My Southern Gothic Life

I haven’t spoken much about my Father’s family.  Mainly, because I didn’t know them nearly as well as my Mother’s family.  Most of them lived in Richmond and were Rushes, not Michaels.

My Father was the product of what was generally regarded, within the family,  as a misalliance.  His parents were married for a few years in the late 1920’s and divorced by the early 1930’s.  This was apparently quite the scandal as this simply was not done by good Families of the era.  So we had no contact with his Father, my Grandfather,  until shortly before my Father died.  Full story to come…

My Father’s Mother, Susan Catherine Rush Michaels, aka Susie,  inadvertently caused two of the major Rush Family scandals.  One was the Divorce.  The second was going crazy and being locked up in the State Mental Hospital some 20 years later.

The main thing I remember about my Father’s family is they were nothing like my Mother’s family.

Daddy’s family was genteel, Virginia stock.  They were descended from Dr Benjamin Rush, who signed the Declaration of Independence and founded the Medical School at the University of Pennsylvania.  All of this was in the late 1700’s, after they had already been in America for about a hundred years.  They were intermarried, at some points, with some of the other major Virginia Families and therefore claimed, like half of the residents of Virginia, FFV Status.

For the non-congnescenti, that means First Families of Virginia.  This is supposedly a “big deal” in Virginia.  Lot’s of things are “big deals” in Virginia that no one understands outside the borders…

The Rushes were very Patrician.  All the men seemed to be named Richard or Charles.  Not a Chuck or Richie or Dick among them, except for the patriarch, Uncle Charlie, who must have had a special dispensation.  And they all seemed to magically know which Richard or Charles you were addressing.  No confusion was ever evident.

They all also seemed to be six feet or more tall, have wavy black hair, blue eyes and incredible bone structure.  I got none of these genes.

The women all seemed to be named Helen, Irene, Elizabeth or Mary Frances.  They were also thin, patrician and elegant.  They spoke rarely and quietly.  They usually sat with their ankles elegantly crossed and their hands in their lap while the Gentlemen talked.  I think they all probably slept in their pearls.

They were all well-bred Episcopalians.  The rebels were Presbyterian.

Not a Bertha, Lou, Goldie or Wiseman among this bunch.

They were very White People.  To me, as a young child, they were not nearly as much fun or as interesting as my Mother’s crazy family in the Mill Village.

The Rushes also had a way of ignoring unpleasantness.  They simply did not recognize anything unseemly or indecorous.  None of them seemed to work and they lived in big, old, decaying houses in Richmond in the Fan.

As you can imagine, they just loved my Mother.  I am being facetious.  My parents’ spent their wedding night at the Jefferson Hotel in Richmond so my Father could introduce his Bride to The Family the next day.  They did not attend the wedding.

They were not prepared for Scarlett O’Hara.  My Mother was too pert, too pretty, too sociable, too clinging, a little too flashy, too familiar and too insecure all at the same time.  They quietly condescended to her since she was my Father’s Bride and most of them already felt sorry for my Father due to his upbringing and the scandal of Susie’s Divorce only a couple of years after his birth.  Twenty years are yesterday in Virginia terms.

But my Mother learned to get her revenge.  One of my Father’s cousins, I think it was one of the Richards, was apparently enthralled by her on this wedding trip and she spent time riding up and down Monument Avenue in Richmond with him in his convertible and bonding.  Apparently he was the only warm and welcoming member of the family.

Shortly thereafter, Richard ran off to New York to try to become a Chorus Boy and eventually ended up spending the rest of his life in the City teaching deaf children or something similarly noble.  Still, the Richmond Rushes “shut the door” and never spoke of him again.

However, every time we went to Richmond, Lou always purred, and “And how is Richard?  Any news from New York?  I always thought he was so nice and had the best manners.”  They would change the subject.  Point to Lou.

The first thing my Mother did after returning home to Danville after the Wedding Trip was to have my Father’s Mother, Susie,  committed.

Like all good Southern stories, there are multiple versions of the tale.  The one I prefer is that my Grandmother, Susan Catherine Rush Michaels, called up my parents one evening and told them she had just ground up a Coca Cola bottle in her Waring blender and drank it in a drink to try to kill herself because she was tired and depressed.

My Mother had no sympathy for quitters.  And she wanted her furniture.  So, off Susie went to the State Hospital at Staunton.

Unfortunately, for my Mother, my Grandmother’s sisters, who lived with her, sold all the furniture during the Commitment Trip for cash because they were afraid my Mother would put them on the street penniless.  My Mother never got over this betrayal.

The Rushes seemed to figure it was some sort of genetic flaw that caused these repeated misalliances to occur in my Father’s branch of the family.

My Father had been raised in Danville by his Grandmother, with his Mother and two Maiden Aunts also en residence.  The kindest thing I ever heard any of the relatives say about his Grandmother, who everyone, including her children I think, called Mrs. Rush, was that she was a “difficult woman.”

Translated from FFV language to modern language, that means she was a raging bitch.

As I’ve pieced it together over the years, from near death-bed confessions and overheard whispered conversations at funerals, my Father’s Grandmother basically got rid of my Father’s Father.  She cut him out of the family, returned his cards and presents sent to my Father over the years and made him disappear.  For almost 5o years.

Mrs. Rush ran the house and no one crossed her.  My Father was her pet and had his Mother and the two Aunts waiting on him constantly.  It’s no wonder he turned out to be a bit of a spoiled child with a bad temper, when he didn’t get his way,  and remained one the rest of his life.

I don’t know much more about Mrs. Rush.  Most of the family was always afraid to speak of her.  She must have been one scary broad.  I have one picture of her and, based on that, even I would have hesitated to cross her.

Also in the household were my Great Aunts Mary and Lily.  Lily had a husband at some point, but had also gotten rid of him at a relatively early age.  I never knew that story…

Aunt Mary, always known as “Little Mary” was the youngest and the Family Pet.  She was a Lady to her fingertips.  Always quiet, gracious and respectful.  She would sit quietly in her pearls and tasteful dresses crocheting or embroidering something.  She spent time in a Tuberculous Sanitarium in Asheville when she was young and was therefore considered too damaged and fragile for marriage.  Even though she lived to be in her 80’s, they all seemed to think she might die at any minute.

