Okay. I need some help with this one. Today I was driving up in New Hampshire, and I found myself behind a truck with the one sticker that really sets me off. It’s pictured here and the one on the back of this particular truck read “Git ‘r Drunk.”  I looked into the cab of the truck and immediately hoped that this was not the way this clown was going to get any girl into the truck with him. However, there are always exceptions to the rule.

They say ignorance is bliss, and it truly is in this case. Guys who brandish this decal on their trucks are about as forward thinking as the bimbos who go to work at Hooters. If, in fact, women think that working at Hooters is reflective of  “women’s liberation,” they have their heads jammed firmly up their rectums. I’m here to tell you that they have set all women back by several decades. It’s hard to demand respect from men when women are filling the very role men have traditionally carved out for them.

Here’s what I’m thinking: We’re always hearing about these FEMA camps that have been built all across the United States. The right-wing paranoia squads are absolutely convinced that we’re all going to be rounded up and incarcerated there. I suggest a better use for these camps. Let’s round up all the clowns that brandish these stupid, sexist female silhouette decals and put them in the camps. Then, we can give them all some kind of massive sensitivity training. After that, we can round up all the women who waitresses at Hooters (and related jobs) and give them electroshock therapy.

That’s what I’m talkin’ about and, seriously, WTF?

People who know me always make the comment that I’ve been “gay from the womb.” They’re right. I have been. I can’t ever remember a time when my sexual orientation was different than it is now. There’s been a lot of discussion about whether being gay is about sexual preference or sexual orientation. I’m a firm believer that it’s about orientation and just about everyone else is on board with that. In fact, in 1986, the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from the DSM.

So, when a few people asked how I knew that early on, I decided to write this. The answer is that I didn’t know that I was gay from that early on. What I did know is that I was different, but I didn’t have a name for it. Let’s face it, we’re talking the very early sixties when I had my first experience. Nobody was really talking about it then and, if you were doing it, you were doing it in the closet. Contrary to popular belief, it was not a comfortable time to be gay. That was one of the things I find surprising about the sixties. In spite of the incredible openness of the time, being gay was risky. It was the decade of free love as long as it was heterosexual love. Finally, keep in mind that all of my experiences happened in the context of going to Catholic school. I did that right up through college.

My first experience was just like what other kids were doing: Playing “doctor.” Except my girlfriends were doing it with boys. Not me! Wasn’t the least bit interested in the male anatomy. Literally couldn’t be bothered. Boys were for playing hockey and baseball with. I’m still pretty much in that zone at the age of fifty-five. Nothing has changed. When it comes to men, my friends call me the “oldest living virgin.” Never the twain shall meet. I certainly don’t feel like I’ve missed anything.

Of course, there are plenty of people who just don’t “get it.” I’ve been asked countless times how I know I don’t like sex with men if I’ve never tried it. Listen, people, if it doesn’t interest you, there’s no point in trying it. That’s why I’m adamant about the fact that being gay is all about orientation, not try it and see.

Mmmmmm…something sure is different about me

The first time I had a feeling that I was different was as early as grammar school, and I’m thinking it had to be somewhere between the sixth and the eighth grades (or around the time we started going to dances). Most of my girlfriends were standing around looking at the boys. I, on the other hand, was standing around looking at the girls. However, it wasn’t that I didn’t hang out with boys. In fact, I had a blast with the boys…playing street hockey and baseball. My best friend was a boy. His name was Greg, and we had the best time together, but there was nada in the way of physical attraction. Of course, back then, what I didn’t realize was that we were both gay. As we got older, this turned into a great advantage because our families thought we were going out together. It certainly kept the heat off.

By high school, it was apparent that I was far from being like everyone else. The good thing was that I wasn’t alone anymore. There were five or six of us at Arlington Catholic who knew, by that time, that we were gay. That didn’t make it any easier to be gay, however. We were definitely singled out for ridicule by the other students. It was tough going initially. We eventually went from ridicule to novelty and life became easier. We all went to the prom together, with dates (albeit other gay people). The guy I went with was a riot. We had a blast at the prom, and the next day we all headed down to P-Town for the day, while the rest of our classmates went to Hyannis.

