by Fay Jacobs
Fantastic! I looked at the enormous crowd of women at our state park beach, settled into my chair and took out my decorative book.
I dont know about you, but in all my years at North Shore or Poodle Beach, Ive never actually finished a page of texttoo much to look at. Although holding a book still gives me the reassuring sense I have the option to read if I ever want to.
One of the options I dont exercise is actually getting into the water. I swore off three summers ago when my spouse lured me into the surf ("Dont worry, its calm") from my comfortable chair amid a dozen friends staked out at waters edge.
I gingerly followed Aquawoman toward the breakers, turned to look at the waving crowd behind me, heard "Lookout!," and was instantly wiped out by a wave.
Being swept bass ackwards out to sea, then dribbled on the ocean floor like a basketball was bad; washing up on shore flat on my back with the entire lesbian caucus leaning over me like an overhead shot from an old Busby Berkley movie was worse. Their sincere concern for my safety soon gave way to amusement that my bathing suit had left its moorings and was imitating a beach reclamation vessel. First I thought I was dead, then I hoped I was dead.
So, rather than disturb my domestic tranquillity, its the ocean and I who are no longer speaking. Fortunately, I love lots of things about the beach exclusive of swimming. Like being surrounded by a whole bunch of terrific women, their friends and families.
Thankfully, the one-haircut-fits-all Era has given way to the Panzoic Anything Goes Era with women of all ages, body sizes, bathing suits, haircuts and attitudes cramming the beach. Oooh-wheee! Look at all the lesbian couples, lesbians with kids, lesbians with men and lesbians with dogswe are fam-i-ly!
There were even lesbian luminaries. I was seated near Human Rights Campaign Executive Director Elizabeth Birch and her friends. A lot of the time I spent not reading was spent wondering whether to go over and tell her how much I appreciate her efforts on our behalf and admire her for enduring a job where its impossible to please everybody. I opted for letting her enjoy the beach without thinking about the office.
But as if we didnt know from her job success, no fool sheMs. Executive Director walked waaaaay down the beach before boogey boardingno washing ashore in front of the whole membership for her.
That night Bonnie and I joined friends at a cook-out, where conversation ranged from politics, to menopause, to skate boarding, to dieting, to Gianni Versace, to media coverage of our community, to kids and dogs and apple pie and back again. It felt like a family reunion.
Later, celebrating the first anniversary of two of our favorite guys (who says fairy tales dont come true at the beach!), we met a man telling stories about the gay merchants and homeowners whove been contributing to Rehoboths evolution for a half century or more. How Id love to talk to some of those old timers who had the foresight and spunk to start a community here!
I was thinking about those pioneers and how I might find out more about them last Sunday, when Bonnie and I spent the entire day relaxing at the marina.
As the temperature climbed past 95 degrees, I inflated my tiny three-ring (age 3 and up) swimming pool, sat down cross-legged in it to cool off and read the latest LETTERS FROM CAMP REHOBOTH.
Ten minutes later, two good-looking young men walked up the pier toward us. Certain they were headed past us, Bonnie shifted her chair to let them through. But they stopped two feet from us, looked down at me in my baby pool and said "Are you Fay Jacobs? We were just reading your boat story in LETTERS and we saw the rainbow flag on the boat and thought this must be you. We have a boat in this marina and...."
Im looking up at these guys, trying to concentrate on what theyre saying, pretty sure theyve noticed Im sitting in three inches of water, lodged in a K-Mart inflatable pool.
I could tell them Fay was at the beach and I was the boat sitter. I could flip onto my hands and knees doggy-style and struggle to my feet, or I could just sit there, a happy moron, pretending I didnt feel like the trapped whale in Free Willy.
Bonnie, who smelled revenge, whispered "Good, you can write about this so youll be the laughing stock in the story for once," sweetly offered the guys a drink, then disappeared to make Mudslides.
It turned out that these Philly guys work hard in the city all week and spend weekends at the beach just like we do. We compared notes on the cost of boating and our appreciation of the wonderful, welcoming community spirit of Rehoboth.
And I have to tell you, these men were classy. They pretended not to notice when, after another half-hour of sitting like a pruny pretzel, I finally pulled the plug on my playpen and crawled back up into a chair.
That night Bonnie and I went to Pride 97 at the Renegade. Apart from the excellent food and drink, the enjoyable entertainment and the fun of protecting our bids through the last moments of the silent auction, it was inspiring. Hundreds of Rehoboth business owners and homeownersboth gay and straightpartied together for a great time and a selfless effort to raise money for SCACin remembrance of those weve lost and to help those in need.
You know, the last thing I did before going to bed that Sunday night was pick up a local newspaper and read some of the Homeowners Associations questions for the candidates for City Commissioner.
Buried among issues like traffic, parking and zoning was the phrase "keep Rehoboth a family town" and the ubiquitous cry for "family values."
I thought about it. Those gay entrepreneurs, shopkeepers and homeowners who took a chance on Rehoboth years agodeveloping and maintaining their properties, encouraging a vital resort economy and sharing their aesthetic sensibility, have certainly played a large part in the evolution of the great family town folks find worth keeping.
And I know that the Rehoboth family Bonnie and I have gotten to knownewcomers and old timers; gay and straight together, working hard and donating generously to the communityis a family with values to spare.
Im all for keeping Rehoboth this kind of family town.
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8/8/97 Issue. Copyright 1997 by CAMP Rehoboth, Inc. All rights reserved.