Dangerous Nonsense

Note from James: After you read this, check out my friend Jay Spears' new video of his song, "Smak Dem Christians Down":

http://www.jayspears.com/mike.shtml

I had hoped the New Year in Kentucky, with a new gubernatorial administration that has to be an improvement over that of the discredited Gov. Ernie Fletcher (Hell's Bells! An administration headed by my mental-case dog, Stoney, would be an improvement!), would start out in an encouraging manner for those of us who believe in equality for everyone regardless of sexual orientation.

Alas, that is not to be. Just as Gov. Steve Beshear and Lt. Gov. Dan Mongiardo were sworn in and starting to look around their respective offices, members of their own Democratic party were filing legislation to prevent state universities from offering health care benefits to employees involved in domestic partnerships.

I had hoped that the year 2008 might be a year where those of us who believe in gender and sexual orientation equity would be able to take some steps forward in adding on to rights already achieved --- things like hate crime protection, access to marriage/civil union rights, adoption, automatic rights of inheritance --- instead of having to backtrack and re-fight battles already won.

It is a disappointment, in the midst of much good will circulating across the Commonwealth of Kentucky at the beginning of a new gubernatorial administration, that some old, tired and discredited issues of bigotry are still being raised.

In Kentucky, homophobia is old, bad news --- and a policy that was soundly discredited by voters in the fall of 2007, with the rejection of Republican Gov. Ernie Fletcher's attempt to obtain a second term in office through the use of anti-gay campaign rhetoric. It also was discredited by the sound trouncing of his fellow Republican, Stan Lee --- whose radical anti-gay policy proposals contributed to his defeat in the race for state attorney general.

Those who pander to bigotry are not in step with the mainstream of Kentuckians who voted for moderation and progress. It is disappointing that apparently a few legislators --- led by Democratic Reps. Ancel Smith and Richard Henderson --- do not understand that Kentucky has always been --- and still is --- a place where all people should be welcome to live in harmony.

It is clear that Smith and Henderson, in bringing up a previously defeated proposal to block public universities in Kentucky from extending health benefits to unmarried, live-in partners of the institutions' employees, acted without the sanction of their own party. This has caused an embarrassing situation not only for party leaders, but for Democratic leaders and other party members within the Beshear administration and the Kentucky General Assembly, all of whom owe a debt to the many voters who believe in non-discrimination policies and inclusiveness.

Smith and Henderson both claim they were pressured by constituents to reintroduce the legislation, which would block universities that receive public funding from offering such domestic partnership benefits. Henderson, specifically, was quoted in the Lexington Herald-Leader as saying he received between "1,200 and 1,500 calls" from his constituents urging him to take the action. This would suggest that the people of Montgomery, Powell and Wolfe counties are obsessed with denying partner benefits at a rate far beyond the people of the rest of the Commonwealth, because other legislators have not reported their telephones being overwhelmed in such a manner.

Likewise, it would seem odd that the most pressing issue that Smith, whose districts include Knott, Magoffin and part of Letcher counties --- communities where health care, education, and employment would seem like more urgent concerns --- has to do with micromanaging state universities' employee health care policies.

Regardless of whether the anti-gay lobbyists --- and make no mistake about it, the objection to the domestic partner benefits is based on homophobia, despite the fact that the policies cover opposite-sex partners as well as same-sex partners --- are large in actual numbers or only in a freshman legislator's exaggerated rhetoric, the matter is an issue of what is the best policy, in terms of fairness and good business, for the state universities of Kentucky and for the commonwealth as a whole.

Trustees at several Kentucky institutions, led by the University of Kentucky and the University of Louisville, have approved offering health care to domestic partners of unmarried employees as a matter of good business. The policy makes the universities more competitive with other top universities nationwide, because it opens the pool of potential employees and appeals to the increasing number of private employers --- who can be drawn upon for financial support and to provide cooperative educational opportunities and investment with the universities --- who already extend health care benefits to live-in partners of workers, regardless of sexual orientation.

In other words, the universities' policies are good business for a state that is on the precipice of a new era of economic progress after four failed years of an administration that collapsed under its own prejudices and lack of vision.

In Governor Beshear's inaugural address, he called Kentucky "America's Next Frontier" and described his vision for the Commonwealth as being "a frontier that attracts entrepreneurs, tourists, retirees." Beshear also quoted one of the state's most illustrious native sons, Abraham Lincoln, who said, "We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection." Beshear also urged the state to "put the interests of all Kentuckians ahead of the interests of political parties, individuals and special interests."

Along these same lines, the matter of inclusion is a moral and ethical issue. Moral, because all great religions preach that love and tolerance should trump all other rules for living. Ethical, because this country --- and the states that make it up --- was based on the premise that all people are created equal.

If our government creates policies that benefit its public employees, it should do so for all the employees, without discrimination based on race, gender, ethnicity, religion, disability, and yes, sexual orientation.

It would seem that Reps. Smith and Henderson, by pandering to whoever the group of noisy, homophobic voices in their districts allegedly are, did not get an advance copy of Beshear's inaugural address or if they did, they did not read it. The policies of the Beshear-Mongiardo administration, as the governor and lieutenant governor have indicated in past public statements, are not about exclusion, but inclusion.

Earlier this summer, Governor Beshear, said he would veto any legislation that attempts to tinker with the established policies of health care inclusion at state institutions. People who care about gay rights should urge the governor to stand his ground and also urge House Speaker Jody Richards and Democratic Caucus Chairman Rep. Charlie Hoffman to use their influence and powers to nip this dangerous nonsense, which is based in political pandering to homophobia, in the bud.

We also should ask Governor Beshear's Labor Secretary-designate, Rep. J.R. Gray, to withdraw his co-sponsorship of the legislation, and make the same request of the other co-sponsors.
For my part --- and I hope those others who live in Bell County will do this as well --- I intend to ask my district's representative, Rick Nelson, another Democrat, to withdraw his name as well.

If these representatives --- and the other Democrats and Republicans who co-sponsored this legislation, which has its roots soaked in bigotry --- will not withdraw their sponsorship, then the people of their districts should look for gay-supportive candidates from either party to replace them.

This is not an issue with which the Kentucky General Assembly should concern itself at the beginning of what could be a bright, encouraging and inclusive future for the Commonwealth, or at anytime.

Our elected officials should be working on legislation that improves health care access for all Kentuckians and not taking a discriminatory stand against one group of people.

More Than I Can Chew?

This is a big step on my part --- actually writing down my goals, resolutions, pipe dreams, whatever.
It's a big step because every time I return to this entry, I will be reminding myself of where I was on this date and what I wanted to do with my life at this time. Ten years from now, some of these things may seem irrelevant or even silly. They may be disappointing. Heck, ten years from now, I may not even still be writing or using this site.
I do believe in the power of resolve, however. I think making lists helps keep one focused --- I love Martin Luther King's phrase, "Keep your eyes on the prize." So here goes:
(1) I want to get myself financially solvent. I spent the 1990s accumulating debts and now have the lousiest credit rating this side of Haiti. My husband/partner/spouse/whatever, Robert, could have his picture taken and put next to the phrase "books in order." So could my mother. I want to be like them and know what I own and how much I'm worth.
(2) I want to move my belongings accumulated during my 25 years of marriage to Joy Hartman out of the storage building they're at in Ashland, Ohio, throw away what is no longer relevant or useful and merge the rest into my life with Robert.
(3) I want my son, Jonathan, to continue college and eventually move into his own place. I want him to build his own circle of friends and fully enjoy what is life is meant to be.
(4) I want to finish my own college degree that I started back in 1976.
(5) I want to keep up the writing goals that I've set for myself: Blogs, short stories, long fiction, drama, correspondence.
(6) I want to make myself healthier: Eat better, lower my blood sugar, keep my legs strong, stay alive. I would dearly love to have buns of steel, a gut like a surfboard, and arms like a stevedore and be able to walk through a crowd of straight men and have them all turn gay at the very site of my beauty, but I will settle for healthy.
(7) I want to read the books I own and hold off, as much as I can, on buying new ones until I can make room for them.
(8) I want to form a local chapter of Parents, Friends and Families of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG).
(9) I want to work toward gay-friendly candidates being elected to all public offices, including the White House.
(10) I want my relationship with Robert to continue to grow, so that every anniversary, every holiday, every day that we spend together will be the best one yet.
Gulp. More than I can chew? I hope not. We'll see.