During my senior year, I also had my first fairly serious relationship. I’ve written about this already on this blog. It was with Linda, a girl who had been my constant companion since grammar school. I remember we started writing love letters to each other. For some reason my mother became suspicious of us, and began to go through my bureau drawers in search of evidence. She found it and proceeded to freak out. However, I had already learned that all you had to do was tell my mother what she wanted to hear and things would calm down. I did just that, and the freak out passed. The relationship lasted about a year (she was younger than me). By the time I moved on to Aquinas, it was over. She eventually married a guy named Mark and had five children.

That would not, however, be my fate.

The lesbian playground

I moved on to Aquinas Junior College in Newton. It may well have been a Catholic school, but it was a hotbed of lesbian relationships…my own included. I had a great group of friends and I would become involved intimately with two of them, one casual and one fairly serious. The casual relationship is indicative of the way some people thought back then. With Karen, you could kiss, but never go any further. It was almost as though that kept her from admitting she was a lesbian. There’s no question that it was tough coming out.

My relationship with Mary was much more serious. The reality was that I was also attracted to her younger sister, Barbara, but she turned out to be just a good friend. Mary and I moved in together after graduation, living in an apartment building owned by my brother-in-law and his family. She worked at Tufts Medical Center in Boston as a medical secretary and I worked at Millipore Corporation as a secretary to the promotion department.

While we were not closeted with our friends, we were definitely closeted with our families. She came from a strong Irish Catholic background and I came from an Italian Catholic background. There was no way we could comfortably come out of the closet at the age of twenty-one. The pressure to marry was incredible, but I had the courage of my convictions and my family eventually backed off. Not hers. Her uncle was a Catholic priest and really put the pressure on her. The relationship was doomed after that. As fate would have it, her uncle would turn out to be one of the most prolific pedophile priests ever seen in the Archdiocese of Boston. The Catholic church would eventually end up settling more than seventeen separate allegations. If that isn’t a case of the pot calling the kettle black, nothing is. I walked away from the Catholic church for good after that experience.

After my relationship with Mary ended, I moved back home for a while. However, the whole experience of having nearly been outed to my family by a pedophile priest only galvanized my desire to live my life the way I was meant to live it. I couldn’t do that while living at home. That’s when I moved to Melrose and my life as a lesbian really took off.

Comfortable with who I am

I think that I’ve been comfortable as a lesbian for many years, but it wasn’t always so. Anyone who tells you that they do not — at one time or another — long to be like everyone else is a liar. I went through that for a short period of time after my relationship with Mary. It just seemed too hard to be who I was. During my two years at Aquinas, I had lost contact with Greg. After graduation, we renewed our friendship. He was out of the closet. I was out of the closet. The party had begun.

Within a year of breaking up with Mary, a year in which I questioned who and what I was…and what I wanted to be, a great weight was finally lifted off my shoulders. It was Greg’s friendship that helped me get to that point in my life. I’ve been there ever since.

I came out because, once you do that, everything gets easier. That’s not to say you don’t lose some people along the way. I did. However, I determined that if my sexual orientation was the breaking point of a friendship, it wasn’t really a friendship to begin with. What it did for me was remove the unknown fears that had been preying on my emotions. It allowed me to face reality and assess where my life was. While it hurt that some people turned their backs on me, it also took a huge weight off my shoulders. The older I got, the harder it became to pretend to be what I wasn’t.

I came out at Millipore as well. I decided to do that because I spent a considerable part of every day there. While several people had advised against doing that, I found few repercussions. In fact, I discovered that Millipore was a pretty progressive company back in the mid-to-late seventies. Again, I lost a couple of friends, but that was just about all the trouble I would have.

Speaking personally, I carry the LGBT flag proudly. None of us has anything to be ashamed of. If we’re ashamed of ourselves, then it gives everyone else permission to be ashamed of us. If we stay hidden, then they can keep us hidden. All we can do is speak our truth regardless of the repercussions because, at the end of the day, all we have left is our integrity. I am out everywhere now, at work, at home, with all my friends and foes. Doesn’t matter. My attitude now is, if you’ve got a problem with who I am, it’s your problem.

