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.