by Fay Jacobs
Mortified as I am to admit this, when my own mother gave me the line about having something to fall back on I bought it. Not only did I go to college thinking that picking a husband was more important than picking a major, but if you recall, I started off wearing hose, heels, and, I swear it, false eyelashes every day to class.
To digress, one night, I parked my gluey eyelashes on the wall in my dorm room and the next morning as I staggered out of bed I saw two huge spiders on the wall and pulverized my Long and Lush Max Factors.
Fortunately, by October of freshwoman year, I’d been introduced to books by Gloria Steinem and “hippie” clothes. I failed to tell Mom that the only thing I wound up falling back on were pillows on the floor of apartments lit by lava lamps and featuring some groovy second hand smoke.
Oddly, I had no interest in this free love era (can you believe they called it that!). It took me another decade to work that problem out, but I did begin to understand the burgeoning theory that women mattered.
But now, my lesbian brain (the one that does not react like a straight man, thank you very much), is worried.
Are self-avowed feminists really being mocked? Is advertising once again celebrating women as sex objects? Is it okay for Jay Leno to make Brokeback Mountain jokes night after night? It would be hell to go backwards. I don’t think I’d survive having to wear hosiery and heels to the Super G like my mother did.
And while we’re talking about going backwards, there’s Mary Cheney. Boy did she get it backwards. She couldn’t come out and denounce her father’s party, cronies and compatriots when they were campaigning to get elected. Noooo, she kept quiet like the good little woman, facilitating their election so they could trample gay rights, threaten the first amendment, kick privacy rights to the curb and gleefully plan to etch discrimination into the Constitution. And NOW she’s cashing in by talking about being gay in America. Not to help the cause, mind you, but to help her sell her self-serving book. Too little, too late, too selfish.
Meanwhile back at that Scandinavian brain facility, (“Good morning, Brain Institute, Press One for Lobotomies”) scientists held sniffing contests, with men and women, gay and straight inhaling male and female pheromones—those pesky little love aromas.
The good doctors deduced that heterosexual women found the male and female pheromones about equally pleasant, while straight men and lesbians liked the female pheromone more than the male one. Men and lesbians also found the male hormone more irritating than the female one.
That’s nice. Frankly, I’m just plain irritated.
If we don’t stop those alphabet generations from undoing the gains women achieved almost 40 years ago, we aging baby boomers are liable to have to pick up protest signs, (“not too heavy, I’ve got rotator cuff problems”) take to the streets (grab those Rockport walkers with the arch supports) and start singing protest songs. Nobody wants that.
So I’m making an appeal to our youngsters. Guys, don’t be oafs. Gals, don’t be objectified. Everybody, don’t let feminism become a dirty word. And whatever you do, don’t listen to Mary (Benedict Arnold) Cheney.
Because you really don’t want to see me climbing the Capitol steps (hand me the oxygen, dear) waving a NOW poster and singing “I Am Woman Hear Me Roar.”
For all our sakes, I hope Feminism isn’t dead, that it’s just taking a snooze.
June 2006
LETTERS FROM CAMP REHOBOTH
GOOD TIMES ARE NOT ROLLING
I’m sitting in a hotel room in New Orleans, after seeing, in person, almost eight months following a hurricane, the most unimaginable destruction of neighborhoods. Meanwhile, the President of the U.S. is on TV fighting for a constitutional amendment against (omigod!) gay marriage.
What’s wrong with this picture?
With 80 percent of New Orleans still up to its butt in mold and rotten sheetrock without, in large part, electricity, drinking water, grocery stores, gas stations or any open businesses, our self-described Decider has decided to abandon this historic city completely, and use his bully pulpit (and I do mean bully) to warn America that if they don’t write discrimination against gays into the Constitution NOW, the apocalypse is coming. Guess what. It already happened in New Orleans. So here I am back in this devastated city, having been to a book conference here three weeks ago. Now I’m here for my day job with the Rehoboth Beach Main Street organization, affiliated with the National Trust for Historic Preservation. On my last trip I stayed in the French Quarter, sold books, ate crawfish, drank frozen Hand Grenades and bought t-shirts. We heard about the horrible affects of Katrina, but life in the Quarter seemed to be coming back.
