August 21, 2003
MAIL CALL
Heading toward the weekend, I thought I'd share a little correspondence:
**I've had quite the week at work. In an effort to turn back my foul mood - and because she has to sit next to me while I'm in that foul mood - Karla sent me this tidbit from the news:
The coach's name (Wally Butts) graces the school's athletic hall of fame along with that of former coach Harry Mehre. Locals are always careful to pause in the middle of the name of the building ... Butts-Mehre.
That's right, Butt Smear.
Thanks, Karla. I may not have laughed immediately, but I've been laughing about this one ever since. It was the best part of that day, believe it or not.
For the record, Karla is the one last year who noticed a woman in the news whose hyphenated last name was Penix-Johnson. She flew into such a hurricane of gut-wrenching laughter over that one that she was dabbing her eyes for close to two hours. "I live for that kind of thing,'' she proclaimed.
**Alan passed along this news item, slugging it in his e-mail subject line, "THE CRUTCHMAN OF DELRAY'':
DELRAY BEACH, Fla. (AP) - A disabled man used his crutches to fend off a man who tried to force his way into his car and demanded his wallet.
Larry Klein, 53, said he was returning home from visiting relatives when he noticed that a car followed him into his apartment complex. The driver and a passenger blocked his car and the driver confronted Klein as he was still sitting in the driver's seat.
"I kept on jabbing at him with my canes," said Klein, who wears a prosthetic leg and carries metal-tipped crutches. "I was being threatened. I wasn't just going to give up my wallet."
Seeing as he was driving, here's hoping it was Larry's left leg that had the prosthetic on it. Although, knowing Delray and it's residents as well as I do, it was probably his right.
**Katherine sent along this link to a mug shot and story about a bride who was arrested on her wedding day. Ah, I can almost hear the strains of "Daddy's Little Girl" just looking at her booking photo.
**Willie passed along this news story from a North Carolina paper:
News of nude neighbors sets crossroads on its ear
Chatham folks atwitter at clothing-optional camp
By MARTHA QUILLIN, Staff Writer
BONLEE -- As new business owners, Neil Stovall and Harry Irby were relying on word of mouth to promote their young enterprise, a campground they're carving out of an overgrown former farm, one shaded site at a time.
They didn't necessarily expect the word to be fire and brimstone.
In a culture clash that might be described as Bible Belt vs. no belt, Stovall and Irby are learning that not all their neighbors approve of their business plan.
Many residents of this southwestern Chatham County crossroads were surprised as they sat in church one recent Sunday night to learn that Twin Oaks Campground is a clothing-optional men's resort and its proprietors, Stovall and Irby, are a gay couple. The news made some sit up in their pews.
"This is the kind of thing you'd expect in California, not here in a rural area like Bonlee," said Don Daniels, pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church, who preached a sermon on Twin Oaks. "But here it is, right close to home."
One woman called on the men's private line and demanded to know whether they were Satanists . She didn't give a name. A neighbor has expressed fears that children might inadvertently see something sinful behind the campground's 6-foot privacy fence.
"The word that would describe how people feel about it is shock," Daniels said.
Stovall and Irby say they have never tried to conceal the nature of the business. On the contrary, they created a Web site for it and planned to advertise in newspapers as soon as they had more amenities in place. The sudden attention the campground is receiving is still a bit premature; the pool has been installed, but decking and landscaping are incomplete, and construction has only begun on an enclosed bath house.
Fifteen tent sites are open. Parking for recreational vehicles should be ready in a week.
The campground opened two years ago, shortly after Stovall and Irby bought the circa-1860 farmhouse and nearly 27 acres of land about 3 miles from the main intersection in Bonlee. The pair had been planning the venture for eight years. It took that long to research a location, find a property and save the money they would need to get started. In the meantime, Stovall, 43, worked a series of restaurant jobs, and Irby, 35, helped manage retail stores.