"Don't Look, Ethel!"

First of all, as I set out to write this, I would like to say that as far as I'm concerned, I AM married.

Robert Samuel Cox became my first and only husband (and third spouse) the day I moved in with him under his roof on June 13, 2006. That day will always be our official anniversary as long as we live, and no matter how many times we make it "legal," in however many different states and countries during our lifetime together, which I hopes lasts at least until he is 103 and I am 107 (start saving now for our golden anniversary party, folks).

I am fond of saying that I don't need to go through any church ceremonies to bless Robert's and my relationship. Every morning that we wake up together in each other's arms, we know that God has blessed us and approves of our love. It's as simple as that. We know, and God knows, that we are meant to be together and that the first halves of our separate lives were simply an overture to a great love story between two men who make each other complete.

Of course, what we know and what God knows isn't shared knowledge. There are people out there --- family members, strangers, politicians and preachers --- who think they know how we and other gay and lesbian people should live our lives. As of this writing, they have won most of the battles and have done their best to second-guess us and God by passing laws that prevent us from qualifying for marriage under American law and refusing to approve laws that allow us to have the same legal status as our heterosexual counterparts.

If it were just a matter of having people disapprove of our "lifestyle" --- a word used as a purposeful insult by that unattractive old right-wing religious zealot, Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family, and other unfocused fools --- we wouldn't give a darn, a damn, or a diddly-squat about human marriage laws. Our LIVES --- the heartbeats that keep us going and grow stronger with love for each other every day --- are not a fashion statement, a style, a choice (although at this point, if I COULD choose my sexual orientation, I see no reason to choose to be anything but what makes me the happy person I have become). It is just rude (and un-Christian) for Dobson and other dingleberries of his ilk to call it anything else.

But because American laws have been perverted by bigotry from allowing Robert and me automatic rights to inherit each other's estates, name each other as insurance beneficiaries, visit each other in hospitals and be considered a family, I have to support the issue of gay marriage. Which is why I urge everyone reading this to observe National Freedom to Marry Day in whatever supportive way they can.

National Freedom to Marry Day is a non-official United States holiday held annually on Feb. 12 to promote same-sex marriage. The holiday was founded in 1999 by Lambda Legal, a gay rights advocacy law firm based out of Washington, DC.

The most notable National Freedom to Marry Day was February 12, 2004 when, following a directive from San Francisco, California mayor Gavin Newsom to his county clerk, the City and County of San Francisco began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. On February 10, Newsom had asked the clerk's office to make the changes on the "forms and documents used to apply for and issue marriage licenses…in order to provide [them] on a non–discriminatory basis."

It is my opinion that the states' involvement in the use of the word "marriage" as a description for the legal act of two people being given the right to live together constitutes a violation of the Constitutional separation of church and state. "Marriage" should be a word restricted to church use --- a description of the ceremony used by many different kinds of religions to unite two people together in the eyes of whatever deity is being worshipped. "Civil union" or "domestic partnership" is a neutral legal term that correctly describes what happens when the state gets involved in recognizing the decision of two people who live together.

The word "marriage" has evolved to have a connotation of religiosity attached to it, and therefore, should be left to churches, synagogues, temples, and other religious bodies to deal with it. The churches SHOULD have the right to marry whom they please. But the state should only prevent those unions that involve non-consenting humans or domestic animals.

I have mixed feelings about whether or not a person should be allowed to enter into such non-religious unions/partnerships with more than one person or with a close family member --- the arguments against such activities all involve the assumption of sexual activity between the people involved, and I feel that government has no business making assumptions about things potentially going on between consenting adults in the privacy of their own homes.

Right now, the discussion is about men forming domestic partnerships with other men and women doing the same with other women. Yes, the prospect of such possibilities offends people who believe that such activities violates their own religious beliefs. But if they don't like it, they don't have to be a part of it. As Ray Stevens said in his song, "The Streak," "Don't look, Ethel!"

Robert and I are living proof that a same-sex relationship between loving adults can be successful, or at least as boring as a heterosexual relationship, in terms of what we reveal to the outside world. We don't discuss what goes on in the privacy of our bedroom and don't ask any of our straight friends about their comparable activities. What we do talk about is our happiness with each other, our concerns (and occasional complaints) that derive from two people sharing space and air on a daily basis, finances, politics, theology, interior decorating, meal menus, each other's health, household chores, our pets, our children and our friends. The order of priorities changes from moment to moment and day by day.

When we disagree, it's usually about something pretty mundane --- Robert says my eating habits are unhealthy and that he has invested too much energy, time and money in me to have me up and die on him and find another husband. I complain that he doesn't talk enough about his feelings and wants to move to the Falkland Islands when we retire. In other words, our agenda is hardly a gay one but very much like every other married couple's --- we want to keep loving each other, be content and find ways of compromising so we don't have to sweat the small stuff.

Why anyone would want to keep two aging and boring people from sharing our wonderful, mundane lives with each other is beyond me. But the fact is, there are people who do.

It's time for the religious right to wake up and realize that their cause, while having savored the victory of a few battles, is basically a losing one. Coming generations of young people already have seen positive images of gay people in the media and will continue to do so as time goes by.

In our own basically conservative community of Middlesboro, Kentucky, most people shrug when they meet or talk about us. Robert and James are those two guys who live together on the edge of town not far from the Cumberland Gap National Historical Park. One of us has taught a couple of generations of Middlesboro's college students, and the other does background checks for gun buyers and occasionally writes for newspapers or the Internet. We go to church, perform in community theater, shop for bargains, donate time and books to the local Literacy Council Book Fair, employ a couple of our neighbors as housekeeper and landscaper, send out Christmas newsletters and occasionally entertain our gay and straight friends at our house (sometimes at the same time). One of our friends is teaching her daughter, in true southern style, to call us "Mr. Robert" and "Mr. James." A few others have invited us to baseball games, straight men's poker nights and bridal showers.

I expect that when Kentucky gets around to approving same-sex unions (it will probably be one of the last, right behind our neighbors, Tennessee and Virginia), Robert and I will have our children or some young, sturdy gay friends wheel us up the steps to the local courthouse and be made "legal." Or, we may head to all of the other states (or countries like Canada, Spain, The Netherlands and Belgium) that have already made some kind of legal arrangements for people like us and go through a ceremony there. Hey, what better way to broaden one's horizons than by getting hitched every place you visit?

Someday, when our increasingly liberal church finally takes the final step and starts performing same-sex marriage ceremonies, we will take the plunge, but it will be as much for the benefit of our friends who want to see us go through the ritual as it will be for us to confirm what we already know about our relationship: We already are married and divinely blessed.

Looking for the Next Chapter: Bert Harder

If he were alive, my maternal grandfather, Herbert Race "Bert" Harder, would observe his 136th birthday on Christmas Eve.

Grandpa, who was the only grandparent I actually knew in my lifetime, was almost 80 years old when I, the last of his 20 grandchildren, was born in 1951. He was born Dec. 24, 1871 in a sod house near Columbus, Kansas --- when Ulysses S. Grant was president. His family relocated to Wilburton, Oklahoma, at some point, and what I remember of his voice had a slightly western twang to it --- the kind that said "Missour-A" instead of "Missour-EE."

Bert Harder was the second oldest of 10 children, seven brothers and three sisters. His father, Hudson Harder, was a Mormon missionary with a practical eye toward converting wealthy farm families all across the United States. When he would come across such a farmer with an eligible son or daughter, he would send word back home to his oldest available child and tell them he found a live one.