Today, though, I got to see the unholy mess left in New Orleans neighborhoods for myself and now I’m mad as hell. In fact, as furious as I am at Decider-in-Chief for trying to rally his bigoted base with a strictly for show Constitutional Amendment banning same sex marriage—an amendment that has zero chance of approval, therefore making it a fools mission in every sense, I’m just as mad at him for abandoning New Orleans and the whole gulf coast.
Let’s face it, he toured the same communities I just did; he saw muddy water lines up to second stories in ruined neighborhoods; he saw holes in rooftops where people had to be cut out of their attics (and there are street after street of them); he saw homes where people died.
And what did this compassionate conservative do? He posed for photo ops in the only neighborhood still intact, and then walked away to obsess about (gasp) same sex marriage. If he’s a compassionate conservative I’m that bitch Ann Coulter.
As we toured the city, dining at restaurants that have managed to reopen, and listening to great musicians, we heard the same plea over and over. Go back and tell people how bad it is. Tell them we need help. Tell them we must rebuild New Orleans and preserve its special culture. Tell people the truth. So here I go.
What Katrina’s wind did is being repaired. What the rain wrought has been sopped up.
But the havoc that the broken levees and burned out pumping stations caused is not fixed. Yes, the levees are being repaired and built to slightly better standards. But the neighborhoods flooded by this man-made part of the disaster are not back, in any way, shape or living form.
The best way to describe what I saw is this: a hurricane hits your community (okay, if you are land-locked, pretend you live on a coast). And two days later, when people think the emergency is over, a swift-moving flood from a storm surge on both a bay on one side of town and the ocean on the other inundates much of the area. Your Main Street and three or four blocks on either side—your tourist area—is dry. But your city neighborhoods and suburbs are completely flooded. Picture it. Picture the flood itself. Neighborhoods, rich and poor alike, up to their roof eaves in mucky water, ruining furniture, appliances, books, photo albums, clothing, computers and cars. Killing over a thousand people—including some people you know.
It’s not just the poor neighborhoods where people had no transportation out. No, lots of people stayed to ride it out because the levees by the bay had never ever failed before. Now picture the scene eight months later, when NONE, I mean NONE of the neighborhoods have come back to life. There’s nobody living in the homes on the bay or by the ocean. Everything from mobile homes and one story cottages to $500,000 houses sits rotting from the water and virulent mold. There are Mercedes, BMWs and Lexuses left to rust in washed out driveways. Shrubs and trees are brown and dead, killed by saltwater and neglect. Beautiful homes have crude writing on them, 12-feet high, noting that they have been checked by the police and animal rescue teams. Sometimes the writing spells out the terrible things rescuers found inside. Sometimes the writing warns looters to stay away; sometimes it carries the message “We’ll be back!”
There are square holes in rooftops where rescuers sawed into the attics to save the occupants. Those roofs with jagged holes are where the occupants chopped and clawed their way out.
But my god, it’s eight months later. The neighborhoods are still dark
and deserted. Why aren’t people fixing up their houses? Well, a very few are, if they managed to be on the short list for a FEMA trailer to park in their yard. First they get rid of all the debris that once was their belongings, then they gut the house down to its studs to fight the mold and water damage. Oh, they must supply their own generator and water, because no utilities are connected. There’s not a food store open. No gas stations. No restaurants. Even cell phones get spotty connections. Contractors are overworked, materials impossible to come by and it’s dark and scary at night because no streetlights or traffic signals light up any of the roads. Picture it. Suburban neighborhoods with hundreds of homes deserted; the blocks near the beach with not a soul living there; whole communities without a light on except for a trailer or two parked along the street.
