LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
CAMPOUT: A Rehoboth Journal - Sweet Inspiration! |
by Fay Jacobs |
When I first sat down to write this column I had plenty of time. It was the holiday season and coming up with copy in time for the Valentines Day issue seemed a piece of cake. I knew I was in trouble when all I had to do was type the word cake and I was out of my chair looking for dessert like a truffle sniffing dog. Then I figured it was stupid to go back to the keyboard on an El Nino-inspired 67 degree day. So Max and I took a day-after-Christmas boardwalk stroll. If this was global warming I was all for it. That night we went to a cocktail partysomething that validates my theory of the genetic discrepancy between most gay men and women. If Bonnie and I are asked to bring a party appetizer we buy a pound of something yummy and plop it on a paper platemaybe, maybe not, with a plastic knife. We show up with our mound of crabmeat slathered in cocktail sauce or caviar ladled over a sturdy block of cream cheese and its piteous compared to the guys exquisite contributionsdelicate china carrying delicately sculptured works of art posing as canapes. So we went to this party with a typically rugged offering and stood in awe of our brothers contributions. One of the guys tried to teach us to recognize the perfect consistency for lemon curdin case hell froze and we had to make curd for, say, insulation. Terms like mousse and meringue failed to connect with us until somebody said "Stir until it resembles spackle." That we understood. "Fays going to write this one up," said a cheerful passerby. "Not likely," I said. "I have writers block." A week passed and still no column. So I went shoppingmy therapy for everything. Not so Bonnie, who hates to go shopping. She will, however, go getting. When she needs a specific item, she goes and gets it. But no window shopping or browsing. This morning she announced she was going to get the paper at Get-About Books on the Avenue. I dragged her to Route 1 anyway. Not only did I come home less a story, but she violated one of our basic relationship rules and bought more than I did. New Years Eve arrived with a party at handsurely a column idea would surface. Small elegant dinner party; wonderful friends; lots of laughs; some bubbly at midnight and home we went. Weve got to do something about this wild gay lifestyle. Rosebowl? Mummers Parade? A visit from my parents????? When I couldnt find anything to rant and rave about by January 10 I started to panic. So while Bonnie watched Bob Villa wallpaper Saskatchewan, I locked myself and my laptop in our condos tiny bedroom, popped the TV on and hoped for a revelation to get me typing. I found no small irony in news footage of the Unabombers cabin being trucked to court to prove that any person willingly holed up in a 10x12 room writing manifestos was most surely certifiably nuts. Another week with no progress. We attended a wonderful gathering where I was introduced to lots of lucky folks who live in Rehoboth full time. While nobody said "Oh, youre the lunatic who makes a spectacle of yourself in print," I suspected they recognized me. I mean what are the chances that every person in the room is in the witness protection program unable to divulge name and career? Was it any "Earthly Wonder" I was panicking for story material? Ive got it! Ill write about a recent family gathering so truly weird that readers would find a simple re-telling hilarious. Saved! I finished the story and read it to my spouse. "Its very funny, every word is true, its a great column, and if you use it Ill have to kill you." This was a first. This long-suffering woman has seen every stupid thing weve ever done show up in print and never once used a line item veto. That includes the infamous Hot Flash article, which, if you missed it, I dont dare repeat lest I get in trouble all over again. But of course, she was right. Making fun of ourselves is one thing but making fun of people we care about is a topic of another color. That I almost blew it gives you a glimpse into my wretched state. I pushed delete and the column evaporated. By January 17 I would have done anything for an ideaevidenced by my driving 30 miles to the Midway Slots. Have you been there? Its like the Space Shuttle ejected a payload of slot machines onto a cornfield. Picture it: rural roads, a lonely gas station, alfalfa fields, chicken coops, !!!CASINO!!!, rural roads, chicken coops....can you say oxymoron? Can you say moron? I watched one lady feed a hundred dollar bill into the video slot machine, poke the PLAY button a bunch of times, shrug and walk away empty-handed. Not that she was the only one. The place was filled with hundreds of people, some in 70s leisure suits, playing one-armed nautilus machinesall to the migraine- inviting clatter of buzzers, bells, blinking lights, blinking people and thousands of video cherries, sevens and lemons passing in the night but never quite landing three across. As for scenery, I especially liked the man with a towering pompadour who tripped on a roll of nickels and fell down and broke his hair. Like any casino, some people had fun with the hoopla while others sat like zombies, well on their way to losing, literally in this case, the farm. Mind you, I am not so self-righteous that I didnt drop $14 in quarters into the machines before I wrenched myself away. By last weekend, on the off chance thered be a tale in it, I went to Gourmet by the Seas close-out sale to buy things I never heard of much less knew how to use. No story. But now I need a book on the care and feeding of Polenta. Then it happened. Steve was rumored to have moved the deadline for this issue up by a week. Did he call and tell me? No. I woke up last Sunday morning and heard it was true. I hadnt seen such stealth since Ursay stole the Colts from Baltimore. With a column due in mere hours, I lunged for the laptop and typed at warp speed, trying to make sense out of these past weeksdelightful, but by no means the stuff of Pulitzers. My kingdom for a topic. Why is January so dull? What the heck can I write about? Why isnt there anything interesting going on? I did my best, finished up and prepared to e-mail my column to Steve. "Are you watching the news?" Bonnie rushed in to ask. "Some White House intern says......" Now you tell me. |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 8, No. 1, February 6, 1998. |