My Southern Gothic Life

Let me start the second part of sharing this journey by pointing out that the story has a happy ending. I like to think I ended up a fairly well-adjusted, successful, happily partnered Gay man. But it’s not something that just happened on its own.

Let me also say, I think my journey would have been easier if I had not been stuck in Danville, Virginia during the early years of my coming out and coming to terms with who I really was.

There is a monologue by  Little Edie, in “Grey Gardens” that always makes me think of Danville.  She might have been talking about Long Island and other circumstances, but it always reminds me of Danville:

Honestly, they can get you…for wearing red shoes on a Thursday – and all that sort of thing…They can get you for almost anything – it’s a mean, nasty, Republican town.”

I was also working there in banking there and believe me, Danville bankers are the most self-important creatures ever to walk the earth. They had very firm ideas of how one was supposed to conduct themselves both at and out of the office. That was another role I couldn’t play…

But getting back to the Gay thing. I don’t think people realize how tough it apparently still is for gay kids and adults in places like Danville and Mississippi. People think all gay people live in San Francisco or New York or Washington or Greensboro or Richmond or Charlottesville. Not in small towns and cities that aren’t as progressive as some of the areas mentioned above.

Most Gay people have to leave places like Danville if they want to survive and be happy.  Times haven’t really changed that much.  It’s the ones who stay behind- because of family, jobs or lack of money to leave- that still really have it rough.

This is always clear when I go back to Danville.  Sure, there is a small educated  and accepting class that is open to Gay folks there, but it’s a small group.  I still run into people there who feel safe showing their hatred and contempt for Gay people- as well as people of color and of other religions.  It’s still safe to hate in places like Danville.  It’s still socially acceptable in most of the groups in that town.  And in many, many more towns like it.

I like to think times have changed for younger Gay people.  I like to think it’s easier to be Gay now.  It is for us.  But, with the recent rash of young, Gay suicides, I now know that’s not always the case.

I thought the post “Will and Grace” generation had it easier.  I guess I forgot the impact of the Religious Right demonizing us for the past 10 years.

Some of us are older and tougher.  We’ve already fought- both ourselves and society- for so many years, the haters really don’t faze us that much.  We are used to it.  We’ve learned to keep going and still carve out a happy, successful life.  We have built our networks of Gay and Straight friends and created our own safe little bubbles.  We hoped it was easier for those who are coming up- and out- behind us.

When I was coming up and out, it was only about a decade after The Stonewall Riots when Gay people first stood up to the police.    It was the 1980’s.  The Reagan years.

And the era when AIDS was just emerging.  It’s hard to make someone understand, who wasn’t there, the fear that AIDS brought to so many of us.  And how so many people freely said:  “The fags are getting what they deserve.”

The Gay Culture  of that time really was based on sex, but that doesn’t mean people deserved to get sick and die.  Many people were just feeling free enough to express themselves sexually, for the first time, when the Plague struck and a new horror was visited upon us.  Our friends were getting sick and dying and we were all wondering “Who is next?  What causes this?  Will it get me?”

It was a challenging world for me.

Sometimes I felt like Doris Day in a whorehouse.  I just wasn’t, by nature, the promiscuous type.

I was husband hunting.

And I found a lot of husbands in Danville, Va in the 1980’s.  They just happened to belong to someone else.  Based on my field research during that era, that little town had to have had the highest per capita percentage of Gay or Bisexual Married Men of any town in the country.  God, they were tiresome- trying to have their cake and eat it, too…

I had hoped that was all a thing of the past…I guess it’s not.

We have also learned being Gay is only part of who we are.  We are also still bankers, soldiers, construction workers, lawyers, sales clerks and, yes, beauticians and florists.

We pay our taxes and form our own families of choice.  We are assimilating.  That is progress of a sort- maybe of the most important sort.

I was also lucky that I did not lose a single friend as I came out.  At least not a true friend.  Sure, some of the older folks I knew turned their backs on me, but my friends stood with me.  Most have told me they knew I was Gay before I did.  Why the hell didn’t you guys slap some sense into me?

My family learned to accept who I am.  I had some battles royal with my Mother- that I’ll talk about later.  But the rest of them weren’t really phased by it…

It is getting better with time.  If nothing else, the older generation is dying off and the demographic research shows the younger the person, the less prejudice they hold against gay people.  Time is on our side…

So we all- young, middle-aged, old, Gay and our Straight allies just have to keep going and trying to make the change real.  We have to make our younger Gay kids realize it does get better.

I think the best thing we can do is to come out and live honestly.  We need to be visible and not ashamed of who we are.  We have to let the Gay kids coming behind us have the role models we did not have…

God knows, we can’t count on the Gay Establishment.  The folks at the Human Rights Campaign seem more interested in getting invited to the White House and throwing social events for the “A Gays” than actually doing anything productive to force legislative changes.

Despite years of lobbying and millions of dollars in donations to these groups, we can still be fired from our jobs, not serve openly in the military, be prevented from seeing our partners in the hospital, have legal challenges adopting children and forming families, and be vilified by the haters.

But we can also build wonderful, fulfilling lives out in the open.  Legislation did not drive that, visibility did.

It is better.  And we can make sure it keeps getting better.

We owe it to ourselves and those who come behind us…

In closing, here is a great video, my friend John sent me, from others testifying…it does get better…

I struggled with how to title this post, but I decided to go with the pejorative terminology.  Now is not a time to be delicate or sensitive.

I’m just going to lay out the facts.  I’ve been very honest on this blog about my family and I’m going to try to be equally as honest about myself.  Fair is fair.

Some of you know part of this story.  A very few know it all.  Most of you don’t know any of this….but with us facing at least 6 suicides by young gay men this week, I decided to move up the time clock and tell it all.

I’m going to tell my personal story, but I don’t think it’s a singular story.  One of the things we learn as we grow older is that we aren’t as special as we once thought we were.

I’m only going to tell it this way in hopes that it makes a difference to someone else.  That may sound pretentious, but I’ll take that cut if it ultimately serves the intended purpose.

I had planned to use this blog to tell my “Coming Out” story on the National Coming Out Day on October 11th.  But, I’ve never been one to be a slave to tradition.  Especially a tradition recently dictated by the “gay” establishment- a group for whom I have little respect.

Instead, I’ll tell it now because I feel like telling it now and because it seems more timely when so many young gay men are in the press for not making it as far as I have made it…

Let me start by saying that even using the term “queer” is difficult for me.  I much prefer “gay”.  It sounds so much more elegant and “Noel Coward”.  But, if we are going to talk about the impact of being “gay” in the South, “Queer” is much more appropriate.

That is how we are viewed.

