Dykes At Durgin Park

Back in 1960 my family moved from Falmouth Foresides Maine to the South Shore of Boson. 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. My mother thought it a bit common, but it was very affordable and good. Many of the waitresses were the ex-Navy nurses from the Charleston Navy Yard. All 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. 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.