My Southern Gothic Life

Memories Re-Written…..

Posted on January 15, 2013 by Scott M

I was watching Liza Minnelli on “Inside the Actor’s Studio” tonight and she had a great quote about her life with Judy Garland that I think also applies to this blog:

” She re-wrote things. You can go through something horrendous and the next day, she would be telling someone what we went through, and it was hilarious. She infused it with humor and slowly but surely you remembered it that way, not the way it really was….She taught me you can re-write memories. You know what I mean? What the hell, you are the one who has to live with them. Re-write them!”

I’ve tried to take Judy Garland’s advice….

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Today, I’m Thankful For…..

Posted on November 19, 2012 by Scott M

Everyone seems to be posting a daily “what I’m Thankful for” update on Facebook. That’s really not my style. It’s a little too Hallmark and too mainstream for me. If I posted one thing at a time, it would be too tempting to be snarky. That would inevitably lead to me being called an ungrateful bitch by someone with no sense of humor and further result in me having to have one of those awful Facebook battles….

I’m grateful for many things, but don’t talk about it well. I also have to put my gratitude into the context of my life as I’m lucky enough to live it. For me it’s better to list the big and little things I’m thankful for all in one list. It gives more context. It’s also a better way for me to express myself. That’s just the way I am– thoughtful, observant, a little deep, a little sentimental and somewhat happily shallow when I can get away with it…..

Here goes. This is my list of things for which I’m very grateful- not necessarily in the order of importance- but in the context of the Holidays, recent events and in my mind at this moment. You can guess the real order….

Brooks Brothers
Online Shopping
My partner Steve who has made the last almost 16 years the best years of my life
Our 4 twisted rescued pets
Green Valley Grill’s Take Out Thanksgiving service
Our friends- old and new, present and past, sane and crazy who share this wonderful journey through life with us
That our friends are bringing most of the rest of the Thanksgiving dinner that I’m not ordering from the Green Valley Grill
That President Obama was re-elected
Ralph Lauren
The overall election results that showed an emerging, diverse country embracing hope and inclusion instead of selfishness and fear.
Tarn-X Silver Polish and Haggerty’s Silver Paste
A good job I usually love…
Our families of Choice and of Birth- both of whom contribute so much to making us who we are and providing good blogging fodder
Our neighborhood- full of fun, smart, caring, eclectic people. Well, except for those few who put Romney signs in their yard…
Good sidewalks for dog walking
Ocracoke Island- that provides a once a year chance for us to get away from chain stores and franchise restaurants, our fast-paced life and have the chance to slow down and enjoy life in a special village off the North Carolina coast.
The chance to travel-no matter how much I may complain about the process
The Lexus dealership that keeps my 12 year 0ld car running so well that I don’t have to buy a new one
That almost no one wears double knit polyester anymore
LL Bean
Our wonderful housekeeper and pet sitter who helps us manage our crazy lives
That we don’t have to pay college tuition, but only vet bills
That Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid exist and help so many people add a little more dignity and security to their lives
Tranquillizers
The Bestway Grocery store up the street and their great selection of good, cheap wines that I never mix with the above, in case you are wondering….
That I live in a city of several colleges and Universities that values education and votes reliably Democratic to protect it.
The Arts- all of them. Local and Broadway, amateur and professional. And all the artist struggling to express themselves in a world that is not often friendly to the Arts and Artists.
My gym- the only one I’ve ever liked and that I need to get to more often.
Yoga- that I need to do more often so I don’t need numbers 24 & 25 as often!
Jon Stewart and Anderson Cooper
Sarcasm
The chance to enjoy all the many aspects of the Holiday seasons with people who value both the multi-cultural and traditional aspects of the season.
Maria’s and Reto’s take away meals
All the wonderful people I’ve reconnected with and met on Facebook and through my blogs, some that I may not have ever met in person, but who add so much fun and interest to my life with their comments, messages and posts
That I don’t live in Arizona, Alabama or Mississippi
Gas logs
That I went to college at Washington and Lee University in beautiful little Lexington Virginia where I got a great education, started to learn to think more diversely and met so many wonderful people both then and later through the W&L connection
Sweaters. Lots of sweaters….
The ability to laugh at the ironies and complexities of life
That I’m still here to enjoy it all….

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Gay, Politics, Thanksgiving, The South | 2 Comments

Chapter 66: Mad About the Boy

Posted on November 4, 2012 by Scott M

Everyone one should have one John Ashley in their life. But only one…

One is a voyage of youthful self-discovery, more than one is a sign of self-destruction and co-dependency setting you up for an awkward intervention by your friends…..

I truly hope everyone has one Bad Boy in their past…Someone who was a youthful fascination that they had the good sense to not marry….

If you are young, my best advice is to read this and learn. If you are with a John Ashley, enjoy the moment, but keep your sense of perspective. Boys like this aren’t for the long haul of life. They aren’t built for sharing mortgages. They aren’t for building a life.

Boys like John Ashley are of a time and a place in your life. Remember that. It will save you a lot of emotional pain and money for divorce attorneys.

That said, let’s talk about John Ashley.

I met John Ashley through some of my friends at the University of Virginia when things were falling apart for me at college at my senior year at Washington and Lee University.

At first, I didn’t think much of him. Just another shallow party boy I met over cocktails at undergraduate parties with cheap wine in cheap, temporary apartments with cheap, temporary furniture at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

At that time and place in my life, most of my U.Va friends seemed a little more “bohemian” as opposed to my conventional, safe respectable W&L and Sweet Briar College friends. To draw a New York analogy, I always felt like I was playing in Greenwich Village while at U.Va and that W&L was the very safe, very proper Upper East Side.

One of my best, very Catholic, very repressed University of Virginia friends was obsessed with John Ashley. He had met him during High School at the Governor’s School for the Gifted in Virginia and they had reconnected at U.Va. He had John Ashley to all his parties and thought he was the wittiest man since Oscar Wilde and worshipped him as far as his Catholic guilt would allow. He always regretted introducing us and totally lost it when he found out later what happened…

John Ashley was bad news on a stick. Strawberry blond, with blue/grey eyes full of light and life, a knowing smile and with a body that only the devil would have allowed such a dissipated man to have. The boy never worked out, drank like a fish, smoked like a chimney and looked liked the second coming of Christ to a closeted W&L frat boy looking for an excuse to veer a little out of control….

