Chapter 60: Look Away, Dixieland

Posted on November 4, 2011 by Scott M

Let me set the stage for the next few entries….

My college was Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia.  At the time I attended school there it was an all-male college.

And for those of you with dirty minds, let me get this out of the way right now.  I never had sex with any of my fellow students- or professors- during the entire time I was an undergraduate.

I realize, only I could be a Gay man at an all male school and manage not to have sex.  I’m special that way.  I’ve always been really good at missing opportunities for sex.

And homosexuality was still “the love that dare not speak its name” back in those days.

I’ve since found out there were quite a few of us around-concurrent with, before and after me– and most were more adventurous than I.  I’ve also discovered it seems about 90% of the Gay Alumni seem to have been members of my old fraternity- at various times.  We’ve compared notes….

In any event….

How did I end up at Washington and Lee University?  I’ve asked myself that a hundred times and tried to remember…

I do recall my Father telling me I had to go to College in Virginia.  He was adamant that I had to be close enough he could still reach out and control me as needed.  There went my dreams of Boston University….

Best I can recall, it was due to the intervention of Mrs. Cheney Walker Lea.

Let me further set the stage…

Not only was Washington and Lee an all-male college, it was surrounded by several all female colleges.  These included, Sweet Briar College, Hollins College, Mary Baldwin College and Randolph-Macon Woman’s College.

This made up for a very pleasant social network.  As I recall, it was possible to go to a big party at at least one of these schools just about any night of the week as long as you had a car or a friend with a car and knew how to schedule appropriately.

As for the male or co-ed schools, we counted U.Va Men as peers and acceptable social equals.  We only felt sorry for the VeeMees at the Virginia Military Institute, that bordered W&L, because they had to wear those strange uniforms and were, in our opinion, treated more or less like caged animals.  Hampden-Sydney College was strictly for boys not smart enough to get into W&L, so we didn’t consider them a serious rival….The other schools simply did not count- or really exist- in our world.

Mrs. Cheney Walker Lea had gone to Randolph-Macon Woman’s College and graduated in, I believe, the late 1930’s.  She was from an old, wealthy Georgia family and had moved to Danville after her marriage.  Cheney was a paragon of the Old South. I remember she had a maid that came with her from Georgia to Virginia, when she married, and I’ve often wondered if anyone had ever told her maid she was free….

Mrs. Lea taught Latin at my High School and was the Yearbook advisor.  The Yearbook was my power base and reason for living in high school.

I’ll never forget her sending me to talk to the African-American Assistant Principle to ask for a list of “nice” Black people who should be featured in the yearbook.  Cheney said she knew all the best families in Danville, but really didn’t know any Black people, so she wanted professional assistance from a peer.  She didn’t trust our judgement as we might not have the appropriate, multi-generational view….

Since the key yearbook editors- particularly the ones who chose people for and scheduled photography- got to have and give out unlimited passes to miss class for “Yearbook Business,”  Cheney had undue influence on many areas of my life.  I don’t think I went to some classes more than 3 or 4 times my Senior Year.  I had to do whatever it took to stay in her good graces and keep those passes….

And her wrath could be fearful.  She would bounce up and down in her chair and pound her fists on her desk like a petulant child and we would all jump.  She would threaten social and academic retribution with the wrath of a Southern Goddess wronged.  She was as intimidating as a 5 foot tall, 200 lb. Sixty year-old woman could be…..

You have to be Southern, and of a certain age, to understand the special fear these elderly Southern Dowagers could inflict.  It did not cross our minds to cross her….

Cheney also took me on as a special project to mold me into a modern Southern Gentleman.  In her book, I already had one strike against me for taking French instead of Latin, but she was willing to over look that.  She also thought the fact that my family chose to live in North Danville showed very poor judgement on their part, but she would over look that as well.  My family was acceptable and I was smart, well-mannered, socially ambitious and desperate to get out of Danville and into another world.  Those were the key attributes she was looking for in those she chose to mentor.

Cheney Walker Lea decided I must go to Washington and Lee University.  Therefore, there was no other discussion needed.  I think she also told my parents that…….

Mrs. Lea pointed out the great Southern traditions there, the excellent academics, the chance to “meet all the right people in the South” and to, hopefully, marry money.

She had me at “out of Danville” and I was naive and pretentious enough back then to swallow the whole package hook, line and sinker.

My grades and SAT’s meant I would have no trouble getting in….Cheney volunteered to write my recommendation.  But she didn’t do it right away.  She waited…. and waited…and waited.  Holding out as long as possible to keep one last control over me in place.  She had me convinced she would be the one to get me in or keep me out.

I’ll never forget when she finally called me at home to tell me she had written it.  She had been “taken ill” and was in the hospital.  Southern women of her generation and the generation following hers (my Mother’s) checked into hospitals like checking into the Hilton.  She basically said:  “I just want you to know I wrote your stellar letter of recommendation to Washington and Lee University tonight.  My husband has mailed it.  You know, I go under the knife in the morning and only the good Lord knows if I’ll make it.  But your letter is in and I’m sure, once they read it, they will have no doubt that you belong there.  I consider this one of my most important acts and you must promise me you will go to Washington and Lee no matter what happens to me.  It will make you into who you should be….”

How little she knew…..

How little I knew….

More to come…..

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Chapter 59: All the Sad Young Men

Posted on September 30, 2011 by Scott M

I think I’ve been away from this blog for a while because I’ve been trying not to write this entry….

I didn’t want to write this.  I didn’t mean to write this…but I need to write this before I can look either backwards or forward with any additional clarity.

It’s what’s on my mind and has to be exorcised…

I’m going to write about my college years.  I meant to stop before I got here.  I meant to save this for the book….

But I really can’t move on until I introduce this part of myself into the dialogue.  It’s too much a part of who I am.

