Dykes At Durgin Park

Back in 1960 my family moved from Falmouth Foresides Maine to the South Shore of Boston. Every Friday evening my mother drove into the city for us to have dinner with my father. One of his favorites was Durgin Park in the Haymarket. He had dined there as a youth with his father. Both true Yankees from Maine. My mother from Jamaica Plains thought it was a bit common, but for a family with six children it was very affordable and good.

Many of the waitresses were the ex-Navy nurses from the Charleston Navy Yard. A good number butch dykes with tattoos. Mean, but sweet to our family. My first exposure to that faucet of the gender prism. Short grease-backed hair, waiting to put on a leather jacket and smoke a cigarette with a femme at Vicki's on Tremont Street. They were so rough. Had to be. Twice the man anyone else was. The Navy Yard closed in 1974 and they disappeared to Florida tired on the cold. I do miss them.