He was brilliant, from an old Virginia family and at U. Va with all the family expectations of success. However, once there, he devoted all his time to cocktails and chasing Brazilian soccer players….

At first I derided him. He scared me. He was all I was raised and programmed to fear. He was openly and challengingly gay. Still, he was preppy to the core and seemed like “one of us”. He didn’t give a damn what anyone thought. He lived to be a little outrageous, in a well-bred way, and to cause a scene.

Looking back, it was inevitable we would end up together. For a while….

When I met him, I couldn’t show fear, so I showed condescension. I was the elitist Preppy W&L Boy and he was the drunken, wastrel Charlottesville bohemian. He reminded me, frequently, that he went to U.Va so he didn’t have to try as hard as a W&L boy. He infuriated me.

We teased and challenged each other with mutual contempt and witticisms at several parties.

Until one weekend, like the last cliché, we had too much to drink, ended up alone late at night at a party talking and went back to his place for a nightcap. We left a trail of Bass Weejuns, Khaki pants and Oxford shirts all the way to his bed…..

Neither of us saw what this meant….that one night turned into a 8 year off and on affair that neither of us took too seriously. Or so I thought, at first….

When I fell into John Ashley’s bed, I lost and found myself. He was my first great love– or at least my first great lust– and I had no idea there was a difference at the time. That’s one of the many things I learned from the John Ashley Experience….

I knew he was totally wrong for me. He had zero ambition and I wanted so much more than I had…but when you are very young, these things don’t seem to matter.

He was from just outside my home town. His family was a prominent “county” family as mine was a well-known “city” family….He used to tell me: “My family owns a big chunk of land covered in tobacco. I’ll probably end up back there one day and I plan to eventually stumble out and fall over dead with a bottle of Jack Black in my hands in those tobacco fields. But I have a lot to do first….”

He just wasn’t real clear on specifically what he had to do first. Besides drink bourbon, smoke cigarettes and have a good time. And chase Brazilian soccer players….

I would leave W&L as the uptight, confused preppy stereotype of the boy I tried so hard to be then, arrive in Charlottesville and meet John for cocktails. Many cocktails. And before the night was over, I would end up alone with this gorgeous, silly, irresponsible fool who made me feel, for the first time in my life, truly alive. At least for a few hours.

After the charade of “meeting for cocktails” those first few weekends, we gave up the illusion of spontaneity and would meet for at his place in Charlottesville and spend the weekend together going out on the town, having witty conversation, smoking cigarettes, drinking Jack Daniels… and falling into bed in the early hours of the morning. Sometimes, I wouldn’t make it back to W&L until Tuesday….

He was my first oasis of freedom and I drank it-and him– up.

God, I enjoyed being with that man back then…. For the first time in my life, while I was with him, I wasn’t worried about status, role-playing or pretense. With him, I found a place I belonged-if only for a few hours and for a limited time. I didn’t realize it then, but for the first time in my life I, myself, was truly living in the moment– and it was wondrous.

And he was wondrous….witty, funny, sexy, smart. I thought he was perfect…

And he was for that time and place…just not for the long run.

Eventually, I would come to look at him as my “Halfway House” to the life I have now. But not then….

I’ll never forget one Sunday, having drinks at brunch at a Chinese restaurant in Charlottesville. Don’t ask me why we are having brunch at a Chinese restaurant, it was just one of the things one did then…

Anyway, they served a drink called the”Blue Hawaii” that was served in a miniature punch bowl with straws meant for several people to share. John had about 3 of these by himself and passed out, face down, in the last one. I saved him from drowning. I pulled his head out of the punch bowl and pushed him back in his chair and let him sleep until the rest of us finished our meal.

One of my not so “bohemian” Charlottesville friends who was with us that day turned to me and said: “I hope you know what you are doing; that boy is the poster child for sorriness.”

And he was….but he was the Peter Pan to my Lost Boy.

After I moved back home, I would still see him on the occasional weekend in Charlottesville or pick him up and head to Washington, DC for the weekend. Eventually, I only saw him on holidays or other times when he came home to visit his family. I would drop everything when he hit town. The last time I saw him was one Christmas when I was living in my late Grandmother’s house and he stayed with me for a few days….

The luster was growing dim and I knew it had gone during that last visit. We both did. We somehow knew it was time to say good-bye and move on with our lives. Neither of us said anything, but we knew.

I wanted something more, something better and different, something permanent. I wasn’t quite sure what yet, but I knew we had gone as far as we could go. John had never really, fully integrated into my “real” life after college. He had become a sideline and I was trying to survive the small town games. I was ready to stop playing the games and trying to be someone I really wasn’t. He couldn’t get serious about life and had no direction…and we were rapidly approaching 30.

I was starting to know what I wanted and to know, at least, it couldn’t be with him.

Back then, in those days in the late 1980’s, most gay men in small towns didn’t see how long-term relationships could be a possibility. We didn’t really have any role models. We didn’t yet think clearly in those long range terms ourselves. We grabbed the “here and now” with the gusto of someone on a sinking ship.

And John Ashley and I were on the Titanic….

We just got in different lifeboats and drifted away in different directions….

My partner, Steve, knows all about John Ashley– even though they have never met. I think he may have had one or two boys like this in his own, pre-me life….long ago and far away. I find many of us have….

Our times with boys like John Ashley are like buying training bras for relationships. You eventually either out grow them and get the real thing or make the decision to do without. They aren’t meant to be a permanent solution.

Last I heard, many years ago, John Ashley had found an older, rich, closeted Gay man and they were spending their time drinking and playing “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” nightly at that man’s big house outside Charlottesville.

I hope that rumor wasn’t true. I hope he got his act together and moved on, too….

I don’t know where he is or how he ended up. Sometimes I wonder. But, not too often..