I learned a long time ago, it doesn’t matter if you drive a new Lexus and shop at Brooks Brothers or if you drive a 10 year old Ford Pickup and shop at Wal Mart,  if you are Gay the haters view you the same way.  To them, you are not a person, but rather an abnormal thing they can feel free to hate.  To them, you just don’t matter. You aren’t human.  You aren’t a person…

In a way, I was lucky.  I didn’t really deal with being Gay-or Queer- until my mid to late 20’s.  I avoided it until then.

It was easy in High School.  Frankly, because my little group really didn’t give a damn what people in Danville thought because we all planned to leave there.

We were the smart kids, from good families but without the shackles of social position. We were North Danville kids, the first generation in our families with multiple options.  Frankly, we were smart.  Maybe too smart.

We all thought we were too smart for the room that was High School, so we didn’t really give too much of a damn.  High School was a temporary condition that we knew we would  out grow.  In that way, we were wise beyond our years.

We pioneered the concept of “Group Dating” that is so popular today.  Back in the “couples only” days of the late 1970’s, that alone was enough to cause concerns.  I’ll never forget one girl in our class saying:  “They are just not normal.  I bet they just lay up in a big pile and have sex with whatever is closest.”  We all took great pleasure when she “had” to get married later that year…

We also had nothing but contempt for the “sissy boys”.  We couldn’t relate.  We thought they were simpler than we were and not in our league.  We felt we were superior to them.  It would take some of us years to learn, we weren’t….and more years to deal with the guilt of abandoning them to the social forces of the time.  They would haunt some of us…

See, the weird thing was, none of us were even having sex.  We were just trying to find out who we were.  Sex was a concept, not a reality.  We were being judged on terms we couldn’t even yet begin to understand…

But, in an era and a place were asking questions about sexual roles and orientation was blasphemy, just that open mindedness made us suspect.

We were sexually ambiguous guys who hung out with a lot of straight girls who were saving themselves for marriage.  So life was good.  Sexuality was a concept, not a reality, and we were all cool with that…

We didn’t have to worry about breaking the rules- yet.

The other thing to keep in mind was that our hometown, Danville, Virginia, was eaten up with pretension, lies and religion.

In Danville, even the most obvious, notorious Queens thought no one “knew” they were gay.  There was so much internalized homophobia.

We never once had a positive role model. We just knew bitter, pretentious Queens who lied to themselves and self-medicated themselves to make it through their lives.  But then, it was the mid  1970’s in Danville, Virginia, so I will try to not judge too harshly…

But…

These guys actually, really, truly  thought if they showed up with a woman at a party once a year, they could “pass” as straight and no one would talk about them or hate them.  They clung to that hope that no one really “knew”.  They lied to themselves and thought as long as they tried to “pass” they could still be socially acceptable.

They could not imagine anything worse than people knowing them for who they really were…

There were a few of brave old queens who didn’t give a damn.  But none of us could talk to them or be seen with them because of guilt by association. They were too fey or notorious.  We had to go our own way…

Is it any wonder, with all this complexity, that we just lived to leave town and go away to college?

College was a different world.  I really was a socialite at College.   It is truly both a miracle and a triumph of will that I managed to graduate from Washington and Lee University.  Eventually…

My first three years at W&L were wonderful.  Sex did not enter my mind.  It was all about parties and social events.  Back then, W&L was an all male school.  People are amazed when I tell them I never had sex there.  Perhaps, I was too young, sheltered and shallow.  I really just didn’t cross my mind that often.  I was more concerned with cocktails and parties.

And being in denial.

First of all, I dated a lot of girls, but it never crossed my mind that women had sex drives. I thought I was supposed to go through the cursory after party motions and we would both be relieved that I didn’t push too hard.

I was amazed when my “steady” at one of the girl’s schools dropped me when I didn’t push to go farther.  My heart just wasn’t in it and I wasn’t used to be being called on that.  None of my friends understood why she dumped me and I certainly couldn’t explain it to them then.  But it got me to thinking…

My Junior year, I finally went “all the way” with another woman I was seeing.  She was fascinating, sophisticated and intriguing and I wish we could have cocktails today and catch up  But the sex was a bust.  We both knew it.  We really liked each other, but, it just wasn’t working.  Like many have said, after 21 years of waiting, all I could think of was that old Peggy Lee song:  “Is That All There Is?”

My mind was exploding….I kept wondering what was wrong with me.  Maybe it was time to find out…

The very next weekend, I was at a party in Danville.  One of the notorious old queens was there.  I went home with him.

I didn’t hear “Is That All There Is?” afterwards.

From that point forward, through the next 10 years, I was truly a mess….

More to come….

Football season has begun and the South has lost its mind.

See Football games are both a metaphor for and a microcosm of Life in the South.  I’ve never really understood all this fuss about football- be it High School, Collegiate or Professional.

I guess it’s kind of like the citizens of Rome going to the coliseum to watch the Christians run from the lions or the gladiators fight to the death.  The hope is that eventually, blood will be shed and we will see all our friends.

First you have a bunch of boys/men trying to push a ball over a line or kick it through the goal posts.  I won’t touch the symbolism of forcing a ball through two spread posts…

I hear there is a little strategy involved in football, but mainly it’s about brute force.  The point is really “It doesn’t matter if you are smarter.  If I’m faster, slicker and push harder, I win.” That pretty much sums up life and politics in the South…

Then you have the Cheerleaders and Majorettes.  Generations of women in my family have entered into these two categories.  Many find this the highest calling a woman can aspire to at that age.  No one seems to see anything illogical about young girls/women standing around in short skirts screaming and tossing poms poms and/or in sequined bathing suits twirling sticks-preferably with fire on the end- while it’s pouring down rain or freezing cold.  It’s just all so glamorous…even if you get pneumonia.

More power to them.  I never got it.

I also don’t get “tailgating”.  Why do people, who presumably still have homes, want to cook and eat in a parking lot?  Couldn’t they just have a nice party at home- preferably catered?

I mean, I did my time drinking in parking lots, but that was when I was 16 or 17 and couldn’t get into nice, comfy bars.

The more I think about all this, it does seem to be sort of a symbolic pagan rite.  That’s cool…

In short, football season is the chance for various folks in the South to socialize and run around and scream look at me!  Or to get together and drink and eat.  Or to try to force someone else to get out of the way of their goals…

These are the three most common pursuits in the South, so I guess I finally understand…

Being born in the South, you are raised with a lot of preconceived notions.  When you are young, you are taught to accept certain things without question.

Well, I’m really am glad I’m not young anymore.  I’ve learned too much along the way that I don’t ever want to lose.

I admit, it might be nice to be 35 again. But I would never want to lose the knowledge and confidence that only comes with getting older.

