether to celebrate our anniversary again in August.

In the meantime, if you happen to be heading to NYC, we heartily recommend the Chelsea Pines Inn. I’m sure my photos have been stripped from the walls by now. And I understand that the James Garner suite is fabulous. And it’s on the ground floor.