I always felt so sorry for her.  I think her life must have been hell.  She was the “poor relation” all her life.  She never had anything of her own.  In all the times I met her, I never really felt there was anyone “there”.  She was too focused on being what people wanted her to be so she could get by.  She never worked a day in her life and wouldn’t have known where to start.  She was grudgingly supported by other family members her entire life.  She was passed from relative to relative, but someone always took care of her.  I hate to think of the price she paid.

I’ll never forget the last time I saw her.  She was staying with one of the relatives in Martinsville and completely out of her mind.  She was thrashing around in the bed and throwing off the bed-clothes, throwing her arms and legs in the air and yelling “Jesus, I’m coming!!!”

My Father’s Uncle Joe, who could be called Joe and not Joseph, because he lived in Danville and not Richmond, took in Little Mary and Lily once Mrs Rush died and Susie went to the State Hospital.  He built them a little house…

Uncle Joe and his wife, known as “Big Mary” had a house and land outside Danville in the Country.  My Grandmother Susie owned a chunk of land adjacent to theirs.  Various family members, on my Fathers side, seemed to always own lots of land….and it got complicated in a hurry as to who owned what with whom.  I’ll never forget visiting one of the Charles’ or Richard’s at their farm in Henrico County.  They had golf carts to ride around the place…

Uncle Joe and “Big Mary” would not take the indigent relatives into their actual house.  Instead, they built 3 or 4 little houses around the “Big House” for various poor relations to stay in.  In the “Big House”, they built a bomb shelter, like good 1950’s Americans, only big enough for the two of them.

I sometimes think they wished for nuclear war to be free of the poor relations.  But they weren’t Republicans…

The thing I remember clearly is that once Susie was moved from the State Mental Hospital at Staunton, to the one in Petersburg, just outside of Richmond, still none of the Rush’s went to see her.  She had become invisible to them.

I understand.  She was not pleasant to visit.  It was a very unpleasant experience.  I’ll talk more about this in the future….

The Stage is set….

More to come…

Now I don’t even believe in Hell, but I do find the idea comforting at times.

I like to think there is some sort of divine retribution for those who commit truly heinous acts against their fellowman- or their tastes and sensibilities.

I used to make mental lists of people I wanted to be in First Class on the first intergalactic, passenger carrying, nuclear missle, but I couldn’t think of anyone I hated enough to seat them next to Kathy Lee Gifford.  Instead, I’ve gone back to the simple idea that these people will spend eternity burning in hell.  Please note:  All these people are supposedly still living, therefore there  is time for them to atone for their sins.

1. The person who invented Crocs.
2. Adults who wear Crocs who aren’t gardening or have a medical excuse
3. The person who invented paper napkins that dispense like toilet paper on a roll.
4. Everyone at Fox News
5. George W Bush
6. The entire Senior Management Team at USAirways
7. Dick Cheney
8. The people who started the trend of wearing flip-flops outside one’s own home or at the beach.
9. People who wear shorts and/or halter tops- male or female- on airplanes and complain about being cold.
10. Sarah Palin
11. John Edwards
12. The person who invented double-knit polyester pants.
13. Pat Robertson-who will meet his friend Jerry Falwell there
14. Bob McDonnell, Governor of Virginia
15. Ken Cuccinelli, Attorney General of Virginia
16. The people who build off site Rental Car Centers that require you to drag your luggage onto a bus to get there
17. People who text while driving
18. People who talk on their cell phones while driving instead of paying attention to the road and those around them.  In other words, most of them…
19. Everyone who is cruel to animals
20. Phyllis Schlafly and all the men at “Concerned Women for America”
21. Ann Coulter
22. Those who are so sure they are going to heaven and everyone else is not
23. Bobby Brown-for ruining Whitney Houston’s life and career
24. Whitney Houston for marrying Bobby Brown and doing that reality show
25. Everyone involved with any reality TV series–especially Jon and Kate Goslin, whoever they may be
26. Lindsay Lohan– and her Mother and Father
27. All people who wear the same clothes to work they would wear to wash the car or mow the grass
28. Helicopter Parents
29. The TV Executive at CBS who cancelled “Moonlight”
30. Everyone involved in financing the Tea Party
31. All the Tea Party Candidates
32. Bullies
33. The person who invented “Great Rooms”
34. Bill O’Reilly
35. Glenn Beck
36. The entire cast of “Jersey Shore”
37. Mel Gibson
38. The people who set the outrageous rates at “Assisted Living” facilities
39. All Politicians who want to cut or privatize Medicare, Veterans Benefits and Social Security
40. The person at the Gym who sets the TV over the Trainer’s Desk to Fox News so I’m forced to watch it
41. High School Physical Education teachers from the 1970’s
42. Bigots
43. People who think “facts” are irrelevant
44. People who are so Politically Correct they have no sense of humor
45. People who still insist the Civil War was about States Rights and not about Slavery
46. People who run Insurance Companies
47. People who wear Tank Tops
48. People who recline their seats on Airplanes taking even more space away from the person behind them
49. People who talk during movies, plays or concerts-especially those who talk on their cell phones during outrageously expensive Broadway shows.
50. People who speed outrageously, weaving in and out of traffic, so they can get to the stop light 1 second ahead of me

This is a living list….more to come.

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This is a revised repost from my other blog:  www.lostinthe21stcentury.com

I thought I might share some of my thoughts on relationships.  I’m going to try to keep this at a PG-13 level and this advice is not intended for novices.  I did not settle down until I was in my late 30′s and have been in a successful relationship for the last 13 years.  Therefore, I think I can speak with some degree of authority.  I thought it might help to share my “wisdom” with some of you who may still be playing in the minefields of dating.

If you are young and just starting out, this is not for you.  My advice to you is to make your own mistakes and learn your own lessons.  If you still think some enchanted evening,  you may meet a stranger  across a crowed room, etc.  You are starting where I started.  And that did kind of happened for me.  It just took 30 some years for me to meet Steve at a Gallery fundraising event.  And a couple of more years before we really connected for good.  Good for you if it happens sooner.  However, it is very rare for this to happen early in the game.  Some of us have many and varied lessons to learn for ourselves on our journey before we are ready for  Mr or Ms Right.  These are merely the lessons I learned myself along the way to that “Some Enchanted Evening”.

