Play ball! How the softball diamond shaped & continues to shape queer women’s culture
The following in an excerpt from A Place of Our Own: Six Spaces That Shaped Queer Women’s Culture by June Thomas, available today from Seal Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, Inc. One Monday afternoon in the mid-1980s, I was working a shift in the Capitol Hill branch of Lammas.
It had been a quiet day— I’d seen the mailman, a UPS delivery person, and maybe one customer. I wish I could say that I was doing something productive for feminist literature, but I was almost certainly parked at the register by the door, novel in hand, reading.
At some point, the skies opened up and let loose one of those epic DC summer storms. It seemed that the rest of my shift would be even lonelier.
Then, without warning, more than a dozen women burst through the door. They were raucous, boisterous, and soaked to the skin—and for some reason, they were all wearing the same T- shirt.Subscribe to our newsletter for a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.It was only when store owner Mary Farmer brought up the rear of this noisy crew that I realized what was going on.