Perceptions change with time, education and experience.  We learn a lot of things we are told when we are young are simply not true.  We learn life is a long, incredible endless journey that, hopefully, leads us to a truer knowledge of what’s real and not real.

Hopefully, we learn to find our own defining beliefs along the way…

Here are a few bits of personal knowledge I’ve picked up along the way:

1. Most “experts” aren’t.  Especially, if they are a TV political pundit or a Financial Advisor.
2. Money is a concept, not a reality.
3. There is value in all work:   There is a great need for incredibly talented plumbers, handymen and carpenters, among other professions, who have skills I lack.
4. The Religious Right isn’t really either.  Religion and matters of faith and spirituality are a very personal journey and no one should try to impose their values on anyone else.
5. Diversity is really good for everyone.  People need to accept the fact that we are a multi-cultural, multi-racial, multi-religious society and revel in the richness.
6. There is no education like travel.  Especially international travel.
7. Pets are an essential part of the family–and you can love them more than some of your human family.  That’s just fine…
8. Perception isn’t reality.
9. Some friends are of a time and a place, but others are forever.  The forever friends are priceless.
10. An open mind and an open heart are the most important traits one can aspire to have.
11. I have to go to the gym whether I want to or not.
12. Don’t be afraid to go your own way and trust your own instincts.
13. Algebra really was a waste of time and is useless in real life.
14. It’s a good thing to question everything and form your own, educated opinions.
15. There is such a thing as a fact even if others refuse to recognize it as such.
16. For those of us who go to College, a Liberal Arts Education is invaluable.  And it makes you really good a cocktail party chat.
17. Hangovers take much longer to recover from as you get older…Moderation is a very good thing.
18. After 40, good clothes and good grooming are really important.  Messy, casual looks that work for younger people just make mature people look poor and homeless.
19. It’s better to try to understand people who are different from you than to judge and dismiss them.  You are the loser if you don’t try to understand them.
20. Home really is where the heart is…

More to come…

I’ve recently had a revelation.  The concept of ‘”summer jobs” is really a passe concept.

Nowadays it seems kids spend the summers going to “camps” to increase their skills and marketability for College as opposed to earning cash for college like my generation did.

I think this is a contributing factor to the break down in societal cohesiveness and the understanding of Class Structure in America.

I know it was a different time and place, but I think I got almost as much education in Life 101 from my summer jobs as I got from College.  For one thing, the jobs we had back in “the day” generally required us to interact with people from- how does one say this politel? Other classes?

My Father had a very strong work ethic.  He believed you worked yourself to death, like he did at age 55.  He was from the traditional school of thought that men worked and made money.  Period.

I delivered papers from the time I was about 10 until I went away to College.  In addition, as soon as I turned 16, I had Summer Jobs.  I’m not talking internships.  I worked in the Warehouse of my Father’s Company or at Dan River Mills.

My Father was the top Sales Rep for a wholesale hardware company.  His “territory” covered several states and ranged from local hardware stores to Belks and other department stores.  They had cornered the central distribution of hardware and housewares for the Southeast.  Every time someone sold a plow point, a screw, a piece of Silver, a Rubbermaid Dish Drainer or a Corningware teapot in those three States, Daddy got commission.

And Daddy did well.  I figured this out once.  Adjusted for inflation, even with my fancy College degree, I don’t make that much more money than my Father did.  But then, I don’t have to support 3 other people on my salary.  And we also have Steve’s salary.  There are some benefits to being a Gay Couple.

My Father and his friends were very much like the guys on “Mad Men” on a smaller scale.  They were hustlers on the make.  It was all about sales and making the client feel special.  They also drank a lot, smoked a lot and did not come home when expected.  Many a night their wives drove by Earl’s Bar and Grill to see if their cars were there- and were almost happy if they were.

These guys got “free samples” of every toy, houseware item  or new appliance to try out so they could “know” them and “sell” them.  My Mother’s storage room is a 1960’s-1970’s  goldmine.

There were conventions in Miami and other places where the wives went to support their husband’s careers.  My Mother never recovered from the convention at the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach in the mid-1960’s.  She claims to be the first woman to wear a pant suit to a social affair there.  That’s where she was mistaken for Jackie Kennedy by some senile woman in a store.  She still has her wardrobe from that trip hanging in one of the closets at Lansbury Drive like a trophy.

She also tells the story that my Father’s then boss entered the lobby and everyone rose and rushed to him to suck up to him.  She remained seated until he came to her.  She said it was because he recognized quality.  A Lady never rises for a Gentleman.  It is not done, therefore, he thought she was a Great Lady.

It’s also one of the family secrets that my Mother went to see this same boss once because some woman called our house.  She put on her best copy of a Chanel suit, her pillbox hat and her white gloves and went to see this guy.  Somehow, that part of my Father’s “territory”, that required overnight stays,  was assigned to someone else after that…

My Father’s boss, who owned the company,  put a bullet in his head a few weeks later and they all had to find new jobs, but I like to think that had nothing to do with meeting with my Mother.

After the suicide, the New Company bought out the Old Company and hired all the top Salesmen and life went on.

The New Company absorbed all the assets and territories of my Father’s old company.  Except for the one my Mother cut out…

The man who owned the New Company was a Classic Southern Gentleman and my Mother quickly ingratiated herself with him as the favorite Corporate wife.  She had him and his wife wrapped around her little finger until they died.

When I was in High School, the moment I turned 16, I spent my summers working there.  I still had my paper route.  I would get up at 5:30, deliver papers, have breakfast and be at the Warehouse by 8:00.  I would finish at the warehouse at 4:30, then go home and deliver the evening papers.  Then play until midnight and start all over again.  I’m tired just typing this…

Warehouse really should be plural.  It was several interconnected warehouses, with no air conditioning.  It covered several acres of land.  Some parts were decades old. Those warehouses had everything from screws to plow points to sterling silver place settings to Rubbermaid dish drainers.

And they had “special” jobs for the sons of their Sales Reps.

My job was to get the orders and work with the workers to stack the merchandise on pallets for men to come pick up on forklifts and take to the loading dock to go on Tractor Trailers.

I’ll never forget my first day there.  Before I went to work there, Daddy gave me a lecture.  In summation, it was that I was going to meet a lot of low rent trash in the Warehouses and to remember who I was and that I was not one of them.  I was not to get too close to them or think of them as equals.

When I got to the Company for my first day of work, his Boss called me into his office and gave me the same lecture.  His point was that I was working there to earn some money and see the results of being “sorry white trash” if you didn’t play by the rules.  He was clear that I was there to work and not to be part of the lives of the people I worked with.  This was to be both an educational and a cautionary experience.