But these are the lucky people, because they either had money in the bank to start to repair their properties, or they settled with insurance companies. I say lucky, because most of their neighbors are still in the middle of a boxing match between the people they have paid thousands of dollars to for homeowners insurance and the ones they paid thousands of dollars to for flood insurance. Each group has been insisting the other is responsible for this particular disaster.
But humans are a resilient bunch. And folks in your town fight to bring back the community they love. In fact, area musicians, chefs, artists, police and fire officials all go back to work despite their homes being uninhabitable. Most of them drive to work from rental apartments over an hour away.
And your wonderful neighbors work together to help their friends and family, tell their elected officials that the town deserves to be rebuilt and must not be forgotten. You send a special message to legislators from other areas of the country who don’t want to rebuild a city between a coast and a bay. You tell them that your hometown must be rebuilt—for its people, its culture and its future.
Well, that’s what New Orleans is doing. And, just like residents in your town would do, New Orleaneans are trying to get the word out, telling people to come back to New Orleans, spend money in their city, visit Bourbon Street and let the good times roll so the city can come back to life.
So there, I’ve done what they’ve asked. I’ve told their story. And I really hope readers will consider a New Orleans vacation soon. You’ll have a grand time and will be greeted and entertained by very thankful people. You can do a good deed and have a great vacation at the same time.
And meanwhile, with Americans (and Iraqis) dying overseas, polar ice caps turning into giant slushies, the national debt exploding, gas at $3 a gallon while gas execs get $30 million dollar bonuses, our president is spending capital, political or otherwise on banning same-sex marriage.
Not only am I mad as hell, but I have to tell Senator Santorum that if those naughty activist judges really do manage to legislate same-sex marriage, the next fight is NOT, I repeat, NOT a push for marriage between lesbians and squirrels or whatever his demented fantasy is.
Hopefully it’s a push to get our national priorities right. I hope the good times roll again in New Orleans. For our good times we might have to wait until the next presidential election.
June 2006
FOR MURIEL
Last week, immediately following my New Orleans business trip, I headed to Atlanta to attend the Golden Crown Literary Society Convention—a giant celebration of lesbian fiction.
I had just arrived at my hotel room when Bonnie called to tell me that Muriel had suffered a stroke a few hours before. I was stunned. “Don’t rush home,” Bonnie said. “She’d want you to keep going—for Anyda. We will keep you posted.”
I was attending the convention to accept, for Sarah Aldridge/Anyda Marchant, the Trailblazer Award from the Society. This was the second such award ever given; the first, last year, was given to 1960s lesbian pulp fiction writer Ann Bannon. It was Bannon who was to present the award posthumously to Anyda. I was looking forward to bringing the engraved trophy home to Muriel.
I knew she would love it, because it celebrated Anyda—and Muriel loved nothing more than to have people praise Anyda for her writing, intellect and love for literature. Muriel considered herself a happy witness to Anyda’s career. Everyone else knew it was a joyous collaboration.
Several times a day I called home to ask how Muriel was doing. Bonnie reported that Muriel’s friends were converging on the hospital. She knew they were there, but couldn’t talk. I couldn’t quite imagine it. But I wanted to be there.
When my cell phone rang at 10 p.m. two days later, I knew. Bonnie, sobbing and difficult to understand, told me that Muriel was gone. I was overwhelmed by the news. Alone in the hotel room all I could do was cry, but I knew I had to stay in Atlanta for the next day’s ceremonies.
In the hotel ballroom, when the award was announced—and when it was noted that not only was it posthumous, but that Anyda’s partner of almost 57 years died only a day before, there was an audible buzz. You could feel the sadness. And then, as I accepted the award for them—for it was truly the two of them responsible for their publishing history, nearly 300 women gave the pair an emotional ovation. They would have loved it.
I can’t say the moment was bittersweet, because Anyda and Muriel had lived long and magnificent lives, mostly sweet, nothing bitter. I guess it was just semi-sweet, since I wished they both could have been there to see how well-loved and admired they were.