John Ashley taught me to live in the moment even if the moment wouldn’t, couldn’t and shouldn’t last. In some strange way, my time with him taught me to not fear life, but to embrace it….

I’ll always be grateful our paths crossed along the way…and I’ll always remember him fondly.

And smile…..

Slyly….

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Gay, Sex in the South, The South, University of Virginia, Virginia, Washington and Lee University | 4 Comments

Chapter 65: The Right Stuff

Posted on October 27, 2012 by Scott M

I’m going to backtrack a bit….

My last post was cathartic. It was a wall I had to climb to be free enough to write again about some of the good times….

And there were some very good times. It took me revisiting the bad to remember the good…

Life is an interesting journey. You perceive your past through many different lenses at different times in your life…

For many years, I forgot the good times at W&L because it ended with so many complications.

I’ve dealt with the worst of it in this blog.

Now it’s time to remember the good times….I thank my friend Carolyn, Sweet Briar College Class of ’80, for making this possible….

She reminded me, “It’s the laughter, we will remember, whenever we remember, the way we were….”

But I won’t lose my edge….

Now, on with the blog….

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I firmly believe in the Right Stuff.

By that, I mean the real thing- the right things-no imitations, no cutting corners and playing by the entertainment rules. And, dammit, there are rules!

I can’t help it. I’m from Virginia and I was raised that way. And I’m Gay so that means I have to take it even further…

I want every party to be like the one Audrey Hepburn attended at the Larrabee’s in “Sabrina”. I will always want to make my entrance with an orchestra playing “Isn’t It Romantic” in the background. I know that’s not a realistic expectation, but, who cares?

This all seems to be something that has been lost in our convenience-oriented, disposable society, but not by me. I was raised by people who believed in “a few nice things” and that you “did things right”. At least during my formative years…

And frankly, I don’t understand why it’s such a big deal to use the right stuff as long as you have a good dishwasher…

But I also don’t judge other people who entertain differently. I’ve been to many lovely parties where people didn’t do it “my way”.

I know I’m a bit of an anachronism…

But still…

My Grandmother may have lived in a 4 room house in a Mill Village, but for every Christmas or Thanksgiving meal, you used real plates- they may have been Correlle- and the “good” stainless.

I knew my Mother was slipping and on her way downhill, when she decided the China was too much trouble for Christmas and bought paper plates. To this day, I cannot abide paper plates….

When I was setting up my first apartment in College, my Aunt Goldie really focused on “entertainment”. She thought the main reason one went to College was to meet the “right people” and to have a great social life. I truly loved her and understood her. We were simpatico…..

She always said, the key to a success in life to make the right impression on your guests and to make them comfortable. And to do it with a bit of pizzazz….

She always said, parties were important. That was a fact of life. She also said you couldn’t have an elegant party if you didn’t create the right atmosphere. That meant the right music, the right people and the right service pieces. The people were most important…..and she taught me your job, as a host, was to make them feel comfortable and special.

When I set up my first college apartment, Goldie was heavily involved. She gave me most of the things I used for the first 10 or 15 years of my entertaining life.

I’ll never forget the conversation when she showed up with boxes of stuff at my parent’s house for me to take to Lexington for my first College apartment.

“Here is a chip and dip set. I haven’t used this in years. It works really well with vegetables and dip. You might get away with potato chips and french onion dip, but that’s really tacky. Here are some recipes for good vegetable dips and the appropriate veggies.”

“I’ve also packed up my old, brown Ironstone dishes. They are very masculine, so they should do you fine. I don’t know why I ever bought something this masculine in the first place”

“I do”, said my Father. Goldie replied: “Shut up.”

She also gave me ash trays- back then you had to have lots of ashtrays scattered around- most of these seemed to have been stolen from various bars, hotels and clubs in fashionable East Coast spots.

“Now you can entertain in style. That’s really important. Anyone can sit down and get drunk, but entertaining is a talent. A few things to keep in mind: Pepperidge Farms Goldfish are really good with bourbon and beer. I like them better than nuts. Always, always keep cheese and crackers on hand for impromptu cocktails. Buy good bourbon. That’s what most people we know will drink. If you have friends who drink things like gin, that you don’t drink yourself, buy the cheap stuff. If you pour a bunch of peppercorns into Aristocrat Gin and let them soak for a month or two and pour it into an old Tanqueray bottle, they will never know the difference. They really should be drinking bourbon anyway….don’t waste your money on them….I’ve also given you a subscription to “Southern Living”. You can take it from here…”

The somewhat garbled message was clear to a Gay boy who could read between the lines and supply his own interpretation: It’s a Host’s job to create magic….

I have so many happy memories of entertaining in my apartments in Lexington and the lovely evenings with my friends. Only my friend Shakey could match- and sometime surpass- me. But what’s the point of entertaining if you don’t have a challenge? And we were both Virginia boys so we appreciated each other’s efforts.

I’ll never forget planning a college picnic with my friend Bob. We were having a couple of Sweet Briar girls up and going to Goshen Pass to cookout by the Maury River.

Now, picnic takes on a totally different connotation when you combine W&L and Sweet Briar students in the late 1970’s….

The conversation went something like this:

Bob: “We have to use your stuff since I’m a dorm counciler and you have everything imaginable for entertaining…. I like this girl- a lot- and this has to be perfect. You’ll understand when you meet her.”

Me: “Well, we’ll just pack up the dishes, stainless and glasses we need and take them to the river. How else would we do it?”

Bob: Thank god, you didn’t suggest paper plates and cups.”

Me: “I’m from Virginia. Get real.”

So Bob and I trooped off to Goshen Pass on the Maury River with Goldie’s Ironstone plates, my best Oneida stainless, several kinds of cocktail glasses and two Sweet Briar girls who saw nothing unusual in any of this….

We cooked steaks by the river on brick park service grills built in the 1930’s, drank Mateus Rose- out of the appropriate glasses- and waded elegantly in the water. Bob and I wore khaki’s, oxford shirts and Bass Weejuns and the ladies wore skirts and espadrilles. It is still one of the most perfect memories I have of one of the most perfect evenings in my life….

Who cared if we had to schlep back a bunch of dirty dishes?