I was assigned to Housewares.  Corningware, Silver, China, Rubbermaid, etc.  The first person I met was my “supervisor”.  She was about 6 years older than me.  Kind of a Sandy Duncan/Peter Pan character.  The first thing she said to me was:  “Hi, I’m Robbie.  My husband is an XXXXX, you know, one of the leading families of Pittsylvania County.  We really are FFV and I’m just here for a while.  I’m not like the rest of this common trash.  I thought we would work together since we will have more in common.”

Only in Virginia would a warehouse worker give her “bonifides” up front.  She never did explain how she was in the Warehouse and not at a Junior League meeting and I didn’t ask.  Sometimes, it’s best to just roll with things….

I loved the people I met there.  It horrified my Father, my Mother and his Boss.  They accused me of being too close to “the help.”  A cardinal sin in Virginia.  But somehow, I never had that filter…

These were good people.  A little rough around the edges, a little tacky in their dress, a little weak and rough in their vocabulary, a little hard…but good people.  Not unlike my Mother’s family in the Mill Village that she tried to put some distance to…They made me understand that Country Music is not fictional…

I liked them.  I had fun getting to know them.  And I learned a lot about life….

I also met my first Gay Person there.  I’ll call him Ronnie.  He worked loading the pallets of goods onto the trucks and rode the forklift through the acres of warehouses with a very straight guy who was his best friend.  You did not say anything bad about Ronnie in front of this friend or it would not be pretty.  You did not mess with the friend or with Ronnie because of the friend.

In 1975 terms, Ronnie was one hot daddy bear.  Big, laughing, twinkling brown eyes, a mustache and a body built from hard work lifting and hauling.  I was fascinated.  He was also one of the sweetest men I ever met.  Not a malicious bone in his body.

The girls in “housewares” where I worked had quite the debate over whether he, and I later found out I, were gay.

Ronnie invited them all to a party one night at his “friends” house over a florist shop.  I was not invited as I was jail bait.  The girls came back and spent a week or two discussing if the fact that Ronnie wore silk lounging pajamas to the party over the florist shop might be a sign he was gay.  They finally decided, no, as he was just not effeminate.  Couldn’t be…

Ronnie eventually moved on to being a sales clerk at Belks and I lost track of him after that…

At the end of my second summer, the Girls informed me they had decided I wasn’t Gay, either,  just a Gentleman– and they said they just weren’t used to Gentlemen which was why they initially questioned if I, too, might be Gay.  They firmly believed nice, normal people they knew could not be Gay.  It was 1975…

That Warehouse could get to be 120 degrees in the Summer.  No air conditioning.  Even wearing an old Izod/Lacoste shirt and old khaki’s and topsiders, you were sweltering.

We found a basement area with a spring under one of the old parts of the building where it was cool and relaxing.  We– me, the girls from Housewares and Ronnie and the Truck Loaders/Forklift drives would all meet there for our 3:00 breaks.  It was our one respite during the course of 8-10 hour days working for minimum wage.

My Father’s Boss caught us there one day and it was not pretty.  He railed at them like an Old Testament Prophet.  “Ungrateful slackers.  Ought to fire all of you.  I’ll dock your pay…”

Then he turned on me in front of all of them, for his worst bit of venom.

He said, again, in front of them: “You are the son of my best Sales Rep.  I expected more from you than to by slacking off sitting here with a bunch of common trash in the basement of my warehouse.  I know your Mother and she would be shocked to see you sitting here with these people.  They are not your kind.  Do you want to end up like them?  Explain yourself, young man!”

I did.

I said:  “These are my Friends. We aren’t doing anything wrong.  Legally, we get a break in the afternoon. Whatever you do to them, you can do to me and we’ll take it from there.”

He walked away…

I finished the summer, but was not invited back to the Warehouse.

Mother and Father were not happy.  The next summer, I worked at Dan River Mills for my summer job.

That’s another blog…

This is a repost from Lostinthe21stCentury.com, my other blog, from back in May.  September 11th seemed like a good day to visit it again.

New posts for this blog are under construction and coming soon…

I am blessed to be able to go to New York at least 3 or 4 times a year- for either business or pleasure.  I can say, with no shame, guilt or qualification that I love New York.  As I have said before, I’ve had my love affairs with London and Paris, but I always come home to New York as my favorite city.  It is the most alive place I have ever been.

I know people go to New York to escape where they are from or who they may have been before.  That’s part of the magic.  Nothing is as it really seems.  From Broadway to the Bronx, you create your own reality in New York.  But it is always alive and you can’t hide from life in New York.  At least not easily.

In other parts of the country, you can isolate yourself.  You can’t do that in New York.  You can only have so much delivered.  You have to go out.  And when you go out, life smacks you in the face.

See, one of the reasons New York is both so Democratic and democratic is that you can’t help but interact with people who are different from you.  You are all in it–life in New York– together wether you like it or not.  You run into a multitude of diversity on the subway.  Walking down the block to the bodega on the corner.  Sure, each neighborhood is a unique little space, but you still aren’t isolated from the bigger space.  This makes you think and understand the people are both different, but the same, and that you need to work together to make life better for all of us.

One of the reasons the South other parts of the country can be so inbred and ignorant of diversity is that it’s so easy in those places to only socialize with “people like you”.   That type of isolation can only happen in New York if you are very, very rich.  And even then, with the influx of so much New Money, it’s still more diverse than it once was…

That’s why September 11th will always haunt that city.  It was a flash point that is still real and raw.  New York always goes on and goes forward.   Nothing stops New York.  But this last trip to New York, I was more aware of how September 11th still haunts the city than I had been in some time.

See, the last few years, when have been in New York on business, I usually stay at the Embassy Suites at the World Financial Center.  It looks out over the river and is a rather peaceful hotel.  This time, it was full, so I had to stay elsewhere.

This time,  I was staying in a hotel that barely survived that horrible day 9 years ago.  I was at the Millenium Hilton, which is right across the street from the World Trade Center site.  It was heavily damaged that day and it was questionable if it would ever re-open.  It did, about a year and a half later, after being stripped to the  concrete and steel frame and being completely redone.  I read almost 90% of the former Hotel employees returned to work there when it reopened.  This week I was amazed to hear some of the less than sensitive guests-usually European tourists- trying to quiz them in the dining room.  They all claimed to have been off that day….It’s scary to think people now just see this all as a tourist attraction.

My room, this week at the Millenium Hilton, looked directly down on the World Trade Center site.  Looking down on the site brought a lot of new thoughts and perspective to me.  I’ve been walking past the World Trade Center site for 9 years now and it just seemed a big construction site.  A curiosity.  It had been there so long it had become impersonal.

I’ve always been thrown, geographically speaking, since 9-11, when going back to the Financial District.  I still can’t get my bearings without the Trade Centers.  They were such a defining part of my journey when I first started going to New York.

