Other Events and Attributes:

• Residence: May 1968, Paris, Seine, France
• Residence: 1970, London, England

Notes:

Source: “A Real (beach) Bum”

   Say the phrase “beach bum” in Margate and the words “Christopher Cook Gilmore” come back faster than the echo of wave slapping a steel-hulled boat.
 “I take my measure of a man by how much time he spends on the beach,” Gilmore said recently. Gilmore, 58, is the son of the late Eddie Gilmore, who won a Pulitzer in 1947 for his dispatches from Moscow for the Associated Press. Christopher Cook Gilmore is a writer of note himself, having published six novels and hundreds of short stories and articles. If there is an occupation made for beach bums, it’s writer.
 But Gilmore has become many other things to support his beach habit. He is a carpenter, mechanic, substitute teacher and, occasionally, a sailing instructor for topless French women. When he’s not traveling abroad he rises at maybe 6 a.m., writes until 10 a.m. or noon and then is free to pursue that which interests him, and that which interests him usually involves something on the beach. His skills in the waves on his 14-foot Hobie catamaran are near legendary. Sometimes it’s the women walking by that interest him, and his skills with women are… well, never mind. Who knows what’s true and what occupies local storytellers? Suffice it to say that Gilmore appreciates natural beauty. “A day without love,” he said, “is a day without sunshine.”
 He has held only three “real” jobs, as an Associated Press correspondent for a year and, for two years, as a teacher in Absecon and as a member of the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves, which was his way of honorably avoiding fighting in Vietnam.
 He was a lifeguard during high school, but he doesn’t count that because it wasn’t year-round. “That’s what ruined me for working during the summer,” he said. “After that I would never do anything that would keep me off the beach on a hot sunny day.”
The best he can do now is to substitute teach for Ocean City High School. “I tell them don’t call me more than twice a week and only when it rains,” he said.
 He has learned to live simply. His car is a ’71 Triumph Spitfire. He lives in a wing of his mother’s house in Margate a block from the beach. He has no children and no ex-wives, but he does have a steady girlfriend. He owns a small motorboat, a garvey. He does have a cell phone, which he sometimes uses to order subs while he’s on the beach, which he gets delivered to the bulkhead.
 Come cold weather all he needs is an airline ticket to someplace warm - Bali, or Borneo or Madagascar or maybe Southeast Asia. Sometimes he brings his Hobie. For a time he lived in a tent on a beach on St. Martin, next to the boat, which was also next to a rasta bar, where his job was to give sailing lessons to topless French girls. He has a fondness for the French language, which he attributes to his ability to consort with the natives.
“I’ve lived with a lot of French women,” he said. “I’ve lied in French, made love in French…”
 This is what being a beach bum can be like if you are really, really good - and dedicated. But this style of beach bumming cannot be pursued from an office in center-city Philly. It requires commitment, retraining and a willingness to give up the suits, the cars, the fancy houses, the kids, the spouses, the retirement, the security, the fancy boats… but, hey, we’re talking topless French women here.
 If there’s anybody who can explain what it is about the beach, it’s Gilmore.
 “It’s a Zen thing,” he said. It’s the confluence of the sea and land - where they meet, the synthesis of land and sea. When I’m there I feel the immense power of the sea. The thing is, all the problems we have happen on the land, and when we look out at the sea they vanish, and we realize the only thing that matters is the right now.”
 Thanks, Gilmore, thanks for giving us that look into a style of beach bumming that most of us will only dream about.

Source:

Christopher claims to have spent an entire winter writing short stories in a blue tent on top of a sand dune on the coast of southern Morocco - without getting a grain of sand in his typewriter. Christopher travels extensively, speaks six languages and hasn’t had a day job in years. He is the author of Atlantic City Proof, The Bad Room and Road Kills among others. He divides his time between his homes in Morocco and Atlantic City.

Christopher married Sharon Irene STONE on 1 Jan 1966 in Margate City, Atlantic, New Jersey, and was divorced on 30 Jul 1970 in Richmond, Virginia. Sharon was born on 16 May 1945 in New Albany, Floyd, Indiana. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Anita STEWART. Anita was born about 1962. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]