When Hudson met southeast Ohio's Fitzpatrick clan in the 1890s, he was taken with the lovely teen-age daughter, Emma, and sent word back to Oklahoma to his oldest son, Hiram, that he should pack his bags and come to Ohio pronto. Hiram wrote back, "Found my own live one, Dad, and I'm married, but Bert's interested."

And that's how my grandparents, Bert and Emma Harder met. They got married in the Fitzpatrick parlor on Dec. 23, 1894, when Hudson, impatient with the progress the giggling young couple made, said, "Why don't you two kids get hitched?"
Emma replied, still giggling, "Well, I reckon we could right now if we wanted to, Mr. Harder."

And Hudson pulled out his bible, read a scripture, declared, "Whom God has joined together, let no man put asunder, and said, "You're married, kids. Gotta go." And he left before Emma had time to close her jaw.

Throughout the rest of her life, Emma Fitzpatrick Harder was known as a woman not much prone to laughter.

Bert and Emma had a successful marriage, if you measure it by the eight kids they had. My mother, Minnie, was number seven, and remembered the later years, when things were not so good. Bert was prone to wanderlust --- he would periodically take off and go off West somewhere to visit one of his brothers and leave Emma at home with the kids to run their 100-acre farm. He would return long enough to get her pregnant and would take off again.

He also wandered into the bedrooms of other men's wives, which had to annoy Emma to no end. Bert Harder was known as a hard-working carpenter, a dreamer, a raconteur (the less-polite term was "whopper-teller"), a Democrat (he served on the local school board which put his kids in the position of having to finish high school; some actually went on to college or business school), and all-around character. He was devastatingly handsome, tall and blue-eyed and by all accounts had a good singing voice. He loved trading guns, horses and dogs and bragged about how many homes he had built in southern Ohio, as if he were a major contractor.

I knew none of this, of course. By the time I came along, Grandma Emma was dead, and had been divorced from Bert since the 1930s, quite a scandal in rural southern Ohio back in those days. Bert had remarried twice, once to another Emma, who divorced him because he wouldn't take a bath, according to the newspaper accounts which embarrassed the family but not enough for my mother not to save the clippings in a volume of her multitudinous scrapbooks. The third wife, Louisa, married and divorced Bert in the summer before I was born. Mother said she left when she found out that Bert did NOT own all of his children's houses, as he told her.

By the time I came into his life, Grandpa would have been homeless except for the generosity of some of his six surviving children, who had worked out a visitation system where Grandpa would spend two months of the year with one child and then move on to the next or else stay for a while with his niece, Avis, out in Batesville, Arkansas. (Avis was a character unto herself, also indulging in recreational matrimonialism--- mostly to members of the Seventh Fleet --- and taking care of her elderly father and his brothers.)

I remember Grandpa as an old man who sat in a chair in the living room, smelling of foul cigars, chewing tobacco and nasty farts. He carried a Mail Pouch can around with him that he would use as a spittoon --- my older sister, Julia, when she would get mad at me would say, "Oh, go look in Grandpa's can, you little brat!" I would dutifully do that, see the old wads of nasty, wet, chewed tobacco and run crying to Mother, "Julia made me look in Grandpa's can!" Mother would then yell at Julia for telling me to do it and at me for being dumb enough to do what she said.

Grandpa had lost his good looks by the time I knew him. He was just old, old, old. Part of this was due to the natural aging process. Part of it was due to his old vanity. In his 70s, when he was working in a defense plant, a nail flew into his eye, causing him to lose it. For a while, he had to use an eye patch, but later this was replaced by a very nice glass eye, the same beautiful shade of blue. Mother would periodically gross us out by taking out Grandpa's eye and cleaning it, and for years after his death, would horrify new mothers in the family by dragging out the glass eye, holding it up to the latest newborn and seeing if the child's eyes matched the color of Bert's ("Get that thing away from my baby, Aunt Minnie!" was a common expression around Mother's house.)

Mother and Dad both worked outside of the home and so I was often left in the care of my sister, nine years older than me, which explains a lot of the strange neuroses I've had to overcome in my lifetime. In theory, she and I also were left in the care of Grandpa Harder, who was supposedly a responsible adult, although by the time I was in first grade, I knew that my household reponsibilities included keeping an eye on GRANDPA and not letting him go out and (1) get married; (2) get drunk; (3) buy a gun; (4) annoy the African-American cleaning women; and (5) visit any of the married ladies down the street while their husbands were not at home. He also was not to empty his can in the kitchen sink.

Grandpa, who was good at breeding children, didn't know much about raising them, and so he and I, like a dog and cat who have declared a truce while living under the same roof, kept our distance from each other. Occasionally, he would get interested in me and teach me how to play poker, as he had learned it while growing up in Oklahoma. Unfortunately, the version of the game he knew involved a few illegal moves and eventually, I was forbidden from teaching my friends how to play poker "Grandpa's way" because it made them cry when they would place bets with their Matchbox cars and I would always win.

Speaking of Matchbox cars, one of my favorite games when I would entertain myself was to line up all my miniature vehicles and play "traffic jam." I would place each little car or truck in a long queue extending through the house and then slowly move them forward one by one, just like real rush hour traffic. Of course, a child's attention span is short, and after 30 minutes or so of this, I would move on to something else, like "baptizing" my sister's valuable Madame Alexander dolls in a metal wash tub outside and leaving them floating face down until their painted faces washed away.

Of course, the little cars would stay lined up in the imaginary gridlock I had created and pretty soon, I would hear Grandpa yell, "Goddam it!" and run to the house and find that he had squashed a couple of the cars, like some sort of farty, tobacco-stained Godzilla stomping through my own personal Tokyo.

I would cry about the losses briefly and then take the vehicular casualties off to a pile in the corner and play "Junk Yard," allowing the cars still in the traffic jam to drive by slowly and view the carnage.
Grandpa chewed tobacco from the age of five, and would say, "Yup, chewin' tobacco's probably shortened my life." He said this until his dying day at the age of 94.

When Grandpa turned 90, we all had a birthday party for him. Surrounded by his children and grandchildren, he said, as he inhaled (nearly choking on a wad of tobacco) and blew out the candles, "I'm 90 years old and I haven't got an enemy in the world. I outlived all them sons-a-bitches!" Those of us who observed the flying tobacco spittle declined on sharing his birthday cake.

Grandpa met a woman named Gehlah out in Arkansas on one of his visits with Avis and some quick maneuvering on the part of the family took place when it was discovered that she might have murdered her two previous husbands and that Grandpa had been telling her that he had lots of money and wanted to marry her. He was whisked back to Ohio and Gehlah, a six-foot-two giantess half his age who had been known to wrestle a bull into a truck all by herself, was left back in the Ozarks, apparently with a broken heart. Grandpa was 92 at the time.

My dad once asked Grandpa, "Do you ever miss any of the women you married?" Grandpa picked up a book he had just finished reading --- his favorite was "Leave Her to Heaven" by Ben Ames Williams, for some reason --- and went through the motions of opening it.

"When I'm done with a book, I close it and never open it again," he said, doing just that with the book. And he never spoke of any of his wives (or anyone else's) again.

I guess that's what I remember best about Grandpa --- he was a rascal, but he was always looking to the next chapter, the next book, the next woman, the next adventure. When he broke his hip during a stay at Uncle Worth's house (Grandpa was killing invisible snakes in his bedroom with his cane) and had to be put into a nursing home, he was completely bedridden. But I remember one visit when a nurse, walking by Grandpa's bed, suddenly squeaked and stood upright. She looked at me --- I was reading a comic book --- and turned to my father and said, "You'd better teach that boy to keep his hands to himself!" I kept on reading, oblivious to the adult conversation. But Dad said, "It wasn't the boy, ma'am," and pointed to Grandpa, lying in bed with a twinkle in his good eye and his hand dangling over the side of the bed just about where the nurse's leg had been.

Hope springs eternal. Life is always an adventure and should be lived until the last minute. That was my grandpa, Bert Harder.