When I first started going to New York on business, I always stayed at the Marriott World Trade Center.  I would leave my room to walk through the lobby into the South Tower of the Trade Center and walk across the Sky Bridge over West End Avenue into the Winter Garden at the World Financial Center.  From there, I could easily go to my company Headquarters.

It was kind of heady stuff for a little boy from Danville, VA and I never lost my sense of awe of the Trade Centers and being a little part of the Financial District and this amazing part of New York.  I loved staying at the Marriott World Trade Center and going to the Mall under the Trade center to pick up things I might have forgotten, or to just waste time,  or to catch the Subway there uptown to Broadway shows.  It was all so self contained and safe.  And in retrospect, very un-New York.  It was safe, but sterile.  We all know now, that was an illusion.

This week for the first time, I faced the ruins of all that.  Literally.  My room at the Hilton Millenium looked down on the World Trade Center site and the construction there.  I was happy to see that, for the first time in years, progress was being made on rebuilding the site.  But as I looked more closely and I became more disturbed.

When I checked in, the front desk said to try my room, but they would move me if it was disturbing.  I quickly saw why they said that.

I went to my room and opened the drapes.  Looking down from the 38th Floor of the Hilton, I could clearly see the footprints of the North and South Towers of the Trade Center.  I could see where the Marriott had been.   I had last stayed at the Marriott two months before it all came down.  For the first time, I could see what had been.  My geographic disorientation was gone and I was re-oriented to the way it had been.  It all came back to me.  And it all become more real than it had been for years…

I didn’t sleep well this trip.  Looking down on that site, I could not help but feel the presence of unquiet spirits.  I knew almost 3000 people, from waiters to stock brokers, from maids to Masters of the Universe, from Firemen to bellhops had died at the space I was looking down on from my, theoretically, safe luxury hotel.  I felt their spirits and their energy still in the air.  It has not settled yet.  I wonder if it ever will.

But New York is not a settled town.  It’s an old town built on top of layers of loss.  It’s rare to see so much space exposed-especially in the old part of New York downtown.  Maybe that is where the energy comes from.  The wound that is still open and not yet glossed over.  The evidence and the knowledge is still exposed that life is fast and fragile and we are all, no matter our social station, in it together.  And we ultimately need each other to make it all work.  I think that’s why I really love that town…

Okay, this one is going to be short and a bit of a rant….

As most of you know, Lou, my Mother, is now in Assisted Living.

What goes around has come around…

She is famous for having my Father’s Mother committed to the State Hospital for the Insane about 15 minute after they got married.  There are multiple stories around what caused this to occur.  The one I prefer is that my Grandmother, Susan Catherine Rush Michaels, ground up a Coca Cola bottle in the Warring blinder and tried to drink it to commit suicide.

The past few years, my Mother has told people, she had Susie committed for trying to attack her with a knife  Believe me, no one who knows my Mother would consider this a sign of insanity….

My Mother is now ensconced at Loyalton/Emeritus Assisted Living in Danville.  From her perspective, how this occurred is quite the journey.

It was a major battle to pry her out of her house.  When we took her to Loyalton for the first visit, she was not pleasant.  She told the administrator she did not belong in a place full of old people.  When the administrator pointed out she was almost 78 years old, she had made an enemy for life.

When we were waiting in the lobby to leave, the administrator was trying to be all cute.  Lou was not amused.  The woman tried to play a plastic violin and my Mother told her: “Can’t you turn that off?  I’m sure no one wants to hear that.”

One old Lady turned to another and said:  “She won’t come here easy.  She’s a fighter.”

Once Lou agreed to “try” Loyalton, they refused accept her on the weekend when they were without a full staff.  They were afraid she would “throw TV’s and things” and wanted to be sure they were fully staffed and ready to handle her.

The shock was, that she loved it.

First, she seemed to think she was staying in Steve and my’s vacation condo.  She kept calling to see if we needed it.  Then she decided it was her vacation condo.  Now, she thinks she owns the entire complex and the other people are her tenants.  And that she has several other properties around town, but can’t recall where.

She calls daily to tell us which property she is living in.  Last time it was “my condo overlooking the river.”  She said she bought it right out of High School and was saving it for 60 years until she needed it.  By the way, the building is only about 10 years old…

Maggie the Cat is Alive– and crazy as hell.

Every time we go to see her, she keeps saying:  ” I love living here in my condo.  They clean for me, do my laundry and all my meals are free.”  I don’t see that this is a big change.  She acts like she spent her life doing these things…she didn’t.  Believe me…

Let’s start with Cleaning.  The woman never cleaned her house in her life.  Early on, we had maids.  More than I can count.  Then, when she couldn’t manage to keep a maid, my Grandmother came over to help clean.  Or I or my Father did it.  She may have gotten a mop bucket out once or twice, but she never quite understood what to do with it….

Laundry.  My Grandmother taught me to do my own laundry when I was about 6 years old.  I did mine- and frequently everyone elses -from that point on until Steve took it over when we got together.  If my Mother was forced to do laundry, she would wash something red with the white things and ruin them so my Father would not ask her to do it again.  We made several Dry Cleaners and Laundries very wealthy.  One of the reasons we put her in assisted living is she wasn’t doing laundry.  There were piles and piles of it in the office and laundry room.   She just bought more clothes and  linens….

Cooking.  The woman never learned how to cook.  There are too many cooking disaster stories to tell them all.  Let’s just say the Fire Department came at least 3 times when she set the kitchen on fire.  She only thought the stove and oven had two temperatures:  Off and High/450 degrees.  If forced to cook, she would serve charcoal briquets at the end.

One of our maids felt sorry for her and tried to teach her to cook one dish.  Lipton Onion Soup over Baked Chicken.  When she did it, she just poured the powder over the chicken and baked it.  She forgot to dissolve it in water.  She accompanied that with watery French’s Instant Mashed Potatoes and canned green beans reheated in a pot.  That was her sole menu.  Needless to say we ate out often.

So, I am amazed she seems to think she is freed from all this.  I guess she is just freed from the pressure of thinking she should be able to do things she never could…or would.

Maybe that’s not a bad thing.

It’s just sad she’s still pretending after all these years…

At least now she has a legitimate excuse….

There are three predominant themes to life in the South:  Sex, Religion and Drinking.  I’ve touched on each of these subjects and will do so more on the future.

For now, let’s concentrate on drinking.

That seems to be the through line in my posts so far.  We spend a lot of time thinking about alcohol in The South.  And, if we are honest, we spend a lot of time drinking in The South–or talking about why we don’t.  Or those who do…

Southern culture, as I know it, is built on hypocrisy.  We were trained at an early age to play a role and hide it if we deviated from the role.  This always lead to conspicuous alcohol consumption.

