Breakdown

My father's network of friends became larger and larger thanks to the Gay Father's Group. We had annual picnics where I got to meet other children who had similar circumstances as my own. I only remember two girls, Beonica and Nicole, the daughters of a middle aged, white collar gay man, and one woman, Barbara. The rest of the people I met were all male. The softball games were comical to say the least. There were more than a few times that someone ran to third base after being surprised that they had hit the ball. Despite all these new friends, Bob and Fred remained the closest to my father. Bob also had a young son my age, and we became weekend friends during my visits to New York City.

If I had been in my mother's shoes, I would have wanted to keep this crowd of men as far away as possible. Remember, this was the late 1970s and homosexuality was far from understood. A woman could not help but feel like people were judging her for the divorce, and seeing the reminders of why you had lost your marriage come right to your front porch would have been intollerable. Unfortunately, though, you can only avoid so much when it comes to your own family.

Bob and Fred were one of the few people we knew that had a car in the city if you could call it that. I remember my father saying that the only thing that worked in it was the clock. A brown four door Chevy sedan, it had seen better days. It was a left over from the lemon years, and the rust was starting to cover its under belly and sides where a few other cars must have gotten too close. The car stalled frequently, but this was not such a big deal in the city. All you had to do there was find the nearest subway station and make it back home to call a tow truck.

On night my father, Bert, Bob, Fred and a few other men crammed into the car with my brothers and me to venture off to New Jersey. Sure enough, the demise of the car happened right in front of my house. Without a cab to hail, my Dad and his friends were forced to go off searching for help. What better place than at my mother's, and so they all came into the house asking for help. The neighbors must have all been looking out their windows happy that they had a good day of gossip in store for them.

I am not using this story to highlight any kind of ill will my mother or I may have had. On the contrary, my mother was remarkably accepting of my father and his friends. I was not to be so tolerant, but she stood out with dignity. This story though echos the comedy with which events transpire. Here were a bunch of men driving a ratty car far below their collective means. Remember, these were dentists, lawyers and small business owners. How more unluckly could one be than to break down in front of your ex-wife's house, or perhaps how lucky could you be? I am not sure, but this may actually have been where my mother was introduced to Bob, and she later became good friends with his ex-wife.

I am not sure what ever became of the brown bomb, although I am quite certain it does not run anymore. Unfortunately Bob and Fred would split up years later as Fred's alcoholism became too much for Bob to take. These were still the good times, though, when the group was growing and society seemed to be starting to change. The collective Gay Father's Group made a community for the former straight men that helped give them something they never could have had without it - community.

Coping

The way a child perceives the world is fundamentally different than how an adult does. A child uses much less logic. Instead he perceives his world through his emotions which are triggered by events that he does not have the capability to understand as discrete entities. His actions are based on instincts which begin to die as the brain becomes more objective. Perhaps this is why the survival rate when lost in the wild is highest among those under 7 years old. Whereas an adult has long since killed off his basic instincts, the child has not and is able to listen to the the most fundamental need which is to survive.

I am not really sure exactly how I felt in those early years of the divorce. One letter I still have leads me to believe that I did not have any bad feelings towards Dad or my mother. Written on July 14, 1978 from my mother's parents in Pensacola, Florida, the reader would be unable to tell whether this was the hallmark of a child in a broken family or just a second grader with moderately good writing skills.

Dear Daddy,
I can't wait until we go on the trip. I know it will be fun. I just love trips. With you it is ]
very fun! We played golf today. We saw Jaws 2. It was fun. We went fishing. We went
swimming a lot. It is a sunny day today. It is very fun down here. It was 96 degrees down
here. I struck out 14 people. And the next day I struck out 26 people. And the score was
20 to 1. by! by!

Tell a gram from me to Dad

The tone of this letter, though, was in stark contrast to other behaviors I exhibited. I insisted that I was seeing ghosts in my room. I continued to wet the bed at age 7. One day during a temper tantrum I threw a carton of milk on the kitchen floor making a world of a mess. And finally the last straw for my mother was when I used my swiss army pocket knife to threaten my brothers. It was not serious, but combined with all the other behaviors it could not be ignored.

I started seeing a psychiatrist for what my parents assumed was trouble coping with the divorce. I cannot say for sure if that is what it was, but like I said before, children act on emotions that are influenced by events they cannot understand. Perhaps there was an underriding struggle within me based on the fact that the male role model had left the household. If that was the case, though, I did not know it.

I saw the Dr. Bueller for a number of years. He was a quite and gentle man, short and bald, very non-threatening. Dr Bueller would play card games with me during our sessions probably asking me probing questions since I was distracted by the game and would thereby answer freely. We talked about baseball, one of my overriding passions in those days. I remember during "draft" day for little league he allowed me to call my former coach to see if I had made the majors or would spend a year in minor league. Much to my dismay, I did not get into the majors that year.

