LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
Crabby or European? |
by Emily Lloyd |
Crabby Dick's, Crabby Dick's, Crabby Dick's, Crabby Dick's. Local newspaper readers have been reading a lot about Crabby Dick's, a Route 1 restaurant whose name and very-slightly suggestive signs are causing a ruckus among...well, you know. Those dividing America.
I drive by Crabby Dick's all the time. The only reaction I've ever had in passing it occurred in the style of Will & Grace's Jack: I nudged Mel and commented, "Huh, huh. That says 'dick.'" Admittedly sophomoric, but, as "Dick" is a bona-fide name that thousands of older, usually golfing men continue to happily go by, "Crabby Dick's" should raise no more brows than "Crabby Biff's." No one's knickers get in a twist over Howard Johnson's. For out-of-towners out of the know, one disputed Crabby Dick's sign read "It's That Time of the Month AgainCome in for Red Snapper." Frankly, as an ad humorist, I don't think "Dick" can hold a candle to whoever it was at Purple Parrot that penned "I've never kissed a purple parrot, but I've kissed a cockatoo." In their letters to various editors, many of those up-in-arms over Crabby Dick's have sounded the alarmed refrain, "How do I explain what that sign means to my child?" As a professional in children's services, I feel equipped to answer authoritatively. I would explain the Purple Parrot's sign, for example, like so: The author has never kissed a purple parrot, but he or she has kissed a cockatoo. At which point the child, who would most likely not have noticed the sign unless I called attention to it, would say, in my experience, "Oh." Crabby Dick's signs can be explained in a similar fashion. Try it! It isn't as daunting as it seems. I will own up to one area sign that, yes, I myself find deeply offensive, and that I cannot imagine ever being able to explain to a child. It is the giant Hooters billboard on Route 1. Have you seen it? It reads...KID'S EAT FREE. Someday I'll realize my fantasy of becoming a superhero named Comma Chameleon, scaling billboards and taking out misapplied apostrophes with a trusty twelve-gauge Sharpie. Until then, I will simply cover the eyes of any child who might be in my car when I pass that billboard. Far more distressing, to me, than the Crabby Dick's signs are those using the Crabby Dick's issue as a springboard to ranting about openly affectionate gay couples walking around in Rehoboth. "How do I explain," one woman wrote, "THAT to my child?" Here's how my mom did. I was raised on Rehoboth vacations. Dearly do I recall my twelfth summer, spent cruising the boardwalk in tight white jeans and junky gems from Ryan's Gems & Junk, in search of cute boys to make kissyface with on the Paratrooper. (Yeah: boys. At twelvethis was 1986I thought "lesbian" meant "woman with mullet" and didn't cruise girls...just wrote 'em undeliverable impassioned notes, some of which, unfortunately, I delivered. Hello, counselor's office.) Twelve in Rehoboth. The jelly bracelets...the hermit crabs... the Europeans. For "Europeans" is what my mother said. Sometime that summer, either my sister or I spied two men holding hands and asked Mom what was up with that. "They must be Europeans," Mom explained. "They do that there." Now, it is entirely possible that the men were Europeans. It is even more possible that they weren't, but that my mom thought they were. The final, least likely option is that they were a gay couple and Mom was really, really fast on her feet. Still, you know, it works. Europeans. That's what to say to your child, if you're committed to keeping him or her in the dark about same-sex people in love. Blairmag.com discovered the resemblance some time ago and offers a really quite challenging online game called "Lesbian...or German Lady?" (Just google it to play.) Of course, you might decide to tell your child the truth. Contrary to popular right-wing belief, telling a child that homosexuality exists is not equivalent to endorsing it. And telling your child that Europeans exist? Well, that might be unpatriotic. |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 14, No. 11 August 13, 2004 |