Someone bought scores of giant foam fingers that said, "Go bull! " Sometimes odd things happen at the beach. Anyway, he talked Howard into going to Pamplona's Festival of San Fermin instead, and there they were, watching the running of the bulls. "The Sun Also Rises". "People like to goof around at the beach, " McDonnell hazarded. Then again... Last week, over beers in Dupont Circle, McDonnell leaned forward and said, "I think we should rent a tandem bike. Well, two people in a bull suit, actually. "It would be great, " McDonnell said.
On Sunday, Walsh couldn't get through one bar without being stopped by an affectionate stranger slurring, "There'sh the bull! Some guy will play Spanish songs on a little guitar as the crowd weaves out, shouting and whacking the bull with rolled-up newspapers. This year, there will be a dignitaries section with local politicians. A cow arrived and flirted with the bull. Other beach houses made signs to hang on decks and hosted sangria parties, cheering as the bull ran by. Those who kept coming noticed they were starting to like the slow off-season, too, and going out to dinner rather than just grabbing a slice between bars. Friends launched a protest movement, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animal Costumes, waved signs and got handcuffed to a pole. Then charge along the surf with a bull chasing them. McDonnell got engaged this winter. They videotaped the first Running of the Bull, camera lurching alongside 40 or so friends dressed in white with two guys in a ratty old rented bull costume, people on the beach confused, little kids chasing after them. They both started laughing. Bud Light is a sponsor. "The bull, " Walsh said, "has gone corporate. "To a certain extent, weekenders are living on borrowed time, " Brady said.
Going CorporateSteve Montgomery pulled a red-foam bull horn over his head upstairs at the Starboard this week, laughing, and showed Walsh the matador hats and whips he got to hand around the bar. This is the 10th year of a tradition created on a whim that inexplicably ignited: the Running of the Bull, apologies to Pamplona. Behind them was a little bare space, and then the bulls galloping, tossing their heads up and down. They laughed about what idiots they were -- until the bulls came back about a minute later. And maybe not chasing so much as stumbling blindly inside the fleecy costume.
Two years ago, Fargus entered the ring in a sumo costume after the matador was gored. People plan summer vacations around this. She wrestled the bull to the ground as the fatador. Their beach house group kept changing, too, as people got older, busier. Tomorrow afternoon here in Dewey Beach, police will shut the main drag as hundreds of people surge through the two-block-wide Delmarva town and storm the beach. "The whole town's abuzz, " he said. Or as Fargus said, "It's so much fun... A bookie calculated odds and took bets on the bullfight, which often ended with someone falling to the ground and squirting little packets of ketchup.
Now police shut down Route 1 to the disgust of people who have driven hours only to get stuck in a baking-hot traffic jam a few agonizing miles from Rehoboth Beach or Bethany Beach. It was always rowdy. They were all running, packed close together.... "That's what makes Dewey Beach unique.
Last year, McDonnell wore a Batman costume: the batador. I'd be crazy not to. And: "We were screaming like little girls. The Madness SpreadsIt wasn't all that weird for Dewey. He nodded -- he was in. In the '90s, when McDonnell and Walsh started renting beach houses, the town was dominated by summer weekend people like themselves crashing on sofas to sleep it off.
Drinking on the beach was legal until the mid-'80s, one of the last holdouts. Then, after the run, they'll head back to the bar for a ridiculous semblance of a bullfight. It seemed like the Spaniards knew what to do, and only the two Americans were scrambling for cover, hopping a fence as the bulls raced by. It has become a little quieter, a lot pricier, with more condominiums and more children. McDonnell had read it a few too many times, he said. Money raised from T-shirt sales is donated to the town. When they came home, they wanted to recreate the Carnaval-meets-Mardi Gras feel of Pamplona, so they planned a beach party with paella and sangria, and someone -- probably Andrew Brady, now a Securities and Exchange Commission attorney from Bethesda -- said they needed a bull, too. "The bull riding in, all four legs pedaling.
That changed it: Now there's a new bull costume, all clean and smiling, instead of glowering. Just as the Spaniards had anticipated. When the DJ plays "Wooly Bully, " the crowd will go nuts. Howard and Brady got married and got out.