A year ago, Stovall's 68-year-old mother, Betty Summers, became the third partner and is now the only woman on the property. Besides helping clear the tangled brush and replant with fruit, flowering and canopy trees, Summers is responsible for coffee and cookies. Eventually, she plans to sell her homemade jellies and crocheted doilies in a gift shop on site.
Company policy, which prohibits any openly sexual behavior, also keeps Summers outside the fence. Inside, guests 21 and older can feel free to swim, sun or walk the grounds in the altogether.
"They don't have to worry," Summers said of the patrons. "I know where I'm supposed to go."
Stovall and Irby say they came to North Carolina on the recommendation of places-rated books.
"We narrowed it down to Pensacola, Fla., and Raleigh-Durham," Irby said. A visit to Florida quickly knocked that state out of the running.
"Fire ants," said Stovall, who shuns shoes.
Once in the area, they began to look for affordable property large enough to provide a sense of seclusion but small enough to manage. Bonlee, they discovered, just 45 minutes from Raleigh, is a short drive from the North Carolina Zoo near Asheboro and the pottery center of Seagrove, and about three hours from the nearest beach, in one direction, and the foothills in the other.
In town -- consisting of a hardware store, a feed mill and a small handful of other businesses -- Twin Oaks has been the subject of much discussion, not all of it harsh. Lacking a restaurant, residents gather to talk at the "gossip bench," a green-painted church pew under the awning of Bonlee Repair. As the town mechanic works on cars in the cool garage, a half-dozen men and women come and go. One arrives on a riding lawn mower.
"It don't bother me one bit in the world," said Joe Stutts, who has lived in Bonlee for 20 years. "I'm not going over there, so what should I care? I'm kind of glad we're getting a little excitement."
"I just want to know if they need propane," said a local businessman.
Even the preacher wants Stovall, Irby and their guests to feel welcome.
"They can come to our church anytime," he said. "They can drive up in an RV and park it in the parking lot if they want to, and come in and share the word of God.
"But it's not clothing-optional."
You know, it's usually at this point that I make some sarcastic and dry remark.
And so I shall.
My problem is in knowing where to begin.
No. 1: There is no such thing as a "clothing-optional men's resort." As a man, I can tell you that for us, the entire world is clothing optional. Just as the world is our toilet, it also is indeed our changing room.
No. 2: I wasn't aware that California had the sole franchise rights to nudism, gay resorts or the combination of the two. I guess Pastor Daniels figured that the Ag inspectors at the North Carolina border just stopped that stuff at the state line.
No. 3: I wasn't aware that nudism, gay resorting or the combination of the two were building blocks for Satanism. I always had pictured Satan in Australian rowing shorts, but I didn't necessarily think that made him gay. I just thought it made him stylish.
No. 4: A note to the neighbor who feared that children would see something sinful behind that 6-foot privacy fence: Ma'am, I can guarantee that this will happen. That is, if they can take their eyes off of you and your one-toothed husband getting your freak on in the bed of your 1978 Camaro in the middle of the afternoon.
No. 5: It took eight years for these entrepreneurs to research this resort venture, during which time one worked in a restaurant and another worked in retail. It's no wonder that their idea sailed under the canny radar of these humble North Carolina folk. It's obvious that their backwoods gaydar was on the lookout for florists and hair artists not waiters and store managers.
No. 6: Stovall and Irby settled on Bonlee after considering Pensacola and Raleigh-Durham. Why not Florida? "Fire ants,'' Stovall says. Of course he's using fire ants as a euphemism for "rednecks."
No. 7: I'm shocked that the nearby town of Twin Oaks has a green-painted "gossip bench" church pew in front of its hardware store. I bet they had to search far and wide to find a church pew in that part of the country, much less one suitable for gossiping. Just because you find an available church pew doesn't meant that it can easily convert to idol rumors and innuendo.
No. 8: Pastor Daniels says Stovall and Irby can park their RV at his church anytime. I think we all know what he's suggesting here.