The Fun Also Rises

The crowd at last year's Running of the Bull. "People like to goof around at the beach," a founder of the event says. "It's stupidity for stupidity's sake." (Courtesy Michael Mcdonnell)

John Hardy, who owns a hot-tub store and deejays in town, said he remembers all kinds of crazy antics back in the 1970s, like people setting up pulpits in the sand and acting as faith healers curing people of pregnancy. "That's what makes Dewey Beach unique."

It was always rowdy. Drinking on the beach was legal until the mid-'80s, one of the last holdouts.

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.

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.

Over the years, strange things began to happen: Women showed up in full flamenco gear. Someone bought scores of giant foam fingers that said, "Go bull!" 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. 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.

Two years ago, Fargus entered the ring in a sumo costume after the matador was gored. She wrestled the bull to the ground as the fatador. Last year, McDonnell wore a Batman costume: the batador.

Friends launched a protest movement, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animal Costumes, waved signs and got handcuffed to a pole.

Why? Who knows. "People like to goof around at the beach," McDonnell hazarded. "It's stupidity for stupidity's sake."

Or as Fargus said, "It's so much fun . . . I'd be crazy not to."

Going Corporate

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Steve 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. Montgomery was a Dewey bartender when the bull running started, then he bought the Starboard and began promoting the event a few years ago.

That changed it: Now there's a new bull costume, all clean and smiling, instead of glowering. Money raised from T-shirt sales is donated to the town. Bud Light is a sponsor. Planes fly over the beach trailing banners: Look out for the bull!

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.

This year, there will be a dignitaries section with local politicians.

"The bull," Walsh said, "has gone corporate."

Dewey Beach, which swells from just over 300 people in the off-season to 60,000 some weekends in July, has been changing. It has become a little quieter, a lot pricier, with more condominiums and more children.

"To a certain extent, weekenders are living on borrowed time," Brady said.

Their beach house group kept changing, too, as people got older, busier.

Howard and Brady got married and got out.

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.

Walsh keeps saying it's his last time as the bull.

McDonnell got engaged this winter.

This year, for the first time, they didn't rent a group house. "It had run its course," Walsh said.

Then again . . . Last week, over beers in Dupont Circle, McDonnell leaned forward and said, "I think we should rent a tandem bike."

Walsh blinked, swallowed some Guinness, thinking. He nodded -- he was in. They both started laughing. "It would be great," McDonnell said. "The bull riding in, all four legs pedaling."