First of all, some people will tell you every relationship is unique and/or there are many types of relationships.  This is not true.  I found you could– and should– determine pretty early on which of three primary categories into which a relationship might fall.  These categories are:

1. People you sleep with
2. People you date
3. People you marry

Correctly classifying new relationships is key to managing your relationships successfully and avoiding drama and unnecessary heartbreak ,on either side, as things progress.

The first category “People you sleep with” can be tricky.  These are usually  people you are wildly attracted to, but who are totally inappropriate for either long-term relationships or, perhaps,  public knowledge or co-mingling with your friends.  Face it, you really shouldn’t be messing with these people in the first place.  These relationships can be lots of fun, for a while, but you have to keep your perspective.  You know these people may be gorgeous, amusing and fun,  but you know, deep down inside, you really have nothing in common with them.  Deep down inside you also may know, or suspect, that you don’t share the same values, interests or intellect.  Proceed with caution here and never let your heart, or lower regions, confuse your brain.  These are the most limited types of relationships and must be recognized as such.

The second category is more problematic.  ”People you date” are people who you could possibly move to the later category of “People you marry”, but you have to observe them very closely.  Sometimes these relationships are of a time and place– High School and College romances are frequent examples.  This category also includes gay men dating straight women- or vice versa- while they work things out as to who they really are.  This category usually also includes workaholics, who value career above all else, and are thus not marriage material.  Sometimes this category includes people who see you as part of category 1, but whom you have incorrectly classified due to insufficient initial information. If this progression from Category 1 to Category 2 occurs for  you both, good for you.  That is also rare.  Overall, Category 2 is a category for temporary relationships where one or both parties knows or suspects it will not be a “forever” thing.  Relationships in this category may be very rewarding and may last a long time– years in some cases– but they ultimately cannot last and will not result in a committed relationship.  While these relationships can be great fun socially, you must manage expectations so that it does not result in unfairness or hurt to either party. Be careful here…

The third category, “People you marry”, is the rarest and most hard to find acceptable people to populate.  To be in this category, both parties must be able to envision spending the rest of their lives together and building a life and a home together.  This takes a very different skill set from the previous categories.  You normally progress to this category from category 2, but seldom directly from category  1.  You need stringent qualifications that must be met to put someone in this category.  You must never, ever compromise.

My partner, Steve, is fond of saying that, when we met, he had three minimum qualifications for this category:

1. The person must have a real job– with benefits such as insurance and a retirement plan.
2. The person must have their own, nice place to live-not with their parents, for example.
3. The person must have a college degree, at a minimum.

These requirements are a very good place to start.  Of course, I passed the test for him as he did for me.  If you want to build a life with someone, you must be practical and think things through because in these relationships, the stakes are higher as you will ultimately share finances, property, pets and perhaps, children.

Most importantly, for this category, you must share common values and interests.  You have to be able to talk to each other about anything.  You must be able to be honest with each other and to trust each other completely.  You can’t be walking on egg shells or in fear of discussing important topics.  You must be sure they have a strength of character that will get you through both good and bad times together.  They must understand the word “commitment” and be willing to work on your relationship every day by making your thoughts and feelings part of their every decision making process.  You have to have mutual respect. With this foundation, you can move forward.

In any event, the most important thing is to follow your heart, but never ignore your head.  Sex and infatuation are wonderful, but must be recognized as such.  They don’t last forever in their original form.  They mutate over time.

You also have to recognize that people don’t really change and you certainly can’t change them, so be sure you know what you are getting and categorize accordingly.  Then determine how to proceed.

As the old saying goes, you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find your prince.  But I think there really is a prince- or princess- out there for each of us.  You just find them when the time is right– usually when you least expect it.

Take this advice for what it’s worth.  This is how I saw the dating game and what I learned along the way.  It worked for me and I hope it might help others still out there in the trenches.

It’s better advice than you’ll get watching “Sex in the City”….

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Repost from my other blog:  www.lostinthe21stcentury.com

Great Rooms have undermined the very fabric of civilization.  When I made my list of people going to hell, I can’t believe I forgot to include the person who invented “Great Rooms”.

For generations, we understood that one behaves in certain ways in certain places and scenarios.  In other words, there are walls that define social interaction.  I believe that good walls, like good fences, make good neighbors.  One behaves a certain way in a formal dining room or in a living/drawing room.  Or in a restaurant or other communal public space.  This behavior differs from how one may behave in a “den”.   Most of my generation grew up with living rooms that were only used to receive guests.  We learned our manners in the dining room.  We understood place-specific behavior.

Great Rooms destroyed this differentiation.  They have led to the collapse of manners, decorum, style and etiquette in American Society.  Now people just wallow around in front of their televisions dressed in sweat pants in their Great Rooms all the time.  As a result of this, they think one behaves this way all the time in every place.  Since “Great Rooms” removed the walls, people now seem to think that how one behaves in one’s “den” is the default behavior.   Today people think how one behaves in one’s “Great Room”  is now how one behaves in public.

This should not be the case.  Call me uptight or old-fashioned, I don’t care…

People used to understand that one behaves one way in private and another way in public.  This created a much more pleasant and civilized social interaction.  I’m sure this idea seems somewhat quaint to the younger generation, most of whom I frequently, affectionately call SJI’s (Slack Jawed Idiots) due to their lack of social skills.  It’s not really their fault.  The fault belongs to their parents who worshiped at the alter of informality so they could be their children’s “friend” instead of doing the hard work of preparing them for adulthood and public life.

See, people forget that how one dresses and behaves impacts the focus of their attention and how they relate to a situation– or do their job.

I’m sorry, but it’s understandable if people dressed in shorts, T-Shirts and flip-flops have difficulty behaving professionally or understanding the concept of “professionalism”.  They think, “If I can talk, dress and act this way in the den, then what’s the big deal?”  That’s become their only point of reference.

If people spent more time studying etiquette than watching “Jerry Springer” on their “Great Room” sofas, we would live in a better world.

