LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
High CAMP |
by Brent Mundt |
Postcards from the Edge
Even the freaking post office in Rehoboth Beach is gag-me cute. Trees and shrubs surround the corner lot and, standing at the mailbox, one can clearly see the Atlantic. So leave it to our crack Campers to have a knack for designing the cutest little "year ahead" postcard possibleand they sent it to their huge mailing list. Being a sand-starved city dweller, I picture Steve, Murray, and Fay working together on deadline, singing show tunes, and then skipping down the street together with Kathy to drop off the mail. It would be easy to hate them for this indulgent pre-retirement existence they're indulging in, but I'm bigger than that. Besides, reality in Gayberry, RFD is no doubt quite differentand has its trade offs. From what I understand, everybody has three jobs and works around the clock. But it's fun! And for a trapped city slicker with cabin fever, a spring postcard from the edge of the continent where life is lower and slower is such a guilty pleasure. So when my rainbow-colored postcard heralding Big Days Big Year at CAMP Rehoboth arrived in my tiny crowded mailbox in my tiny crowded city building in early April, I felt the wind in my hair, smelled barbeque in the breeze and heard flip flops on faggots (Much better in my book than raindrops on roses...). In my tiny elevator I started reading and got down the list to Sundance and boom! Flashback! A Sundance (and the related hangover) of yesteryear grabbed me by the lapelsnot to mention my temples. The Gay Kennedy compound I am fortunate to inhabit in RBD is "in its season" from May through September and the reverse clich that everyone quotesthe off-season is much better!be damned. Summer is when everyone wants to see and be seen. And one year at Sundance, members of our Gay Kennedy Family saw a bit too much of one anotherputting the T in TMI. The sordid tale starts, like a lot of sordid tales, with vodka. Transparent silly sauce is both a summer staple and, if abused, a cataclysmic curse. If you're making a list of abusers, put us down. Twice. That once-upon-a-time Sundance began at the Nike outlet. Sober as judges, and I might add, pretty as pictures, we all went to purchase athletic apparel. Forget that not one of us is remotely athletic, we are...as the saying goes, athletic supporters. And, supporters of both athletics and the local economy. So, shoe purchases in hand, and after each of us consumed a Casapulla's sub as big as a small UPS package, we headed for disco naps before Sundance. Waking about sundown, someone (I'm sure it was Bobby) said, "Who wants a martini?" When I agreed to this libation, I swear to Betty Ford, I had no idea that very cute bartenders were three blocks away setting up free vodka stations in every square inch of the Rehoboth Beach Convention Center and Vodka Emporium. Stations we would come to visit all too often that evening. Forced to glitter, forced to be gay, we sipped martinis (plural) and all got dressed up. So we headed off to the "dance de soleil" with a couple of vodkas under our summer belts, again not knowing the stealth buff boys at the convention center had set up enough free vodka to sink a Russian submarine. The convention center is FABULOUS. The bars gush vodka and Gloria Gaynor sings her pain the way no current techno wacko on an iPod knows how. We dance. From the ankles down we look like Nike commercials; from the ankles up, we look like middle age guys. Guys who have been drinking. Heavily. We dance with columns, one another, and the ticket takers. I visit the men's room, stopping at the liquor-aide stand along the way, and as I return, I see Bobby our compound's bartender across the dance floor shaking like Jennifer Beals in Flashdance as if someone is about to throw a bucket of water on him. Someone should have. He washow do I say this?topless. We are all north of fifty with chests that have gone south of armpits, and there he is shaking his groove thing. Shirtless. So I did some quick math in my vodka-soaked cranium and realized that I weigh less than he does and if HE can go topless...so can I. So off comes my shirt. The math should have told me each of us has had one full vat of vodkaand two middle aged drunk topless homosexual hoodlums are not better than one. But what a night we had. By the time I got finished reading and remembering, the elevator door opened and I ran into a cute young city slicker on my floor. I told him about my flashback. He said, "Cute story, but honey, I am middle aged. You are not. How many 106 year olds do you know?" You probably heard the slap from where you are. But the next day, the dreariest stretch of weather lifted and Washington had one of those crystal clear days that give you aching spring fever. Summer season, here we come! To everyone over fifty: Keep your shirts on! Brent Mundt makes a living in Washington and a life in Rehoboth Beach. |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 18, No. 04 May 02, 2008 |