LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
CAMP Stories |
by Rich Barnett |
Rehoboth Beach, Another Fire Island? A naked man strums a ukulele. Deer walk the beach. A convenience store sells suntan lotion, flip flops, evening gowns, and boasjust in case you forgot yours. None of this feels out of the ordinary here in Cherry Grove out on Fire Island and from where I'm writing this column. What feels queer is the quiet. It's the middle of July and besides the tap-tap-tapping of my typing, all I hear this evening is the tinkling of a thousand wind chimes and the horny croaking of the bullfrogs. Fire Island, for those of you who don't know it, is a barrier island, five miles off the coast of New York's Long Island and roughly two hours from Manhattan. You reach it only via ferry boat. Cars are a four-letter word on the island and people are more than happy to wheel around their belongings in little red wagons. There are no streets per se, just a grid of elevated wooden boardwalks. A walk from the bay to the ocean takes less than five minutes. Cherry Grove is the island's original gay community. Oscar Wilde visited in 1882. New York's gay and lesbian theatre and arts crowd summered in the Grove, drawn by its natural beauty and privacy, so much so that by the 1930s it was a well-known homo haven. Many have called it America's first gay town. Neighboring Fire Island Pines was developed in the 1960s and quickly became the place for Manhattan's gay society with its trendy Architectural Digest-style homes packed with stylish men. If the Grove attracted the gin and Judy set then the Pines was all about Speedos, disco, sex, and drugs. That reputation is what scared Rehoboth's straight locals and summer residents back in the early 1980s when gays began to come to Rehoboth in a big way. A few high-tone homosexuals they could tolerate, but too many queers walking around town holding hands and eyeing each other up would turn Rehoboth into the next Fire Island and kill summer tourism. It's interesting to think about all this twenty-five years later. In some sense, the naysayers were right. Rehoboth is the new Fire Island. Handsome men stroll hand-in-hand on their way to fancy dinners and later to drink seven dollar cocktails at late night discos. The beach is packed with guys in stylish bathing suits, including, yes, some Speedos. Gay political groups come to town to raise money. A moribund art scene has been revived. Gays and lesbians run businesses and are active in civic affairs. Bad for tourism? You tell me. On the other hand, Rehoboth is nowhere near becoming another Fire Island. Fire Island is all about freedom and nature. You can skinny dip without risking arrest and take your cocktail down to the dock to watch the sun set. Property owners seek to maximize the sunlight and the land and the air rather than the square footage of every lot. Commercial development is kept to a bare minimum. There's no traffic. I was sipping a Bloody Mary on my last day in The Grove and talking with a bartender who has worked on the island for forty-five years. Fire Island used to attract the most stunning men from around the world because it was one of the few places you could go to be with other gay men. Now you can be gay at K-Mart and the island is mostly a weekend jaunt for New Yorkers. Yes, the bartender had heard that Rehoboth was hot, but he didn't seem too inspired to pay a visit anytime soon. He spread his arms out in a gesture I understood to mean why leave what he loved. I knew exactly what he meant. As the two o'clock ferry pulled up, I grabbed a Bloody to go and scurried over to hop on board. Four days of peace and quiet was nice, but I'd had enough. I needed a Rehoboth fix.
You can see more of Rich's Fire Island photos by visiting him on facebook.com/rich.barn. |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 19 No. 10 July 31, 2009 |