The downsides of “Great Rooms” are vast.  Now people think they can put their hooves on the back of chairs in movie theatres, by my head,  instead of on the floor where they belong.  People share the most personal secrets while speaking on their cell phones in public.  People don’t dress differently for work, a night on the town, church or the theatre than they do for washing the car.  This is all the result of “Great Rooms”.  They have undermined society as I knew it and I firmly believe it should be.

People used to understand  the importance of these “walls”, be they real or societal.  Walls led to a sense of privacy and decorum.  People understood that some things could be said in public and others only in private.  This  produced an understanding that one did not need to share the fact that they were trying to hire a Private Detective to watch their paramour while they were out of town with everyone in the break room.  Or talk to their son’s bail bondsmen at full volume in the grocery store.  Or reveal their sexual escapades of the previous evening to everyone in Target.  The combination of cell phones and Great Room behavior has really been deadly.

My generation may have been the last one taught to always present our best selves to the public.  Only our lovers, family and close friends got to know who we really were.  This not only made for a more pleasant social interaction, but allowed us to purvey a sense of mystery in our public lives that was intriguing.

Without walls and a sense of public vs private, you can’t have secrets.  Let’s face it, secrets can be fun.  If you spill it all on your cell phone in the Great Room of life, you lose the magic.

And that may be the root of my concern.  To paraphrase one of Tennessee William’s great characters, I never wanted to present realism or ask for realism in public.  I wanted magic.  Or intrigue.  Or mystery.  I wanted to pick who I took the journey of getting to really know and appreciate the fact that them sharing their secrets and revealing their true selves was a gift given to me by choice.

With “Great Room” behavior ,the magic disappears and you are left with realism.  It isn’t always pretty.  Or appropriate.  And now, you don’t always recognize magic when you see it…

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This is a repost from my other blog:  www.lostinthe21stcentury.com

I know I have single-handedly destroyed the stereotype that all Gay Men adore their Mothers.  But I did adored my Grandmother and my Aunt Goldie.  I am far from a misogynist.

I’ll write about Goldie later, but let me talk about Granny first.

My Grandmother- Granny- was my Mother’s Mother.  Bertha Quintral Sigmon.  Two women could not have been more different.  For all the flighty, Southern Belle manipulations that personified my Mother, Granny offset them by being a totally down to earth realist.

She had to be…

She was from the hills of West Virginia.  She lost her Mother, who died in childbirth, when she was 7 and started keeping house for her Father and brothers.  She married at 13 and was a Mother herself not too many years later.  She buried her first child, who died of jaundice, when they had no medical care.

She basically walked down from the hills with my Grandfather for him to find work in the Cotton Mills in Danville.  She said it beat the coal mines.  She said her hands used to be black from doing the laundry from the coal dust in the clothes.  No one worried about “white lung” from the Cotton Mills then…

She had five other children.  My Aunt Goldie was the next oldest, the first to live.  She gave birth to her alone in a dirt floored cabin near Martinsville on the way to Danville in the 1920’s.

Then came my uncle, Wiseman Lafayette Sigmon.  He turned out to be agoraphobic and didn’t leave the house for almost 40 years.  That’s another post…

He was followed by Daniel, the laziest man who ever lived.   Then came my Mother, Lou, who was the youngest until my uncle Samuel Jacob Sigmon was born when Lou was about 10.  He was a surprise- Granny called him her “change of life” baby.

He replaced my Mother as the youngest and the favorite and she never got over it…

As tumultuous as life was in my Family’s house in Temple Terrace, I found grounding, grace and common sense at Granny’s.

Granny was uneducated.  She could barely write a Grocery list and could read the Bible and the newspaper, but she said she didn’t really see much point in it.  As I said, she was a realist.

But she was a Great Lady.  She made everyone welcome and saw to it they were well fed and comfortable.  People dropped in to her house all the time.  She did not judge people.  She rolled with the punches and kept her sense of humor.

She was the epitome of a Christian Lady, but she never stepped foot in a Church in all the years I knew her.

Her tastes were simple.  She would wash and wear a couple of her dresses and night gowns over and over until they wore out.  She did not see the point in messing up a lot of clothes even though she had new ones hanging in the closet.

She loved to sing and play the piano.  Never had a lesson, but played better than I did…

She would stand up to bullies- and my parents- in a heart beat and you did not want to cross her.  She could put both my Mother and my Father in their place like no one else I ever saw.  She was a force of nature.  My Father adored her.  He said she was the only sensible woman he ever knew.

She grew a garden and cooked and canned the food she grew.  That’s where I learned to respect what we now call “local food” and “sustainable living.”

She had a wicked sense of humor.  She asked for binoculars for Christmas one year.  We never understood why until she explained the college students renting the house across the street and a couple of doors up had wild parties.  She saw people naked on the front porch one night and wanted to get a better look if it happened again.

She slammed the door in the face of missionaries and told them she was Jewish.  My Grandfather, who was also a part-time Primitive Baptist minister, would not have been amused.

She took care of her family and her neighbors.  She ministered to the sick.  She wanted to spring my Father’s Mother from the State Mental Home, where my Mother had placed her, and bring her to live with her.  She lost that battle.  One of the few…

She thought my Father was a spoiled, only child with a bad temper that was only made worse by being married to my manipulative, pill of a Mother.  She thought my Mother was a spineless, silly, social climber and had no patience for her.  She thought they were two overgrown, irascible children who had no business being married to each other since all they did was fight and go shopping.

She took care of us- at least as I recall it- much more than my parents ever did.

My parent’s house was in Temple Terrace, a new post World War neighborhood of shiny new ranch houses, but I was far happier in Granny’s little house in the Mill Village.  Before my sister was born, my Mother would drop me off there almost every day whether it was when she was working or because she had other things to do.

My Mother strictly forbade me from playing with the Mill Children.  She considered them social inferiors-even though she was only barely first generation out.  My Grandmother completely ignored her and I met some fascinating people there that I still love and respect to this day.  Even if some of them no longer speak to me…

The people in the Mill Village were definitely different.  Most of them were Pentecostal Holiness or some similar fundamentalist religion.  That means they wore plain, home-made clothes, no jewelry or makeup, didn’t drink and couldn’t go to movies.  All of this was absolutely foreign to me.  Nothing like my Mother and her friends or the folks in Temple Terrace.