Some of my memories around comments on alcohol:

1. “I hear he/she has turned to drink.”
2. “I saw him/her coming out of the liquor store in Nor Dan Shopping Center.
3. “I saw so and so’s car at  Earl’s Bar and Grill ast night.”
4. “If I throw up, the dogs will eat it.”
5. “Maybe if we use Glade air freshener, they won’t notice the smell of the bourbon we spilled.”
6. “Maybe we can get some student nurses to buy us booze.”
7. “Where did I leave my car last night?”

Therefore, we spent a lot of time focusing on these areas of thought about drinking:

1. Drinking too much
2. Lying about drinking too much
3. Lying about not drinking
4. Hiding from our neighbors that we were drinking.

It was both a very simple and very complicated situation.

You may surmise from my previous blogs that I was continuously drunk or, at least buzzed, from age 16 to 30.  That is a somewhat true assumption.  That is what one did at that time and place in Southern culture.

Remember, this was also before Mothers Against Drunk Driving.  It was a different culture.  Maybe not real smart, but that’s the way it was.  Back then, we thought staying a little buzzed was the best way to get through life in a culture with  a class and roles system so rigid that it made Britain look like an open society.

It was kind of a Southern “Mad Men” thing.  The South was always at least 10 years behind the rest of the country…

I think the defining moment for me was when I was staying at my Mother’s house after my Father died.  I was going to the bar for my third or fourth Bourbon and water, on a week night, when my Mother said:  “I have never been around a man who didn’t drink.  Every man I have ever known in my entire life drank too much.”  I suggested she really think about the commonalities in that statement.

I’ll never forget one Sunday afternoon when, I was a small child, and my Father was laying in his hammock reading the Sunday paper and drinking beer.  We had already done our duty and gone to the Southern Baptist Church for Sunday services.

My Mother screamed from the kitchen window to him in the back yard: “You aren’t drinking beer, are you?  I see a can out there.  We don’t want the neighbors to think you just drinking beer  and reading the paper.   It doesn’t look right on a Sunday  of all days.  People will talk!  You aren’t drinking beer out there are you?  If you are, at least put it in a plastic cup so people won’t know.”

My Father’s response was:  “Goddamnit, Lou.  If you weren’t screeching at me from the goddamn kitchen window, no one would know I was drinking my own beer in my own yard in my own hammock.  As if it’s any of their goddamn business.  Now, thanks to you,  everyone from here to Timberlake Drive knows.  If you are so goddamned worried  about what the neighbors think, then shut the hell up.”

This says a lot about drinking in our part of the South.  It was all about appearances.

Mind you, my Mother was fond of a little Mogen-David Concord Grape Wine or a few Brass Monkey’s or Amaretto or a few White Russians while they were watching “The Lawrence Welk Show” on Saturday evenings, but that didn’t count.  She never bought the booze.  She, therefore, didn’t drink.

I remember being with her in the Winn Dixie Grocery Store and my Father put a six-pack of Bud in the cart and wondered off.  One of her Baptist Bible School kids came by, looked at the beer, looked at her, smirked and wondered off.  This led to a two-week battle at home.  The result was my Father had to buy beer only when my Mother was not present, so her character would not be besmirched.

To this day, at almost 78 years old, she will tell you with pride that she has never stepped foot in a liquor store.  Ladies don’t do that…

She also will never talk about the Christmas my Grandmother made the mistake of allowing my Mother’s Brother Daniel to come by at the same time as everyone else for Christmas Dinner.  He was the black sheep of the family.  Honesty, he was pure trash. And the Bourbon was always open at Granny’s at Christmas…

My Mother was so upset she was being forced to interact with him socially that she had a few drinks herself that Christmas Day.  That led to her telling him she bought him and his common law wife a special wallet that had a special pocket just for their food stamps.  My Father, who had told him to stay away from the rest of the family and stop asking for money, threatened to kill him.  Christmas was segregated along Class lines again after that…We went back to pretending he did not exist.

When I was in college, my Mother asked me to stop going to the liquor store for my Grandmother. Her Mother.  Granny had an issue with allergies and coughs and thought a nice bourbon toddy, or two, would help her get through it.  My Mother said an 80-year-old woman did not need to go through a half-gallon of bourbon every 2 months and to stop supplying her.  My Grandmother called my Mother a meddling bitch.  Then my Mother screamed at me for teaching my Grandmother to call her a bitch.  I just couldn’t win…

When we were in High School, there was nothing else to do but drink.  Especially in the Cultural Wasteland of Danville, Virginia.  Especially before Cable TV and the Internet.

In college, we lived to drink and smoke and solve the world’s problems.  We had fun.  We felt sophisticated and free.  There was not a damn thing wrong with it as long as we didn’t drive off the side of a mountain.

Honestly, I probably would not have drunk as much if it hadn’t been such a big deal when I was growing up.  It was the perfect form of rebellion.  I also had a wonderful time.

Drinking for fun is good.  I’ve had some great times doing it.  I’ve always felt, as long as your life was happy and you weren’t driving, go drink and have fun.  Life is short, so enjoy it as you may.

I’ve also understood the down side of drinking when your life wasn’t happy and drinking became a destructive force.  I always thought that drinking, in this case, was more of a symptom than a cause…I know some folks won’t agree with that, but that is my opinion.

To me, alcohol and drinking is just part of our way of life here in the South and in the world at large.  The secret is to do it with joy and a little self-control.  Then it’s seldom a problem.

The problem is when you do it in secret and to numb the pain.  That’s the kind of drinking we all need to avoid.  And to look out for our friends when they fall into that trap.

Drinking is a social activity.  It greases the wheels of social interaction.  So we have to have some sort of social responsibility, just not social judgement and hypocrisy…

Let’s just be honest, have fun and look out for each other.

I’ll drink to that….

I am now a gym rat.  I know several people who read this blog and have known me since childhood have already fainted.  Please pick yourselves up off the floor and work with me…

I will readily admit, until I was in my late 40’s, I did everything I could to avoid the gym.  It was the source of too many bad memories of “not belonging” and being inadequate as a conventional guy.

I was always intellectually competitive, but I missed the physically competitive gene.

I hated gym in Junior High School, in High School and I feared it would make it impossible for me to graduate from Washington and Lee University.  W&L required five phys ed courses…

I’ve just never been athletic.  I have always hated exercise.  I was genetically blessed for many years.  My waist size stayed the same from College until my late 30’s with no more exercise than “flicking my bic” and mixing a cocktail.

To be blunt:  for almost 20 years the most exercise I got was lighting a cigarette or mixing a drink.  And I still looked great!  Then I turned 40…

I will again call attention to the fact that I was raised to be presentational.  Our family motto was always:  “It’s not how you feel, it’s how you look.”