This is hard for me to write.  I’m going to be as general and evasive, yet truthful,  as possible, but I have to write this….

See, I woke up one night recently, crying in my bed, silent tears running down my  face…..I had been dreaming about these boys and who we were and who we are…and I have to weave them into the narrative or I can’t honestly  go on with this experiment…

I guess it’s part of being “middle-aged” and some sort of middle-aged crisis….

They are too much of a part who I am not to recognize them….I value them too much.  They mean too much to me to pass them by…

Let me tell you about college….

I went to college to get away from Danville and all the stuff I’ve written about so far.  That was my sole goal….To me, college was an escape.  I didn’t think any further than that….I wanted to be out of Danville and away from anything and everything I knew.

I wanted to start over….

I wanted a fresh start in a new place-preferably with a few close friends within driving distance to support me if I got into trouble….but I wanted to be somewhere new and relatively alone.

My dream was to go to Boston University.  As far away-geographically and culturally- as possible.  My Father promptly put an end to that fantasy.  He said  “There are plenty of good schools in Virginia, you can apply to UVA, W&L and William and Mary.  That’s it.  You have the grades to get into any of them and that’s good enough for you.  I want you close enough where I can keep an eye on you…”

I somehow knew Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia was the only place for me.  At least it was on that list….

And he meant it….my second day at W&L, I was having lunch and cocktails, feeling young and free, on the patio at Trotters in Lynchburg with my friend Van, from Danville,  and her new friends from Randolph Macon Woman’s College, when my Father suddenly showed up.

He said it before Clint Eastwood: “You can run but you can’t hide.  I will always find you.”  He had been to W&L and somehow tracked me down.  I knew then new this separation thing was going to be harder than I thought.

But it was a separation.  It was a defining time in my life….It was both the most wonderful and painful time I’ve ever lived….

I will admit, I was too much under the influence of F. Scott Fitzgerald when I went to W&L.  I had real everything he had ever written.

My parents used to argue about whether I was named for him- my father said “yes,” I was….My Mother said “no”.  But then, she had not read a book since “Gone With the Wind” and I’m not sure she knew who Scott Fitzgerald was….she should have known Zelda…..

My Mother claimed I was named for the actor Randolph Scott, who was descended from the Virginia Randolph’s who were supposedly related, by marriage, to my Father’s family.  I didn’t get all that….

I just knew I was “Scott” and there was some cosmic connection to all this family weirdness that I wanted to put behind me and forget….I was young and didn’t yet know that was impossible.

I will admit, I spent my first week at W&L, re-reading Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Far Side of Paradise.”  That may have been the root of my unrealistic expectations…

But, college really was a Fitzgeraldian Fantasy for me….

Probably more along the lines of “The Great Gatsby.”  I always related to Nick Caraway in that book.  And I felt like Nick all through the W&L years….The outsider observing….a little bit in love with Gatsby-all the Gatsby’s and Daisy’s and Jordan’s….

And W&L really was like one big party at Gatsby’s …or so, it seemed.  Until the party ended…suddenly and surprisingly.

And maybe it really was one of Gatsby’s parties….

More to come….

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Just so you know….

Posted on August 19, 2011 by Scott M

I may be a little slower in posting to this blog over the next few months.  My real job is taking its toll….

But I am thinking and planning my future posts.  Future titles include:

1.  White People Don’t Drive Volvo’s

2.  Scarlett O’Hara at 75

More to come.  Please be patient…..

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Chapter 58: The Wiseman

Posted on July 1, 2011 by Scott M

We’re going to get really heavy Southern Gothic here.  Just give me time to get there….

Let me start by saying, after 20 years in a Corporate office, I started working from home a couple of weeks ago.  I’m going to like it, but it’s a big change.

I sometimes go days without leaving the house, or at least the neighborhood.  I’ve gone from wearing about $500 worth of Brooks Brothers business casual clothes and Cole Hahn shoes every day  to working every day  in $35 North Face shorts and $4.99 Target T- Shirts.  And $100 Ecco Flip Flops.  I have to maintain some standards.  I only shave every other day to  pay my penance.  It’s quite the adjustment.

I probably didn’t need to put on the Corporate drag so heavily when I had an office, but I was raised to believe “Image is everything.”

Somehow, through all this, I’ve lately been thinking of my late Uncle Wiseman.

Wiseman was my Grandmother’s second son.  Her third child.  Her first son died from jaundice when she bore him at home in West Virginia.  My Aunt Goldie, an over- achiever I’ll write about in the future, was the second child and became the de facto head of my Mother’s Family.

Wiseman was just Wiseman.

He was named for the doctor who delivered him.  The first child born to my Grandmother with a doctor’s assistance- instead of just a mid-wife or all alone.

Wiseman did not leave the four room house in the Mill Village where he was born for almost 40 years.

Today, we might say he had agoraphobia or some other mental disorder.  To me, he was just Uncle Wiseman.

He couldn’t read or write and never left the house, but I learned more from him than I did from many of the other “normal” family members.

My Grandmother “kept” me when I was a very little boy and so did Wiseman.  My Mother would drop me off there every morning and pick me up around dinner time.  I spent much more time with Granny and Wiseman than I ever did with my parents.  For a couple of years before my sister was born, my parents would frequently leave me with them for days at a time.

I was always a “night person” and so was Wiseman.  Back then, TV would go to a “test pattern” around 1:00 or 2:00 a.m, but we would sit up and watch TV until it signed off.  Lot’s of late night TV was about Nazi’s and history documentaries.  Kind of like the History Channel is today…

He may have had no education to speak of, but he knew his history.  I think that my love of history comes from my late nights spent with Wiseman.  After the TV would end, he would tell me stories about the Civil War, World War I and World War II.

In College, I learned he was amazingly, factually correct.  And much more engaging than some Professors at Washington and Lee University.