These people never could explain to me why they could watch movies on TV but not at the theatre.  That’s when I first realized a lot of things about religion just didn’t make sense.

The plain, humble Pentecostal Holiness woman next door could sew beautifully.  Using scarps from the Mill, she made clothes for Barbie dolls that were simply amazing.  Strapless Silk cocktail dresses.  Skirts with matching capes in polka dots and red velvet trim- perfect for traveling into New York on the train for a day in the City.  Silk Barbie Bedclothes.  Slinky black velvet evening dresses.  Things she and her family could never wear, she made for those dolls and loved to see us play with them.  Even if I was a boy…I think she was watching those movies on TV…

Granny loved the Jackson 5- especially the “Shake it, Shake it, Baby” part of, I think it was. “ABC”.  She had some moves…

Later on, she would come to our house to cook dinner and stay to be there when we got home from school.  She made my Father pay her.  She said that it wasn’t her fault my Mother couldn’t keep a maid, so if she was going to be the substitute, she wanted the salary.  She wasn’t going to put up with my Mother for free.  And she expected to be picked up and taken home everyday.  No bus for her.

I’ll never forget Granny was staying at our house in Temple Terrace with my Sister and I when we were young while my parents were in Miami at a convention.  A tornado came through and my Grandmother stood in the living room and held the windows shut.  By sheer willpower, I think.  When my Mother called and she told her about it, all my Mother wanted to know was if the rain had gotten in and damaged her new custom-made drapes.  Granny had to remind her she and her children were there also.

As time went on, my Mother decided I was a bad influence on my Grandmother.  Especially during my teen years.  The first time my Grandmother said: “Listen, Bitch…” to my Mother, Lou somehow knew it was my fault.  Later, my Mother tried to make me stop going to the Liquor store for Granny as she said no 80-year-old woman needed that much bourbon for hot toddies for alleged sore throats and chest colds in the middle of the summer.

Granny practically ran a boarding house.  Someone in the family was always getting into a fight with someone else and packing up and moving to her house for a while.  I did it.  My Sister did it. She thought it was no big deal.  She already had Crazy Wiseman there, so she enjoyed a little less difficult company who would play cards, checkers and backgammon with her.

As long as you didn’t interrupt her soaps.  She seemed to think they were real people and the world stopped when they were on.

When our dog had puppies, I made her take one.  She cooked meals for that dog and, regardless of the weather, and walked them down to the dog house twice a day.

Eventually, she started to fail and had to go into the hospital, when she was 83, with congestive heart failure.  This was also around the time of my senior year in college.

It was right before Christmas and she seemed to rally.  My Mother, Lou,  showed up at the hospital with a miniature, lighted Christmas tree and she and Granny had one of their final scenes.

My Mother was bursting with Christmas Cheer and using her phony, cheery, patronizing voice when she asked my Grandmother: “Moma, how are we feeling today?”

My Grandmother’s response was priceless:  “Lou, how the hell do you think I feel?  Stuck here in this hospital with people poking at me and waking me up at strange times.  Not letting me get ready for Christmas.  Eating this mess they call food…It’s a good thing you were pretty, because you were never my smartest child.  Now get me back to my house!”

Instead, my Mother told Granny she had to come live with her.  She put this woman, from the hills of West Virginia, in my sister’s bedroom.  White and gold French Provincial furniture with dotted swiss pink bedspreads, pillows and canopy.  I’ve only seen one other person look so horrified when they first saw that room and that was my Sister.  God, it was awful.  Too Sandra Dee for words.  After my Father died, my Mother took it for herself…

My Mother went back to work and I stayed with Granny that afternoon.  She gave me a two dollar bill and told me to keep it as it might be valuable one day.  I still have it.  It is.

Then she asked me to go get her some Butter Milk at the Winn Dixie.

I was gone about 15 minutes.  When I got back, she was dead.  I think she just decided if she was going to be forced to sleep on Princess bed in my Mother’s house, it was time to just move on the only way she could.  Quietly and peacefully and with grace.  She was just ready to go…

Everyone in the family told me how sad they were I found her.  I never was.  It just seemed right that I was the one to find her and have that last, special moment with a woman I loved so much.

A woman who taught me so much.  A nurturing woman who did not judge.  She just loved and lived fully and completely in her own time and place.  She was comfortable in her skin and with who she was.  She never tried or wanted to be anything other than who and what she was…

I might be much better educated, better dressed, better traveled and a little classier, but I’m still my Granny’s boy.  I always will be.  See, she’s the one who really knew how to act like a Mother.  She’s the one I always ran to with my troubles.  She’s the one who supported me and told me I was smart and would do okay.

And my own Mother hated it all so much because my Grandmother gave me what she couldn’t.  It’s a wound that will never heal for her…

That’s how my Mother became “Lou” when I speak of her and to her.  Not Mother.  It just wasn’t her role and I never thought of her that way…And she knows it, or knew it and we could never fix it.

But that is life.  We have to be who we are and be okay with both our strengths and successes and our weaknesses and failures.  You have to take life as it comes and make the most of it while it’s happening.  I learned that from Granny.

I was lucky to have Granny and, in very different ways, lucky to have Lou.  And Goldie.

Two of the three were complicated women who didn’t get to play the roles they thought they should play in life.

Only my Granny played the role she was born to play.  And was happy to play it…

As a post script:  I actually just made a new discovery relating to Granny and the family.  While writing this, I Googled Granny’s maiden name to double-check the spelling and it is of Spanish derivation.  We never heard of any Spanish influence in the family, but when I had my family history DNA done at National Geographic a couple of years ago, it showed a strain of the family had come from Spain.  That was a mystery.  Now I know where it came from…and it raises more questions…

I also found that her maiden name means “mistletoe.”

It seems appropriate that she was named for a plant people stand under and kiss…

That got your attention, didn’t it?  I know I’m not the type of person one normally expects to be traveling the country with an exotic dancer, but that’s what I love about travel.  It breaks us out of our bubbles.

And we all live in bubbles, whether we realize it or not.

I like to think that I live in a rather large and diverse bubble, but I know it’s still a bubble.  That was clear when I went to Danville for Christmas with the relatives.  Not a lot of Republicans are in my bubble, but the older relatives don’t have many  people like me in their bubble!