I returned home, and again, had an obituary to write.
MURIEL INEZ CRAWFORD
PUBLISHER EMERITUS
APRIL 21, 1914-JUNE 7, 2006
Muriel Inez Crawford, 92, passed away Wednesday, June 7, 2006, at her South Rehoboth Beach home, surrounded by her loving circle of friends.
Born April 21, 1914, in Washington, D.C., Crawford served as an executive secretary at the Washington law firm of Covington and Burling, followed by a position as executive secretary to the president of the Southern Railroad, now Amtrak.
Crawford, along with her partner of 57 years, Anyda Marchant, who pre-deceased Crawford this past January, began coming to Rehoboth Beach on weekends in the early 1960s. Their house became the site of legendary Saturday evening salons, where cocktails, conversation and an amazingly diverse crowd would gather. In the winter, the cocktails and conversation would relocate to the couple’s home in Pompano Beach, Fla.
In 1972, the couple founded Naiad Press, an independent feminist publishing house, and then founded A&M Books of Rehoboth Beach in 1995. At the time of her death, Crawford was publisher emeritus with A&M Books.
She is survived by a niece and nephew and a family of dear friends.
The Memorial Service took place at the same church where we celebrated Anyda’s life. In fact, Anyda, in her urn, was there—because the service was not so much for Muriel alone, but for the both of them, and for the end of an era in Rehoboth Beach.
The truth was, Muriel was a tag-a-long churchgoer, attending because it was so important to Anyda. As Father Max was officiating, our son Eric, the one who penned the foreword to this book exchanged a glance with me. I knew we were both thinking of Muriel watching the service from on high and thinking “Well, this is the last time I have to do this.”
Although, she really would have adored the words Father Max delivered. He spoke of Anyda and Muriel’s partnership, their devotion to each other and hopes for a better world, where same sex relationships could flourish in the open.
Once again I walked to the lectern and gave a eulogy.
None of us thought we would be back here so soon, but we’re not really surprised, either, are we?
In the mid 1940s when Gertrude Stein, one half of one of the world’s most famous female couples passed away, her partner, Alice B. Toklas referred to her future as “soldiering on alone.”
When Anyda Marchant died in January, Muriel Crawford accepted her assignment to stay on alone with grace and a certain courageous calm. But it was clear that she was unenthused and tired. She tried to keep the mischievous sparkle in her eye for her
friends, but it was an effort.
Right after Anyda’s passing, Bonnie and I were talking about the following Saturday night’s salon at the house. “I guess we won’t have it anymore,” Muriel said, “Everybody was just coming to see Anyda.”
“Absolutely NOT, we assured her, “they came to see you both, and now we will come for Dewars and conversation with you.”
And we did. And there were many, many visitors. So many, in fact, that when Muriel was temporarily hospitalized a month before her passing, her hospital roommate could not believe the amount of calls and visitors and circle of loved ones. “She must be somebody important,” said the roommate.
And she was—with her playful nature, stubborn independence and loving generosity. She touched so many lives in such a positive way.
Both the impish Muriel and the imposing Anyda will live on as Rehoboth legends, literary icons and role models for lives exceptionally well lived and loved.
And I’ll always close my eyes and see Muriel’s head peeking over the steering wheel of that big Lincoln. She loved to drive and until very recently, she could still be seen at the wheel, a careful but surprisingly speedy driver.
I’ll tell you a little tale out of school but I’m sure Muriel and Anyda wouldn’t mind.
One day, about three years ago, Muriel and Anyda returned from a visit to the doctor with a worrisome report. The doctor was worried about their drinking. He wasn’t worried about the actual quantity consumed, but the fact that the ladies enjoyed two cocktails each evening in the living room before retiring. The doctor worried about their being able to maneuver, without incident, as they toddled off to the bedroom.
He cautioned them to keep the ritual to one drink only.
Surprisingly, the ladies took the news well.