Looking for the Next Chapter: Bert Harder

If he were alive, my maternal grandfather, Herbert Race "Bert" Harder, would observe his 136th birthday on Christmas Eve.

Grandpa, who was the only grandparent I actually knew in my lifetime, was almost 80 years old when I, the last of his 20 grandchildren, was born in 1951. He was born Dec. 24, 1871 in a sod house near Columbus, Kansas --- when Ulysses S. Grant was president. His family relocated to Wilburton, Oklahoma, at some point, and what I remember of his voice had a slightly western twang to it --- the kind that said "Missour-A" instead of "Missour-EE."

Bert Harder was the second oldest of 10 children, seven brothers and three sisters. His father, Hudson Harder, was a Mormon missionary with a practical eye toward converting wealthy farm families all across the United States. When he would come across such a farmer with an eligible son or daughter, he would send word back home to his oldest available child and tell them he found a live one.

When Hudson met southeast Ohio's Fitzpatrick clan in the 1890s, he was taken with the lovely teen-age daughter, Emma, and sent word back to Oklahoma to his oldest son, Hiram, that he should pack his bags and come to Ohio pronto. Hiram wrote back, "Found my own live one, Dad, and I'm married, but Bert's interested."

And that's how my grandparents, Bert and Emma Harder met. They got married in the Fitzpatrick parlor on Dec. 23, 1894, when Hudson, impatient with the progress the giggling young couple made, said, "Why don't you two kids get hitched?"
Emma replied, still giggling, "Well, I reckon we could right now if we wanted to, Mr. Harder."

And Hudson pulled out his bible, read a scripture, declared, "Whom God has joined together, let no man put asunder, and said, "You're married, kids. Gotta go." And he left before Emma had time to close her jaw.

Throughout the rest of her life, Emma Fitzpatrick Harder was known as a woman not much prone to laughter.

Bert and Emma had a successful marriage, if you measure it by the eight kids they had. My mother, Minnie, was number seven, and remembered the later years, when things were not so good. Bert was prone to wanderlust --- he would periodically take off and go off West somewhere to visit one of his brothers and leave Emma at home with the kids to run their 100-acre farm. He would return long enough to get her pregnant and would take off again.

He also wandered into the bedrooms of other men's wives, which had to annoy Emma to no end. Bert Harder was known as a hard-working carpenter, a dreamer, a raconteur (the less-polite term was "whopper-teller"), a Democrat (he served on the local school board which put his kids in the position of having to finish high school; some actually went on to college or business school), and all-around character. He was devastatingly handsome, tall and blue-eyed and by all accounts had a good singing voice. He loved trading guns, horses and dogs and bragged about how many homes he had built in southern Ohio, as if he were a major contractor.

I knew none of this, of course. By the time I came along, Grandma Emma was dead, and had been divorced from Bert since the 1930s, quite a scandal in rural southern Ohio back in those days. Bert had remarried twice, once to another Emma, who divorced him because he wouldn't take a bath, according to the newspaper accounts which embarrassed the family but not enough for my mother not to save the clippings in a volume of her multitudinous scrapbooks. The third wife, Louisa, married and divorced Bert in the summer before I was born. Mother said she left when she found out that Bert did NOT own all of his children's houses, as he told her.

By the time I came into his life, Grandpa would have been homeless except for the generosity of some of his six surviving children, who had worked out a visitation system where Grandpa would spend two months of the year with one child and then move on to the next or else stay for a while with his niece, Avis, out in Batesville, Arkansas. (Avis was a character unto herself, also indulging in recreational matrimonialism--- mostly to members of the Seventh Fleet --- and taking care of her elderly father and his brothers.)

I remember Grandpa as an old man who sat in a chair in the living room, smelling of foul cigars, chewing tobacco and nasty farts. He carried a Mail Pouch can around with him that he would use as a spittoon --- my older sister, Julia, when she would get mad at me would say, "Oh, go look in Grandpa's can, you little brat!" I would dutifully do that, see the old wads of nasty, wet, chewed tobacco and run crying to Mother, "Julia made me look in Grandpa's can!" Mother would then yell at Julia for telling me to do it and at me for being dumb enough to do what she said.

Grandpa had lost his good looks by the time I knew him. He was just old, old, old. Part of this was due to the natural aging process. Part of it was due to his old vanity. In his 70s, when he was working in a defense plant, a nail flew into his eye, causing him to lose it. For a while, he had to use an eye patch, but later this was replaced by a very nice glass eye, the same beautiful shade of blue. Mother would periodically gross us out by taking out Grandpa's eye and cleaning it, and for years after his death, would horrify new mothers in the family by dragging out the glass eye, holding it up to the latest newborn and seeing if the child's eyes matched the color of Bert's ("Get that thing away from my baby, Aunt Minnie!" was a common expression around Mother's house.)

Mother and Dad both worked outside of the home and so I was often left in the care of my sister, nine years older than me, which explains a lot of the strange neuroses I've had to overcome in my lifetime. In theory, she and I also were left in the care of Grandpa Harder, who was supposedly a responsible adult, although by the time I was in first grade, I knew that my household reponsibilities included keeping an eye on GRANDPA and not letting him go out and (1) get married; (2) get drunk; (3) buy a gun; (4) annoy the African-American cleaning women; and (5) visit any of the married ladies down the street while their husbands were not at home. He also was not to empty his can in the kitchen sink.

Grandpa, who was good at breeding children, didn't know much about raising them, and so he and I, like a dog and cat who have declared a truce while living under the same roof, kept our distance from each other. Occasionally, he would get interested in me and teach me how to play poker, as he had learned it while growing up in Oklahoma. Unfortunately, the version of the game he knew involved a few illegal moves and eventually, I was forbidden from teaching my friends how to play poker "Grandpa's way" because it made them cry when they would place bets with their Matchbox cars and I would always win.

Speaking of Matchbox cars, one of my favorite games when I would entertain myself was to line up all my miniature vehicles and play "traffic jam." I would place each little car or truck in a long queue extending through the house and then slowly move them forward one by one, just like real rush hour traffic. Of course, a child's attention span is short, and after 30 minutes or so of this, I would move on to something else, like "baptizing" my sister's valuable Madame Alexander dolls in a metal wash tub outside and leaving them floating face down until their painted faces washed away.

Of course, the little cars would stay lined up in the imaginary gridlock I had created and pretty soon, I would hear Grandpa yell, "Goddam it!" and run to the house and find that he had squashed a couple of the cars, like some sort of farty, tobacco-stained Godzilla stomping through my own personal Tokyo.

I would cry about the losses briefly and then take the vehicular casualties off to a pile in the corner and play "Junk Yard," allowing the cars still in the traffic jam to drive by slowly and view the carnage.
Grandpa chewed tobacco from the age of five, and would say, "Yup, chewin' tobacco's probably shortened my life." He said this until his dying day at the age of 94.

When Grandpa turned 90, we all had a birthday party for him. Surrounded by his children and grandchildren, he said, as he inhaled (nearly choking on a wad of tobacco) and blew out the candles, "I'm 90 years old and I haven't got an enemy in the world. I outlived all them sons-a-bitches!" Those of us who observed the flying tobacco spittle declined on sharing his birthday cake.

Grandpa met a woman named Gehlah out in Arkansas on one of his visits with Avis and some quick maneuvering on the part of the family took place when it was discovered that she might have murdered her two previous husbands and that Grandpa had been telling her that he had lots of money and wanted to marry her. He was whisked back to Ohio and Gehlah, a six-foot-two giantess half his age who had been known to wrestle a bull into a truck all by herself, was left back in the Ozarks, apparently with a broken heart. Grandpa was 92 at the time.

My dad once asked Grandpa, "Do you ever miss any of the women you married?" Grandpa picked up a book he had just finished reading --- his favorite was "Leave Her to Heaven" by Ben Ames Williams, for some reason --- and went through the motions of opening it.

"When I'm done with a book, I close it and never open it again," he said, doing just that with the book. And he never spoke of any of his wives (or anyone else's) again.