While traveling on business recently, I was delayed on the tarmac in Charlotte.  While we were waiting, the young lady next to me started talking to me.  She explained that she was heading home to Fort Lauderdale from visiting her family for the holidays.  She had been in some town in South Carolina, whose name I can’t recall.  I just remember thinking it sounded even worse than Danville.

She explained that she had been a secretary for a construction company in Fort Lauderdale until the recession hit.  Gradually her hours and days were cut back.  She had started dancing to make ends meet.  It reminded me of the 1930′s movie of “42nd Street” where it was clear if the chorus girls didn’t get a part in a show soon, their careers would be taking on a less honorable turn.  I don’t even know if “exotic dancer” is the correct terminology for her job, but “go go girl” seems rather dated.

I’m not being facetious when I call her a young lady.  She was a lady.  She was well spoken and had excellent manners.  Over disclosure just seems to be something the younger generation does-the Jerry Springer generation has a much different sense of privacy than mine has.  Or had.

She said she enjoyed dancing, so it seemed to make sense for this time and place in her life.  She said she would not have considered it if she had kids, but she was on her own.  She did what she had to do to get by.  She wasn’t proud of it and she wasn’t ashamed of it.  It was just her life.

She was very much like the people in my bubble-except for her career.  We talked about London.  She had spent some time there and had been impressed by the politeness of the people and the sense of history.

I heard her talk to her mother on her cell and it was the kind of conversations everyone has with their relatives on the way home after the holidays.  Thanks for the gifts, etc.  She was holding on to a battered stuffed animal I’m betting she had had since she was a child.

I’ve been thinking about our conversation for several days.  I don’t think I’ll ever be flip about exotic dancers again.  I’ve now met one and had a peak into her life.  She is not an idea or a cliché, she’s a very real person.  I know her motivations and, frankly, I found her admirable in that she is independent and a survivor.  It made me realize that we can’t judge people as casually as we sometimes do.  We shouldn’t let career choices define people.  We can’t put them into boxes- or bubbles.

We are all on the same journey through life.  We take different paths, but we are all people trying to find happiness and security-and hopefully learn a little along the way.  I know I will try not to be as quick to judge in the future.  Unless you are a Republican…

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Note:  This is a repost from my other blog,  www.lostinthe21stcentury.com, from back in January.  I’m consolidating my writing on this blog and will be transferring some older stuff over here…)

As I said before, my Mother really could not- or would not- cook.

She always blamed my Grandmother.  She said she never bothered to teach her.  Or she blamed my Aunt Goldie, who she said stopped my Grandmother from teaching her because she was too little and fragile.

Both my Grandmother and my Aunt Goldie were wonderful cooks.  My Grandmother’s kitchen was about the size of a walk in closet, but she could turn out delicious Holiday meals, made from scratch, for a dozen people without seeming to make much effort.  She cooked 3 meals a day until the day she died.

Goldie lived for “Southern Living Magazine” and sometimes seemed to try every recipe in every issue.

My Mother would call from work and ask if we wanted anything from the Drive Thru on her way home…

When she did try to cook, it was a disaster.  The kitchen cabinets in her house still show smoke and flame damage.  The Fire Department had to be called at least 3 times because she  put something on the stove, on high, and got distracted.  She destroyed 3 ovens.

As I said before, one of our maids took pity on her once and tried to teach her to make one simple dish for Sundays.  It was Baked Chicken with Lipton Onion Soup.  However, instead of dissolving the powdered onion soup or sprinkling it on the chicken, she would just dump the envelope on it in a clump and put it in the oven on 450 degrees.

She was making blackened chicken before it became fashionable.

To accompany this culinary sensation, she would make French’s Instant Mashed Potatoes-so runny they looked like gravy- and heat up a can of peas or green beans.

We ate out a lot….

One year, right after my Father died, she decided to cook Thanksgiving Dinner for the first time in her life for me, my Father’s Great Aunt Mary and herself.

She was sucking up to the widowed, childless Great Aunt Mary in hopes of inheriting her property…

Thanksgiving Day, she pulled a 20 lb Turkey out of the freezer, threw it in a pan and stuck it in the oven.  She then made her famous instant mashed potatoes and some Stove Top Stuffing.  She also make some oyster dressing which, to give credit where it is due, was wonderful.  I still can’t duplicate it….

Of course, when we cut into the Turkey, it was raw and frozen in the middle.  Aunt Mary suggested my Mother give it to the dogs- if they would eat it.  Luckily, Mother had a frozen Banquet Turkey Roll in the freezer, which she thought was a perfect solution.

I’m not really sure why she even tried these things…

She did learn to make Baked Beans to take to Church Pot Luck Dinners.  She would put them in the back floor boards of her car to be sure they didn’t spill.  They never did.

But twice-twice- she forgot to close the back doors on her car and pulled out of the carport bending the car doors backwards against the columns on the side of the carport.

Maybe she started the dementia thing earlier than we realized….

About 10 years ago, I got to town and was the first person at her house for Christmas Dinner.  We hoped she was planning to pick it up at the Winn Dixie Deli, but she had sworn she was going to cook it.

However, when I got there, she said there wasn’t any dinner.  She said she had so much to do, she had just not gotten around to fixing it.  And about 10 people were coming in a half hour expecting Christmas Dinner.  Luckily, my sister had food and we all just moved the festivities to her house.

My Mother was no longer allowed to do Holiday Dinners after that…

In the South, when someone dies, you have to take food to the family.  She easily solved this problem.  She either went to Mary’s Dinner and bought some fried chicken and put it in her own bowl and claimed to have made it or she made her Funeral Pies.

Her Funeral Pies were either German Chocolate or Lemon Chess pies from simple recipes that each made three pies.  Using frozen pie shells, she could churn them out in no time flat.  If she didn’t burn them, all was clear.  We never told anyone she used the same bottles of Vanilla and Lemon Flavoring for about 10 years…

I can cook pretty well.  My theory is if you can read, you can cook.  I don’t have much time, but I do enjoy it when I can.  I have never, so far,  served a frozen Turkey at Thanksgiving or given anyone food poisoning.  I’ve always had food for our guests at Christmas.

