LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
CAMP Matters |
by Murray Archibald |
Remembering my firstSundance that is...
This year we celebrate the 20th anniversary Sundance 2007. Wow! Twenty years of the same event. I'm either a masochist (my dcor team might say sadist) or there really is a secret Sundance source of eternal magic and rejuvenation. Whatever the reason, Steve and I are still here, and still "sundancing" after all these yearsand so are a whole lot of other people. Thinking about the 20th year made me remember the first year, so I got out the photo album (from the days when I still had the time and inclination to make a photo album) that contains pictures from the very first Sundance back in 1988. That summer we were all feeling the weight of the first devastating decade of AIDS and we knew we had to do somethingno matter how smallto help, or to at least make us feel not so useless. That year was the 10th anniversary for Steve and me, and when our housemates wanted to have a party, we decided to make it a fundraiser. At the time we had not yet started CAMP Rehoboth and SCAC was still a "kitchen table organization" and not yet incorporated, so the money was given to Whitman Walker's Schwartz Housing Program in Washington and the Health Education Resource Organization (HERO) in Baltimore. That year we raised a little over $6,000 for the two organizations. Last year, by comparison, Sundance cleared $180,000. That first year Steve and I were joined by 19 friends, bringing the first host list to a grand total of 21. This year we have over 350, including more than 50 logo level sponsors. Looking back over that original host list, a copy of which rests under a clear plastic sheet in my old photo album, got me thinking about my old friends. Some of them are still Sundance Hosts, Supporters or Sponsors, including: Don Baum, Steve Hayes, Emilie Paternoster, Mary Beth Ramsey, Bob Ramsey, Jodi Renbaum, and Albert Scariato. Four of them, beloved friends all: Michael Brossette, John Moore, Dick Sewell, and John Van Meter, didn't survive the intervening years between the first Sundance and the advent, in the mid-1990s, of the drugs that started keeping HIV positive people alive for a longer period of time. Originally the event was called "A Sun Dance" because we planned it as an outdoor dance. Fortunately we had the forethought to include a little note at the bottom of the invitation. "In case of unkind weather," it read, "please join us at The Strand, 137 Rehoboth Avenue for a Rain Dance." A good call, I must say, because it poured all day long. The next year the name was changed to simply "Sundance" and not long after that the word "rainbow" was added to the ever changing sub-theme and it's been there ever since. In retrospect, I get a little kick out of the fact that a rainbow is only possible when there is both sunshine and rain. Time has a way of changing our perspective on the past. Looking back to that first Sun Dance, I'm incapable of seeing it as we did back then. For me it exists through a long line of Sundance lenses all compressed and faceted into one big Sundance experience. I can't view one without looking through the 19 that follow. I can't see the original hosts except as a nucleusa heartbracketed by the hundreds who have joined us in the years between then and now. When I think of the decorations, I visualize all of them floating around together in my head. Could I separate them by year? Maybe, but I couldn't do it without a lot of concentration and my carefully kept Sundance binders and files. This way of remembering is not unique to me or to my Sundance experience. All of life takes on a compressed quality as we live through it. The past is the present and therefore the future as welland we are all that we have ever beenthe good and the bad, the joy all mixed up with the sorrow. Sometimes when Steve and I are working away on the host list or some other aspect of Sundance, a friend, long dead, will suddenly sit down with us for a timeJohn Van Meter, holding his head and concentrating on the year's financials; Richard Erskine, explaining a new lighting plan; Eric Cabrera, with some special music he wants us to hear; or Michael Brossette dropping off a check...the list goes on and on. Sundance is important now because both CAMP Rehoboth and SCAC depend on the money it raises to do their work. But it is also important because of the structure and family it has created over the years. None of us understood back then that we were starting something we would still be doing 20 years later. None of us envisioned throwing a party that would last for two decades or become "a Rehoboth tradition" as it has been referred to of late. Only a few years after the first Sundance, CAMP Rehoboth was born. Much of what I've said here also applies to CAMP Rehoboth and, for me, they will always be intertwined. The greatest lesson that Steve and I have learned from both is that starting something is only the first step. Making a commitment to it is the hard partand in the end, the most satisfying. Who can say what will happen in the next twenty years or when we'll be called upon to "dance the last dance," but right now I'm ready to celebrate Sundance for the 20th time in a row. I hope everyone else will join me as we honor and remember the 19 people who danced the first dance with us all those many years ago. Murray Archibald, Founder and President of the Board of Directors of CAMP Rehoboth, is an artist in Rehoboth Beach. Photos: Steve and Murray, and dancers at Sundance 1. September 4, 1988The host list from the first Sundance. Murray Archibald Steve Elkins And their friends Don Baum Michael Brossette Hal Creel Blair Ferguson Steve Hayes Rick Hutto Robert Lancelotta Barry Latham David Mackay John Moore Emilie Paternoster Tom Poston Mary Beth Ramsey Robert Ramsey Jodi Renbaum Albert Scariato Dick Sewell Tim Sites John Van Meter Thank you to all the CAMP Rehoboth Community Center Volunteers for the period of July 26August 9. Tony Burns Jim Byrnes Bob Chambers Harvey Chasser Terry Colli Chuck Flanagan Joe Garitta Tony Ghigi James Hagiehenth Steve Janosik Spencer Kingswell Donald Krzyzkowski Charlie Lee Tony Meyer Stan Mills Michael Muller Bob Nagy Jim O'Dell Jerry Oshinski Roy Perdue Jean Rabian Barb Ralph Ken Reilly Chris Sampson Guillermo Silveira Rich Snell Martin Thaler Rainbow Thumb Club Matt Carey Ward Ellinger Rob Freeman Tony Ghigi Steve Hoult Shawn Noel Bud Palmer Ken Reilly Tom White Follies Bartenders* Brian Allen Frank Catagnus Rob Dick Brett Doe Betzi Moose Connie Wilson *Oops, we forgot to list our fabulous Follies' Bartenders in the last issue of Letters. |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 17, No. 11 August 10, 2007 |