Dirty Dishes	Dirty Dishes Archive

Thanks to the reader who sent a squib from the Anchorage Daily News (Dawn's fans are everywhere!) that may be of particular interest to this month's perusers of The Guide (as the mag covers the Pacific Northwest). It seems that an afternoon train called the Sounder, carrying commuters north from Seattle, passes an otherwise secluded beach frequented by men who like their sand, sun, surf (and undoubtedly more...) in the buff.

What struck Dawn as noteworthy about the Associated Press piece was more than its lack of moralistic clucking: it noted that commuters, quite sensibly, actually look forward to their chance to count the willies on display. "There's an average of six a day," the article quotes one rider. "Sometimes there's more, sometimes less. Sometimes we're disappointed because there aren't any."

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It's just a fleeting maybe four or five seconds, but it's definitely worth it," says another train-traveler. "Most of the time we have to get up out of our seats to look out the window. It depends on who's on the train. Sometimes we get kind of rowdy about it." Dawn can only imagine that any "rowdiness" or jostling for good viewing position would be inspired by particularly delectable meat or an unusually large whang on display.

The story notes that sometimes local police, perhaps self-conscious about their own lack of sex appeal or diminutive dongs, "shoo away the nude sunbathers." One cop reports that reactions by those being thus harassed range from "openly hostile to embarrassed." Dawn applauds those appropriately hostile.

The newspaper writer is also to be commended for including the observation that the beach has been frequented by gay men since the 1930s, and thus it is the train that must defer to history. Also to be commended is local mayor Carla Nichols, who knows a sure-fire tourist draw when she sees it: "Now that we have the commuter trains going regularly, it makes sense it would eventually become a feature."