But, I have had my share of kitchen accidents.

Once, when I was living in Danville in my late Grandmother’s house, I cut my hand pretty badly making guacamole.  For some, unknown reason, I called my Mother to come over to see if I needed stitches and to bring me some band aids, as I was out.

She showed up two hours later with a box of Kotex Maxi Pads and a roll of Duct Tape.

Of course, by then I had handled the situation myself…

I also have my own version of Funeral Pies.

One year, I went on the quest for the perfect Chocolate Chess Pie.  I found a great, easy recipe that I use all the time.  With frozen pie shells.

Everyone loves it.

As proof, I’ll share it below:

Chocolate Chess Pies

3 one oz squares unsweetened chocolate

1 Stick Butter (I use Salted)

2 Cups Sugar

4 Whole Eggs

1 Teaspoon Vanilla

1 Small Can Evaporated Milk (5 oz)

2  Nine Inch Regular Pie Shells

Preheat oven to 350 Degrees.  Melt together Chocolate and Butter.  In a small bowl, beat together the eggs, sugar and vanilla extract.  Pour egg mixture into the melted chocolate and butter mixture. Add the evaporated milk and stir until well blended.  Pour into the unbaked pie shells.

Bake for 25 minutes, then turn the oven down to 200 degrees and bake for 10 more minutes.  Yields 2 pies or 16 servings.

These are even better if nobody died….

Back in the 1980’s, I was aware a cultural tsunami was occurring.  There were signs every where, but mainly hanging in the back of  these new fangled things called “mini-vans” that really frightened me.

These signs said:  “Baby on Board”.  They were innocuous triangular-shaped signs, but I just knew they meant big trouble in the future.

First of all, I didn’t understand “mini vans.”  I grew up with station wagons. We had one when I was growing up.  Briefly.  Until Daddy had too many beers at Earl’s and flipped it on the way home during an ice storm one night.

He said it was all for the best.  Too many people wanted him to drag crap around for them, so he was happy to go back to big Ford LTD sedan.

He made this plywood bed thing in the back of the big Ford for my sister and I to sleep in when they went to the Drive In to watch Doris Day movies or to drive to Florida for our Summer vacation.  There were no seat belts then….and it made fighting for territory more difficult, but he was immensely proud of it.  They didn’t really worry about us bouncing around the car like popcorn kernels if we had a wreck or they slammed on brakes.

But, I digress….Back to the 1980’s.

I just knew those vans and those signs meant trouble was coming in the future.  It just seemed to me those signs gave an unearned sense of importance to those “babies” and those vans made their lives too safe and comfortable.

I really feared for the future.

I just knew those kids were going to grow up too protected and self-absorbed.  All my friends were entirely too focused on their children and their worlds revolved around them.

I just knew it all would lead to the decline of the American Empire.

When I was growing up in the South in the late 1950’s to late 1960’s, our parents more or less let us fend for ourselves.  They didn’t want to be bothered too much.  They firmly believed children were to “be seen and not heard”.  And seen as little as possible.

They pushed us out of the nest and hoped we would fly.  If not, between valium and bourbon, I’m not sure they really noticed.  We were on our own and most of us made it.  Mostly the stronger for the experience.

I do remember my Mother having her nose in “Doctor Spock’s Baby Book” constantly once my sister was born.  Every sentence she said seemed to begin with “Dr Spock says…”.

Until my Father had a gutful of Dr Spock.  One day, he grabbed the book from my Mother’s hands and said:  “Dr Spock is a Communist.  I don’t want you raising my children to be Reds.”  Then he threw the book in the diaper pail and walked out…

For those that don’t know, Diaper Pails were where one put soiled cotton diapers until the Maid came or the Diaper Service picked them up.  Once White People had to wash their own children’s diapers, Pampers Disposable Diapers miraculously appeared…

And my generation was raised on “formula”.  The idea of breast-feeding was too tacky for words.  That might have interfered with our paren’ts Social Lives.  Breast pumps were far in the future and way too much trouble.  I’m sure my Mother barely let my Father touch her- and then only if it was time to germinate a scheduled baby or if she wanted new furniture or a special coat from Rippes.  Why let some baby suckle at her teat who could not afford new French Provincial or faux Chanel?  What a silly thought…

But we survived.  And we learned not to take our parents too seriously.

We all loved our teenage rebellions and finding our own freedom and selves.  We all, as Carly Simon said, “hated our parents for the things they’re not” while they “hated themselves for what they are.”

I knew the “Babies on Board” generation would not be like us.  My friends actually planned their lives around breast-feeding schedules.  The kids actually liked their parents.

God, it was frightening…

These “Babies on Board” would not face the challenges we faced.  Nor would they understand taking chances- and that the world was not a safe place.  They would never learn how to “play the odds.”

Instead, they were raised in a cocoon of false safety.  They thought they were the center of the universe.  They grew up averse to risk taking.  Their parents were their “friends”.

They were rewarded for coming in 9th place and never taught to fight to be number 1.

They became the infamous SJI’s– Slack Jawed Idiots- I joke about.  People whose jaws dropped in amazement and confusion at challenges and surprises.

Their first reaction was always to run back to Mommie and consult, not to try to find their own solutions.  Not to take chances.  Not to think critically and solve the problems.

They became a passive generation….

But I haven’t given up all hope.

They are also more collective than we were and more aware of the needs and challenges of others.  They are more socially liberal.  They have a sense of social justice.

If we can teach them to vote, they may actually make the world a better place.

By being so sheltered, their fear makes them recognize the challenges of others.  They are sensitive to others.  They think we all need to work it out together.

Maybe those “Babies on Board” will yet turn out to be wise enough, in a new way, to make the world a better place.

We haven’t done such a great job…

Since I’ve told the beginning and the most recent part of this journey, I guess I need to go back and pick up the middle part that I skipped over.

There is a reason I skipped this part.  I think of the years I’m going to speak of now as the “Lost Years.”  These are the years when I was getting my act together so I could take it on the road and end up happily where I am now.

So, if I’m going to tell the whole story, I need to go back and pick these up…

I had never planned to go back to Danville after I left for College, but that’s not the way it turned out.  I ended up back there for a few years in my 20’s and they were not good years.