He was also cursed with having me-a smart, anal retentive do-gooder pre-gay kid as his nephew.  I would get to their house and try to wake him up at 7:30 am- after he had been up all night- sometimes with too much bourbon.

I would demand he get up, take a shower and clean his room.  Once, I decided to try to teach him to read, which was a total disaster.  But we bonded…

My Father would periodically  tell my Grandmother we should look into putting him in the State Home with his Mother.  Granny would tell my Father: “There is nothing wrong with that boy, he just doesn’t like to leave home.  He’s fine.”

Daddy eventually gave up, although he lived in fear of Wiseman out-living Granny and having to deal with housing him upon her demise…

Wiseman also lived for the Sears Catalog- especially the Christmas “Wish Book” and ordered things to be delivered.   QVC would have been sensory over-load for him.

Then High School and College came along….I had other things to do.  I drifted into a different world. I didn’t drop by to see him and Granny as often as I should have…

Wiseman had a stroke my Freshman Year in College but recovered fairly well.  He suddenly wanted to go to K-Mart and Sears and go shopping, in person,  all the time…I took him when I was in town and when I could.

It was always a trip to go shopping with someone who hadn’t been out in 40 years and considered a pajama top, shorts and Keds to be proper attire for any social situation.

He had “the big one” one night while  I was out dancing and drinking with my friends.

It was after college, around 1982, I think.  I was at the Lounge at the Holiday Inn in Danville when I was paged.  My Father always prided himself on being able to track us down…He was on the phone and said to get to the hospital right away.

He met me at the Emergency Room doors and said Wiseman had had a major stroke.  He said Granny and my Mother were waiting in the Waiting Room.

Then he said:  “You’ve been drinking.  I can smell it.  Everyone is going to know when you walk in there.”

I said:  ” You paged me in  bar.  What the hell did you expect?  Some of us drink in public, and  some in private.  You’ve played “head of the family” and done your duty.  I know this is going to get messy, so why don’t you take Mother and Granny home and leave me to deal with it.  As usual…”

Daddy said:  “Watch our goddamn mouth.  If we weren’t in Public, I’d knock the hell out of you.”

I replied:  “That’s why I try to only call out  your sorry, hypocritical ass out in Public.  I know you are a coward and won’t cause a scene if people are watching.  You only show yourself when you think no one can see what you are really like.  I’ll deal with this mess from here on.  You’ve played your part.  I’ll take care of Wiseman.”

And I did.  For three weeks I would go to work, then come back to the hospital and spend the night by his bed.  At the risk of sounding like Demi Moore in “St Elmo’s Fire”, I would talk to Wiseman and remind him of our past and what he had meant to me.  We had lots of private time.

I was there when he started to wheeze and choke.  I held his hand and reminded him we all loved him and it was okay to let go.  I held his hand while he died.

I walked out of his room, after they made it official, and let them call my Father.  I called Granny.  We let society take over again…

I’ll never forget, they shaved him, groomed him and propped him up in the coffin in a new suit.  I didn’t recognize him.  No pajama top and Keds.  Everyone said:  “This shows what he could have been.  He looks so good.  What a waste that he never lived up to his potential.”

I thought it was all a farce.  So did Granny.  She wouldn’t even go to the funeral.  It was for other people, not us.  Not those of us who knew Wiseman.

I like to think he helped me into life and I helped him out of life….

I hope so….

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Chapter 57: Illusions

Posted on June 25, 2011 by Scott M

It’s funny that you never really realize you live in a illusionary world until the illusion breaks.

I can pinpoint the first moment the illusion crumbled for me.  I came home from college, my  Junior year, and there was a note on the counter from my Mother that said:

“We are at Bowman Gray Medical Center.  Your Father has Cancer and is having an operation.  We didn’t want to disturb you, so I’ll call you later and let you know how it goes.”

That was the first warning I ever had that my carefully constructed world was crumbling.  My friend Gail was there when I got the note.  I bet she doesn’t even remember as that was not especially unusual behavior for our parents….

As usual, during college vacations, we just went out and got drunk.

It’s no wonder I’ve alway valued my Friends more than my Family.

My friends were realists.  My family specialized in illusions….

The one commonality I have with most of my friends is that we managed to survive our families.  For most of us, that was no small achievement.

I’ve probably only had a half-dozen honest conversations with my sister in my entire life.  She has the family trait of avoiding the unpleasant.

But I’ve had innumerable honest conversation with my friends.

That may be why I consider the phrase “Family Values” to be a total joke.

The only values my Family had were in “keeping up appearances” even if it involved a fight to the death to do so.

That may be how I ended  up being a total realist.

There is a thin line between the romanticism of “Moonlight and Magnolias” and the worlds of Carson McCullers and Flannery O’Connor.  I’ve seen both sides now…

I’ll always remember the hymn from Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town”:

Blest be the tie that binds
Our hearts in Christian love;
The fellowship of kindred minds
Is like to that above.

Frankly, that’s evil, manipulative bullshit.  I’ve spent my life working past that devotion to “kindred minds” and doing everything possible to program people so all minds are “kindred”…

That day in was a turning point for me.  It was the last time I ever felt safe and sure…and that’s not really a bad thing.  I eventually realized it was one of those times when my eyes and mind started to open.

My Father had always made a lot of money, for the times.  The problem was my family spent it as fast as it came in.  Or faster.

I had never felt poor, even though my parents fought about money constantly throughout my entire life.  I just thought that’s how things were….

I had also always worked, from being a paper boy to working summers in my Father’s company or the Mill, to the News Office at W&L while in college, so I also had always had my own money.

I knew we weren’t Rich.  Of course, I saw the BMW’s parked next to my Chevy Vega at W&L, but most of my friends there didn’t even have cars.  I thought we were safe and comfortable enough…

It was all an illusion.

