Fried & True (5 page)

October 2003

LETTERS FROM CAMP REHOBOTH

THE CASE OF THE MALTESE SALMON

Like detective Kinsey Milhone says,
F is for Fish
. Frozen fish. Oy Gefilte. Over the past several weeks, I've been snarled in the
Search for the Missing Salmon
.

To me, fishing is selecting an entrée. Not surprisingly, to my spouse, it's a sport.

Which is why, on our recent Alaska trip, I spent my morning in Ketchikan on a land tour while Bonnie sought to catch and can salmon. As it turned out, she spent what sounded to me like a disgusting morning playing with chum, and catching a trio of mighty salmon.
The Middle Aged Woman and the Sea
. Hemingway would have been proud.

But you know how the commercial goes by now: Sport fishing excursion: $170; Smoking and flash freezing fish: $120; Hosting a salmon bake at home with fish you caught yourself in Alaska: priceless.

Only it wasn't that easy.

First, we worried that the flash frozen salmon would be shipped home before us, to lounge on our doorstep in the August sun, decomposing. Now that's a
Clear and Present Danger
.

Assured that the catch would not arrive before we did, we moved to wondering how we'd be sure to get the actual fish Bonnie struggled to land—which, I might add, she did to the envy of the four fisher
men
also on the boat. I mean, how would we know that our FedExed salmon steaks were from the bug-eyed monster my wife caught? DNA?

Patricia Cornwell's coroner Kay Scarpetta not being available, we had to take it on faith. Although, it's mighty tough to take
anything
on faith these days, what with California voters failing to notice that Ahhhnold had no actual platform and holier than everybody Rush Limbaugh turning up as a druggie.
But recent CNN stories notwithstanding, we put aside skepticism, hoped for the best and continued our cruise without worrying. At least about the fish.

White-knuckled, we soared over glaciers in a float plane, survived a tour bus driver shouting “Moose in the road!!!,” witnessed fornicating sea otters (you go, girl!), saw clouds part to reveal an awesome Mt. McKinley, and tromped through the woods following a guide who was, literally, loaded for bear.

Taking note of the rifle slung over his shoulder I asked “Ever had to use that thing?”

“No,” he said, “you tourists are pretty well behaved.” I guess he got the question a lot.

The trip followed immediately on the heels of our August double wedding in Vancouver—Fay & Bonnie, Robert & Larry getting hitched and honeymooned.

The four of us had a great time rafting, despite fretting we'd fall out of our rubber boat into the whitewater, if you'll excuse the expression. Dressed in every article of clothing we'd packed, we resembled South Park cartoons.

In addition, they made us wear rubber suits over all the clothes. We have seen the Abominable Snowman and he is us. The raft trip proved exciting and very, very chilly. The splashing waves gave us a glacial facial, but fortunately nobody fell in. We'd have sunk like the Bismarck.

So, having toured both the great Alaska wilderness and every cocktail lounge on the ship, we headed home with several observations. First, in Alaska there should be a two-pair minimum on socks. Second, if a big chunk of ice falls off a glacier and Leo DeCaprio is not there to hear it, it is still an iceberg. And finally, bears actually do poop in the woods.

I'm still amused by U.S. airport security. To prevent the SARS virus from entering Philadelphia, they asked each incoming traveler, following their eight mile hike through the airport dragging carry-on crap, up two escalators, down one long hallway, over the river and through the woods to baggage claim, to sign a paper attesting to the fact that they did not have
shortness of breath. Puleeeze.

Jet lagged, wheezing and recovering from hypothermia, we arrived home to await our souvenir seafood.

Every day, starting September 2, Bonnie or I arranged to check the homefront between noon and 3 p.m. People whispered about a possible affair between one of us and the FedEx girl. Often, we'd post a “Dear FedEx” note on the door, so every burglar in town knew exactly when to strike. Fortunately, we also had the Schnauzer alarm.

Weeks passed, and the mystery of the
Ten Little Filets
deepened.
P is for Pissed
. My God, millions of fish had gone through whole spawning cycles since we last heard from
Moby Salmon
.