Over the years, my partner Steve and I have built up quite the collection of entertainment-ware….

I once told one of my friends- facetiously- that I didn’t see the need for Gay Marriage since we already had enough dishes. But then, Carolyn sent us a “wedding gift” of a Tiffany bowl that I’ll cherish the rest of my life- and changed my mind.

I’m almost- almost- embarrassed to say this but, we now have 6 sets of dishes. Everyday service for 8 each with Steve’s pre-marriage Lenox Grey Pinstripes and my pre-marriage, funky Phaltzgraff Midnight Sun. We have about 60 plain white dinner plates and 120 plain white cocktail plates from Crate and Barrel for large functions. Wedgwood service for 14 in China and, of course, Spode (Christmas Rose) for the Holidays. We also have vintage Red Wing Capistrano-service for 24- from the 1950’s that we use every Thanksgiving. Plus my vast collection of various antique buffet plates.

We have the everyday Oneida Stainless my Father gave me and the Gorham “party” stainless-service for 24 each. And Towle Sterling, my Mother’s pattern, service for 12. And more serving serving pieces than can be imagined….

We have funky Pottery Barn and Crate and Barrel linens for Parties. Antique damask tablecloths and napkins. Vintage Holiday tablecloths….

We have three antique punch bowls with matching cups: Silver, Crystal and Milk White.

And I love it all. Thanks to the seeds Goldie planted all those years ago….

We may not use this stuff often and no one but me may know what it means to me, but that doesn’t matter. These are tools we use to give comfort to and share our style with the guests we entertain in our house.

We hope it makes people feel as special to use, even subconsciously, as it does to us to put it out..and it ties me to the generations of Southern hosts and hostesses who came before me. Like Goldie….

It all appeals to both my sense of history and my luxury-craving Libra sensibilities.

I don’t care if our guests might not know Oneida stainless from Towle Sterling, or Spode from Wedgwood and Correlle…or that they might be just as happy with plastic forks and paper plates and napkins; I wouldn’t.

I do this for me. For us. For our guests who might find some subliminal, unrealized pleasure in it all.. And I like to think it sets a tone that matters…

It’s part of who I am…

And it also serves as the “canary in the coal mine”.

The first sign of my senility will be when I stop polishing the silver and use paper plates for a function. If I ever slap a piece of tupperware down on the dining room table, it’s time to put me in the Nursing Home.

It means I’ve lost who I am…

I do know I’m an anachronism. I know no one else values these things and I wonder who I’ll leave them to when I’m gone….

I’m taking essay applications…

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Chapter 64: After The Fall

Posted on June 19, 2012 by Scott M

I’ve had a couple of glasses of wine…

I had to…or this chapter would never been written….

If you want to be an honest blogger- or storyteller-the hard part is telling the truth even when it hurts. Or when it requires you to remember things you would rather bury…

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized nothing trumps honesty. Tell the truth and let the chips fall where they may…

This is one of those moments….

If I’m to continue to write in any format with any honesty, I have to tell this story….

I’ll hit “send” and clean this up later, but I won’t delete it. It’s necessary to write this to move forward with this project. And nothing is more important than moving forward…

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How do you talk about losing your “home”? That’s my quandary. I lost all concept of home both gradually and in one brief encounter and it took me several years to find it again.

And thirty years later, it is still hard to revisit those times when it all went wrong….

But I will. And to do so, I’m going to break some promises and break some confidences, but this is all too important to me…

And, this time, it’s all about me….

Now that I have found Home again and feel safe enough to look back….

Washington and Lee University had become my home. I was happy and secure for the first time that I could remember. I had wonderful friends who were much more important to me than family. We were alike enough and different enough to make life both safe and interesting.

But I knew the Rules and knew I could never let even them know me too well. I had one secret I had to protect…

I’ll never forget, one Christmas vacation, leaving Danville in the middle of a snow storm to go back to Lexington. I was the last car they let through on Route 60 before they closed it due to the snow. I was heading to Lexington to meet my friend Ralph and escape my family. He had come back earlier and was there alone so, of course, when I called to check, he told me the road were “fine” in Lexington. He wanted company…

I had a bottle of Jack Daniels that I sipped all the way across the Virginia mountains until I was safe at W&L with my friend Ralph….

I was home…

Unfortunately, Ralph and most of the rest of my friends were a year ahead of me….I was left behind with people who really didn’t like me, but had tolerated me because of my friends. And my friends had made enemies…

I can’t tell you how strongly I believe Colleges should outlaw Fraternities and Sororities. Most of my troubles at W&L would have been survivable had I had friends outside of Lambda Chi Alpha.

Looking back, the boys at Lambda Chi acted an awful lot like the women in the Temple Terrace Woman’s Club that my Mother presided over in the 1960’s.

If you were different in any way or they sensed any weakness, you did not belong and they went out to get you. And different actions wanted desperately to define who belonged and who didn’t and all were subject to their arbitrary, often conflicting rules and judgment.

I had watched the Lambda Chi’s run out other guys- including some of my dear friends- because they were perceived as “different”. Now, that my friends were gone, it was my turn. The guys left behind seemed to instinctively know I was different, maybe Gay, even though I had not yet done anything to act on it…

There was one group of guys my friends fought the image wars with for a couple of years. These guys all lived together in a little house in Rockbridge County and whenever they pulled up to my Frat House, I always felt like both the LL Bean and Orvis catalogues had exploded from their jeeps in the parking lot. I’ve never seen so much false testosterone outside of a Leather Festival. Especially since one of them was rumored to be Gay himself….

These guys were mainly Northern guys who hated the Southern Prep lifestyle in Lexington and at W&L. My question always was: “Why did they come there in the first place?” I never understood this….

I just went along at this point in my life and tried to play by the rules whether I liked them or not. I wasn’t big on questioning then….but that wasn’t enough.

My friends and these guys were intermittently at war. Toward the end of my Junior Year, they seemed to be the first ones to detect I might be Gay and they went after me. I was the weak link among my friends. And my friends who were still there didn’t really go out of their way to protect me as it all started to get to me and I weirded out a little… I guess they thought I should deal with it on my own if I was to survive my Senior Year…They began to distance themselves from me without me- or them- realizing it.