Within the scope of a few months, we lost all our money, Daddy was dying and, on top of that I was struggling with the accepting the realization I was Gay.

Lot’s of illusions were shattered pretty quickly.

I’ll never forget the embarrassment of them taking up a “love offering” for my family at our Baptist Church.  The Church where my parents were founding members.  Or how little love was shown.  It got back to me that one of the deacons said:  “My God, they have 4 cars, if they need money, they should just sell one.”

I once wrote a check to cover the electric bill out of my personal account because I had more money than my Mother did.

I left Washington and Lee….I came back to Danville to deal with it all….

And stayed for longer than I anticipated…

Loss and fear can make time pass faster than it should.  Having a desperate, manipulative Mother can also delay things when she does everything she can to stop you from escaping…

After a long, long illness, Daddy died and my Mother  became the Insurance Queen.  He made sure she was left very comfortably.  I think she bought new appliances and clothes within a month of the funeral.

He always looked forward and thought of  family responsibilities before himself…even if he resented the hell out of it….

His IRA’s and the insurance money are what is still keeping her ensconced in the Assisted Living place…..

He’s been dead almost 30 years and he’s still taking care of her…and probably still resenting the hell out of it.

But left all that behind.  At least physically…

I went back to W&L in 1986 and graduated.  I paid for it myself.

It took some time, but I got out and made my own life….

I made also my own “Family of Choice” in addition to the “Family of Birth.”  I’m still much more comfortable with the former than the latter.

And I don’t have illusions anymore.  It’s better that way….

Reality is much safer….

And life is much happier….

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Chapter 56: Integration-Part 2: Negroes, Lesbians and Yankees, Oh My!

Posted on June 24, 2011 by Scott M

Once integration happened, it was really no big deal to most of us.  Some of our parents, however, never recovered.

The South in those days, at least in small towns like ours, was built a lot of unbendable, undefinable, unpublished, unspoken but completely understood rules.  The two most prevalent ones were as follows:

  1. Thou shalt only consort with people just like thyselves.
  2. Never offend the neighbors.

My parents swore by those rules.  My father’s main concern was not pissing off anybody for business reasons.  He really didn’t give a damn about anything else.

My Mother lived for The Rules and to judge others by them.  In her mind, if she had not known someone and their entire family for her entire life- and preferably their family background for several preceding generations-they really weren’t worth knowing.

She also assumed everyone else played by the same rules.  Therefore, she assumed all Black people knew each other and later, all Gay people knew each other.  I’ll never forget the time she said to me:  “I hope you aren’t running around in public with that Harvey Fierstein person.  I saw him on television and he’s just awful.  I really don’t want to have to try to explain that to my friends.”  It took me a while to figure that out, but then I realized she assumed, just because we were both Gay, we had to know each other and be fast friends.  I wish…I have been in the same New York bar as Harvey, but that was many years later and does not prove her point…

Anyway…

In High School, there were a lot of Clubs.  Being as I was pretty much like Tracy Flick in “Election” in those days, I belonged to a lot of them.  Many of the clubs met in the Student’s homes in the evening.

We had the big, newly refurbished basement rec room, so I asked my parents if The History Club could meet at our house.   I really should have known better.  Any simple request could become an ordeal when dealing with “The Rules” which is why, admittedly over time, it was easier to just let them all go….My parents never did.

They said, they would consider it, but they needed some more information.  My Father’s  first question was if the History Club was integrated.  My response was, believe it or not, some Black people are interested in History.  He seemed to think all Black people in the 1970’s were concerned with was getting on “Soul Train” so that was news to him.

Then he said, “So they would want to come here, too?  Socially?  Be socially received?  People do that?”  I assured him that was the case and that it had happened in other homes already.  He had to ponder this for a moment, then he said:  ” Who has received these integrated groups?  Are they radicals?  I have to think about this and how it might impact my business.  When you are in sales, you can’t afford to have people think you are a radical.”

My response was:  “Jesus Christ, I didn’t know this was such a big deal.  If I can bring letters from several prominent citizens saying it is acceptable to them and the  damn Chamber of Commerce can we have the meeting here?”

He told me, in his most threatening way,  to watch my mouth ….

Then my Mother jumped in…

“I just don’t see how you can ask us to do  this.  I know a lot of nice colored folks, but they wouldn’t be comfortable coming to my house socially.  And what would the neighbors think?  I don’t want the neighbors to think we are radicals.  I’m on too many important committees and I have my organizations.  What if the Negros decide, because they can come to my house,  they can join my Majorette Corp in the Christmas Parade.  I’ve put too much work into making the “Danville Dixie Darlings” a good training ground for young girls to present themselves in public to have to close it down because of race issues.”

Me:  “What is good training about a bunch of over made-up little girls marching down Main Street in sub freezing weather?  I just don’t think a lot of black people are going to be fighting to join into that…especially since you call it “Danville Dixie Darlings.”  Jesus Christ.  I should have known you people would make a big deal out of something that is so simple to normal people.”

My Mother responded “I don’t know what you mean.  We are the normal people. You are watching too much television news and reading too much.  Why don’t you go back to watching movies.  You know what happened to Bette Davis when she wore that red dress to Cotillion in “Jezebel”.  She lost her man, never got married and had to go live with the lepers.  And that’s just for wearing a red dress.  What if she had entertained a mixed race group?  I bet she couldn’t have even gone to live with the lepers then…”

Me:  “That was the goddamned 19th century! And a movie!”

Daddy:  “Watch your goddamn mouth!”

Mother:  “It doesn’t matter….That’s just how life is.  You need to accept that….  You are just too young to understand.”

