Fantastic! I looked at the enormous crowd of women at our state park beach, settled into my chair and took out my decorative book.
I don’t know about you, but in all my years at the women’s beach at North Shores or the mostly men’s sandy outpost at Poodle Beach, I’ve never actually finished a page of text—too much to look at. Although holding a book still gives me the reassuring sense I have the option to read if I ever want to.
One of the options I don’t exercise is actually getting into the water. I swore off three summers ago, when my spouse lured me into the surf (“Don’t worry, it’s calm”) from my comfortable chair amid a dozen friends staked out at water’s edge.
I gingerly followed Aquawoman toward the breakers, turned to look at the waving crowd behind me, heard “Lookout!” and was instantly wiped out by a wave.
Being swept bass ackwards out to sea, then dribbled on the ocean floor like a basketball was bad; washing up on shore flat on my back with the entire lesbian caucus leaning over me like a shot from an old Busby Berkley movie was worse. Their sincere concern for my safety soon gave way to amusement that my bathing suit had left its moorings. First I thought I was dead, then I hoped I was dead.
So, rather than disturb my domestic tranquility, it’s the ocean and I who are no longer speaking. Fortunately, I love lots of things about the beach exclusive of swimming. Like being surrounded by a whole bunch of terrific women, their friends and families.
Women of all ages, body sizes, bathing suits, haircuts and attitudes cram the beach. Oooh-wheee! Look at all the lesbian couples, lesbians with kids, lesbians with men and lesbians with dogs—we are fam-i-ly!
There were even lesbian luminaries. I was seated near Human Rights Campaign Executive Director Elizabeth Birch and partner and friends. A lot of the time I spent not reading was spent wondering whether to go over and tell her how much I appreciate her efforts on our behalf—and to say I admire her for enduring a job where it’s impossible to please everybody. I opted for letting her enjoy the beach without thinking about the office.
But as if we didn’t know from her job success, no fool she— Ms. Executive Director walked waaaaay down the beach before boogey boarding—no washing ashore in front of the whole membership for her.
That night at a cookout, we heard tales about the gay merchants and homeowners who’ve been contributing to Rehoboth’s evolution for a half-century or more. How I’d love to talk to some of those old-timers who had the foresight and spunk to start a gay community here.
I was thinking about those pioneers and how I might find out more about them last Sunday, when Bonnie and I spent the entire day relaxing at the marina.
As the temperature climbed past 95 degrees, I inflated my tiny three-ring (age 3 and up) swimming pool, and sat down cross-legged in it to cool off and read.
A story in the local press described some homeowner’s questions for the candidates for City Commissioner. Buried among issues like traffic, parking and zoning was the phrase “keep Rehoboth a family town” and the ubiquitous cry for “family values.”
Ouch. Those gay entrepreneurs, shopkeepers and homeowners who took a chance on Rehoboth years ago—developing and maintaining their properties, encouraging a vital resort economy and sharing their aesthetic sensibility, have certainly played a large part in the evolution of the great “family town” folks find worth keeping. I wonder if the family values crowd knows that our families have value, too.
Just then, two good-looking young men walked up the pier toward us. Certain they were headed past us, Bonnie shifted her chair to let them through. But they stopped two feet from us, looked down at me in my baby pool and asked, “Are you Fay Jacobs?”
I wished I wasn’t. I considered telling them Fay was at the beach and I was the boat sitter; I rejected the notion of flipping onto my hands and knees doggy-style and struggling to my feet. I finally chose to admit it was me, and sit there, pretending I didn’t feel like the star of Free Willy.
“We were just reading your boat story in Letters and we saw the rainbow flag on the boat and thought this must be you. We have a boat in this marina and....”
I’m looking up at these guys, trying to concentrate on what they’re saying, pretty sure they’ve noticed I’m sitting in three inches of water, with my hips lodged in a K-Mart inflatable pool.
Bonnie, who smelled revenge, whispered, “Good, you can write about this so you’ll be the laughing stock in the story for once,” sweetly offered the guys a drink, then disappeared to make mudslides.
It turned out that these Philly guys work hard in the city all week and spend weekends at the beach just like we do. We compared notes on the cost of boating and martinis. And, I have to tell you, these men were classy. They pretended not to notice when, after another half-hour of sitting like a pruny pretzel, I finally pulled the plug on my playpen and ungracefully hauled my soggy ass back up into a chair.
We talked about keeping Rehoboth a “family” town. We talked about our gay families and friends. And we agreed that we should all demand that the Commissioners keep Rehoboth a family town for all kinds of families.
Last week I found myself trolling Maryland Avenue peering into my own apartment windows to gauge what havoc the family value renters wrought. “You’re stalking your own condominium,” Bonnie told me. “Get a grip.”
Yeah, I reluctantly admit, Rehoboth should be for all families. But I hope those condo kids keep the pretzels out of the VCR.…