It was not fair and it was not pretty….especially my Senior Year when I was totally without most of my friends and some other things happened. My Father’s cancer returned and money got tighter…

W&L was no longer home. It was no longer safe. It was another place where I was threatened because I could no longer understand, play by the rules and fit in….I didn’t even know how or when things had changed….

But…I was determined to get through my Senior year and move on from there…

I could take losing my W&L family as long as I had the support to get through 9 more months of 1981….

It was not to be…

I lost my only other concept of home that same year….

This is the tricky part…I come from a long line of Drama Queens…I’ll only say it involved my Father, who was dying from cancer and desperately trying control any and everything he could. And my sister being involved with what he considered an “inappropriate” boy friend. Cars being reported stolen and people running all over Virginia in the middle of the night…Drama building by the minute…

To make a long story short, my sister hid out at my apartment in Lexington at W&L for one night. I fed her rib eye steaks, let her sleep on my sofa and arranged for one of my other friends to “hide” her at another college the next day…

The next night my Mother and Father showed up at my door at 1:00 a.m. My Father searched my apartment and said: “Where is the little bitch. Tell me or I don’t know you and you have no family and no more money from me.” I told him, I had no idea what he was talking about…

He didn’t say another word, but stormed out of my apartment. My Mother hesitated for just a moment….

I asked her: “Why are you going along with this crazy shit?”

She replied: “A woman belongs to her husband and he comes first. That’s what the Bible says.” Now, I had never known her to be terribly devout, so I knew this was an excuse…

I said: “So you are saying you would sacrifice your children for your husband’s wishes? Or are you just afraid he’ll cut off your money, too?”

One look said it all…it was all about money and survival and we were expendable…

In that moment, I lost any remaining illusions about my other home….

And I lost my Mother….Or at least the one I thought I knew…. I would never think of her in the same way again.

Southern Boys are raised to idealize their Mothers. To put them on a pedestal and worship them until death- or betrayal.

Her carefully crafted image had cracked and I saw her as she really was for the first time that night, I no longer saw the pretty, Jackie Kennedy-look-alike, ex-cheerleader Goddess I was raised to unquestionably love and support. I no longer saw the woman who painted herself as my Father’s victim when they fought. I saw the manipulative, selfish woman she really was under the layers of charm and ladylike grace.

For the first time, I saw an over-weight, forty-something woman who was scared out of her mind of going against her husband and perhaps losing him even sooner than expected. She was putting her financial survival and his will over that of anyone or anything else-including her children.

That was the night I lost my birth family….or at least I began to slowly let them go and push them away-consciously or unconsciously- because I realized they were emotionally toxic and emotionally reckless.

They would get over this little drama in a few weeks. I never would…

But “the charm of the defeated is not mine.” I eventually got my degree from Washington and Lee University and moved on…

______________________

The next morning, I called my Grandmother. She was beside herself. She said she had never seen my Mother so cold and so scared and unreasonable. She could not understand their need for control or their choices. Granny loved. Period. She could not deal with this complex a situation.

To her, you solved every problem by going home. She knew that would not work here and for the first time in her 80 years, she was at a loss…She did not understand family acting this way…

She told me to call my Aunt Goldie…and I did.

There is more to come about Aunt Goldie. It’s hard for me to write about her because she meant to much to me, was so complex, and in many ways, I feel I have become her. That story will follow….

I called Goldie…She said: “Your mother never had any goddamn sense and your Father is an bully on a power trip. I’ll send you a check today. You and I are the only two people who’ve ever stood up to that man. Never think you are alone as long as you have me. Both your parents are spoiled children. Don’t let them screw up your life….”

Goldie was right. They were spoiled children and, after a lot of work, they didn’t screw up my life…..mainly because of Goldie’s unwavering, unquestioning love. And checkbook….

Love and Money were always tied together in my Family….Money, Family and following the rules meant so much at W&L and at my home in Danville….

This was the beginning of my realizing Love and Family are not predefined concepts. And that not everything fits within “the rules”.

And that friends, like family, can let you down, even when they don’t mean to do so…

You have to be very careful to determine which “friends” and “family” are of a time and place and which are “forever”. It’s really our choice in both cases….

But, ultimately, Family is really all we have…so it’s best to choose very carefully who you let into that circle and how you define it…..

And I have.

With No Regrets.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Family, Southern Gothic, The South, Virginia | 10 Comments

Chapter 63: A Sense of Place

Posted on April 16, 2012 by Scott M

I just got home from home…

First of all, you have to understand that home is a complex term for me. It’s more a feeling than a place- or it’s more of a sense of a place….

I just spent the weekend in Lexington, Virginia where I went to school at Washington and Lee University.

And I just realized it was also my first home…

I never felt at “home”, as in feeling safe and belonging, in my birth city of Danville, Virginia– not like I do now with Steve at our house in Greensboro.

Now I truly feel at home with Steve and the pets. Home really has a meaning to me- both as a place and as a sense of a place.

Until Steve and I made our own home, though, home was mostly a foreign concept to me. Or at least some Hollywood idealization that I couldn’t relate to….

See, my birth place was never “home” because I never felt safe there or like I belonged there…

Well, maybe briefly, when I was very young and staying at my Grandmother’s house in the Mill Village, but never at my parent’s house in what was then post WWII suburbia in the plastic familial ranch house, the physical home of my youth, where my parents fought like a Southern version of George and Martha in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.”

Looking back, I didn’t really have a concept of “home”.

Maybe that was the reason I had forgotten- or blocked- the good parts about Lexington and Washington and Lee University. I didn’t realize it was “home” at the time…

Now I realize, the first time I ever really recall feeling at home was in Lexington, Virginia when I went away to college at W&L.

It was the first place I ever really remember feeling I belonged. Feeling safe. Feeling at home…..before it all went so terribly wrong.

I just realized I just got home from home.

It took years for me to realize, that while “home” is a place you feel safe and where you feel you belong, but that doesn’t exclude the possibility that bad things may happen there. It also doesn’t mean the memories aren’t complex. They almost must be by the context and definition of “home.”