Mother:  “Anyway….I know the neighbors and they wouldn’t like it.  Even though I’m no longer involved with the Temple Terrace Woman’s Club, I know those women.  I’ll never forget what Callie, next door, said to me when we first moved here.  I was out in the front yard planting flowers and she came running over and told me to get in the house and get dressed properly.  It was 90 degrees and I was wearing shorts, a halter top and a big hat.  She told me proper young matrons did not dress that way in public and to get in the house and change before she called your Father.  If a 25-year-old woman in a halter top causes that much of an issue, just think what entertaining negroes will do.”

She continued:  ” Now the Johnson’s across the street are questionable.  I hear he supports Black Power.  He runs that tacky store downtown where they all shop, so I guess he has to…thank God Cathy sees things like we do.  She saves that family from being total outcasts.”

“And Susan Langford.  I heard something very interesting other day and it makes me understand why she acts like she does.  I can’t stand her anyway.  I mean she’s from Michigan.  Not only is she a Yankee, she’s from Michigan.  I never met anyone from Michigan who wasn’t really, really strange.  She and her husband Harold both.  They are strange even for Yankees.  She was actually a lady Marine!”

“I think she’s a lesbian.  Do you know what lesbians are?  I need to be sure you- and your sister- know about them.  I had never heard of them until this week and you can’t wait to be my age to find out about them.  They are coming out of the woodwork!”

“Ari, one of the guys at the Greek Lunch place in Schoolfield, told me all about them.  This woman I didn’t know sat down next to me when I stopped in for a hot dog while I was out shopping.  She started talking to me, so of course I was polite.  She was real nice and we started talking about movies.  We both love “Gone With the Wind”.  She said we should meet to go to the movies some time.  That’s when Ari told me to come to the back.”

“He told me she was a Lesbian.  Of course, I asked him what that was.  I had never heard that word before.  He explained it all to me.  Lesbians are women who want to be men.  I had never heard of such a thing!  Well, I paid my check, got my purse and ran out of there!  I don’t want some woman after me! ”

“Why would anyone want to be a Lesbian?  You can’t get anywhere without a man and every one is going to know you aren’t really one if you try to pretend to be one.  They should all move to New York or Charlotte or something and leave us normal people here alone.”

“That explains Susan Langford to me.  I just bet she goes out in the middle of the street and burns her bra any day now. ”

“You know she cuts her own grass.  No Lady ever touches a lawn mower.  And last week I saw her up on the roof cleaning out her own gutters.  No Lady does that….That’s why I bet she’s a Lesbian.”

My Father had had all he could take at this point:  “Goddamnit Lou, Susan Langford has four children and there is no way she is a Lesbian.  Besides, we are dealing with the goddamn negroes now, can we save the goddamn Lesbians for later?  I hate to tell you, but you are no longer universally desired, so don’t flatter yourself.”

It continued along in this vein for a while.  I left them alone to fight it out…I honestly don’t remember if the History Club ever met at our house or not.  I do remember just walking away and going back to my room and turning on the TV.  Blocking them out as usual.

Such was life in a small town in Virginia in 1976.

Funny thing….My Mother is in Assisted Living now.  Her first concern, when we moved her there,  was that it was integrated and had mixed sexes.

Then we suddenly discover an elderly Black man is her new Best Friend there.  And she always asks about my partner, Steve.  I think she likes him more than me because he’s nicer to her…

Maybe, in some cases, in some areas, vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s disease are what makes a brain start working right.  She still carries on with The Rules and the foolishness, but then acts completely contrary to them in her life at the Assisted Living place.

Of course, logic and consistency have never meant much to Southern Belles like my Mother….

But I guess it’s too hard to shake all that programming, even when the neurons start to short-circuit.

But it does amaze me that children and the senile don’t see these racial and sexual identification issues.  Only some of us in those life stages in between still have the  issues.

As Rogers and Hammerstein wrote in “South Pacific” that  “You Have to Be Carefully Taught” to believe in racism, sexism and homophobia.

I think our natural state is just to accept each other and try to get through life with as much grace as possible.

The social programming is dying out and harder to successfully encode.  There is too much outside information available to kids today for successful programming to occur.  Different role models exist….

Maybe one day no one will be worried about Negroes, Lesbians and Yankees. Or Gay Men, Hispanics or Asians.  Even the small towns have come a long ways- but still have much farther to go….

Maybe one day this will all be a part of history that no one remembers or can relate to…

Oh, My….

_______________________________________________________________________

(PS:  I’m starting to change names and combine characters to give me more literary freedom, but the truth is still in the posts… These are very much rough drafts, but rough drafts based on reality.)

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Chapter 55: Integration- Part 1: Or When Sunny Gets Blue

Posted on May 28, 2011 by Scott M

I’ve said it before, growing up in Danville, Virginia in the late 1960’s to early 1970’s was like growing up in South Africa under Apartheid.

Brown vs the Board of Education took many years to be fully implemented in the South and, as usual, I think Danville, Virginia  was one of the last cities to be desegregated.

But desegregation did finally happened in Danville- when I was in the 5th grade.

I still remember that day….Our white school was pretty much transferred en mass to a Black Middle School.  That’s how they did things then…

It was a very big day.  All our Mothers- who usually couldn’t be bothered by their children-  either took the day off from work or cut their Valium doses enough so they could take us to school.

Until this point, we had simply walked to school and they had done whatever it was they did…This level of interaction was unheard of- and frankly, unwelcome.  We were used to being left alone to work things out on our own and they were used to being, well, left alone.  But the times, they were a changing and this was the least we could all do…

My Mother piled us into her 1965 red Ford Fairlane and drove us the extra 5 minutes to the “Colored School” we were being transferred to.  .

The attire for the day, for the Mothers,  seemed to be Capri pants, white shirts with Peter Pan collars and flats.  They all must have all called each other first and aligned on the proper attire for a potential Race Riot.

