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The Death of the King of the Beach
Margate, New Jersey
July, 2004
On July 1st, my best friend and mentor, Christopher Cook Gilmore, passed away from brain cancer. I have known Chris my whole life because he lived in a house between me and Quincy Avenue Beach in Margate, New Jersey. I spent every summer of my youth with my brothers visiting our grandparents in Margate. I learned to surf on Quincy Avenue and when I was old and big enough, Chris lent me my first surfboard. Well, actually, it was a twin fin kneeboard and it only had one fin. It didn't matter to me, because I am goofy foot and only wanted to go left anyway. As I was growing up Chris used to tell me fantastic tales of all the places he would travel during to winter, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Egypt, Black Africa, Morocco, Europe, Etc. This wanderlust always stuck with me and when I had the opportunity in May 2000, I sold all my possessions and got out on the road with Chris.
For the last five years Chris and I explored the coastline around Essaouira, Morocco in the boat he built, The Rubaiyat, named after the famous book by Omar Kahyyam. At first he wanted to name the boat "Fatima", the name of Mohammed's daughter, but when he tried to register the boat one of the main stipulations was that he had to change the name. I guess if it was possible, every boat in Morocco would be named "Fatima" so the government doesn't allow any boats to have that name. Chris build the boat over a period of seven years in the lobbies of the now defunct Hotel Atlantic and Hotel du Tourisme. This alone shows the eccentric genius of this man. How many people do you know who have built there own boat from scratch, let alone in the lobbies of hotels in Morocco. The Rubayat (see photo's in pictures section 6 and 10) is a sloop sail vessel and very sea worthy. The only problem is that she is a bit heavy and will only sail down wind. Over the years we came up with the term "Motor Sailing" for Ruby because we rarely killed the engine. I think our top "sail only" speed, measured by GPS, was about 3 KM/hour, a bit to slow to circumnavigate the Purple islands, our usual goal. Our most spectacular voyage ever is documented in the story, "A trip to the forbidden Island of El Firaoun" in Travel Logs, March 2003. Rubaiyat will now rest for eternity in its summer home, in front of Chez Sam Restaurant in the Port on Essaouira.
Christoph, the name by which he is known in Essaouira, increased his legend in the town by starting a very successful leather hat business with his brother Parker. They sold thousands of the "Hippy Style Buckle in the Front" hats throughout Morocco and Europe. When Chris and I would walk anywhere in Essaouira, we couldn't walk 10 feet without someone he knew shouting out his name. He first went to Essaouira in 1969, so many of the people in town have known Chris their entire life. By the time I made it there Chris had been given the title "Sidi" Christoph, Sidi being equivalent to the English, "Sir".
After spending the day sailing Ruby, we would retire to our rooms located on the roof of the Beau Rivage Hotel. With his Girlfriend (now wife) Anita we would spend the evening, reviewing the days adventures, drinking beers, playing guitars, telling stories and more often than not, enjoying a tasty meal prepared by Anita. During these joyous evenings I soon realized that Chris was a true Genius. He knew hundreds of songs, had hundreds of fantastic stories about his life and had memorized hundreds of Poems ranging from Poe to the Rubaiyat of Omar Kahyyam. He could fix and build anything. To this day I amazed by the amount of knowledge held in that man.
Coming Next - Shakespeare and company and Hobie Cat Racing in Margate......
Obituary from The Atlantic City Press written by our good friend and poet extraodinare, Bill Sherman:
Cancer, that horrible plague of our times, claimed one more victim on Tuesday, June 29th, when Christopher Cook Gilmore, unquestionably the finest writer to have been raised on Absecon Island, succumbed at the hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. He is survived by his wife, Anita who devotedly saw him through his final illness and who was with him at the end, and by his mother, Margot, a well-known Margate artist, and by his half-sister Schuyler, and by his many friends.
Gilmore, who was descended from Captain James Cook on his mother's side and from poet Sidney Lanier (1842-1881) on his father's, was a regular contributor to Atlantic City Magazine, which featured him on its cover in January 1991, and he was a Contributing Editor to New Jersey Magazine. His essays on aspects of South Jersey life were incisive in their depiction of subculture at the Jersey shore, and always glowed with the love Gilmore had for his native Margate.
His published early novel, Atlantic City Proof, was a textured and charming tale of a vanished Atlantic City, and in his two later novels, The Bad Room and Road Kills, he dealt with violence and madness endemic to America, and he honed his writing style, influenced by favorites such as such as Hemingway and Keronac, into a masterful verb-oriented precision.
Gilmore also appeared to great advantage in a documentary film about George Whitman, owner of Shakespeare and Co. Bookstore in Paris, where Christopher often stayed on his travels to end from Essaouira, Morocco, which was a home away from home for him for over 25 years. Often he would stop in Tangier and visit with the great writer and composer Paul Bowles.
A legendary character on the beaches, he was South Jersey's most outstanding HobieCat racer, winning competitions into his early sixties, and he also cruised the island waterways and back bays in his eighteen foot wooden garvey and recently he was interviewed on National Public Radio discussing boating, the bay and the history of Absecon Island.
A graduate of Atlantic City High, he earned a B. A. in Philosophy in Florida at the University of Miami, and he worked as a lifeguard for many years in Margate. As a young man, he taught woodworking at the prestigious St, Paul's Academy in London, and locally he briefly taught sixth grade in Absecon. Later in life he worked part-time teaching at Ocean City High School and at Atlantic County Community College.
Gilmore was an accomplished performance artist and troubadour whose work was internationally known. In 2003, he represented the U.S. at the Swedish Academy's International Poetry Festival in Goteborg.
As one of his friend's put it, "he was a lion of a man" who quested courageously and relentlessly for (as he himself wrote in one of his poems): the secret place, where the serpent never knows, the shadow of the rose.
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