Beach Diary The Final Chapter

The picture heading this segment is a 3D High Definition map of the Delaware shore showing the relative positions of the beach towns that are the scenes of these crimes.

Recap: Fortuitously, I discovered that Miss Ashley Williamson III was behind the efforts of the Bethany Brethren Church to put me out of business. During a heated Sunday service, I told the Bethany Brethren congregation that hiring people of Mexican nationality who were hearing challenged in order to put me, a red-blooded born-in-the-USA cis-White male of non-Hispanic origin, out of business was an abomination. Thousands of parishioners left the church under my leadership to march up Delaware Rt 1, cross the Indian River Inlet Bridge, and begin burning down the pop-up stands that were threatening my livelihood.

A surly mob, fifteen thousand strong, filed out from the church and milled around Delaware Rt 1 awaiting my leadership to march up the highway. As I watched the revolution on TV from our rented condo in Bethany, I wished that someone, anyone, would step up to the plate to lead the mob in the right direction. Maybe my eight kids could lead them, but we skipped their last life insurance payments and there was no benefit of putting them in harm’s way. Working against us were hundreds of Delaware Rangers, the elite state police force originally founded to break up unions and murder people of color. They were marshalling tanks to fortify the Indian River Inlet Bridge.

Fortuitously, a raging nor’easter suddenly appeared over the Delaware shore. (On a personal level, I was spared trying to make humoress allusions comparing my marchers heading towards the Indian River Inlet Bridge and the real civil rights heroes that tried to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday in 1965. Dodged that bullet!) It was sad for me to see my peeps holding newspapers over their heads in a futile attempt to shield themselves from the howling winds. They scattered hither and yon seeking shelter from the storm. I wish I could have been with them. Viewed from the Eyewitness News Delaware Channel 5 helicopter, they looked like cockroaches running when you turn on the kitchen lights.

As reported in the Delaware White Business Times, “A nor’easter destroyed the business base of the Bethany Brethren Church along Delaware Rt. 1. Their key assets, pop-ups efficiently exploiting unpaid laborers, were blown down by the wind and washed out to sea. Fortunately, the federal flood insurance program reimbursed the Bethany Brethren Church several hundred million dollars so they can rebuild the pop-ups.”

The Church of the Pope’s Red Prada Shoes expressed different concerns. “Christendom last saw a crisis this bad when the great Western Schism of 1378 left us with two Popes for decades. This week the Bethany Brethren Church Cardinals elected Miss Ashley Williamson III and installed her as the Pope in North Dover. You can buy her likeness as a dashboard Pope at a pop-up on Delaware Rt. 1. We’ve been assured the pop-ups will carry a dashboard likeness of the rebel’s Pope as soon as white smoke billows from the Arby’s grease vent.”

All was quiet for a week following the nor’easter that scattered my peeps and saved me from writing insensitive humor about marchers and bridges. The quiet, however, was disconcerting. Quiet like All Quiet on the Western Front quiet. Quiet like the calm before the storm. Saltwater taffy had nothing on the ocean breezes thick with tension that stuck to your teeth and to your soul. It was as if the ocean had turned to gasoline. One spark and the entire Eastern Shore of Delaware would explode in righteous flames.

Guido, my life coach and stockbroker, urged me to go to Florida and lay low until the heat blew over. Like me, he was unaware of the social movement that was going viral. Hundreds of thousands of young influencers were offering their professional services to save Bethany Brethren Church’s brand, a brand which took a big hit when TikTok exposed the story of exploitation of challenged gentlemen of Mexican origin. Psychic temperatures were rising everywhere, not good news with the ocean of gasoline.

Outside our beach rental condo, daily small mobs of people shouted each day for me to come down and lead the movement. I was getting phone calls from the Chicago Seven who lead the protests during the 1968 police riot at the Democratic National Convention. Surviving members from the Weathermen and the Black Panthers called me almost begging me to take charge. Media stars such as Joan Baez, Angela Davis, Hank Williams, Jr., and Harry Belafonte joined in calling for more demonstrations.

Needless to say, the young people who stayed with Miss Ashley Williamson III were no match for us when it came to political organizing. My flock made placards promoting firing Right Reverend Richard Humphrey. "Dump the Hump!" one read; "Tricky Dick!" read another, and my favorite, "Dick, Pull Out Like Your Father Should Have!"

Spontaneously, demonstrations popped up around the country. Old lefty boomer radicals hijacked buses from their nursing homes, limited-care facilities, home nursing beds, and sanitariums to join us. Typical was Jack Horman, 83, who was arrested in an anti-Vietnam War demonstration in 1961. He yanked out his feeding tubes and walked out of the nursing home IC unit to catch a bus to the beach. (He was so energized by the experience that he lived 43 more years becoming the second oldest person in America before he died.) Celebrities also joined us. Tom Hayden flew out from California with his wife, Jane Fonda. He shared many humorous stories of Jane Fonda's plastic surgery. "Our pet name for her cleavage was Silicon Valley," he disclosed. Morgan Freeman joined us offering to narrate the upcoming documentary. Harvey Milk and Lilly Tomlin joined us from California. I thought they were the cutest couple and I hope they marry one day.

Fortuitously, a neighbor couple and their twelve children, all named for a month in the Jewish calendar, join us at the beach. I’m sure you readers know where this is going. Yep, our neighbor served in the Israeli Army, always carries an Uzi machine gun, and is a secret hit man for Shin Bet. I hired him to be my bodyguard. Once I knew an Uzi had my back, I stepped up to take the lead.

We could not help but win. At least 1,238,156 people pledged to demonstrate with us outside Bethany Brethren Church. Everyday demonstrators were coming to the beach by the truck load, coming from every direction, coming with their hospice nurses, their care givers, and their financial advisors. With far fewer people, other groups won big. After The March on Washington, women’s health care rights, including abortion, were guaranteed everywhere. Another march organized by victims of gun violence resulted in Congress banning assault weapons and requiring licensing of all other firearms. With our 1.2M followers, we were going to win even more.

The only area where Miss Ashley Williamson III’s followers beat us was in corporate endorsements. Every company in America wanted to legalize labor abuse and give Miss Ashley Williamson III billions in dark money funneled through Ginni Thomas’s SCOTUS PAC. Justice Thomas ran a sub-PAC focusing on abusing people of color and people who identify as woman. And if that were not enough, Miss Ashley Williamson III and all their staff got free vacations at 5-star resorts with Supreme Court Justices acting as tour guides. We got nothing.

Even the local press was against us. John Dilly, south Delaware's most prominent anchorman, opened his TV 6:00 news show by calling me “…filth, he’s [beep] filth! This dirtball punk and his Jewish henchman have the nerve to come into our quiet family community and suggest that we stop the good White Christian youth of Bethany Brethren Church from exploiting the disabled scum of the earth!" To encourage violence, he quoted jolly President Reagan who said of anti-war demonstrators, "If we have to have a blood bath, let's have it now and get it over with."

In summary, they had the money and the press. All we had were the people.

At 3:00 a.m. on the morning of the demonstration at the church, my phone rang discordantly. I picked up the horn in a half-stupor and said, “Talk.”

Right Reverend Humphrey was on the line and said, “I think we can work this out. If you can get down to the church as soon as possible, we can make a deal. It will be a win-win.”

“Will Miss Ashley Williamson III be there?” I was kind of hoping she’d be there in her tight black running shorts and bright white curve hugging tube top. Hence, my question.

“She’ll be there, but Guido will disappear her if you’d like.” The Right Reverend Humphrey spoke so coldly that a chill ran down my spine like Jessie Owens at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, or Secretariate running to the finish line ahead by five lengths, or the unarmed students at Kent State running for their lives when the state national guard opened fire on them.

“Are we talking about our stockbroker here?” I was still taken aback that Guido’s clients included the BBC.

“Yes, I am. He is also our life coach, spiritual advisor, and hit man.”

I started worrying that my opportunity to resolve this problem was slipping away with this strange talk of murder. I quickly told Right Reverend Humphrey that I’d be there ASAP, and hung up. I went into the kitchen as I smelled brewing coffee. My neighbor, “Mack the knife,” was stirring sugar into his coffee with the barrel of his Uzi. “Mack, I need to you cover my back at Church tonight.”

“Whatever,” he said while drinking his coffee from the clip of the Uzi.

“I must stop for a manicure. My nails are an unholy sight.” I said to Mack knowing he wouldn’t give a damn.

“Whatever,” he said while refilling the Uzi ammunition clip with more coffee.

“I don’t think we’ll have any problems with the family friendly drug gangs this morning,” I opined wishfully. “They’ve been hired by all the homophobic states to draft anti-LBGTQ legislation. Apparently, it pays more than drug dealing.”

“Whatever,” said Mack the Knife.

I stopped for both a manicure and pedicure to prepare for my media appearance. Mack and me then rode our bikes to Rehoboth to have coffee on the boardwalk and watch the sunrise. About sixty same-sex couples were getting married that morning at the beach. The scene was so touching that Mack put down his Uzi and took pictures of the couples. I took down names and addresses so we later could sell the pictures to the loving couples. Coffee done, pictures taken, we peddled out of Rehoboth heading south to Bethany and the BBC.

We had one further delay thanks to the Indian River Inlet Bridge. It was opened to let a large ocean-going container ship pass into Rehoboth Bay. Little did I know then what I know now that the containers aboard that ship contained millions of pairs of toxic flip-flops. But that story is for another day.

On or about 11:36 AM, we peddled into the BBC car park, dismounted our bikes, and entered the tabernacle of the BBC. About a million of my followers milled around outside.

The media overly covered what happened next. Three separate podcasts described it for a national audience. All the Delaware TV stations and newspapers covered it extensively. CNN did a special on it and there were docu-dramas run on Netflix and Apple TV+. Bruce Springsteen sang a song about it. Every participant wrote a book about it. Even the very taciturn Mack the Knife wrote a book about it in Hebrew. It became a best seller in Israel. Only I (or it is “me,”) have written nothing. The memory is too raw.

To give the devil her due, the best book on the subject was written by the wife of the Right Reverend Humphrey. She captured the drama of the scene brilliantly. With her permission, I quote from her best seller, Sinful Schism Shakes the Seashells by the Seashore.

"The church parlor was sparsely furnished with only two chairs and a table. My husband hadn’t shaved for several days and looked disheveled while sitting in one chair waiting for the rebel leader. Despite his appearance, he carried the same air of self-confidence that I learned to appreciate the first time he made love to me when I was 17 years old, and he was a 39 year old handyman working in my parents’ house.

“The radical [me] entered the room dressed in his best revolutionary uniform of cargo shorts, a white T-shirt, and Birkenstocks. Nothing was out of the ordinary except he held a bottle of gasoline with a flaming rag sticking out. His nails, however, were perfect. Standing beside him was a strange man holding an Uzi machine gun.

“Miss Ashley Williamson III immediately offered him 25% of the profits from our pop-up stands along Delaware Rt. 1. He did not respond. The smell of burning gasoline filled the room. Ashley (she allows us to call her that) looked in pain. She tried to smile, but the smile did not reach her eyes.

“The rebel [still me] gave a worried glance at the bottle of gasoline with the flaming rag sticking out. After a short discussion, my brave husband and Ashley agreed to offer him 35%. Without saying a word, the rebel offered to surrender the flaming bottle of gasoline to my husband, but my husband gracefully declined. The rebel tossed the bottle out the window where it safely exploded scattering a camera crew and the anchorman John Dilly from Delaware Eyewitness News Channel 5.

“The rebel asked solemnly, "...that my followers be allowed to keep their Grateful Dead T-shirts and go home to support their families." Ashley and my husband immediately agreed knowing that the four-year conflict that tore this beach community apart was finally over. With great relief, we stood outside on the porch of that humble church and watched the 1,300,000 smelly baby boomer demonstrators lay down their signs and abandon the field of battle. Ashley gave each demonstrator forty acres and a government mule.”

Ya' know, those pop-ups do bring in a shitload of money, more than I ever made no matter how much I watered down my margaritas. Miss Ashley Williamson III and I have become the best of friends. In fact, she said she'd treat me to crabs tonight and suggested we start doing lunch together whenever we come to the beach. Although I never saw Heather during this vacation, life at the beach can be very good. I can hardly wait to return next year.

THE END

Music from the Bethany Brethren Church Spotify Play List: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5WJJVSE_BE

For those of you too young to remember, this song was very popular among pro Vietnam War folks. The war was not going well until we sent in the Green Berets. Enjoy!