They dropped us off and all stood by their cars to see what happened.  They seemed to fully expect 11 year olds to immediately start this race riot.

If this had happened, I don’t know what they thought they would do in those pre-cell phone days.  They surely would not have gotten involved.  I guessed they thought one of them would find the Pay Phone and they would call the cops then they would stand in line to call their husbands to come deal with the mess.  Or I guess they figured they would drive the getaway cars if the kids could escape the riot to get to them…

We may have been transferred to a Black School, but there were only about 5 Black kids in our class once this was all decided.

The Mothers seemed disappointed as they were expecting some excitement to break up the monotony of their lives….

The kids just went on with life like kids do if the adults stay out-of-the-way…

Integration really was a non-event to us– at least initially.

Of course, subtlety is always appreciated in the South and may take some time to surface…

A couple of years later, in Junior High School, I finally started to see the impacts.

I’ve always said, Molly Ivins was so right when she said “once you realize they’re lying to you about race everything else follows”.  My awakening started in Junior High School and took entirely too long to reach maturity…

I had a friend, I’ll call her Sunny, who was an African-American girl. She was from the local Black Aristocracy and she was brilliant and fearless.  Much more fearless than I was as a scared little middle class white boy who was just starting to suspect he was different in some way…

We were Hall Monitors in at O.T. Bonner Jr High School.  That means we got to leave class early and stand in the hall wearing orange straps and badges and scream at people who ran in the halls.  It was all so much simpler then….

Sunny liked to use these few extra moments of quiet time in the halls to chat briefly or do tour jete’s in the hall.  In those days, even though her parents were professionals and probably made more money than most of ours did, she couldn’t go to the local Dance Schools.  But she liked her tour jetes’….and she liked to chat.

We started to talk and became friends.  Very honest friends. We realized we were alike in so many ways.  We bonded as only 13 and 14 year-olds can…

We talked about my family,  my parents, the city and, eventually and carefully, race.  Looking back, I realize she listened, but never talked about her family…

One day, my Father was late picking me up after school…

Sunny and I had been sitting out front of the school for over an hour talking.  She seemed to be without a ride also.  I never knew why…Finally, my Father showed up in his new car.  Daddy was one of those men who used to live to buy a new car every other year…Image was everything.

Sunny and I walked down to the car and I leaned in the window and asked if he could give her a ride, too, as she was stranded.  He was a little puzzled, as if the thought of giving a Black child a ride had never occurred to him, but said okay.

Sunny danced around the car, jumped in the front seat, threw her arms around my Father and said: “I hear you don’t like Black people.  Are you sure you want to take me home”.

He was, to say the least, stunned.  I don’t remember his response except speechlessness…and he was never speechless…. but he took her home.  To her house that was bigger than ours….She leaned over and kissed his check and said thank you….Then she danced away into her house.

He had truly been speechless- which was very, very rare- since this entire episode began….

After she left, my Father slowly turned the car around and headed out of her neighborhood.  Finally he said:  “That little Colored girl has a lot of nerve.  You better both be careful.”

That was it….it was never discussed again.

Sometime after Junior High School, Sunny and I drifted apart…

I don’t remember seeing her in High School….

I do remember being in the Super X Drug Store in Ballou Park a couple of years after college and swearing I saw her…

She was in front of me in line and had a mixed-race baby on her hip.  I tried to catch her eye and speak, but she wouldn’t connect or acknowledge me.

I like to think it was someone else…

Surely Sunny would have recognized me and spoke to me…

I keep hoping so…

Even though I know it was her…

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Chapter 54: A College Letter Home from Washington and Lee on Derby Day

Posted on May 7, 2011 by Scott M

Last year my Mother moved – well, we forced her to move- to, an Assisted Living Facility.  She had reached the point of beyond crazy that wasn’t just Southern.  It was physical and pathological.  She had some mini-strokes and was diagnosed with Vascular Dementia.

That meant we had to clean out the house she had lived in for over 50 years.  And that meant we found some truly frightening things….

I’m not talking about the panties, she had taken to stuffing behind books in the bookcase or in the kitchen cabinets.  I’m not even talking about the family photo’s or ball gowns from the 1950’s and cocktail dresses from the 1960’s.

I’m talking about pieces of my own past that had been enshrined there.  I had to get in there fast and get hold of those things before my sister could put them on FaceBook.

One of the things I found was a file of letters I had written home from College at Washington and Lee University in the late 1970’s/early 1980’s.

Yes, paper letters. On monogrammed 100% Cotton Crane Stationary.  Written appropriately by hand in black or dark blue ink.

I’ve decided to post one letter, in it’s entirety, without editing.  This proves I have both no pride and no shame.

Please remember this was a time before cell phones and the internet.  It was before unlimited long distance plans.  It was a time before children actually liked to talk to their parents….

Now, I know some of you are now thinking I must be even older than you suspected, but it wasn’t all that long ago.  I promise it was the 20th, not the 19th Century- no matter what the tone of the following letter may suggest.

Remember, I was a Freshman at a small, private, boy’s school in the mountains of Virginia at the time.  And I was still heavily under the influence of F. Scott Fitzgerald.  That’s my only defense for this….

And, you will quickly notice, it was all only a setup to try to get some cash out of Daddy to go to the Kentucky Derby.

My poor Father’s favorite phrase was always:  “Goddammit, how much is this going to cost me?”

We really should have made that his epitaph on his tombstone….

Anyway, here is The Letter, from 19 year old me in 1978….

Parenthetical comments are in color…

March 20. 1978

Dear Mom, Dad and Lisa,

How are things in Danville?  I only hope that it has erupted into the beauty of Spring as gloriously as it has in Lexington.  They raked the front campus clear of dead grass this morning and the profusion of greenery is really quite stunning for this early in the season- with the red brick and white columns rising in contrast above the sloping green of the campus.  Music- I think Schubert- from a quartet playing somewhere- Lee Chapel?- drifts across the campus and completes the idyllic beauty of a Southern Spring.

