Whine and Cheese

I don't have a set date for the anniversary of my coming out. As I have posted before, I came out to myself when I turned 30 years old and started the process of coming out to others very soon after. I have never regretted it for a moment.


Yes, I have this many colors of these shirts...

A couple of weeks ago, I was having a conversation with a co-worker about visiting family for the holidays. I don't recall exactly how, but the discussion came around to him asking me if my parents ever tried to "correct" any obvious gay traits (OGTs) that they may have seen in me.

Being non-athletic and a tad histrionic, I was often labeled as a sissy by other kids, including cousins and even siblings. I know my dad often shut me down whenever things got a bit over the top. I remember that he bought me and my siblings glossy tee-shirts, the kind you saw in the 1970s where a thick, photographic transfer was on the front. My sister had something girly, with a horse on it or a kitten (I think). My brother had the "General Lee" car from "The Dukes of Hazzard." Mine was "Daisy Duke" from the same show, played by Barbara Bach, sitting seductively on her jeep. I tried to find a photo of it online and I couldn't. While I would enjoy the shirt for its kitschy nature now, at the time I was unimpressed with it. Looking back, I see it for what it was, something with a hot girl on the front that I could be seen in by others.

When we would watch the show, there was a scene in the opening credits with Barbara Bach in a red bikini. If I hooted and hollered at it, my dad would laugh proudly. It was all for his benefit and in a house full of kids, I got dad's attention for a few seconds, so it became a weekly event.

My dad signed me and the twin up for football in 3rd grade without asking, that I recall. If he did, it was probably phrased "Do you guys want to go play football? It'll be fun!" without telling us exactly what was involved. I just remember being taken to a locker room one day and fitted with ill-fitting pads and pants, saddled with a helmet too small, and then dragged to a field for my first practice. It wasn't fun. I hated it. When I quit after two weeks, my dad was disappointed in me, giving me dirty stares and not speaking to me for a month after. At 8 years old, that was rough. Again, I'm sure it was done to try to butch me up, but luckily my mom said I didn't have to do it if I didn't want to.

On a side note, my sister took this same approach with her kid that Mom did. If my nephew didn't enjoy sports, he didn't have to play them. I often wonder if she doesn't remember my horrible foray into football as part of her decision-making process.

My folks always said I was the quiet child of their brood. The reason for that was that after being shut down so much for any dramatic behavior, I found being quiet got me less correction. Once my siblings and I hit our teen years, Mom and Dad had to give a lot more attention to my more rebellious twin and sis than me, so I was often left to do whatever I wanted.

Today, there is the movement for gender neutrality, no pushing boys toward boy-things or girls toward girl-things. Some (mostly conservative) folks hate it because it fights the comfortable norm they grew up with, while others love their kids no matter what and don't believe it's necessary to push them toward things they may not want.

So did my folks try to correct my behavior, yeah, but mostly my dad. I've heard and read horror stories of others' experience, so mine pale in comparison.

Asked by the furry bear known as texwriterbear:

"If you could go back in time to tell your 14-year old self something, what would you tell yourself?"

I won't lie. Fourteen was not a good year for me. I started high school that year and encountered the douche-nozzles that would make my life rotten for the next four.

However, that year also marked a huge turning point in my life in a very defining way. My family never had money. We weren't even middle-class. We were poor. And I know a lot of people say that, but we were seriously poor. Always broke, my parents got calls from creditors all the time. Bills were always behind and paid late and generally my grandparents had to provide when something extra was needed.

And that summer, things got worse.

My dad had a massive stroke. He and Mom stayed in a Lexington hospital, about 90 minutes up the road, for two weeks. Dad was the breadwinner and his paychecks were now gone. Mom had just started a job as a clerk in a shoe store and she had to quit. For those two weeks, my teenage sibs and I learned self-sufficiency, taking care of the house all on our own and burning through our parents' meager savings quickly. After that came welfare and food stamps, then Dad collected SSI, which had us going from "poor" to "dirt poor." Dad would never work again.

So, I have thought of this question in the past many times. That summer, the tell-tale signs of Dad's upcoming massive stroke were there. None of us knew them for what they were. Dad never had regular doctor visits which would have detected them. If had the chance to tell my 14-year-old self something, I'd tell him about dad's upcoming stroke and to get him to a doctor as soon as possible, by whatever means necessary.

I have no idea if this would have made a difference in how the future turned out, but I would like to think it would have bought us some sort of quality father-son time, because we never really had any after the stroke and had very little before it.

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March is question month. If you'd like to ask me a question, you can post it here.

I just got an email from a coworker to inform me that a former coworker who retired several years ago passed away from cancer this morning. Mr. C. had been sick for a long time and we had gotten accustomed to the periodic updates on him, most delivered with a fair sense of humor, though we knew the cancer was progressing. I had known him for years, done work trips with him, and found him to be a jovial guy for the most part. His wife passed away soon after his retirement and he leaves behind two 20-something daughters.

The news hit me harder than I had expected, I thought of my own dad, and then I remembered the date. Today is May 18th. My dad passed away 11 years ago today.


Dad and the Twins, 1973
While Dad made me laugh far more often than he made me cry, I can’t say that we had a perfect father-son relationship. He always seemed to favor the twin, the jock, to me, the nerd. He wasn’t mean about it, but I suspect he didn’t know how to relate to me and the end result was an odd estrangement. He tried to get me to do things, like sports, that just weren’t interesting to me. Drawing and comic books were not interesting to him. Then one day he had a stroke and things changed. Then over the years he got worse and things changed along the way too. Eventually, things got as worse as they could before he slipped away during an early May 18th morning while his family literally slept around him in a hospital room.

It’s strange how time makes such a life-altering event fade. Well, maybe the event itself doesn’t, but the details get fuzzy. I remember how strange it felt to have such a constant figure in my life suddenly disappear. I remember feeling an odd sense of relief that his own medical ordeal was over. There was peace for him and for those he left behind.

The funeral was oddly entertaining. Friends and family came out of the woodwork to the funeral home, telling stories of things he had done to teachers in school, to friends at work, to my own mom. A constant jester playing for the yucks of the crowds, there was far more laughter in the chapel that day than tears.

The date that Dad died took less and less meaning over the years. The first year we all remembered it, maybe even the next two or three. Slowly May 18th lost the painful memories attached to it and returned to being just another day on the passing calendar. We all remember his birthday, my sister even uses it as the lock code on her iPhone. Mom always makes a point of reminding us as it usually falls close to Thanksgiving if not on that day.

In reading the email again, I fight back the urge to tear up. I feel for Mr. C.’s two girls. Losing their dad so soon after their mom and being so young will mean they will have to mature a bit faster than most. They’ll remember this date as it rolls around for the next several years I suspect, but I hope that eventually the date fades for them and they remember happier dates for their dad. I do for mine.

Similar to Dad's car and spool
With Father's Day coming up, I thought I should do a post about my dad. He's been gone for over ten years now and it surprises me that it's been that long already.

I wish I could say that I had a great relationship with my dad. While it definitely was good in some parts, it was not so great in others. I think he got along better with my twin as they were more similar in attitude and humor.

When I do think of good memories of Dad, I often think of his car (that's not it in the photo, but it's close). People think I'm making this up when I tell them about it, but I swear on a stack of 8-tracks that it's true.

( The Rest of the Story -- Cut for the Uninterested )