I guess that's what I remember best about Grandpa --- he was a rascal, but he was always looking to the next chapter, the next book, the next woman, the next adventure. When he broke his hip during a stay at Uncle Worth's house (Grandpa was killing invisible snakes in his bedroom with his cane) and had to be put into a nursing home, he was completely bedridden. But I remember one visit when a nurse, walking by Grandpa's bed, suddenly squeaked and stood upright. She looked at me --- I was reading a comic book --- and turned to my father and said, "You'd better teach that boy to keep his hands to himself!" I kept on reading, oblivious to the adult conversation. But Dad said, "It wasn't the boy, ma'am," and pointed to Grandpa, lying in bed with a twinkle in his good eye and his hand dangling over the side of the bed just about where the nurse's leg had been.

Hope springs eternal. Life is always an adventure and should be lived until the last minute. That was my grandpa, Bert Harder.

The Coming Year: Same Old Same Old

In Florida, where gay marriage is already banned, the Legislature wants to do the other 27 states that ban same-sex marriage one better: They want to put a "no marriage for queers" clause into the state Constitution.

Sigh.

That's what the Sunshine State has to look forward to in the coming year. And it's typical of where the country has been headed under the Deal-with-the- Devil coalition that emerged when the Radical Religious Right cornholed the Conservatives who controlled Congress during the first six years of the George W. Bush era.

First of all, I feel it is important for me at this point to get it off my chest and say, "I told you so." I recall Internet discussions, back during the presidential campaign of 2000, in which otherwise perfectly sane gay and gay supportive people, fed up with the personal piccadellos of Bill Clinton, hinted they were considering voting for Bush over Al Gore, as a way of protesting the corruption of the Clinton administration.

Nowadays, I hear a lot of these same people saying they wish that Gore, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, was elected president back then and that they are seriously considering voting for Bill Clinton's surrogate --- his wife Hillary, who stood by him through his presidency and his infidelity like, well, Tammy Wynette standin' by her man (Sorry, Hill, but you set yourself up for that years ago).

But back to "I told you so ..."

I predicted, in 2000 --- and I come from a long line of political prognosticators; somewhere in the family archives, there is a letter from my maternal great-uncle, Marce Harder, an Ozark journalist, predicting that JFK would defeat Nixon in the 1960 election and then would be assassinated a few years later --- that Dubya, if elected, would lead the country in one big homophobic hoedown, trying to undo many of the civil rights gains made by gays and lesbians since the Stonewall Inn riots kicked off the modern gay rights movement in 1969. I foresaw that he would do his best to stack the courts with gay-unfriendly, conservative judicial mediocrities, and by golly, he's done just that. Extremist homo-hating religions have received aid and comfort from our dim-witted president and the cynical sycophants who surround him, just as I said they would. (Of course, I didn't even consider how awful Bush would be on foreign affairs and that the rest of the world would end up hating the U.S. because of who we put in the White House.)

It's grimly satisfying, I suppose, to have been proved right, although I would much rather have bit the bullet and admitted I was wrong if the dumbass from Crawford, Texas, hadn't so consistently proved me right. So, sadly, folks, I told you so.

In 2008, we've got a mess to clean up when it comes to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered issues. I've mentioned Florida, where the extremist religions, led by the president's smarter (well, comparatively smarter) brother, Jeb, want to not only ban gay rights, but knock them in the gutter and set fire to them.

There's my own state of Kentucky, where, one would think, after the voters elected Democrat Steve Beshear as a repudiation to the incompetent conservatism and homophobia of incumbent Republican Governor Ernie Fletcher, it would be a time of moderation, at the very least, on the subject of same-sex civil rights issues. But NOOO --- a couple of no-account Democrat state representatives, looking for 2008 campaign donations from conservatives, have reintroduced previously discredited legislation that would take away the state universities' rights to provide health care benefits for domestic partners, straight OR gay.

In California, a mega-diocese wants to join those conservatives who are breaking away from the increasingly gay-friendly Episcopal Church, and a group in Savannah, Ga., wants to do the same thing. So much for Christian brotherhood.

On the liberal front, some branches of the United Church of Christ are refusing to perform ANY marriage ceremonies until the states get their acts together and offer equal marriage rights to everyone, regardless of sexual orientation. I guess that's a good thing, although it reminds me of an old Eartha Kitt song:

Somebody Bad Stole De Wedding Bell

Somebody Bad Stole De Wedding Bell

Somebody Bad Stole De Wedding Bell

Now nobody can get married ...

So, as we approach 2008, we who work on behalf of gay civil rights have a lot of the same old stuff to look forward to: Putting out fires, circling the wagons, and dealing with the same old jackasses who operated Auschwitz, turned on the hoses at Selma, asked people to name names before HUAC and murdered Matthew Shepard and ruined his funeral for his family. Not all of these villains are as blatant as Hitler, as the Ku Klux Klan, as Joe McCarthy, as Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson or Fred Phelps. Sometimes, they're as smooth and honeyed as Anita Bryant and Pat Boone or the Big Haired Little Fat Woman who purged the Middlesboro (Kentucky) Daily News of its three gay reporters in the past year.

The causes are the same: People with same-sex orientations need protections under the law so they can have equal access to health care, to adoption, to protection from hate crimes, to form families, to job security and to general peace of mind. The gay agenda isn't about painting the world in pastels and rainbows:

It's about more nitty-gritty things like getting on with one's life and being able to live in a society where it's no big deal if Adam lives with Steve or Eve lives with Madam.

We need to continue to work to create a society where it's considered bad manners to speculate, in any way, about a person's sexual orientation; where the word "pedophile" is not automatically associated with the word "homosexual; " and where images of lesbians are not automatically associated with Ace Hardware and gay men with fabulous window dressings.

That is what it's going to be about in 2008 --- the same old stuff, the same old shitheads trying to prevent the rest of us from being as unique and as ordinary as everyone else.

The Coming of Winter

The first snow of the new winter season is predicted to arrive here in the Cumberland Gap region within 24 hours. We'll see...

Tomorrow, on Sunday, Dec. 16, Robert and I will be hosting our annual Christmas Tree Decorating Open House. If all the people who have indicated they are planning to come follow through on their plans, we should have a good crowd.

The event is the beginning of our winter social season, which looks to be a rich one this year. In January, Robert and I, and possibly one young gay friend, are planning to attend the winter meeting. in Lexington, of the Kentucky Equality Federation's General Advisory Council, on which I serve as the Southeast Kentucky representative. I have hopes that this year will be the beginning of some organization activity among Cumberland Gap's gay and lesbian community --- sometime in January, I hope to host the organizational meeting of what I dream will be the Middlesboro/Cumberland Gap chapter of Parents, Family and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG), a branch of the national advocacy and support group for GLBT people.

On Jan. 12, Robert and I will host an informal reading of my play, "Four Dead, Four Hurt in Two-Vehicle Crash," as a kickoff to what I hope will be a regular monthly play reading circle --- theater-loving folks getting together for the sheer joy of reading and discussing plays, whether they be original or classics.

Middlesboro Little Theater meets on Jan. 7 and hopefully, a final decision will be made about whether to do "The Diary of Anne Frank" as our spring production. Although I doubt if Robert and I will actively participate beyond helping with publicity or boxoffice, I think the play would be a good choice and could be of interest to many different groups in the community, especially high schools.

Depending upon my work schedule, I am tentatively planning to direct two one-act plays for the Labor Day weekend "Evening of One-Acts" in 2008. One will be Robert's adaptation of a short story he's written, and the other would be Edward Albee's "The Zoo Story," if I can find two actors who can play Jerry and Peter to my satisfaction.

St. Mary's Episcopal Church continues to be the anchor of our social activities. I will be officially becoming a member of the church in late January when Bishop Stacy Sauls comes to visit. My decision to join will be a gesture of gratitude and appreciation to the people of St. Mary's not only for their friendship and support of Robert and I as a same-sex couple, but also for helping me meet personal spiritual needs.