I spent the afternoon in Wilson Stadium viewing my first Lacrosse game.  It is as exciting as football to watch, yet more interesting because it seems more individual even though it’s a team sport.  It was quite picturesque– a sunny afternoon in a stadium full of young people- guys in khaki pants and multi-colored alligator shirts and Sweet Briar girls shivering in the first sundresses of the season.

(I obviously neglected to mention the fact that I had been drinking all afternoon and must have been writing this with a buzz on…)

Allison was here for the weekend.  She went with Bob, my friend from Montgomery, to his fraternity’s Spring Formal.  I had a quiet weekend trying to catch up on my reading.  I also saw “The Goodbye Girl” Saturday night.  When it comes to Danville, you should see it.  I think you will enjoy it.

The major topic of conversation is the fact that we are engulfed  in an epidemic of German Measles.  The Infirmary is full and two guys in my dorm section have them now.  We are all wondering “Who’s next?”

Oh, by the way, a friend of mine, Dave, has five Grandstand seats for the Kentucky Derby, the first weekend in May.  He has asked me to go.  Of course, I would love to go and the total cost should only be about $80 per person.  I really feel guilty asking you for the extra money as it is really a capricious extravagance and I know May is expensive with the expenses for Lisa’s dance recital.  If it is just not feasible, just write and let me know.  I almost didn’t write to ask you to go, but the other guys are pressing me to go or to at least try.  Don’t feel too badly if you have to say no.  Just write and let me know.  I do need an answer by this weekend, though.  (This manipulative little paragraph is proof, no matter how much I try to think otherwise, I am my Mother’s son…)

I may come in on Saturday for Easter.  I really want to, but I have an enormous volume of work that I have to complete before exams start on Saturday, April 1st.  If I decide to come in, it will have to be Saturday morning and I will have to get back right after Church on Sunday.  (This was the set up to later claim to have “too much work” to do so I could really go to parties that weekend instead of coming home for Easter…)

Thank you for forwarding my income tax refund check.  At least I could pay off the rest of my bills from Fancy Dress Ball and still see a very small balance in my checking account.

(Translated:  I’ve used all my money for other social events, so don’t think I can pay for this myself)

I guess that is all the news.  I better get to work now since I have my last two tests of the term both on Wednesday.   I may see you this weekend, otherwise I’ll probably be in around the 5th, 6th or 7th of April, depending on how I schedule my exams.

Please let me know about the Derby by this weekend.  Write or call soon.    (Meaning:  All I really want is the cash)

Love,
Scott

PS:  I got the cash and had a great weekend at the Derby.  Through Dave’s connections, we dined in the VIP Dining room with some old Hollywood Stars and some hookers at the next table….I may tell that story some day.

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Chapter 53: Easter: Or How I Became a Fashion Victim

Posted on April 20, 2011 by Scott M

I come from a very presentational family. Easter always brought out the best and worst of that trait.

To give you a perspective, my mother was a Cheerleader.  My sister was a dancer and a Majorette.  My niece is following in their footsteps as a Cheerleader and dancer.  I come from a long line of people who stood out in 30 degree temperatures in a sequined swimsuit in front of hundreds of people.

Makes you kind of understand why I always tried for-with varying degrees of success- a more quiet, classically elegant personae –at least until my third drink.  I couldn’t compete in their arena nor did I want to…

Clothes were always important to me.  Even when I didn’t know anywhere near what I know about them now…

I carried hand luggage on a Boy Scout’s Primitive Camping trip.  Well, my friend Kenny carried it for me….I couldn’t imagine going away for 3 days and 2 nights with only a backpack.

It all started with Easter….

As I’ve said before, I was raised “Social” Baptist.  My mother came from a family of, thankfully, not practicing Primitive Baptists.  I’ve always wondered how that jelled with the Cheerleading…  My father came from a genteel Southern Presbyterian background.  As far as I can tell, they didn’t step foot in a church from the time they married until some time after I was born 8 years later.  Then  they compromised on “Social” Baptist.

As soon as the church we went to put in air conditioning in the early 1960′s a couple of women started wearing their little mink jackets. In August.  Come to think of it, their husbands may have been Heating and Air businessmen.  I’ve always been convinced their families gave the money to put in the air conditioning.

At our Church, every summer, the woman who was president of the Vacation Bible School always showed up in a hat and gloves and a different outfit everyday.  My mother held that position a couple of times- I think just to get the clothes.

As for Easter, soon as the first crocuses showed themselves, my mother would begin her focus of the spring season: What everyone was to wear to Church on Easter Sunday.  Even if we hadn’t been to Church since Christmas.

Now Christmas might have been observed with some religious significance in our house, but not much more than Easter.   For far too many years, my Mother’s main focus for the December holidays was on winning the Temple Terrace Women’s Club Home Decoration Contest.  She never won, but she kept trying.  This led to scenes in front of our house during Christmas decorating such as the year she said:  ” I think they are going for a more understated classic look this year.  Take the light bulb out of the baby Jesus and use a spotlight on the manger scene instead.”  But that is another post I’ll save for December…

But Easter was all about the clothes.  When I was very young, she had to have our clothes from the best stores in Danville.  That meant my sister and I had to be dressed by the Children’s Shoppe with shoes from McCollum-Ferrell, while she terrorized Rippes for herself.  All of this relaxed in the late 1960′s– around 1970– but this did happened during my formative years and this fact stayed with me for life:  Easter is about clothes.

When my aunt moved to Charlotte in 1965, the clothes thing moved to a whole new level.  Then our clothes had to come from “out of town”.  As far as I knew, there was no other reason for Charlotte to exist, but for shopping.  My mother lived to say ” we picked that up in Charlotte” like some people would say “I got that in Paris”.  And in Danville Virginia in the late 1960′s, they were equally as foreign.