There’s no doubt that I had a fair amount of European business travel during the eighties. I went to Paris a few times, and on one memorable trip to Paris I decided to take a week’s vacation and fly across to London. I had been to Paris and Strasbourg quite a few times and had seen a lot of France. Not only had I seen Paris, but I had also seen a lot of the outskirts. On this particular trip, we had gone to dinner at the European promotion manager’s house and met his wife. Then, he took us on a tour of the French countryside. We drove around to all these little villages, stopped in bars and tiny little restaurants and tried different wines and beers (normally I’m not a beer drinker). I was trashed by the end of the night. Originally, Miss Headcase and her mother wanted to meet me in Paris, but I had always wanted to see the UK. I’d had enough of Paris. I won.

Deep inside, I knew I shouldn’t have left the London hotel reservations to Miss Headcase. I don’t know what I’d been thinking. When the taxi pulled up in front of what she’d chosen, I just looked at her. “What the fuck is this?” Her mother chimed in by asking if she was out of her mind. We went inside. There wasn’t even a private bathroom in this place. It was shared and it was filthy. I told Miss Headcase that there wasn’t a chance in hell we were staying there for even one night. We ended up staying in a little place in Earl’s Court, a funky section of London with a lot of little Indian and Italian restaurants, and a ton of Australian tourists. It was fun. Better still, the food in the area was good. In fact, aside from eating at the pubs, I’d recommend you not eat at British restaurants. These people simply cannot cook.

Prior to leaving Paris, I got some sage advice from my European counterpart, Dieter. He said in his German accent, “Whatever you do, don’t order beef. It’s like eating shoe leather by the time they’re done with it.” I took his advice.

After settling in, the first thing I wanted to do was visit the original Hard Rock Cafe in London. The Hard Rock may be no big deal now, but back then it was huge. We waited nearly 45 minutes to get in during a cold October rain. The great thing about the Hard Rock in London is that they actually have umbrellas chained to the fence so that you don’t get wet while you’re waiting to get in. I’ve been to the Hard Rock in Paris, but it pales in comparison to the UK location. It’s like a musical museum. When I was young, I was really into the British music scene, mostly because of my obsession with The Beatles. Don’t get crazy…not Gerry & The Pacemakers or the Dave Clark Five. It was The Stones, The Who, The Kinks and Cream…that collection of British rockers.

Admittedly, I was leery about the food inside, but I worried for nothing. It was basically pub food, and pub food is the one thing you can count on in the UK. The best thing about it was the stuff they had from The Beatles.  It was totally impressive. This is where I got my black leather Hard Rock jacket, courtesy of Miss Headcase’s mother. In spite of my issues with Miss Headcase, I always got along with her mom. She bought it for me as an early birthday present.  The leather jackets at the Hard Rock today are all motorcycle style. Not my favorite. Mine is the old bomber style. Love it. I still wear it, worn though it is.

The royal whatnot

The next day, the weather cleared. That almost never happens in London in October. In fact, the rest of the week was clear and the temp hung around the high sixties. We decided to go to Buckingham Palace. Now, I’m not big on British royalty. Why are they royal? Because they’re rich? Some of these people have been the biggest assholes in history. But I have to tell you that Buckingham Palace is amazing, and the changing of the guard is something to see (if for nothing else to see how damned constipated these guards truly are).

You’ve got to work real hard at it but, if you make a big enough fool of yourself, you can actually get these guys to laugh. I did, but I had to put myself in the idiot zone to accomplish this feat. People who know me absolutely know I’m not afraid to go to the idiot zone for a laugh. I figured I’d never see these people again in my freakin’ life, so why not make a fool of myself.

After Buckingham Palace came Piccadilly Circus, which is almost like Times Square (only a hell of a lot better, frankly). It brings together five of the busiest streets in London and is dominated by neon signs, an amazing thing to see at night if you like that Vegas feel. (Personally, I’m not a Vegas fan. Been there on business, but that’s a different post for a different day.) If you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m a big music fan. The first Virgin Record store I ever went to was in Piccadilly and it was absolutely huge. I got lost in that place for hours.

Funny thing about the statue in the middle of Piccadilly. It seemed to me a wierd place to put a statue of Cupid. That’s what I thought it was. So, I decided to research it a bit while I was there. Apparently, the statue is often identified as Eros because it looks like Cupid (known as the God of Sensual Love). What I found out  is that it was intended to be his twin, Anteros, the God of Selfless Love. It was created as a tribute to the philanthropic efforts of the 7th Earl of Shaftsbury. I love figuring out this stuff and I thought this story was pretty wild.