Finally, we called Ketchikan (not that easy in itself) to learn that our flash frozen fish was safe in an Alaskan Sub Zero, while parts of the catch went through the smoking process. They said our order would be shipped September 29 to arrive October 1.

Frankly, by this time neither of us gave a damn whose fish it was as long as it arrived postmarked Alaska to prove to increasing numbers of skeptics that Bonnie really caught something and wasn't just blowing smoked salmon.

So now it was the
Hunt for Red (Salmon in) October
. Once again we did the daily FedEx vigil so three hundred bucks of fish sticks didn't thaw on the stoop. Days passed and it was Agatha Christie's
Murder on the Federal Express
. By October 6 we scoped out Food Lion for frozen filets to pass off as the trophy catch.

“Hello, Ketchikan? Where the heck is our fish?”

“Oh, sorry, we've been closed down with heavy fog all week. Nothin goin' in or outta here.”

“Our Sockeye Salmon is socked in?”

“Yes, but don't worry, your fish is in a freezer at the airport. It should be able to fly out tomorrow.”

Great, my fish is flying stand-by.

I came home today to find Bonnie feverishly stuffing vacuum packed baggies filled with salmon into every crevasse in
the freezer.

“So whaddya think? Is it yours?”

“I dunno.”

I suggested matching the fish scales on the largest filet with photos of Bonnie holding up her fish for the camera. She chucked a salmon brick at me.

Tonight as an appetizer we had a yummy smoked salmon spread. We followed with fettuccine alfredo and smoked salmon. And tomorrow, it might be Salmon Stroganoff, Salmon Wellington, or Szechuan Salmon. Fish Bake, here we come. We're glad the mystery of
The Runaway Salmon
is solved. As John Grisham might say, now it's
A Time to Grill
….

October 2003

PUTTING IT TOGETHER

I tried to brush the sand off of my shoes, my pants and my dog before getting into the car. I was gritty and sweaty but the deed was done. I had just posed in a beach chair, at the edge of the water, laptop and lapdog on my considerable lap, as I sipped from a Martini glass of faux Cosmopolitan.

All things considered, my friend Murray, CAMP Rehoboth President and photographer par excellence had an easier time with the dog than with me.

Between blinking my eyes at the flash and obsessing about my thighs being an unfortunate focal point, the shoot was a challenge. But at the end of the day, I hoped we'd have a book cover photo.

Of course, we pulled the idea for the picture out of our butts, because there's really no book yet, just a collection of columns, but they do involve the beach, Schnauzers and Cosmopolitans, not necessarily in that order.

I'm alternately freaked out and frenzied. I've re-read eight years of columns, read them aloud and edited out parts that annoyed me the minute they went to press the first time. Then I printed out all the columns, and with the assistance of my “adopted” son Eric, assigned them in yes, no and maybe piles on the floor of my home office. We were in that room flinging paper for days.

Oddly enough, the columns, written every two weeks on whatever topic popped into my brain at deadline time, did tell a story. It's
How I Discovered Rehoboth, Came Here for Gay Weekends, Lived on my Boat, Bought a Condo, Pined to Be Here Full Time and Finally Made My Father Insane Because I Quit My Job and Moved to the Beach
.

Okay, maybe Rehoboth locals would get a kick out of it in book form. Maybe a few weekenders from Philly or D.C. might get a chuckle. Mostly, it will make Anyda happy to have A&M
Books publish another author besides Sarah Aldridge. Muriel seems excited about it too. We'll print a few copies, bribe local stores to stock them and have an adventure.

Actually, I really have to get off my ass and put the thing together because a beach book should probably be published by Memorial Day. Besides, Anyda and Muriel may be the publishers, but writing the check to the printer and cheering me on is the most they are up to doing. So I've got to get busy. But the real urgency is what Anyda matter-of-factly says: “Get to it. I'm old you know.”

I know.

