LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
Gay 'n Gray: A Tale of Two Cities |
by John Siegfried |
No! This isn't a rewrite of Dickens. It's more like a rerun of This is Your Life.
I live in two citiesFt. Lauderdale, FL in the winter months, and Rehoboth Beach, spring through fall. I'm in view of the ocean in both locations and that most likely qualifies me for the bumper sticker stating, "Life's a Beach." This unicoastal, bifocal arrangement should be ideal, and in many ways it is. But even Paradise had its problems, so what would you expect when you're living in two locations, each billed as a paradise by its advocates. Living in two locations presents problems. The easiest to solve are the cooking problems. In the middle of a recipe I find I need saffron, or arrowroot, or some other exotic entity that only The New York Times food critic knows how to use. I know I have the mystery ingredient from some previous culinary debacle but when it's time to add it to the pot, guess what? It's at the other house. The same surprise occurs with duplicate supplies of clothes, books, liquor, etc. Somehow, what I'm looking for is frequently at the other house regardless of which house I'm in. If we ever combine the two places, space will be at a premium and we'll have enough Windex and Tilex to get me to the grave. More difficult for my partner Howard and me is how we allocate our time to both locations and to each other. Howard LOVES Ft. Lauderdale and even caps, bold, and underline doesn't do justice to his love of fag fun in the sun. I love Rehoboth Beach and, Florida for me is like Scotch, an acquired taste. It's also like Scotch in that large quantities are soporific. When I'm in Rehoboth (and I return two or three times during the winter months so that I can enjoy the solitude and slower pace of the town) I hum to myself, "I don't know why I love you like I do, I don't know why, but I do." When I move south my tempo and my tune change to, Maana, is good enough for me. In some ways we're like the nursery rhyme, Jack Spratt could eat no fat, his wife could eat no lean. So, between them they licked the platter clean. Our life together is a work in progress and at this slice in time our bifocal view has Howard in Rehoboth Beach mid-June to early September, while I head south in early December and return to Rehoboth in late April. We break the long self-imposed periods of exile by meeting together for a few days in New York or a short holiday in the southwest, or Somewhere Over the Rainbow. I must admit that it didn't take long for me to acquire a taste for Scotch and it's only taken me three winters to gain a grudging respect for Ft. Lauderdale's attractions, and there are many. Ft. Lauderdale probably has the largest concentration of gay seniors anywhere. A decade ago the city mothers and fathers, trying to creep out from under the Beach Blanket Bingo/Spring Break image (and economic loss) deliberately set out to attract gay and lesbian retirees and tourism, as Palm Springs, California had done a few years earlier. They developed some gay friendly brochures and established a gay desk within their tourism bureau. Their gamble paid off. Today, Ft. Lauderdale has thirty or more gay hotels and guest houses, four weekly gay publications, forty gay/lesbian clubs and restaurants and enough registered and unregistered advertised massage therapists to bankrupt the Viagra franchise. The permanent gay and lesbian population of the area is in the tens of thousands. They also have Chardee's, which The Washington Post referred to several years ago as, "...an internationally known supper club for older gentlemen." What The Post didn't say is that Chardee's also attracts younger gentlemen who are interested in older gentlemenand they're not all hustlers. Although Howard insists that the ones who talk to me definitely are. Last year when we took a visiting Rehoboth friend to Chardee's for his first visit his comment was, "My God, do they post the obituary in the men's room so you know who'll be here tonight?" Perhaps that's overkill plus the cynicism of youth (if late forties is still youth) but I find it gently warming to see male couples and female couples in their 60s, 70s and beyond slow dancing to Guy Lombardo and Tommy Dorsey tunes. And for Sunday night karaoke even the most off-pitch codger gets an E for effort, if not excellence. An unexpected personal spin-off is that, in Ft. Lauderdale, olderand I mean really olderseniors with walkers, crutches and motorized carts are so common that it generates a sense of admiration and awe. I hope that when it's my turn to walk in their shoes I'll have the courage and guts that these people demonstrate daily by getting out and about, and on with their lives. The Sun Sentinel, Lauderdale's local paper, recently reported on the birthday of a 104 year old woman who each week day morning gets a bus to a local seniors centernot to be served, but to volunteer in assisting other seniors. How's that for modeling behavior? Lauderdale has other attributes worth mentioning not the least of which is clear, warm, swimmable ocean water. In Lauderdale I can see my ankles when I'm nipple deep in the water. In Rehoboth I sometimes have trouble seeing my ankles when I'm ankle deep in the water. On the down side, the Lauderdale beach is backed by two to four lanes of noisy traffic and the gentle dunes of North Beach and Poodle become a winter fantasy. There's no need to list the attributes of Rehoboth. All of us who keep coming back know the list. My personal rut was cut by years of weekend trips from D.C. The stress eased each time I crossed the Bay Bridge. Rehoboth has always been a place of serenity and friendship, a place where you have to slow down to respect the rights of skaters, bikers, walkers, waddling ducks and low flying geese. Increasingly, though, as Dan and Peter noted over dinner at Costello's Gin Mill (one of those forty clubs and restaurants), Rehoboth is becoming a half-way house for retirees from D.C. on their way to Ft. Lauderdale. The proof of their assertion is that I can easily name twenty or more D.C./Rehoboth past residents, who call Lauderdale home. And that doesn't include the sizable crew that, like me, pass South of the Border at least twice a year. For Howard and me with our conflicting, no, complementary loves, we've agreed that as long as I'm physically able to enjoy caring for my garden and climb ladders to clear pine straw from the roof gutters, Rehoboth will remain my home. When the day comes, however, that I can't accomplish those tasks, it will be time to continue my journey south. How incredibly fortunate I am to have a home, friends, and a partner waiting and anxious to convert me to full-time residency status in Ft. Ladeda. Perhaps this could have been predicted. After all, it didn't take long to acquire a taste for Scotch, and it's now my favorite drink. John Siegfried, a retired association executive, resides in Rehoboth Beach and Ft. Lauderdale. |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 11, No. 4, May 4, 2001 |