My first 3 years away at W&L were wonderful.  I met some great people and had a wonderful time.  Some of the best years of my life.

But my Senior Year, things kind of came apart at the seams.  First, I was struggling with being Gay and how that would affect my life.  Then my father’s cancer returned and he was dying.  It all got to be a bit much, so I left W&L and went back to Danville for about 5 years.

That is the one thing in my life I would choose to do over…

Almost all of my friends at W&L and Sweet Briar were a year ahead of me and were gone by my Senior year.  My fraternity “brothers” seemed to pick up something was different and a little pack of them went after me.  I had seen it happen before, to a good friend of mine, so I knew they were not going to let up.  They were sharks who smelled blood in the water.  Being different was not something that was well tolerated at W&L back then…

So I went back to Danville.  Talk about out of the frying pan and into the fire…

Danville was a great place to grow up.  It’s probably still a good place to live if you are straight, white, upper middle class, have family there and don’t expect too much intellectual or cultural stimulation.  But it’s also a place with a lot of rules.

The first one is that you live and die by “what will the neighbors think.”  The second one, related to the first, is that you must keep up appearances and not deviate from what every one else thinks.

I never really gave a damn what the neighbors thought.  And being Gay was definitely being different.  You can’t truly come to terms with being Gay and keep up appearances.

I was in just about the worst place one could be, at least north of Mississippi.

I was also working in banking and they were wrapped really tightly.  I’ll never forget being told by my VP that I needed to join the Sertoma Club.  I looked at him like he had lost his mind.  That was not the type of Club I was interested in…

So, after my Father died, I started plotting my exit strategy.  The first step was to go back to W&L and finish what I started.   To quote Maggie the Cat, “the charm of the defeated was not mine.”  I went back to W&L in 1986, not knowing anyone, and finished my degree.  It wasn’t any fun, but I made amazingly good grades since I had no social life.

Then I went back to Danville to figure out the next part of the exit strategy.

To say my Mother was not supportive is the understatement of the decade.

When I told her I was Gay, she was furious.  She seemed to think I was doing it just to piss her off and make her look bad in front of her friends.  It was always about her, first…

Then she said I wouldn’t be able to get a good job…that was true in Danville, but that was not where I planned to be…

Then, when the first two attempts to shove me back in the closet didn’t work, she moved on to the religious stuff, .  She actually chased me around the house one night with a Bible screaming quotes from Leviticus.  I finally just poured a drink and told her when she gave up her jewelry and shrimp cocktails, to get back to me on that.

Luckily, I never took my Mother seriously anyway.  I was always much closer to my Grandmother and my Aunt, so she was mainly a minor annoyance.

But, as much as she hated the “Gay Thing”, she wouldn’t give me the cash to leave town.  And I had spent all my money going back to W&L.  So, it was back to the Bank, but I knew it was temporary.

These were the couple of years where I felt like I was trapped in a bad road company production of “The Glass Menagerie.”  I was dealing with a crazy, faded Southern Belle who wanted to manipulate me into staying in town to do her bidding.  I was playing Tom to her Amanda.  And I was never a good actor.

It took some time, but with a little help from a friend, I got out again.  For good, this time.

I had done some volunteer work on a political campaign and one of my friends landed a paying gig with a Senate race in Vermont.  She called to say she had talked them into hiring me also.

My choice was Danville, with the Sertoma Club and my Mother terrorizing me or running off to Vermont and taking a chance.  I packed really quickly…

I ended up working in Politics on Campaigns, doing fundraising and press, in different places for a couple of years.  I had planned to eventually settle in DC, but one of my other  “friends” sabotaged that by putting out the word I was Gay and black balling me with our mutual connections.

That turned out to be fine, too.  It was all for the best in the long run.

I ended up in Greensboro.  With a large, diverse corporation where it did not matter in the least that I was Gay.  I worked my way up the ladder.  I met Steve at an Art Auction fundraiser.  We eventually moved in together, within 6 months of our first date, and have been happily together almost 14 years.

It all got so much better…

And it was all because I was Gay.

I truly think being Gay was the best gift I could have been given.  It was hard to see that years ago in Danville and at W&L, but it was…

Being Gay made me think.  It made me question everything.  It made me walk away from an identity that was created for me and instead take the journey to find myself.  It opened up my mind in ways I doubt it would ever have been opened if I had been a Straight Boy in Danville, Virginia or at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia.

Being Gay made me see the world from an entirely different perspective.  I am so grateful for that….

Over the years since I left Danville, I’ve traveled the world.  I’ve met and worked with people from many different countries and cultures.  I’ve found we all have  commonalities as people.  I learned that we really all have much more in common than it may appear at first sight.  I learned to get past judging at first sight.  I broadened my mind and my horizons in ways that would never have happened if I had settled for the life I was raised to live in Danville, Virginia.

Washington and Lee University was another great gift.  It was the precarious first step out.  Until a couple of years ago, I had put my college years in a box and sealed them up.  They were somewhere in the back of my mental closet for around 20 years.

That last, bad year in Lexington and those hard few months I had going back to W&L to finish my degree made me forget the first three wonderful years.  I’m so glad I’ve got those good memories back again and have those good friends, from those early days, back in my life again.  I have my good friend Carolyn to thank for that.  She was the missing piece to the puzzle.  I also have so many other W&L friends I’ve met along the way due to our common connection to the University.  This was and is an integral part of my life for which I am most grateful.

I can even almost go back to Danville now without too much anger.  Almost…

The great thing about growing older is what we learn and appreciate what we’ve learned.

I’ve learned that all the bad times are temporary.  I just wish all the Gay kids who don’t see that could learn it sooner than I did.  I wish they could learn to feel good about themselves and who they are sooner than I did.  I wish they could get their act together sooner than I did.

But I made it.  And if those kids would just stick it out, they would, too.

I’ve told this story in it’s completion.  So far.  I’ll move on to other subjects on this blog.

But the journey never ends as long as we are alive.  Living and learning with an open mind is, to me, the secret for all of us.  I’m so glad to see more and more people reaching the same conclusion.

I’m convinced:  It will all just keep getting better…