Winter for me in recent years has been a time to deal with Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), a form of depression caused by being cooped up indoors and lack of exposure to sunlight. I imagine people in Alaska suffer from this a lot --- certainly, among the calls I take at CSC/Datatrac, the federal firearms licensees calling from Alaska are among the grumpiest and most melancholy. By contrast, people calling from Louisiana and Texas are among the most polite and friendly. I think sunlight has a good deal to do with this.

In any case, I find myself suffering from SAD much less than I used to. Right now, I spend 90 minutes every day on my round-trip commute to Barbourville, which allows me to absorb some outdoor energy (even if I'm inside a PT Cruiser), and relax by listening to good music or a book on audiotape. Coming home to a loving husband also helps, as does living in a place where the winter temperatures are warmer than other places I've lived, such as northern Ohio, southern Ontario and southern Iowa (brr!).

The Cumberland Gap region, which includes southeast Kentucky, northeast Tennessee and southwest Virginia, seems to be sheltered from temperature extremes for the most part. I still get a kick when I hear people start complaining about how cold it can get here --- when the temperature is still above the freezing point that the rest of the country is at.

Finally, as a tribute to winter, which officially begins Dec. 21, I want to include a link to Bearforce1, an "all-bear" boy band based in The Netherlands. Warning, people easily shocked by the sight of shirtless hairy bearded men dancing in the snow should not look: http://www.bearforce1.nl/

The Coming Year in Kentucky

A friend of mine, based in Massachusetts, the ultimate liberal "blue state," recently wrote the following comments to me about preconceived notions he held most of his life about the Commonwealth of Kentucky:

"Well, there is no coast, it seems conservative, bible-belt, blue collar, poor public education, red-neck, etc., etc., etc., (Can you begin to see my prejudice showing through?). OK, so my family members live just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati and (we)often find ourselves referring to (my daughter and son-in-law's) address as "the Cincinnati area", even when we admit that the actual residence is in Kentucky ...

"We have been to visit several times and find the area where they live to be quite charming. In fact we have visited ... family in Louisville and find that this area is also very nice. We still have not been able to assimilate this information in a way that actuallyimproves our opinion ...

"... I am very interested in the future of KY since my children live there, and perhaps one day my grandchildren will grow up there. I want to learn more about the liberal side of the state, the equality movement, etc. I know that even in Massachusetts, "Utopia", safety and openness is a relative thing and can vary significantly from location to location.

Well, buddy, here's what I can tell you.

I've lived in Kentucky's most southeastern city --- smack dab in the Cumberland Gap, on the border of two Old South states, Virginia and Tennessee --- for a year and a half now. I've seen all of the negative stereotypes that people have about the Bluegrass Commonwealth: lack of education, high unemployment, rampant recreational drug and alcohol use despite conservative influences that make some communities "dry," homophobia, racism, religious monomania, bad hairdos, rusty cars, rickety mobile homes, outdoor plumbing, moonshine and nasal singing.

On the other hand, I've seen determination to make things better, an awareness of the natural beauty around us, an appreciation for the blessings of life when they come at us, and a feeling of tolerance for everyone, including and especially those who are "different," because they break up the monotony of life. Education, when it can be obtained, is valued, and a steady job is appreciated. People tend to be forgiven for their past sins, especially if they've taken steps via a recovery program, and when you accept it on its own terms, bluegrass music can leave you feeling as clean and refreshed as a swim in a mountain spring.

Like the rest of the country, Kentucky is recovering from the fear and paranoia and general stupidity America has faced, at home and abroad, since the 2000 presidential election. Kentucky succumbed to the conservative downhill slide a few years back and elected Ernie Fletcher, the first Republican governor since a couple of generations back --- a mistake so bad that it was immediately turned around in last November's gubernatorial election and unlikely to be made again for another decade or so, no matter how bad the next few Democrats in the Statehouse turn out to be.

As someone partnered to an educator, I have great hopes that the new administration in Frankfort will keep one or two of its promises to improve access to higher education for Kentuckians. Lord knows, it's needed, and more importantly, it's genuinely desired. When I go out shopping with my partner, Robert, who teaches English at a local community college, we ALWAYS encounter some former student of his who tells him, "Mister, going to college (or taking your class) changed my life!" Whether it's a high school diploma, a General Equivalency Degree, a couple of years at college or even a bachelor's or master's degree, education is the primary fuel that is going to make Kentucky rise up out of the hollers long enough to get young people (and some who aren't so young) able to use their natural intelligence in ways that they can go back to those same hollers and make things better for everyone else, by becoming doctors, dental hygienists, skilled computer technicians and small business owners.

Robert says he'd like to see things improve to the point where people like him are not dealing with so many "non-traditional" students who dropped out of high school and earned their GEDS after having a couple of babies and/or a failed marriage. He supports the idea of improving what's offered at our high schools --- more emphasis on teaching and less emphasis on getting students able to pass tests --- so they can enter college and get a start on their careers at a pace equal to other students in states ranking higher on all those educational achievement lists.With better education, that means that we have people capable of holding down better jobs --- the kind that offer health insurance benefits. Kentucky, like every other state in the nation, is facing a major crisis in terms of health care, because no one, employer or employee, can afford it. It's pretty obvious that Bill and Hillary Clinton, who advocated a national health care plan back in the early 1990s, were on the right track, even as it was scoffed at and rejected by members of their own party. These days, with the best prices for medications being found online in Canada and India, the Hillary Healthcare proposal looks pretty good and may be one reason why she is very likely on her way to becoming the first woman to occupy the Oval Office (other than Monica Lewinsky, who only occupied it on a part-time basis, and then on her knees).

I'd like to see the Beshear-Mongiardo administration use their clout in influencing the U.S. Congress to start pushing for national health insurance. Since it's unlikely that our two U.S. senators from Kentucky, Republican hatchet man Mitch McConnell and that senile old boob, Jim Bunning, are likely to do anything that would help along these lines, it will be up to the governor and whatever members of the Kentucky delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives to work on behalf of this important cause.

Better access to education and health care means we have a better base of workers to draw from and as a result, there will be a need to bring jobs to put all these Kentuckians to work --- in Kentucky. Lieutenant Governor-elect Mongiardo was the point man for the Beshear administration' s proposal to develop tourism-related industries in Kentucky and especially, eastern Kentucky, where the mountains and valleys provide a perfect backdrop for outdoor-related tourism activities. In my own community of Middlesboro, with its access to both the gorgeous Cumberland Gap National Historic Park and Pine Mountain State Park, it's a perfect time to start promoting what we have. Hopefully, the two thriving educational institutions, Lincoln Memorial University (in nearby Harrogate, Tennessee) and Middlesboro' s own Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College, will continue to push the local movers and shakers to work to attract industries related to the needs of the educational communities AND the outdoor tourism fields.I couldn't end without stressing the importance of Kentucky --- and all states --- turning itself around on gay rights issues. Two major educational institutions have defied the cynical bigots in the state legislature by going ahead and offering same-sex domestic partner benefits to their employees, ensuring that the pool of potential state university workers can draw from the entire state and national workforce in attracting the best employees. The national trend among private employers is to offer such benefits --- I'm lucky enough to work for a company that has a non-discriminatory policy on issues of sexual orientation, including insurance issues. The failed social policies of the Fletcher gubernatorial and Bush presidential administrations are an indication that the country is on the verge of moving forward on gay rights issues. Kentucky, with its new gubernatorial administration, is in a perfect position to lead the rest of the country in showing what it means to respect and embrace diversity.

Of course, I'm realistic enough to know that it will take major changes in the state legislature to bring about any kind of progress for same-sex equality in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. The state senate, in particular, is dominated by homophobes. But hopefully, gay and gay supportive people can energize themselves enough in the coming year to change a few hardened hearts and minds in our legislature.