I had a mixed history with exercise.  My father had this weird idea I should be athletic.  I think it was projection.  My Aunt Goldie always said:  “I’m was amazed your Father wanted to marry Lou.  He always spent his time hanging out with the girls.”

I’ll not comment further on that at this point.  Another day, another blog.  But it’s safe to say, he was no athlete.  But he was determined that I should try to be one.

What a mistake….I was much happier watching Bette Davis movies on the 4:oo Movie.  In the Air Conditioned House.

I never understood “outdoors”.  It was pleasant to look at, but not somewhere one wanted to spend their time.  Hadn’t we evolved past that?

There are family movies of me at age 3 or 4 and my Father throwing a football at me.  And of me looking at it like “what the hell is this?”

One of our neighbors on Layton Avenue was an “All American Boy”.  Eagle Scout.  He came by a couple of times to try to get me to do the football thing.  I always suspected my Father paid him.  Or he was working on a Merit Badge.  It didn’t work…

My parents kept trying.  I took every class you could take as a child.  One of which was Horseback Riding at Ms Wiseman’s Stables.  I was actually enjoying that and was learning to ride fairly well.  Until the first “Parent’s Session”.

All the Parent’s came to watch us ride.  All was well until my Mother screamed at me from the fence:  “Don’t walk so close behind that horse!  It might kick you and kill you or make you retarded!”  I was so embarassed.  That ended riding for a few years…

In Junior High School, there was the 600 Yard Dash.  I couldn’t run it, much less dash it.  And I didn’t even smoke then…Coaches could not understand why.  I’ve never dealt well with straight men screaming at me incoherently.  Another reason I failed as an early jock…

And I hated the locker room.  It was smelly.  So many of those boys, even from good families, didn’t understand my standards.  “If you wore it for more than 15 seconds, you had to wash it before wearing it again.”  Some of those guys thought 15 seconds meant 15 weeks.  It was gross.  I can’t tell you how shocked I was.  They were like animals…

I got through it with my friend Frank.  We would stand in the far outfield during softball games and discuss truly interesting subjects such as the current theatre season in New York and the latest Bowie album. Someone once actually had the nerve once to hit a ball in our direction.  We did not understand what we were supposed to do with it…or why “our team” was pissed that we thought we were bowling…it was all sports, wasn’t it?

High School was next.  I still vividly recall explaining to the Coach that I could not do the trampoline because I had braces.  I was afraid I might get them caught in the webbing and either break them or my teeth.  I think he was so amazed at my chutzpah, that he let it go…

Then came college.  As I said, W&L required you take 5 phys ed classes and that one pass a swimming test.  I failed the swimming test my Freshman year because I was too hung over from the Freshman Keg Party at Natural Bridge the night before.  But it was a blessing.  It was an easy way to knock off one of those 5 requirements.

I took horseback riding again at a Stable in Brownsburg.  Twice.  I took Racketball.  Anything to avoid a group gym environment.

I took Ice Skating at The Homestead.  That was my favorite.  My friend Bob and I would drive up to The Homestead on Thursdays.  Get our instructor, some guy we called Sonya Henning, see MGM films of the 1930’s to understand, to punch our attendance card.  We would skate around the rink once to fulfill our duty.  Then go drink in the bar at The Homestead and smoke cigarettes for a couple of hours before heading back to W&L.

Such was my history with Physical activities…

Then a couple of years ago, I had a realization.  My waist size had snuck up on me.  I didn’t look like I wanted to look when I looked in the mirror.  I saw a stranger…I was approaching 5o…

And I heard my Mother’s voice in my head:  “You know he will leave you for someone younger and prettier.  They always do….”  She was always so supportive….

I broke down and went to the gym.  It was traumatic. But I worked through it.  I took Steve with me.  That helped immeasurably.

It was a journey.  I had always tried to avoid sweating.   It’s so vulgar…

But I discovered I actually liked the Gym this time.  I was ready for it.

Admittedly, I would not have made it if I had not had Clint, my personal trainer, to teach me the ropes and make me feel comfortable.

But I did actually started to like it.  I now go at least 3 times a week most weeks.  More some weeks.  It’s a fairly upscale gym.  I’m comfortable there.  It’s not some “stand and model” gym.

It’s just a bunch of middle aged guys and girls like me who realize we just have to get over the past and do this for our own good….It’s not optional any more.  We have to work at it to try to hang on to our looks and our health.

I hate being a realist…

I’ll never love the Gym.  If I could lay on the sofa and smoke and drink and still be thin, healthy and happy, I would.

But I can’t. I now know I have no choice but to work at this…

I just can’t understand why I work this hard and don’t look like I did 20 years ago…That’s still how I see myself in my mind.

Maybe they should get rid of all those mirrors…

I can pinpoint the exact moment when I lost my religion.  Or at least my patience with organized religion.

Growing up, we were Social Baptist.  That means we went to Church, like most people did back then, as kind of club.  It was just something one did.  You didn’t really think too much about it.  We thought that was for the best…

Religion, or the beliefs part, was viewed as a private journey.  It was considered tacky and intrusive to talk about it too much in public.  One went to Church to socialize, hear a sermon meant to make you think on your own, and then went on with the week.

My Father always thought that too much religion was just like too much of any other drug.  You became obsessed with it and stopped thinking on your own and just followed the leader.  He always thought that was dangerous and that it also explained the easy transition drug addicts had to religion.

For a while, like most teenagers of that era, I was really into church.  It was a phase.  By my Senior year of High School, that definitely was not the case.  I was just bored with everything by then-including Church.

My Mother figured out the Church Phase had passed when one of her friends tipped her off I was reading “Jaqueline Susann’s The Love Machine” behind my hymnal in the balcony during the service.  She was not pleased.

When we didn’t go to Church on Sunday–which was quite often–my Mother would not answer the phone during church hours for fear someone would find out we weren’t in Church and talk about us.  I never quite followed this logic…

Anyway, on the day I lost my religion, it was kind of a fluke that I was actually there that day.  I certainly had no intention of being there.

I was hung over has hell.

I had been to a Sub Deb Dance the night before.  If you don’t know what a Sub Deb dance is, I’m certainly not going to even try to explain it.  Just think of it as a private high school sorority dance.

Back then, we did not have good sense.  I had a bottle of bourbon in my Father’s brand new car.  The new car that he had just picked up that day.  That had cloth upholstery.

Somehow, someone spilled about half the bottle in the car.  Not only was this a waste of good bourbon, it was kind of hard to hide.

My Father noticed the smell right away when he checked to see why the windows were down on the car when he went out to get the paper Sunday morning.