In reality, for it to truly be home, it has to be complicated, but the vibes also have to be predominately positive. Home may be a romanticized concept, but in reality, it is never easy or simple….

That means, to me, Lexington was my first home.

For a long time, I was happy in Lexington. It took me 25 years and reconnecting with my friend Carolyn to really remember all that….

Somehow, the bad always seems to override the good in our memory banks. At least when we are young….

I arrived there at W&L young, secure, insecure, scared, sure of myself, full of hope, full of dread….

In other words, I was 18.

I had never been South of Miami Beach, North of Washington DC or west of Lexington, Virginia….

It was a new beginning. By plan. I specifically chose a small, Liberal Arts college where I would know almost on one…

I was tired of being judged by my family and my family’s past by people who knew everything there was to know about us- or thought they did. I wanted to be judged by who I was myself. I wanted a new start….

When I went home to Lexington this weekend and it all came flooding back….

It always does….

Maybe I’ll talk about the bad on this blog in the future. If not, you’ll have to buy the novel- if I ever finish it.

Anyway, I went back to Lexington this weekend a different man than when I was there 30 some years ago. But it was still home.

One of them, anyway….

And it was a very different place…

When we lived there in College, the only “fast food” was Wendy’s and all the restaurants were local. All 6 of them. I remember driving 45 minutes to Lynchburg just to go to McDonalds. That’s probably how we avoided the notorious Freshman weight gain….

Now every chain restaurant and Big Box Store imaginable is there. I found that vastly disturbing….

My partner, Steve, and I pulled into town and parked behind what had once been Mrs. McCormick’s Guest House.

Back in our day, when W&L was an all boys school, our dates from Sweet Briar always stayed there. It was unheard of for a young lady to stay overnight with her boyfriend. Girls who did that were “rack dates,” or easy, and thus not appropriate potential marriage material.

We had a lot of rules at W&L, just like Danville, but we accepted them in Lexington without the angst, didn’t question them, and just lived by them. It was easier that way…Believe it or not….For a while….

We were Southern Ladies and Gentleman, no matter where we were originally from, and followed the rules. You may not have taken your date back to Mrs. McCormick’s until 3:00 am, but you took her back.

If she didn’t go back to Mrs M’s, it was the equivalent of a “Tramp Stamp”.

When Steve and I parked behind Mrs. McCormick’s house Saturday afternoon, I first saw the phantoms…

Being Gay, I have to equate life to Musical Theatre. Whenever I go back to W&L, I get this feeling I’m trapped in the musical “Follies” where the younger versions of the characters appear as ghostly figures behind their present day, middle-aged personae’s. That may be why I love that show so much…

Anyway, when we parked behind Mrs. McCormick’s all I could think about where the girls we once knew who stayed there. Carolyn. Anne. Julia. Sandy. Rachel….I could almost see them on the porch in Pendleton Kilts and Fair Isle Sweaters in Winter and with Poppagollo bags and matching espadrilles in the Spring….

I almost saw those girls, at age 19, standing on that decaying porch.

And that made me think about the boys….

My friends….

My first real male friends….

I hadn’t been that close to many guys before I went to W&L…

I walked by where we all lived at the building we called The Corner Arms
and almost saw the phantoms of a young Shakey- the perfect host and classic Southern Gentleman, Ralph-my idol and friend who was the personification of the “BMOC” with an insecure side few saw, Doug- funny, smart, quirky and the one I wish I had known better, Landon and Hunt- the perfect, entitled Southern Golden Boys with their lives planned from birth, Bruce-so sweet and endearing and totally his own self, Andy- the guy who seemed like the High School football hero, but his machismo hid a soft heart….

And the one who never lived there but spent so much time there with us- Bob- my best friend from Freshman Year who was like a brother to me- in both good and bad ways. Another idol, and the guy we thought most likely to be a U.S Senator or President one day- who was so blinded by how he thought things “should be” that he missed how they were. That was a trait we shared…But he was the one who stood by me during the bad years, who I leaned on, visited and talked to after too many cocktails and who I stayed in contact with the longest…We traveled the post-W&L road together until about 15 years ago before we, too, drifted apart…

I still miss them all….

And I still see them all through some sort of gossamer Fitzgeraldian filter….

Phantoms….I remember the other girls from Randolph-Macon Woman’s College and Mary Baldwin….Deane, Elizabeth, Linda, Van, Cammy, Debbie, another Linda, Chris, Mary Lynn, Margaret…

We all talked and danced the nights away, drinking bourbon, smoking cigarettes and trying to be 30 at 20.

We were oh so smart, so cool, so sophisticated, so sheltered, and so very young….

We had hopes and dreams we sometimes shared, but mostly, we were just happy to be together–to be young and foolish and having a ball in Lexington, Virginia.

Since most of us weren’t having sex, we really were all just a weird little unconventional family- at home– we just didn’t know it….

Then it all went so wrong for me. The illusions were shattered. But that’s for another time….

Over the years, I left Lexington and Washington and Lee behind me…

I shut that door, locked it and threw away the key.

But light crept in….

My favorite professor, Dr. Jefferson Davis Futch, III, introduced me to some of the fellow Gay alumni- Andy-another Andy, chief among them, became my friend. He introduced me to some of the other Gay Alumni. He first brought me back home to Lexington by reminding me how safe and good it felt to be among friends who liked you for you and with whom you shared a sense of place….

Doug and I reconnected and chatted on AOL…

I reconnected with Carolyn on Facebook. Then Shakey and Julia, Anne, Ralph, Bruce, Doug, Sandy, Rachel…Van and Deane had always been there, but Facebook made it easier….

They weren’t just phantoms, they were real again.

And not so very different….

I gradually remembered the good times and the good people we were.

And still are….

And I could go home….

No matter where I was….

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Lexington, The South, Virginia, Washington and Lee University | 4 Comments

Chapter 62: Easter Parade

Posted on April 7, 2012 by Scott M

Easter always brings out the bitch in me….