Kentucky IS a beautiful place, from Ashland to Bowling Green, Paducah to Pippa Passes, Middlesboro to Covington and all those big cities and small town in between. The people are good --- sometimes a bit rough, but more often than not, surprisingly tolerant and with minds open enough to try out new ideas and give new and different folks a chance. I've been blessed to live in a town where the acceptance level, while not perfect, is certainly high, when it comes to newcomers. And, with the onset of a new gubernatorial administration --- and the possibility of significant positive change in the fall 2008 presidential and congressional elections --- I feel very certain that I'm in the right place at the right time.

Remembering Grandpa Spires

Dec. 16, 2007 will be the 55th anniversary of the death of my grandfather, Clyde Cecil Spires.
On that date in 1952, I was one year, 10 months and 10 days old. I assume that Grandpa Spires had seen and considered me, his 21st grandchild and 17th grandson, at some point during that short time, although my parents never said much about what he thought of me. Probably, at that point, I was just another in a long line of Spires boys, although I WAS the first one that my dad, Clyde's third child and second son, had produced.
In any case, I certainly have no memories of Clyde Spires, who, with another man, died from carbon monoxide poisoning one cold evening while sitting and having a drink in a car with a malfunctioning heater. Ironically, a few months after their accidental deaths, a man who purchased the deadly vehicle also died in the same way.
Clyde was born April 23, 1890 at Glen Roy, an unincorporated village in rural Jackson County, Ohio, halfway between Wellston and Coalton. He was one of five brothers -- little boys dominate the genders in the Spires clan -- four of whom survived to adulthood. His parents were Joseph and Nettie Spires. Joseph, a coal miner and lay preacher, was noted for founding "Uncle Joe's Chapel," a small fundamentalist church that still stands today. Nettie, supposedly related to the Harrison family which occupied the White House twice, was deaf and used an ear trumpet, her hearing impediment caused, according to family tradition, by abuse as a child.
Clyde, a fifth generation American descended from Revolutionary War and Civil War veterans, grew up, like most children of Appalachia during that era, in poverty and learned about hard work and hard times early in life. He was 19 years old when he married the slim and angular Sadie Hartley, who was 17, in 1909.
Clyde and Sadie lived hard-working lives, but there must have been some kind of love between them: They produced six children, who, by Sadie's death on Jan. 6, 1925, included Adrian, age 13; Mildred, 12; Clifton, 9; Ralph, 7; Susan, 5; and Roy, 3.
There would have been a seventh child, but Sadie, overwhelmed by the poverty of their lives and the stress of caring for all of those children, made a decision to, with the assistance of a local midwife, to attempt a self-induced abortion with what family tradition says was either "a penny pencil or a buttonhook." However she did it, it was a fatal choice for her and the baby, as she died, in horrible pain from peritonitis, leaving Clyde a widower and responsible for six children at age 35.
Sadie must have been a strong personality --- her son, Clifton, who by his own account and those of some of his siblings, may have been her favorite --- recalls getting in trouble with his father, who was going to punish him in the traditional manner by means of a hickory switch or a belt. Clifton ran to his mother and hid behind her long dress while she pulled out a pistol and pointed it at her husband, saying, "If you lay a hand on this child, it will be the last thing you do, mister." Clyde backed off.
Clyde, made strong from years of back-breaking work in the coal mines, was handsome in a dark, fierce way, the way many Appalachian men are. His hair was jet black, possibly from a grandmother with a Native American heritage, but his eyes were bright blue --- two traits passed on to most of his second and third generation descendants. Photographs show him with thick, slanted eyebrows, fine cheekbones and a humorless face --- something that contrasts with his own father, who, in his later years after he found religion, had a genial look of a man at peace with the world.
Clyde married quickly after Sadie's death --- what was he to do with all those kids? His second bride was Wilma Bowen, a slatternly woman with a son of her own, born out of wedlock. Wilma was a stark contrast to Sadie: She was short and squat and performed her household duties without much imagination or gentility, as compared to Sadie, who was well-read for her times and strong-minded enough to stand up to her husband with a gun in her hand.
Clyde's children, grieving for the strong presence of their departed mother, resented William and left home as soon as they could. Adrian, crippled by a fall out a second story window while sleepwalking, left school early and found work where he could. Mildred escaped by marrying a widower with a young daughter the same age as her youngest brother, Roy, who later married Mildred's stepdaughter.
Clifton, my father, graduated from the eighth grade and then basically ran away from home, even though all agreed that he was the sibling who might have gone on to high school and maybe even college to become a teacher, which was the primary option for educated Appalachian children in those days. Instead, he ran off to neighboring Vinton County, where he hired on as a farmhand for Mrs. Emma Harder, an upright woman whose husband, given to wandering across the country on various business schemes and adventures, would leave her to run their 100-acre farm and raise their eight children. One of these children was a daughter, Minnie, the same age as the teen-age farmhand Clifton. Minnie and Clifton became adults together in the Harder farmhouse and eventually married, Clifton finally finding the replacement for his late mother in Mrs. Harder.
Clyde and Wilma lived together through the Depression and despite the increasing estrangement from his children. The younger children had a better time of it, probably because their memories of their real mother were fewer --- Susan and Roy actually went to high school, and Susan graduated.
Clyde was a tough man throughout his life and lived and drank hard as his life progressed. My father, Clifton, recalled his father with respect but seldom with affection --- I remember him saying, "He knocked my brother Ralph across the room on his wedding day because Ralph talked back to him."
But Clyde's six children all turned out all right. None of them ever divorced and all worked hard and were religious throughout most of their lives. They valued education and this was reflected in the lives of Clyde's grandchildren, who all finished high school and some went to college. Sadie's influence had taken root early in all of them and the awful Wilma was simply tolerated and worked around.
My father said, "I supposed Dad must have loved Wilma, in a way. But the main thing was that he needed someone to help him raise the children. And she was the best he could do --- who else would have wanted the responsibility?"
I visit my paternal grandparents' graves often. Clyde and Sadie are buried next to Joseph and Nettie, with Wilma nearby. I never knew Sadie, who died 26 years before I was born, and my life only overlapped Clyde's by the aforementioned one year, 10 months and 10 days --- not much time for bonding there. But I talk to them when I visit their graves at Mount Carmel Cemetery in Jackson County, Ohio, and ask them what they think of me. I imagine Sadie being proud of me for finally being strong enough to live my life the way I was created to live it. And I picture Clyde as being perplexed, but maybe seeing that I have inherited some of his toughness inside.
Clyde was survived by his father, my Great-Grandpa Joe Spires, by two years. I DO remember him --- an old elderly man in a back bedroom, cared for by his daughter-in-law, Wilma, a dumpy, squat woman just barely deferred to by her own willowy and intelligent daughter-in-law, Minnie. I remember wandering into his bedroom once --- I must have been about three and seeing an old man lying there, his eyes blue and twinkling as he smiled at me. I reacted shyly, as kids will, and ran out. But I am grateful for that encounter, because the memory of those blue eyes --- the ones Grandpa Joe passed on to Clyde, who passed them on to Clifton, who passed them on to me --- looks back at me every time I see myself in the mirror in the morning.

Friday, December 7, 2007

Looking back at 2007

Looking back at what it was like to be an openly gay man in the Commonwealth of Kentucky during 2007, I can see that (1) My life has been more enjoyable because I have embraced who I am, and (2) I tend to live in a fool's paradise because prejudice against same-sex couples still exists --- the homophobes are just a little more sophisticated.

In September 2006, I was hired as senior staff writer for the Middlesboro Daily News, a local paper in a small Kentucky city with about 11,000 residents. The newspaper has struggled with content quality issues over the years and the Big-Haired Little Fat Woman who serves as managing editor indicated, in her eastern Tennessee southern belle drawl, that she wanted me, with my near-30 years of journalism experience, to help improve the quality of the writing and editing.

Upon my hiring, my partner, Robert, and I had a serious discussion about what this would mean for us as a gay couple. He is a tenured professor of English at a local community college and has been quietly open about his sexual orientation for years, long before I became a part of his life and moved into his home. His students and colleagues are fond of him, but tended to think of him as a non-sexual bachelor, even though that was not the case.