One, sometimes two, weekends a month we would go into New York City. Bert began to teach me some French words. Even as a very young boy I was interested in learning how to speak foreign languages. This was the beginnings of a long term love affair with espionage. Unfortunately the dream would end when Cold War extinguished America's long time nemesis. Bert would write down in immaculate handwriting a few French words with their English counterparts. I would run off into the other room and memorize them only to come back asking for more words. After the third or fourth time he grew agitated and told me we'd talk later.

One thing I loved about New York City was that my father allowed me to make long distance calls anytime I chose. Working at Ma Bell in the monopoly days had certain advantages one of which was unlimited free phone calls. This may seem like a trivial fringe benefit today with long distance calling so inexpensive, but in these days long distance was far from cheap. It was the money maker for the phone company since they were heavily regulated on the local side, hence the reason why parents kept calls to the grandparents infrequent and short. Today long distance is a relatively inexpensive commodity and the plethora of phone companies have long since taken away this benefit from their employees.

Dad would also bring home some interesting albeit primitive gadgets such as a telephone tapping device. At one end of the device was a suction cup which attached to a cord that plugged into a tape recorder. In these days phones were not cordless, so the device was connected directly to the wired headset, hardly secretive. By putting the suction cup on the phone and hitting the record button, a call could be heard. The recording was hardly recognizable, but I was hooked. Hardly incognito, I would constantly try to record my family's phone calls with what I thought must be a secret government device.

Christmas time in New York City was noticeably different than in New Jersey. Dad insisted on buying all of us very fine and expensive clothes. I remember the dress socks were something I would only wear on my visits to New York. The wrapping paper he and Bert used stood out as well. Always red with a white bow, the paper was very thick and glossy and must have been of the highest quality. The tree, which we would get each year on what always seemed like a windy, bitterly cold New York City evening, was also perfectly decorated with ornaments carefully spaced. Dad was the male version of the then unknown Martha Stewart. Christmas in New Jersey, on the other handed, was a far more casual affair. The fake tree was much bigger, and the presents were far more numerous since that is where all the relatives sent their gifts, but they were certainly less properly wrapped and construed.

I enjoyed Christmas in those years both in both New York City and New Jersey but for different reasons. New Jersey meant time with my Grandpops who would take me to get donuts in the morning and Grandmall who was responsible for my life long love of coin collecting. Grandma would spend hours with me rolling pennies into 50 cent wrappers and taking them to the bank where I would get a few dollars. Our Grandparents would come up from Florida and visit us in New Jersey for what seemed like weeks on end. One year they suggested they may not come at which I told them it would not be the same without them. It worked. They would not miss that Christmas or any other until Grandmall got sick.

Whereas New Jersey meant time with my mother's parents, New York City meant pageantry. The Rockefeller tree and skating rink, the choice of music that Bert and my father played in their apartment, everything seemed orchestrated and befitting of the occasion. Listening now to Beethoven's IV "Finale' brings back memories of dinner with Bert, Dad and my two brothers before we opened our presents. Even as an eight year old I could appreciate this.

Dad still traveled in those days, and he continued to bring me something special after each trip. On one trip from California, he brought me “fools gold.” Now as a young lad I was obsessed with the gold rush, and I thought for sure that riches awaited me on the West Coast. California seemed like the land of the pioneers to a small kid who never left the New York metro area. So the small painted rock meant the world to me when my Dad gave it to me, as did the Terradactyl egg that he insisted would hatch into a dinosaur if I kept it under my pillow for a year . I followed his instructions for about 4 months until I realized it was a solid ball of candy 5 inches in diameter at which point I began to eat it and develop my first set of cavities.

Years later I would learn that Dad had a very interesting opportunity in 1978. Tehran was modernizing its telecommunications infrastructure, and my father had the opportunity to live there for nine months while helping to pave the way for Ma Bell. He passed this opportunity up as it carried with it too much emotional risk – leaving his family and Bert behind. It was probably a good thing seeing that by 1979 the Shah was out and Khomeni was in power along with 66 US hostages that would be held captive for a 444 day period. Still Dad would regret not taking a chance for the dramatic success he knew he was capable of achieving.

I had not started yet to drift from my father, but the time was coming. Soon the trips into New York City would become a chore, one that I would attempt to avoid. I cannot say when or why this happened, but I would one day remember my father asking why I no longer enjoyed coming in to see him. He'd recall these times when I was happy to be in New York City. So when did this change?

College Years

In April of 1960, at the age of 17, my father was accepted to three colleges: Vanderbilt, Davidson and the College of William and Mary. Much like I would do 29 years later, he chose William and Mary for the simple reason that it was free. By offering him a full scholarship, Dad would not create an undue hardship on his parents or himself. Still, Grandmother would need to work just to pay for non-tuition related expenses. Despite having no higher education herself, she was determined that her son would succeed their legacy and ascend to the college ranks.