It’s a strange holiday for me…

Part of me resents that the whole world- at least in the USA and at my gym- stops for a purely Christian holiday when we should be living in a multi-cultural world. I mean, it’s not a federal holiday, but you still can’t escape the secular recognition of a Christian holiday. Or go to the gym or get a decent chinese meal.

Even though Passover starts the same day as Good Friday this year, it’s all about Easter.

To me, Easter was always about shopping and new outfits. As far as I knew, Jesus died so you could shop at Belk-Leggetts.

Part of my problem may be the fact that I was raised a Social Christian. When I watch “GCB”, aka “Good Christian Bitches”, on television, it reminds me of the church where I grew up. Admittedly, our Church was not in Dallas and not as wealthy, but there seem to be two kinds of Southern Baptist Churches: Crazy Right Wing Christian Almost Snake Handlers and Social.

Ours was Social Christian. At our Church, most of the Easter Sunday Service was spent looking over your shoulder to see who was wearing what and hearing things like “She wore that hat last year.” or “Poor thing, I bet she made that…”

We were not well trained in liturgy or theology, but then, neither were our ministers….

That’s why I spent most of my time in the Church balcony reading the collective works of Jacqueline Susann.

I realized the depth of my ignorance this year when we went to Maundy Thursday services.

We went to services at a “modern” church where it was a totally musical service. Admittedly, I was concerned before we went.

I live in fear of “Praise Bands”. I think one day God or the Goddess will strike them all down for creating boring, pedestrian, self-indulgent music.

I was pleasantly surprised. The music at this Church used old English hymns with new lyrics. It was actually very nice. I love anything Olde English and it also had a kind of American mountain feel that made me appreciate it in a sociological/anthropological way.

I was also very much aware of how much my Baptist Christian upbringing was lacking. I didn’t have any idea what Maundy Thursday meant and the music was about the Stations of the Cross.

For all I knew, the Stations of the Cross meant Jesus took the train to Calvary….

This type of service was a revelation for me. Usually, if I go to a Church it’s to hear a classical music program and wear nice clothes….

If I’m going to subject myself to Christianity, I generally want it to be High Church…

But that may be baggage I carry…

I’m convinced Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell ruined Christianity for several generations. Thanks to them, I can’t escape the feeling that when I go to Church, I’m going undercover in the enemy camp.

But when I do go to a new church, I am amazed at my ignorance…

I figure the Baptist didn’t want us to know too much or think about it all too much. That’s why they are generally Republicans.

That makes me think I need to look into this a little more…

I know more about Passover than I know about Easter…

And I don’t think that’s a bad thing….

I think we all need to stop, think and study what others are celebrating and thinking about on these holidays….

And I think we also need to recognize the pagan holidays they usurped….

I want us to be able to comfortably settle on the acceptance that all these holidays have values and that we chose what to take from each of them…

I can’t accept closing doors and minds to celebrate only one way of life….

I want to try to appreciate all at the views, beliefs and seasons we are celebrating….

And still go shopping….

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Easter, Religion, The South | Leave a comment

Chapter 61: Bosom Buddies

Posted on February 3, 2012 by Scott M

My Best Friend had Heart Surgery this week…

I don’t like to think of us as old enough to have to face these issues, but I guess we are…

And “Best Friend” is a very inclusive, non-exclusive term for me…I have several.

First and foremost is Steve, my partner and soulmate. He’s in a class by himself.

I have another friend, who is a “Best Friend”, who goes back more years than I care to count, but she’s like my “Female Best Friend”.

This guy is, I guess the best way to put it, my “Male Best Friend”. He’s the Brother I never had…

Friendship is not something I take lightly. Most of my “Best Friends” today have been my friends for years. Some of us go back to Mrs. Touchstone’s kindergarten in Danville, Va.

I don’t let a lot of people get close to me, but once I do, you are a friend for life.

I have special “Best Friends” who I love from Mrs. Touchstone’s, from High School and from College years at W&L and Sweet Briar. They mean more to me than I can ever explain. Some of them may not even know it, but I will- and in some cases have- gone through hell for them. I am fierce in my dedication to my Friends.

If they need me, I will be there. It is more than a point of Honor, it’s just how I am…

To me, Friends make life worthwhile….I’ve never been one for shallow or casual relationships of any type. Life is too short to spend time on people who don’t truly matter to you….

My friends have become my Family…

I lost most of the people in my birth family to whom I was really close back in the 1980’s and 1990’s. My Grandmother and my Aunt Goldie chief among them…

My Friends became even more important then….

To me, Family is more than who you are related to….You don’t chose that. You have obligations, genetic bonds and shared history with some folks, but they still just don’t get you. And you know you don’t get them- and/or can’t depend on them….

I’m a firm believer in “families of choice” and I have been blessed with a crazy, special group of people who make up that family. I have almost always been closer to my “family of choice” than to my crazy, mixed-up birth family.

I have been on an emotional high alert for over a week since I first found out one of my friends had heart problems and was in the hospital. To protect his privacy, I will just refer to him as “My Friend.”

He is a very self-contained man who hates to admit any weaknesses. He doesn’t even want most people to know he is having heart surgery.

So, I am telling people he is in the hospital for a face lift and liposuction…They are going to wonder why he doesn’t look better when he gets out, but that is his problem…

My Friend and I go back at least 30 years. It hasn’t always been easy, but I like to think we’ve always been there for each other. I know he was for me…

We have also had our battles over the years….We are too much alike, in so many ways and so very different in others….but we are friends first, last and always.

Neither of us lets too many people get close to us. We are judgmental. We are independent. We are, to an extent, loners and we are fierce.

I hide my fierceness better than he does. I have a layer of Southern charm and finesse I was raised to use that I can’t shake. He is much more up front. I’ve always admired that in him, but I am who I am and recognize the benefits of being able to finesse things without confrontation. His default is attack, mine is to manipulate…I’m more Old South Charm and Graciousness, he is more New South In-Your-Face and confrontational.

And he’s going to be really pissed if he reads this….

He is more private than I am, which is saying a lot, but this is my outlet….

