LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth

CAMP Matters

Remember Gladys Kravitzthe drag persona, not the Bewitched one? Gladys (more generally known these days as Howard Hicks and his partner Steve Carey donated a week's vacation at their beautiful villa in the Quepos/Manuel Antonio area of Costa Rica to the Sundance Live Auction last year. As luck would have it, our dear friends (and fairy godparents) Allen Jarmon and Ward Ellinger purchased the trip and then turned around and invited us along on another exotic adventure.

The trip was amazing, easily one of my favorite timesever! One morning we went on a Canopy Tourzip-lining (if that's really a word) through the jungle. Yes, friends, you heard that right. We strapped ourselves to a little cable and went flying through the treetops in all our middle-aged splendor. Some in our group were somewhat queasy that morning, but our handsome little Costa Rican guideboys seemed to bring out the best in us and we, ah, all perseveredespecially after it was discovered that if we didn't make it all the way across the zip-line the helpful guide would swing out, wrap his legs around us and "bring us home," so to speak. To be honest, I loved it...the zip-lining that is. I never had to be "rescued!" Rats!

Back to the rainbow...

On another day we signed up for an afternoon rainbow sunset cruise. There were many sunset cruises available to us but we, of course, signed up for the gay one. So with Steve singing the Gilligan's theme just loudly enough for everyone to hear, the four of us joined 16 others "for a three hour tour...a three hour tour...." Fortunately for us the weather, as it was all week, was perfect and never "started getting rough," and the closest we got to a shipwreck was a bathing suit choice or two.

So there we were, enjoying the glorious day, a tropical rum punch, good company and picture perfect scenery when yes there is was, arched over the mountainous shorelinea rainbow. Just for us it seemedright on cue for the rainbow sunset cruisea rainbow! Not a cloud in the sky, but there it wasa rainbow!

Maybe it was the rum punch, but the day got a little magical after that. I even went snorkeling, which I (and my bathing suit) had not intended to do.

So here we are back in Rehoboth again: we're on deadline for this issue of Letters; I'm behind in my studio time for this summer's art show; construction for the new building is in full swingand I feel good. Actually, my body feels crappy; I've been sick as a dog since our tripbut I feel good. I feel optimistic about what the future has in store for us.

Maybe it's Obama and Hillary; maybe it's the intense construction shaking our office right down to the baseboards all around us; maybe it's that rainbow, but whatever the reason I feel ready to face a new year in CAMP with enthusiasm and energy and hope.

CAMP Rehoboth has always been about hope for mehope for us, not just as gay people but for all of us as human beings. Life changes all the time, but right now the whole world seems to be caught up in a great global, once-in-a-generation kind of shift that we should not be afraid to face. Young people care again like we cared in the 60s. Something big is happening and I'm glad to still be a part of it, and I'm hopeful about the future to come.

Maybe it's that rainbow after all.

Murray Archibald, Founder and President of the Board of Directors of CAMP Rehoboth, is an artist in Rehoboth Beach.

Thank you to all the CAMP Rehoboth Community Center Volunteers for the period of February 8-March 5.

Tony Burns Lynn Finaldi Charlie Lee Michael Muller Jennifer Rubenstein Barb Ralph Chris Sampson

Rainbow Thumb Club

Matt Carey Ward Ellinger Rob Freeman Tony Ghigi Steve Hoult Bud Palmer Ken Reilly Tom White

Murray Archibald, Founder and President of the Board of Directors of CAMP Rehoboth, is an artist in Rehoboth Beach.

LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 18, No. 02 March 07, 2008