This time of the year is often called the "dog days" of summer,
but after the recent heat wave maybe we should rename them the hot dog
days of summer—and simply sit back, relax and enjoy them with relish!
"You should be used to hot weather," a friend commented after
listening to my complaining about the heat. "Aren’t you and Murray
from the South?" "Well yes," I drawled in my best Georgia
accent, "but we all know that when it’s this hot outside the only
thing to do is sit down and have a mint julep or a big ole glass of real
sweet tea." Perhaps I should have added a "fiddle-dee-dee"
or two in honor of Scarlet O’Hara, but instead I just walked down to the
Boardwalk and had a hot dog and a glass of ice tea. Ah…"summertime
and the living is easy."
Summertime at CAMP Rehoboth, of course, could never be described as
"easy," but it’s also never boring—and if the truth be known
I think we must surely enjoy it more than we might let on—which would
certainly explain why we are about to produce the annual Sundance Benefit
for the nineteenth time. At this point in the production of Sundance 2006,
we have finalized the list of Sponsors, Supporters and Hosts who will make
this year’s event possible. Some of the people on that list number among
the 18 original Sundance hosts who danced the Sundance into existence back
in 1988. All of the people on the list deserve recognition and thanks for
their generous support of CAMP Rehoboth and SCAC. A personal thank you is
especially in order to my "sister-in-law," Mary Beth Ramsey for
the enormous amount of time and talent she gives to the production of all
our beautiful Sundance graphics and printed materials and to Charlie Lee
for his meticulous input of all the Sundance data. For details about this
year’s event and the complete listing of Sponsors, Supporters, and
Hosts, see pages 6-7 in this issue.
In books and in movies, the summer may be "endless," but here
in Rehoboth Beach it certainly is not, and in only a few short weeks Labor
Day weekend will have passed and we’ll all be looking ahead to the fall
season—or the festival season as I like to call it. Starting with the
Delaware Pride Festival at Gordon’s Pond on September 16, make your
plans now to include: The YMCA Baltimore Avenue Block Party, September 26;
The Celebrity Chef’s Beach Brunch for Meals on Wheels, October 1; The
Autumn Jazz Festival, October 11-15; the Sea Witch Festival and Halloween,
October 27-29; and the Rehoboth Beach Independent Film Festival, November
8-12.
Also in the fall—as the frantic pace of the summer season subsides—we
will be able to get back to the ongoing work of building CAMP Rehoboth and
the community center. For those interested in financial reports, our next
regularly scheduled audit is set for late September and we will publish
the results of that audit as soon as they are available to us. We are
especially grateful to all the Founders’ Circle members who have helped
us meet and surpass our original million dollar goal during this past
year. Though we are still working to finalize the date and location,
sometime in the mid to late fall we will be conducting a workshop for
Founders’ Circle members so those who have supported the CAMP Rehoboth
Community Center will have a chance to hear about our plans and help us
make some decisions about future directions and growth.
I’ve been thinking lately about how much we take our community here
in Rehoboth Beach for granted. People who come here for the first time
always comment on the openness and the welcome they receive as they walk
through our streets. Side by side, families with kids in strollers and gay
couples holding hands share the streets of our town. Life is not this way
everywhere—I hope it will be someday.
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