Next stop, Carnaby Street

Being as enamored of the whole ‘Sixties’ thing as I am, I had to pay a visit to Carnaby Street in the Soho district. This was the place to be in the Sixties, the fashion and music center. Not only did designers like Mary Quant hang out there, but so did The Beatles, The Small Faces, The Who and The Stones. They played at the Marquee Club, then just hung out and socialized or went shopping on Carnaby.

I’m not that big into fashion and never really have been. I guess the U.S. equivalent of Carnaby would be Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco, which had a feel I like much better. It wasn’t so glitzy and trendy. It was more counterculture…less “mod” and more “hippie.” Still, Carnaby was interesting to see and, as it turns out, although completely unplanned I visited during their sixties celebration.

Greenwich Mean Time and British food

One of the more mundane trips we made (and I can’t even remember actually where this is kept) was to see the clock by which all others are set in the world. You know, it’s the whole Greenwich Mean Time thing. There wasn’t much to see there, with the possible exception of the observatory. However, eating in this little slice of heaven provided the best example of why you should never eat anything prepared by the British.

They had these little mini apple pies at one restaurant we went to. It is rare that I eat apple pie (or any kind of pie for that matter), but it just so happens that this pie was supposed to be the restaurant’s calling card. I decided to try it. They put it down in front of me piping hot and it smelled great. Really. Then, just as I was about to dig in, the waiter leaned over me and poured this disgusting hot vanilla pudding over the top of the pie. So much for that idea. Never, my friends, eat British cooking. I don’t care how desperate you are.

Coming home

Generally speaking, there’s always some kind of excitement around me and airports. At the time we took this trip, there had been some kind of terrorist attack against a U.S. property somewhere in the Middle East. I can’t remember exactly where it was or what it was. That meant that flying was tricky.

Miss Headcase’s mom was a real estate agent. She was really good at it. I’ve always said she could probably sell shit to a fly for a profit. She had a great personality, which is one of the reasons she and I remained friends until her untimely death. On this trip, she had decided to buy silver bars. Somehow, she left one in one of the carry on bags I was holding. When we got to the scanner, it immediately registered on the screen and the bonehead observing the inside of the bag assumed it was a bomb. Need I say more?

WTF?

My dad died when I was nine, so my memories of my dad are not as voluminous as they are of my mom. Yet, in spite of the fact that he’s been dead forty-six years, the memories I do have are pretty vivid. My memories are almost like short little films. What I wish I had are photos, but I don’t right now. I know my sister Mamie has photos of my dad, particularly from her wedding. He gave her away at her wedding on October 14, 1962. By August 8, 1963 he was dead. Over the next few weeks, I’ll borrow some photos of my dad, scan them, and add them to Mi Famiglia and to this post.

When I was little, people would say that I was the “spitting  image” of my dad, and I was. He was a very mild mannered guy, though. I don’t consider myself mild mannered. I think my personality is much more like my mom’s. As I’ve gotten older, I think I look a bit more like my mom as well.

I used to go food shopping with my dad all the time. Since he and my mom never had their drivers licenses, he and I used to walk to the end of the street to Broadway (in Revere) and go to the Stop & Shop. I remember that it was right behind the fire station. We’d buy our food and then we’d carry all these bags  back up the street. Sometimes we’d get on the bus and go to McKinnon’s in ‘Everett. He used to say that they had fresher fish and meat. He’d also buy Eight O’Clock coffee and have it ground right at the cash register. I used to love the smell of coffee even as a kid.

Not having a car never held my dad back. I used to love the beach so much when I was small. My dad and I would take the bus to Revere Beach together. It was nothing like it is today. It was amazing. I remember the Cyclone Roller Coaster (it was awesome) and The Wild Mouse. I also remember the Hippodrome where they had the Bumper Cars (we called them the Dodge’ems) and the Flying Horses. But we didn’t spend a lot of time there because all I wanted to do was be in the ocean. I remember that the waves used to be so big back then. They’d come in and my dad would pick me up by my arms and swing me back and forth. Then, when the wave got close he’d let me go and I’d go right through it. I could do that for hours. My dad was great. He’d do whatever I wanted. If I wanted to build a giant sand castle, he’d be right there building it with  me. Then he’d take me to Kelly’s Roast Beef. When I was a kid, I was too dumb to appreciate the clams. I used to just get a roast beef sandwich. It wasn’t until I was older that I learned how awesome the clams are there, even today (I’m talking about the Revere Beach location only; the other Kelly’s restaurants are pretty mediocre, I think).