However, the sudden appearance of me --- his new husband/partner/whatever --- at faculty parties and other social functions forced the same people to realize that their beloved old Mr. Chips was, like everyone else, a sexual being. For the most part, most people said, "Oh!" and then shrugged, treating us pretty much like every other boring old middle-aged, middle-class couple. That's because the only people who knew that much about us were those folks in our not-small, not-large immediate circle of friends and family.

However, my taking the job at the newspaper put a different spin on our personal picture. Someone who writes for a newspaper, even a local rag edited by a Big-Haired Little Fat Woman, becomes a public being if for no other reason than he or she has his byline in the paper every day. After 30 years in the business, I realize that people attach all sorts of perceived identities to that byline, some of which may be true and others of which may simply be projected fantasies.

A name in the news --- even the name of someone who writes the news --- becomes a public possession, a subject for gossip and speculation. And I warned Robert that even though we never tried to hide our relationship, there would be less chance to control how people found out about it and there may be people who didn't approve and believed, even though they didn't really know us, that they had a right to judge us. He shrugged and said, "We'll deal with it."
What I think we were expecting, if we expected anything at all, was some kind of crazy redneck yahoo good ol' boys driving by our house at night and pelting beer bottles in our yard while they yelled "Fags!" Or maybe a bunch of women with PHDs (Pentecostal Hairdos) --- Robert's word for the local custom of certain female religious conservatives to pile their waist-length hair up high on their heads in scary, sprayed-into-submission nuclear reactor towers --- coming to our door with pinched little smiles and dropping off religious tracts saying, "Homosexuality is a sin. You will burn in hell. Have a nice day."

Nothing like that happened. The people who didn't approve, who included a couple of family members, simply stayed away. And everyone else just treated us like they always treated us: With our lady friends, we discussed husbands and issues such as how to deal with men who snore or don't like our cooking. With our straight male friends, we discussed politics, football/basketball, and wives who snore or don't like our cooking.

On my first day at the office, I met a young reporter who was leaving the paper. The exact circumstances were never explained --- the Big-Haired Little Fat Woman would only say, "He has 'issues' in his life." I also met another young reporter, a college-age young man. I admit to having underdeveloped gaydar because I lived my life in a closet until my forties. Consequently, I didn't pick up on the fact until a few months later that both of these young men are gay.
Within about six months of the first young man's departure, the second young man was fired by the BHLFW. There were reasons related to his job performance and they made sense, although I did think it was sad that the BHLFW didn't spend more time working with the young fellow and being more specific about what she expected of him. Of course, she didn't have a lot of time to do that sort of thing, as she (a single mom) and her young son always seemed to be having illnesses that kept her up all night and made it difficult for her to come into the office on some days. Fortunately, she had me and a couple of other experienced newsroom workers who could keep the paper going and pick up on her duties.

On my first day on the job, I informed the BHLFW about my relationship with Robert. I knew she was a social conservative, but I was pleased that she didn't purse her lips in a disapproving manner or give any other indications of disapproval. And so, when other staff members discussed their family lives, I discussed mine, openly and casually, just as I would have if I were married to a woman.

By the time summer came around, I noticed that the BHLFW was keeping her door, which was right next to my desk, closed. And I noticed that she gave other staff members --- straight women --- a lot of private access to her office, with the door closed. She also would give them a good deal of free time off --- one staff member had several issues relating to the illness of a family member that required her attention, and a new young female reporter was given frequent time off to prepare for her wedding and honeymoon, even though she obviously had not earned the vacation time to do so.

I kept on working at my duties, which now included regular page layouts that had been previously handled by the BHLFW. I advised and sometimes gave assignments to the young newlywed reporter, who was a talented if untrained news writer. And I spent my days fielding messages for the BHLFW who, more often than not, would not come in until evenings because she could not find a babysitter.

I kept up with my regular assignments, although through miscommunications with the frequently absent BHLFW, I did not participate in the writing of a special progress edition tab, although I supervised the assignments of stories to reporters. Sometimes, I would express frustration --- the BHLFW had a fondness for including "people" news items from the wire; short items describing the madcap adventures of celebrities such as Britney Spears, Lindsey Lohan and Paris Hilton --- which I felt were a wasted use of valuable space in a primarily local newspaper. I sent her a memo on the subject.

In September 2007, I observed my first anniversary at the paper. I remember knocking on the door of the BHLFW's office --- it was now closed to me and most of the public all the time, because having it open interfered with the BHLFW's "concentration" --- and telling her pleasantly that we had made it through a year together. She smiled coolly and little more was said.

A month later, I came to work on a Friday --- after a week of writing several front page stories and laying out several pages --- and was informed by the BHLFW and the new publisher that my services were no longer needed. She recited a list of complaints she had been keeping --- apparently I "sighed" once when she asked me to redo a front page and I had a meeting to cover in five minutes. I informed her that I felt blind-sided and that I thought the minor issues she was bringing up had been discussed and we had both moved on.I packed my desk belongings into a box and left. I thanked the BHLFW for the experience and her friendship as I walked out the door. The publisher said to me, "That was a nice gesture."

I went into a funk for about three weeks. Robert was patient, letting me sit around the house in my pajamas and play on the computer, before finally telling me that I had to get off my ass and go do something. Several friends, including two very nice female co-workers from the paper, made contact to say how appalled they were by the situation. A few people wrote letters to the editor expressing anything from appreciation for the quality of my work to outrage that the paper chose to return to mediocrity and fire a talented, experienced journalist. All these gestures were appreciated by me.

But it wasn't until I started to get up and make moves toward finding a new job that I suddenly started to get over the shock and think about what happened. And one day, I said to Robert, "I think I've been gay-bashed and I think that's why I was fired."

His reaction: "Well, DUH! You're the only one who hasn't been saying it! Everyone in town thinks that's why she fired you!"

It made sense. A socially conservative boss. Three gay men in the newsroom, and then, a year later, NO gay men in the newsroom. I was happily partnered and open about my satisfaction with my life. She was a single mom with two divorces behind her and a sickly kid whose needs kept her from doing her job properly. Plus, she kept hearing about how much the paper had improved since I arrived and to add insult to injury, I thought her interest in Britney, Paris and Lindsey was stupid. It was enough to make ANY BHLFW resentful and want to take action against the thorn in her side.

Of course, if she, bless her heart, read this --- and who knows? She may have that opportunity some day. After all, I AM posting it online --- she would deny that her magnolia-scented homophobia, her over-stressed (and under-stimulated) personal life, her frustration at being a mediocre journalist --- had anything to do with my departure. After all, didn't she hire three gay men?

The BHLFW is not cut from the same cloth as the homophobes who killed Matthew Shepard or
the nutball religious conservatives who protest at military funerals or talk about "saving the American family" from gay marriage. She's a garden-variety bigot, one who knows that she doesn't dare open her mouth in a direct condemnation of same-sex orientations. She's part of the more sophisticated kind of bigots --- the ones who know that if you say, "bless his heart" or "God love her" you can get away with saying anything negative about a person.

I have a better-paying job in a field outside of journalism now. I still write --- I'm finding that I have more energy to pursue the kind of writing that interests me, now that I'm no longer part of the grind of putting out a daily newspaper. So being fired from the Middlesboro Daily News is really a blessing. I can do and say pretty much what I want.

Consequently, I would not take advantage of any state or federal laws that currently exist or might exist in the future to seek redress for my being evicted from a job because of my sexual orientation. But I will support any efforts to prevent it from happening to someone else. I never thought it would happen to me. But it did.

I've always believed the best revenge is no revenge at all and so I will trust in the cosmic powers that be that the BHLFW will get her just rewards for her prejudices someday. Of course, it wouldn't make me cry if the BHLFW never gets a date for the rest of her life; and it would make me glad if her sickly little son turns out to be gay --- then she would have the blessing of knowing what it is like to love and embrace someone who is "different."