Seeing two women in their 90s so incredibly engaged, animated, and energized is fantastic. That it's my pre-natal book they are keyed up about blows me away. After all, they are lesbian publishing royalty.

THE LESBIAN WRITER

Shortly after Bonnie and I met the ladies, we were in their sunroom talking about the Sarah Aldridge novels. Muriel had her checkbook out, writing a check for postage to send a carton of books to a feminist book collective in California. They asked me to walk to the detached garage behind the house and bring back a stack of books they needed. I wended my way past the roses, through some ancient ground cover toward the garage—a structure with a rental apartment above. I slid the heavy door open and it was like walking into a lesbian archeology dig. I found hundreds of cartons, holding thousands of copies of the 13 still-in-print Sarah Aldridge novels.

By that afternoon I'd learned that although Anyda had been penning unpublished lesbian novels since she was a teenager, both she and Muriel spent the 1950s and 60s concentrating on their careers and their clandestine gay life. Anyda was an attorney for the World Bank by this time and Muriel was executive secretary to the president of the Southern Railroad. Both women had enormously high pressure jobs and they loved the work they did.

But by the early 70s, both Anyda and Muriel had health issues. Muriel had lung problems and her blood pressure was off the charts. Anyda was told she had a life-threatening heart condition and the doctor ordered mandatory retirement. So in 1972, Anyda (age 60) and Muriel (age 58) headed to Rehoboth full-time. While they both had wanted to continue their careers, at least the reluctant lawyer would now have the time to write her lesbian novels.

“You know, I had been writing novels all along, and a few of the novels I wrote years ago I did present to publishers,” Anyda told me, “but they were turned down flat. I realized I was not reaching my potential because I was not writing about gay subjects. I had a gay mentality, but I was writing non-gay novels, so naturally they had fatal flaws,” Anyda acknowledged in her somewhat scholarly voice. “When I came to retire I thought, ‘Well, this is the opportunity.'”

Anyda took it and ran. She started writing stories with fiercely feminist themes, strong women protagonists and happy endings. But she and Muriel firmly believed there could be no way to publish such “scandalous” material without disguising the author's identity by using a pen name. Anyda chose
Sarah Aldridge
, a name that sounded vaguely historical and a tad British—by this time Anyda had a bona fide affinity, from both her ancestry and her travels, for Great Britain. She scribbled her novels—rich in both historical detail and romance, in long-hand on yellow legal pads, filling up dozens at a time. Along the way, Muriel, a voracious reader herself, would go over the drafts, making comments or raising questions.

Then, Anyda would dictate them to Muriel for typing. Sometimes Muriel waded through the long-hand drafts herself, muttering and cursing at Anyda's scrawl, as she transcribed. Writing was the easy part; getting published only a dream.

“I wouldn't know where to begin,” I said, helping to pack up copies of Aldridge titles
A Flight of Angels
and
The Nesting Place
. “You were so closeted, how did you even know there
were readers out there?”

“We had
The Ladder
,” said Muriel.

I had heard of the publication, a newsletter of the early lesbian rights organization The Daughters of Bilitis. It was the first American magazine published by lesbians for a lesbian readership. I had read about it and the amazing women, Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, homosexual rights pioneers, who were behind both the organization and its magazine.
The Ladder
was probably the very first written lifeline thrown to a scattered and mostly isolated population of lesbians all over the country.

Anyda submitted short stories to the publication, marking the first appearance of the Sarah Aldridge byline. And through
The Ladder
Anyda and Muriel met Barbara Grier, the publication's last editor.

By 1972, the magazine had folded, but Grier still had the mailing list—an incredibly valuable commodity of over 3,000 entries. Anyda, encouraged by Muriel, decided she would publish the first Sarah Aldridge novel,
The Latecomer
, herself. “I told Muriel we should start a publishing house,” Anyda remembered. “If you had a manuscript of a lesbian novel, you certainly could not find a publisher. But we would do it ourselves and work with Barbara Grier to get the word out with her mailing list.”

It was a collaboration that worked—for a long time forward.