Grandmother never knew, or at least never let on that she knew, that Dad was gay. Not having a series of girlfriends in high school is easy enough to chalk up to teenage angst. By Dad's own reckoning, he was a bit of a nerd, and most mothers are relieved when a boy's propensity is more for books that smutty magazines. She was tall for a woman, with high cheek bones, hazel eyes, and a clear white complexion. Her hair was set in a 1940's style: long bangs rolled up over the top of her head and hair cascading down the sides.

Grandmother wrote poetry and read with enthusiasm. This was hardly something that would have endeared her to her husband, but it made a connection with Dad. With frequency he would borrow from her collection. One of the first books was "The Alabama," the story of Captain Semes and the Confederate commerce raider of that name. She had untapped intelligence like most people do that read voraciously.

Dad would end up staying at William and Mary for two years. It refined his academic skills and sparked an intense interest in history. He grew to question his professors, and he developed a Darwinian view of humanity. History to Dad was best symbolized by the struggle between the Home Sapien and the Neanderthal. In order to make profound progress, humanity often must make what would appear at the time to be horrifying actions. Just as the Homo Sapien wiped out the Neanderthal through extermination, the Americans dropped the atomic bomb to usher in the age of Pax Americana. The path to progress is never pretty.

For those readers who might be upset by this realpolitik view of human history, one must ask what the alternatives would have been. What would the world look like today had Columbus sailed back to Spain and said to Queen Isabella "I found a new world, but it is already inhabited so we should look for something else." We know the answer, and the question of whether it was worth the 25 million lives or so is unfair to ask because there is little choice in these matters. It is the way humanity has been programmed.

In addition to an appreciation for history, William and Mary also introduced Dad to the fine arts. He saw many movies at the local theater, something not near as common in his childhood. Igmar Berman's "Seventh Seal" and Stanley Kramer's "Inherit the Wind" and "Judgment at Nuremberg" had a lasting impact, but one play would forever standout in his memory. On a trip to New York City with his debate team, Dad saw Lee Cobb in Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman." He was struck not just by the crestfallen Willy Loman, but by how much this man reminded Dad of his own father. Both were horrible businessmen, both were traveling salesman, both were pathetic figures.

Although Dad's academic performance at William and Mary was impeccable, he was nevertheless miserable. He constantly felt like a redneck from a lesser Southern state, that being Florida. To be fair, and readers in Virginia should agree, there still is a caste system of Southern states. In retrospect, Dad would admit that some of this might have been his own doing. Dad wore horn-rimmed glasses, often called birth control devices in the military, and he had a red scar in the center of his forehead - the result of a botched attempt by one of his father's masonic friends to remove a mole.

His clothes were also somewhat ridiculous. His parents had bought him white short sleeved shirts that sported an open collar. These shirts would turn hard as a 2x4 after starching in the college laundry. He would also wear a narrow tie, wool pants, and an omnipresent pair of white Ked sneakers. Dad struggled to fit into the system and was not accepted to any of the male fraternities. This experience would later lead to an almost obsessive distaste with polyester and anything else sold at Kmart.

So at the end of his Sophomore year in 1962, Dad transferred to a real party school - Florida State. There he pledged to Phi Kappa Tau and became a brother in the winter of his junior year. As a senior the frat unanimously elected him to Pledge Master and was approached to run for President. This was quite a turnaround for someone that had not even made it into the fraternity system at William and Mary.

To what did he attribute this startling change? For one thing before going to Florida State he took his sizable earnings from his summer job and purchased a new wardrobe. At Mass Brothers and some other exclusive stores in Tampa he bought long sleeved, button down 100% cotton Gant dress shirts, all of which were in a pale color with the exception of black and navy blue ones. He also bought several tater shall shirts and crew neck sweaters in tasteful browns and grays, a brown and charcoal gray herring-bone tweed blazer, and several pair of khaki trousers. His belt was a cordovan style, and he chose to also rid himself of the Ked sneakers in favor of gun loafers and Gold Cup socks that matched the colors of his shirts. Lastly, he bought several pair of Levi jeans in which he sat for what seemed like unending hours in a tub of hot water so that the jeans would fade and shrink to become form-fitting.

So much for the adage that clothes don't make a man. Since the beginning of time what you wear has mattered if only for your own ego. My Dad's confidence soared, and with it so did his social success. He had shed his nerd baggage, and from that point forth he resolved that he would settle for nothing less than the finest clothes, food, wine and liquor that money could buy.