I can’t begin to tell you how much this guy means to me. With over 30 years of history, we have been through the good times and the bad times together. I simply cannot imagine my life without him in it somewhere- background or foreground.

We were young together and I always assumed we would be old together. For a moment, that seemed like such a conceited assumption. I’m glad it’s now a probability…

We have shared a difficult journey. When we were young and in my home town just after college, he was much more open about being Gay. We would spend a lot of time together at parties and at our houses, but seldom “in public.” If my “straight” friends asked about him and if I knew him, I would deny we were friends. I denied him many more times than Peter denied Jesus. And he would hang on the cross about it, but get over it…

I had one really bad year right after college and he did something I will never forget. It remains the one of the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me….

I love Christmas and always want it to be festive and perfect. There was one year, in my twenties, when I was depressed, broke and living in my late Grandmother’s house. I was going to ignore Christmas that year. Until I came home one night and he had come in and put up a wonderful, real, fully decorated Christmas tree. I still almost cry when I remember that…

We were young together. We would hit the bars, go our separate ways and regroup to share tales of our adventures behind dark glasses with cigarettes and Bloody Mary’s over brunch the next day….

Time passed and we both ended up in Greensboro. He and his partner at the time- primarily his partner- were determined to be “A Gays”. For the non-cogniscenti, that means socially prominent Gays.

That was not my scene. I mean, I love a place card, but I thought most of that group was a little too shallow and nouveau riche for my tastes. And a lot of those people seemed to eventually end up broke, in rehab or both. Still, I went to some fabulous parties at their house and never complained.

I met Steve at a fundraiser in 1994 that My Friends business was sponsoring. We connected and talked for hours but never followed through…

In 1997, I was offered a job and promotion in Phoenix. My Friend gave a dinner at the City Club to celebrate my job. On the way home, he insisted that we stop at a Gay bar for a nightcap and I met Steve again.

We went home together and finally had a First Date, that lasted 48 hours. My friend called every few hours to get the story, but the story hadn’t ended. He accused me of holding Steve hostage and threatened to call the SWAT Team.

I knew after that weekend, that Steve was “the one”. I turned down that job in Phoenix and it was years before I told Steve this. But my friend knew. And he was totally supportive. He said, “follow your heart”. Not in so many words, but….

The dynamics changed when I met Steve, made worse by the fact his partner and Steve did not hit it off. It’s an old story for both straight and gay couples that your friends have to adjust when you meet “the one” and marry.

I won’t say it was an easy transition. It wasn’t. I’ll never regret my choice to make Steve first in my life. But I never stopped missing my friend, either….as I said, it’s an old story.

My friend and his partner broke up and he moved to Charlotte…

We didn’t talk very often for a few years…

I thought we had time to work it out and time passed. More years than I realized….

Then came “the Call” about the “Heart Attack”.

Time suddenly seemed like it might be too short. I couldn’t accept that. I tried to stay in the moment. Steve was totally supportive. I had to try to be there for My Friend. You could not have kept me away…

The thing about true friends is that, good times or bad times, you pick up right where you left off. Friendship is all that matters. That is how this worked out…

My “female” Best Friend and I saw My Friend before his surgery. We chatted and gossiped and it was as if time had stood still. Except we knew the stakes were higher. We joked about the last 30 years. We told stories and reminisced….and we told each other we loved each other. We knew we were bonded….

We were family….

We knew the future was uncertain but we were somehow certain we would face it together. We might not be totally wrapped up in all the minutiae of our day to day lives anymore, but we still cared…

I called the hospital after his surgery. At first, they wouldn’t tell me anything but I am a resourceful guy who knows how to use that inbred Southern manipulative Charm. Before the night was over, I was listed as his “official contact” and “Spokesperson”. I asked if that meant I was the one to decide if they had to “pull the plug” but they wouldn’t commit. I would have loved to hold that over his head…

He is recovering very well and I am so thankful…

As I get older, old friends mean even more to me…

Even if I don’t alway want them to know….

I do detest cheap sentiment….

Perhaps Jerry Herman said it best:

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Friendship, Southern Gothic, Southern Writers, The South, Virginia | 3 Comments

The Fix is In….

Posted on January 24, 2012 by Scott M

I feel the need to make a reassessment as far as this blog is concerned….

I know some of you are disappointed that I haven’t posted more frequently on this blog. I am disappointed myself.

And I’ve been thinking how to fix it…

Three issues seem to be standing in my way:

Blogging worked for me because I could just throw out my thoughts without too much thought or too much focus on perfection
The W&L Stories are a challenge and take thought. A lot of thought…
I’m now working from home and the feng shui of having to work and write in the same space is a real challenge.

I miss this blog…so I need to fix this…

Therefore, I am addressing the issues as follows:

I am taking the W&L stories off the blog. I’m realizing they are more suited to a novel format than a blog. They require more thought, perfection, manipulation and are not suited to this format. I will continue to work on them, but will move selected excerpts to a separate page. Most of the work on these stories will not appear here and will, hopefully, no longer inhibit my blogging. I will still continue to write them and share them with a few close friends. I will share them here selectively.
I think this will enable me to more freely share my remembrances of family things and places past and make my observations on life from my particularly Southern Gothic perspective. That seems to be what most people enjoy anyway…
I will hope this removes the block from working/writing in the same physical space.
I will go back to dashing off my thoughts without focusing on perfection, but focusing on substance.

Thank you for your patience. I know this has been a frustrating time for us both….

Let’s try this again….

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

A Temple Terrace Christmas

Posted on December 23, 2011 by Scott M

I promise, I really haven’t abandoned this blog, I’ve just been really, really busy….

I promise new posts will be coming….

In the meantime, if you need a little bit of the Ghosts of Christmas past to help you appreciate your Holidays, here are two of my Christmas posts from last year:

1. Haul Out the Holly

https://mysoutherngothiclife.com/2010/12/08/chapter-43-haul-out-the-holly/

2. Christmas with the Grannies:

https://mysoutherngothiclife.com/2010/12/09/chapter-44-christmas-with-the-grannys/

I hope you all have a great Holiday Season.

The fact that you read this stuff is a great gift to me…Thanks!

Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments