ms. ocean city

the summer before college, i lived in ocean city in a tiny beach house with my cousins.

we called it the doll house.

it didn't take long for us to fall headlong into bohemian beach culture.

we worked as photographers at night, in the old time photo studio on the boardwalk.

after work, we'd get together with friends, and listen to reggae music til dawn.

we'd sleep on the beach, then do it again the next day.

it was a pretty good time, filled with your typical youthful bravado.

 at work we'd style the endless parade of vacationing families in victorian era garb, position them in the parlor, and expect them to smile.

the young couples always wanted to be set up in the saloon.

it was hard festooning the bikers in any kind of authentic true to era way.  

you try covering the tattoos on the arm of a pagan, and see how far you get when you tell him, uh, sorry dude.  guys just didn't have biker tattoos back in the day.

good luck.

   late at night, up at patrick's, we all had typical war work stories to share.

patrick owned his beach house, was the photo shop manager, so we all kind of deferred to him even after we were off the clock.

who knows why.  it could have been the john lennon glasses.  we probably thought he was smarter than us.

greg lived there, a student from dickenson college.  yes.  that makes me a d*ck, is what he would say.

and eddie.  some rebel rouser from a college out in western maryland.

those were the guys we hung with, night after night after night.

there were always lots of other people in and out.

hippies, drag queens, beauty queens.

one night it was patrick's birthday, and everyone was going out to celebrate.  i asked greg, do you think we should get dressed up?

he said well.  patrick's going to wear underwear.

this is how 'bohemian' we were.

i said okay, and put on a long gauze skirt with moccasins and a tube top.

god.  talk about a fashion crime.

anyway, that's how the summer went.

photos at night.  reggae music after midnight.  sleeping on the beach during day.  it got to the point where we didn't even bother to bring a towel, we just laid directly on the sand.   that's how freakin' boho we got.

toward the end of the summer, we began to fracture, as summer romances can tend to. we all had to leave our perceived wonderland, it was time to head back to college.

we got together one last time.

and it turned out the guys in the house had created their own version of senior superlatives.

paula was funniest.  so and so was best legs.  best hair.  best laugh.

eddie said katy.  we voted you 'best boobs in ocean city.'

i said me?

he said yeah.  you.

i said gosh thanks!

i was a pseudo hippie, and a dork.

this was before i became a mafia wife.

i've reminded the godfather of this a time or two over the years.

i've thought of that superlative as the surgeries have gone along, cuts, then another, then still more.

best boobs?

now they include radiation tattoos!

i think of the pagans.

the staging.

  and i wonder, if i were to go there now, to have my picture taken, and position myself as a saloon girl, would those young bohemians try and place the fan of playing cards in my cleavage to cover up the tattoo in an attempt, as i made, for authenticity?  

and would i let them?

sure.

xx katy