He was not pleased.  As a punishment, he made me get up and go to Church instead of sleeping until noon and nursing my hangover.

My parents were founding members of this Church.  It had grown to be the largest Baptist Church on our side of town.

But this was not a good time to go to our Church, for many reasons.

We had had the same minister for years and years.  Part of his perks had been a membership at the same Country Club everyone who attended there belonged to- Tuscarora Country Club.  He understood his congregation wanted out the door at noon sharp for lunch reservations and tee times.  But he had recently decided to move on to another Church.

We had some temporary Pastor, who did not last long, that I now realize was one of the first Evangelicals.  I and almost everyone else hated him.  He was definitely not our kind of pastor.  He actually screamed, emoted and carried on.  It was quite tacky.  He was a novelty, at first, but once he started making people late for lunch reservations and tee times by going on until 12:15, then 12:30, people were rapidly getting fed up.

This particular Sunday, he was all wound up about pre-marital sex.  I thought discussing sex in a Church was the tackiest thing I had ever heard of.  Quite a few people agreed, but wouldn’t say so until after the sermon.

To make a long story short, he asked all the “young” people to come up to the front of the Church and pledge before the Congregation not to have pre-marital sex.  Most of the Congregation was just stunned by this move.  Including me.

The youngsters all went running down the aisle.  The older you got, the more hesitation you saw.  One of my friends, who had also been at the dance the night before, stepped out in the aisle, looked around, shrugged her shoulders like “what the hell” and went on down.

At first, I couldn’t move.  I was shocked at this type of public display. It simply was not done.  How dare some stranger intrude so publicly into so many people’s personal lives?  How dare he open them up for public judgement by a congregation?

And I knew a few of the people trotting down that aisle were doing so after their horses were already out of the barn…I guess it was kind of like Bristol Palin and Purity Rings…Fact has no relationship to the perception you are trying to manage.

My Mother was about to fall into the aisle herself from leaning over trying to see what I was going to do several rows behind her-and if it was going to embarrass her.  She was shooting me looks that screamed “get down that aisle with everyone else and don’t make a scene.”  She seemed to be on the verge of a stroke.

I stepped into the aisle.  I looked her in the eye.  I turned on my heel and walked up the aisle and out the door of the Church and went home.

I was born into and raised in that Church, but I only went back twice after that day.  For my Father’s Funeral and for my Sister’s Wedding.

In that one day, I saw people I had known for years turning into people I no longer wanted to know.  Too many people were getting into the show and away from the concept that religion is a personal journey.  They wanted an excuse to judge and to throw some folks to the lions.

That is not what I think religion and spirituality ought to be.  People who were being given the “right” to judge others by their Pastor and supposed spiritual leader was just not acceptable.  He did not have the authority to convey that right.

I could not then, now or ever accept that I am accountable to anyone on earth for my personal moral choices unless I negatively impact someone else.  I could not in any way show any kind of acceptance of allowing people to judge and think it was right.

I was out of there.

And so were a lot of other people over the next few weeks when he moved on to tobacco and alcohol.  In a Church in the “Worlds Best Tobacco Market” with lot’s of beer distributors and their employees as members, he did not make wise choices.  You didn’t pull that crap at a Social Baptist Church.

The Interim Pastors time was short and he was shortly gone, but the damage had been done.

Everything was changing.  Walls had been broken down that could not be rebuilt.  It was becoming cult like.  A pastor had said it was alright to get into people’s personal business.  From what I was seeing, I needed to be concerned about my Mother and her fellow congregants joining the religious equivalent of the Manson Family.

I knew this wasn’t for me…

Over the next couple of years, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson and their followers took center stage in the national political debate.  I am convinced that, if there is a hell,  there is a special place in it for them.  They have sold out the moral authority of religion for political power and have driven more people from the church than anyone else I can think of.

They  built their personal empires, but are major contributors to destroying faith and the church as a builder of community in American.

My home town often referred to itself as the “City of Churches”.  There were supposedly more Churches per capita than in any other city.  The reason for this was that Churches kept getting into internal fights and splitting off to start new churches that eventually did the same thing.  It reached the point, any little open storefront seemed to become a Church overnight.

Most of this was driven by people sitting in judgement on other people.  Judgement only leads to more judgement and eventually everyone gets burned.  Communities collapse due to the ill will this breeds.  People leave.  Churches eventually fold.  Communities dissolve.  People lose respect for each other.  They stop trying to understand each other and just decide that if someone isn’t like “me”, they must be wrong or dangerous.

One of the things I do recall most from my early religious education was the teaching to judge not least ye be judged.  And to do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  Funny how these simple, honest teachings seem to get lost first.

You never heard much about these teachings from Jerry and Pat and their like.  They seemed to forget it was supposedly up to God to judge and not themselves.  I think they may have eventually lost the distinction between themselves and the man they supposedly worked for…

Where does that leave me?

First of all, I’m a Gay man and Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, along with the Republican Party, have spewed so much hatred and used and built that hatred against Gay People to drive their personal power goals for so long, I don’t see how I can ever go back to any organized Christian religion as it currently exists.  They have poisoned the well.

They have also killed my friends and so many other people.  By politicizing AIDS and stopping the government from acting early to respond to a medical crisis because of the judgement and “moral” positions of Jerry and Pat and their friends, hundreds, thousands of innocent people died.  That, I cannot forgive.  The Church has blood on it’s hands for this…

So now, like many American’s I don’t consider myself part of any organized religion.

I like and admire the message of Jesus Christ in its pure form- without the religious/political filters of today.  I am intrigued by many aspects of Buddhism.  I feel a great attraction to the Jewish faith and their rituals and history as well as their tradition of service and trying to make the world a better place.  I take what I like from each and form my own values and spiritual beliefs.  And I’m just fine with that.

While I sometimes miss the sense of community and the Holiday celebrations one has with a Church, after more than 35 years, I don’t see myself going back to Church.  At least not yet…

Besides, I spend my Sunday Mornings reading several newspapers and blogs so I can post interesting stuff on my other blog or talk about it later in the week.  I can’t see giving that up.  It’s my “me” time.

Maybe some day I’ll be willing to share it, but not yet… Organized Religion made it too hard for me to find and accept myself for me to forgive it all too easily.

I still have too much anger.

But who knows what the future holds?  One thing is for sure, one of the key learnings from this experience was to always keep an open mind.  And an open heart.  Shutting down either only hurts oneself.

I guess this puts me back where I started all those years ago.  Religion is a personal, private spiritual journey.

I’ll just keep trying to work back to those to early learnings:  Judge not least ye be judged and love thy neighbor as thyself.  Do unto others as you would have them do to you.

I think that’s a good place for all of us to start working through this mess that has become religion in America….