LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
CAMPOut: Getting back to normal, whatever that is... |
by Fay Jacobs |
In answering our nation's call to go back about our business after the terrible events of Sept. 11, Bonnie and I did our best by land and sea. You may recall that when we first arrived in Rehoboth in 1995 it was via power boat that we lived aboard in Dewey. We were motor boaters, (stink-potters to our sailing friends) through and through. Times change. After cruising the Chesapeake and Delaware Bays for over a dozen years, (typically spending a hundred bucks in gas on a Sunday to go to Cape May for "cheap lobsters") we gave up the seafaring life for a beach condo. It was a great swap, but the call of the waves beckoned to Bonnie once more when a new acquaintance asked her to go sailing on a rented catamaran. She loved it and now we are really in cold water. Mirroring our community's reputation for instant pairing off ("What's a lesbian bring on a second date? A U-Haul"), we bought a boat with our new friends on our second sailing date. Said boat is a two-decade old Hobie 16, which, to my cabin cruiser enthusiast's eye isn't even a boat. It's two canoes held together by a trampoline. Picture Tom Hanks in Castaway. And it has an enormous mast and boom just waiting to make inadvertent contact with my head when the wind changes. But my girlfriend loves it. Bonnie and her new co-captain set out for their first sail on the new vessel on a gorgeous September day. "Okay, girls," I said, "you'd better really enjoy this day because you know what they say: the two best days in a boater's life are the day you buy it and the day you sell it." Punishment for that quip won me an invitation aboard. "Come on," Bonnie said to me, and her co-captain's equally reluctant partner, "the four of us should really take the first voyage together." So our quartet climbed aboard this tiny raft with a sail and set out, in a whoosh of wind, across Rehoboth Bay. Have you ever been on a Hobie? The damn thing travels like a bat out of hell. I was so surprised by the speed of the craft, it took me a few minutes to realize that not only didn't the thing have an engine, but our captains courageous didn't even have an oar on board for emergencies. If the wind died we'd be up Love Creek without a paddle. And it's a good thing the water was warm after a long hot summer. The canvas raft we indelicately sprawled across had water spouts spurting through its middle like old faithful. My God, the thing was a 16 foot bidet. We were a traveling wet T-shirt contest. Every few minutes our captains would tell their intrepid passengers to shift positions lest we be swept overboard by the boom. Ah, memories of my being sent to the bow on our former boat-home to help raise the engine off a sand bar. My life as ballast, part two. As we sailed along, enjoying the gorgeous weather and trying to normalize our lives, I can't say we weren't a little jumpy at the sound of aircraft overhead and helicopters buzzing the beach. Were they just normal training flights from Dover and typical Coast Guard flyovers? We beached our craft, ending our maiden voyage with success and hurried back to our 24-hour news stations to see if anything had changed in the world. At that point, it hadn't but we did hear New York Mayor Rudi Guiliani encouraging tourists to flock to the Big Apple. Now there was a yankee doodle dandy idea. Actually, we'd had theatre tickets for the following weekend for some time, but the idea that we'd be doing our patriotic duty by seeing shows, eating lox and bagel and shopping made me positively giddy. On our way up the Jersey Turnpike, where you first see the Twin Towers appear in the distance, a strange quite overtook our car. They just weren't there. We gazed to the right as we entered the Lincoln Tunnel and noticed the Empire State Building, shining in the afternoon sun, once again the tallest structure in town. It looked magnificent. But downtown, there was still a murky cloudy haze over the Wall Street area, and we couldn't bear to look at the empty skyline. Out of the tunnel and onto Broadway however, it was clear that the Mayor and citizens of New York were going on with the show. Hastily added signs shouted "I Love NY Theatre," "Thank You Mayor Guiliani from the grateful citizens of New York," and "God Bless America" painted everywhere. John Lennon's "Imagine all the people living in peace" was posted in two story letters. At the very moment we first ventured onto the street, a gathering of hundreds of who's who on Broadway stood right in front of us making a commercial to encourage folks to come to New York. Performers, police, cabbies, and tourists seemed like one big family. It gave us goosebumps. Determined to do our bit for America, Bonnie and I took full advantage of the plentiful half-price tickets, saw three shows, dined at the Stage Deli and gleefully shopped 'til we dropped all to help the city get back on its feet, of course. We saw a production of Kiss Me Kate and cheered the cast that took a 25% pay cut just to keep the show alive and then donated another 25% of their salary to a fund for the WTC victims. At the play The Allergist's Wife, Valerie Harper spoke directly to the audience at the curtain call, humbly thanking us for coming to the show. On Sunday we dined with a friend who'd been helping cater food to the rescue workers and families at ground zero downtown. Her heartbreaking stories brought the horror back loud and clear, but also gave us a second-hand glimpse into the heroism, compassion and awesome generosity of people coming together in a crisis. All the way home to Delaware we talked about the enormity of the New York's tragedy and the bounty of generosity it unleashed. Right here in Rehoboth, the most magnificent outpouring of charity produced the Rehoboth Beach LOOP organized by the Blue Moon, Cloud 9, Shore Haus, and others, the Wilmington Avenue Street party started by Celsius and joined by hundreds of generous businesses and individuals, the unity party at Nassau Valley Vineyards, and so much more. Of course, three weeks into the aftermath of September 11, crass commercialism and little ironies are starting to creep back into our lives. I love the rampant flag-flying and patriotism, but I really wouldn't think badly of a business that had to take down their patriotic message and go back to regular advertising. As it is, we're seeing a lot of "God Bless America Try Our New Chicken Sandwich." Or "United We Stand Free Sundaes with Every Fajita." God Bless America, land that I love.Fay Jacobs, a national award winning columnist, is a regular contributor to Letters from CAMP Rehoboth. |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 11, No. 14, October 19, 2001. |