Today at work we were talking about when we were kids and the things our dads used to let us watch on TV. My boss was telling me that her mother was mortified that her dad used to let her watch Benny Hill, a really unbelievably funny British comedy. When I was young, people were disgusted by the Three Stooges. I used to love the Three Stooges (still do; I’ve downloaded every single episode). “Violent is the Word for Curly” is my favorite episode. It’s the one where this all-girl’s school mistakes the stooges for three professors, and they end up singing the song “Swinging the Alphabet.” I remember that the big topic of conversation in my neighborhood was that the kid down the street had whacked his father off the head with a hammer after watching the Three Stooges.

Apparently, however, Superman had a more profound impression on me than the Three Stooges. We lived on the third floor of an apartment building at 218 Beach Street in Revere and all of the tenants had back porches. One year I got a Superman costume for Halloween, and I was playing on the back porch. My dad grabbed me by the cape and probably saved my life just as I was about to jump off the third story porch.

On Sundays my dad and I used to go to Woodlawn Cemetary in Everett, believe it or not. ‘We’d be at my grandmother’s anyway, and it was just down the street. It’s beautiful there. The flowers were beautiful and there were plenty of benches to sit on. We’d walk through and then just spend time talking about stuff. He also took me there to teach me how to ride my bike. Like almost every other cemetary, Woodlawn had an “old” and a “new” section. Some of the stuff in the old section, like statues of angels,  was amazing (and kind of scary to a kid).

My dad was an amazingly patient man. One of the things I absolutely have a phobia about is vomiting. I’m not kidding you. I consider it one of the most disgusting human events on the planet. Once when I was little, I must have caught a stomach virus at school. Unfortunately for my dad, it was on a night when we had pizza and chocolate covered marshmallows for dessert (a truly disgusting combination). I remember waking up in the middle of the night feeling really sick. My mom and dad let me get in the middle of the bed between them. That was their first mistake because that was the first place I yakked. I figured if I didn’t go into the bathroom, I wouldn’t get sick. Talk about twisted fucking logic, man. A few hours later, I was at it again. This time, my dad made sure I got out of the bed. The situation remained the same, however. I refused to go into the bathroom, and proceeded to throw up right on his foot in the middle of the living room. It was pathetic, but he remained calm and cool, and extremely comforting in spite of my absurd phobia.

The unthinkable happens

When my dad was 52 (and I was 9), he got sick. It was first diagnosed as arthritis in my dad’s back. Nobody could really figure out what it was. It just never occurred to me that my dad was ever going to die. I remember they sent my dad to a gym to work with a guy named Mayo Kahn (who, as it turns out, was the actual model for Superman), but the pain kept getting worse. He was eventually diagnosed with lung cancer. By then it was pretty advanced, I’m told.

In 1963, there was no chemotherapy. There was only radiation. He suffered in the Whidden Memorial Hospital in Everett for three solid months. Still, I never dreamed he wouldn’t be coming home. They wouldn’t let me in to see my dad in the hospital because they said I was too young. I remember my sister’s husband, Skip, sneaked me ino the Whidden one Sunday. I’m sure he didn’t look anything like what I remembered, but it didn’t matter to me. I was just happy to be with him.

One day, the phone rang at home and I picked it up. It was the doctor. I was pretty naive at 9 years old and I remember being happy, thinking it meant my dad was coming home. I gave the phone to my mom, and she left me with my grandmother and rushed to the hospital. Many hours later, my mom and sisters returned home without my dad. He had finally died. There would be no more suffering. It took a long time for that to sink in. When everyone had gone home after that long day, I remember being alone in my room crying myself to sleep. That was the first time in my life I had come face-to-face with death. There have been many times since then, but none have had that kind of effect on me (with the possible exception of my mother’s death many years later).

Writer’s Note: My sister Mamie was in labor in the Whidden Hospital while my dad was dying there. My dad died August 8, 1963. My niece, Maria Julia (after my dad), was born August 11, 1963 in the same hospital.