This did lead to some family bonding.  The only common gene I can see in my family is the shopping gene.  We might not agree on anything else in life, but none of us can’t help ourselves if there is a retail hunt in the offing.  It doesn’t even have to make sense.  My mother once bought so much stuff at Waccamaw Pottery in Burlington that she had to make two trips to get it all home to Danville.  It wouldn’t all fit in the car at one time.  There was a sale on wicker chairs she could not resist…

So to this day, even though I no longer go to church on Easter, come spring I think of new clothes and changing things out for the season.  This recognition of seasonal change is almost pagan.  Maybe it is another recessive gene from my long-lost pagan ancestors.

As Easter approaches, I change out my wardrobe and put out the spring/summer household accessories.  Maybe changing the fall/winter throw pillows and shower curtains for the spring/summer versions -which one of my friends said was the gayest thing she ever heard of- is my spiritual recognition of the season.

I think the important thing is that we recognize the impact of the change of seasons on our lives–

And that it’s all about the clothes.

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By the Time I Get To Phoenix

Posted on April 17, 2011 by Scott M

I just don’t get Phoenix, Arizona.  There is something about this place that just isn’t natural.

I think the main reasons I don’t get it are that I’m both Southern and from the East Coast.  It’s just too different.  It doesn’t seem natural…

You will never convince me that nature meant for 4 million people to live in the middle of a desert so they could play golf all year. In no way, does that make any sense to me.

To me, the only people who seem to live in Phoenix are people with enough money to pay for a lot of air conditioning and pools or people too poor to leave.

No matter how hard they try, there is no cultural life here.  It’s all about golf and sports.  In a place where it gets to be 120 degrees in the summer, that’s just not sane…to be out playing sports in that kind of weather.  And I hate to think how much money it costs to keep all these golf courses green in the middle of a desert….

Like I said, it’s just not natural….

Phoenix is a totally artificial environment.  Most East Coast cities grew up around rivers or transportation routes.  Phoenix only really took off with air conditioning and the airport.  It’s a new place.

That may be why I hate it.  It’s totally new.  It’s all Big Box stores and chain restaurants.  It is based on the worst of homogenized American Culture.

I’ve been coming to Phoenix for 15 years.  I’ve seen it grow and evolve.  And not for the good….

I don’t see any Native American influence left- outside the gift stores.

The parts that were unique and mindful of the “old west”, when I first started coming here,  have disappeared and been replaced by Olive Gardens, Wal-Mart, Targets and bankrupt housing developments.

Sure, this homogenization happens back east, but not to this extent.  We still have the old homes and natural greenery.  Back east makes sense to me.  We could live and have lived without air conditioning.  It’s not pleasant, but it’s survivable.  Most of our older houses are built for the air to move and flow.  The moisture- also known as humidity- also helps.

Say what you will about Phoenix’s “dry” heat, to me that is not a benefit.  My contact lenses want to pop out of my eyes, I go through gallons of moisturizer, my sinuses feel like they are full of sand and I cannot consume enough water while I’m here.

If air conditioning suddenly failed in Phoenix in August, I bet hundreds of thousands of people would die within hours.  The air conditioning is so necessary that it creates bubbles where life is somewhat sustainable.  It also isolates people.

I’m convinced that is why there are so many Republicans in Arizona.  They sit in their houses in their air conditioning and don’t interact with people outside their air-conditioned bubbles at home and at work.  Admittedly, it can be the same in the deep South–any where that is air conditioning dependent.  Mississippi is as foreign to me as Arizona…

When people have to interact and share experiences, they get to know people unlike themselves.  They get to know how other people live.  They have to deal with diversity.

That’s what I love about New York and the big East Coast cities.  You can’t avoid interacting with people in the streets, in the subways, in the stores, in both the heat and the cold.  This kind of social interaction can’t help but make one both a Democrat and a democrat.

We can’t pass judgement so coldly on people we have to work with to negotiate the intricacies of daily life in an East Coast city.  They are not just concepts, they are real.  We can’t avoid people unlike ourselves as easily as they can in Phoenix.

You also have to drive everywhere in Phoenix.  On freeways.  I think it should be illegal for a city to have over a million people and not have decent mass transportation.  That’s another reason Phoenicians don’t interact.  If they aren’t in their home or office, they are in their car.

They are isolated.

I’ve noticed over the years that very few people from the East Coast and even fewer from the South like Phoenix. We’ve talked about it among ourselves.

When I talk to people who live in Phoenix and like it, they are usually from the mid-west or West.  It’s just too culturally and climatically different for those of us from the East Coast and the upper South.

And it’s not green.  Except for the Golf Courses.  It’s brown and rocky and rough.  It’s not lush and fragrant.  It’s dusty…

That’s just not natural to me…

I’m not a parochial person.  I’ve been many places I and thought “I could live here”.  Well, mainly, New York, Paris and London, but I’ve had that thought in other places as well.

I’ve never felt that way about Phoenix…

To me it’s just one big Mall sitting beside a Golf Course where people can only survive in air-conditioned bubbles.

I can’t imagine living that way…

I wish my friends in Phoenix the best.  I apologize for my harsh words.  But that is how I see it.

Nature meant Phoenix to be a small out post in the desert- not a mega city.  You can only go against nature for so long without it effecting you.

I think native-born Phoenicians have some sort of genetic code that makes it work for them- much like Southerners have a genetic code that makes them understand the madness of the South.

It’s those who chose to move Phoenix from someplace else that I worry about…It would be interesting to see how this all works out over time.

The resources needed to make Phoenix possible, as it is today, are limited…

Something tells me, nature just won’t be able to sustain all these golf courses forever….

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