In the summer of 1996, I was adopted by a lesbian couple. That shouldn’t be an unusual story; gays and lesbians are raising children all over the country these days. But my story was a little different because…well…I was 25 years old at the time.
At the time, I was making a living, pursuing an acting career on the side…and coming out of the closet. When I was ready to tell my friends Fay and Bonnie that I thought I might be a homosexual, they didn’t miss a beat. “What are you doing next weekend?” Fay asked.
“I don’t have any plans,” I responded. “Yes, you do,” Bonnie said. “You are coming to Rehoboth with us.”
If you’ve ever been to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware you know why Fay and Bonnie brought me here. They love it. In 1995, they brought their 27-foot boat to Rehoboth for an eight-week stint. And in a very real sense, they never left.
Even before they eventually sold their boat, bought a condominium, and sold their Maryland residence to become year-round Rehoboth Beach residents, this place quickly became their home.
“Everyone’s so nice,” they kept saying. Which was why it was so surprising when a homophobic miscreant began shouting obscenities at them at a hamburger joint just outside town one day. Fay immediately fired off a letter to Letters from CAMP Rehoboth, a magazine for Rehoboth’s large and diverse gay and lesbian community. The CAMP acronym stands for Create A More Positive Rehoboth, and that’s just what the newsletter and its founding organization CAMP Rehoboth succeeds in doing.
The letter was printed, and after a subsequent conversation with Letters editor Steve Elkins, Fay began work on an essay about boating to Rehoboth. Steve and his readers liked the article, and Fay’s been writing for Letters ever since.
What began so inauspiciously on that summer day in 1995 has become nothing short of a Rehoboth tradition. For years, Fay’s been sharing her personal stories with the residents of Rehoboth Beach—she’s been nearly run over by a cargo ship, hunted down by the AARP, and known to shuttle stray animals across state lines. She lived through a frightening (and serious) family medical crisis in 2000 and eloped to Canada in 2003… and of course, she and her partner “adopted” a 25-year old gay son (look for me in “What I Did on my Summer Vacation”).
I’m so pleased that Fay asked me to prepare a forword for this, her first collection of columns. I can’t pass up this opportunity to thank Fay and Bonnie for everything they’ve ever done for me—while my family of origin has turned out to be wonderfully supportive of me, I still owe Fay and Bonnie an emotional debt that I’ll never be able to repay.
At the same time, on behalf of all of Fay’s readers, I feel that I must extend my sincere and heartfelt gratitude to the idiot homophobe at that long-forgotten hamburger place, who inadvertently prompted her to put pen to paper, thus beginning a career that the faithful readers of Letters from CAMP Rehoboth (myself included) are richer for having experienced.
Finally, enjoy the book. I know that in its pages, Fay’s longtime readers will find themselves reliving the events and literary adventures of their old friends, and those who are discovering them for the first time will grow to love my lesbian moms almost as much as I do. Onward.
Eric C. Peterson, March 17, 2004