In the fall of 1964, at the age of 22, Florida State held "Rush Week," a proud tradition that somehow American higher education thinks is still critical to the molding of its men. In Rush, all pledging freshman are paraded before the fraternity brothers in a series of parties. The frat brothers then select the ones whom their Fraternity will offer a pledge ship. During this time Dad would meet someone who would become a lifelong friend, and someone I would also encounter when I was deciding my own college fate.

One night while in the House's parlor talking to a few Rushes, Dad grew bored with the conversation and excused himself to go downstairs for a drink. Steve Marshall, the House's barkeep, pured him a rum and Coke. The band in the adjoining room was playing loud rock music, so he stepped onto the patio in the cool and importantly quiet air.

As he stepped out he noticed a somewhat dashing figure of a man standing by the red cedar fence that surrounded the patio. He was dressed virtually the same as Dad with a pale yellow Gant shirt, khaki trousers, a cordovan belt and wee guns with yellow Gold Cup socks. He was shorter than Dad, with blond hair that was cut with bangs Caesar style. Thin and lanky, he could not have weighed more than 120 pounds.

This was Hank Gersons, a new pledge from Atlanta who would later serve in Vietnam in the infantry and go on to become a Lieutenant Colonel in the US Army. Dad and Hank quickly became friends and later roommates. He was Dad's fraternal Little Brother, and as such Dad would make it his responsibility to ensure that Hank succeeded in the university. He could do little help with mathematics, but Dad could certainly help with English. Ignoring the honor code, Dad wrote Hank's book reports and essays. He figured this was the best he could do to at least ensure Hank received one 'A.' He succeeded, and Hank would go on to proudly serve his country.

Having to take some extra classes that did not transfer from William and Mary, Dad would graduate in the Spring of 1965 at the age of 24. Staying an extra semester met no objection with Dad. These were some of the brighter times for him. He would earn himself a 3.2 GPA and would matriculate to the University of Florida College of Law in the summer of 1965.

Growing up Gay

Dad was born in June of 1942 in the highly industrialized city of Pittsburg. For three generations his family had lived there. He was born out of wedlock - something that was far from excepted in the FDR years. So his aunt Margaret raised him, and he grew up calling his aunt 'Mom' and his mother 'Aunt.' Dad would not find out the truth until he was 27 years old, at which point we was relieved to know he was not his uncle's son.

Margaret was married to a man named Harold whom my father is convinced inspired the Honeymooners sitcom. An everyday Ralph Kramden, Harold hopped from job to job never able to stay more than six months. He started multiple businesses all of which failed miserably. He was not a violent man, but he was far from fatherly. At one Christmas that my father would forever remember, Harold insisted on decorating the tree. This was a tradition in the household to have Dad and his sister Peggy hand Harold the ornaments while he decided where they would go. The only problem this time was that he must not have secured the tree because it came crashing down in the living room as the last ornament went on it at which time Harold began to yell at Margaret that she must not have set it up correctly.

Harold was far from a good looking man. As I said, he was an everyday Ralph Kramden. He still mentioned though to find women with whom to run around. Certainly not beauty contest winners, these women must have been equally as deperate. Still, Margaret and Harold stayed together. Life in the 1950s before no fault divorce was far from blissful.

Most boys begin to feel sexual attraction during puberty, and Dad was no different. On the playground while he and his friends were playing today's version of 'man in the middle' he recognized an attraction, an impulse really, for another boy his age. Dad hid this feeling and told noone. To do so in the 1950s would have been suicidal. Dad would go 15 years from the age of 12 in the closet. He learned how to hide himself and, much to his demise, he found it remarkably easy. Unlike a black man, there are no distinguishing marks for a gay. So all he had to do was say he was straight. Nobody could prove otherwise.

I often wonder what would have become of Dad had he acted on his impulse with those boys on the playground. Would he have been exposed never to have been able to deny his instincts, or would the scorn have killed him? There were no doctors in the 1950s that would have understood a gay man. His parents, Harold at least, certainly would have been far from understanding. He would have been exposed and alone, but would he have been any more alone than he would feel growing up Gay in a straight world?

It is all a moot point, though, as Dad would be successful at hiding. He did not look like a stereotypical 'homo.' Fairly handsome at 6'1" and well groomed, someone looking at a picture of my father would think he was a fairly decent athlete. In later years nothing would ever indicate that he was gay. He looked just like any other father going to a little league baseball game.

Dad grew up with friends in Pittsburg, but he felt isolated and alone all the more. Oh, he had his "pals" for whom he had no particular sexual interest. They were all lower middle class boys, like Dad - Steve, the auto mechanics' son, "Butch," the local bully, Billy, his next door neighbor, and Richard, the son of the last surviving farmer from the days when his now suburban Town-ship was rural.

Television in the 1950's provided little relief from his loneliness and alienation. It was a heterosexual wasteland, all Lucy and Desi Arnez, Ozzie and Harriett Nelson, or Ward and June Cleaver. There was not a gay in the bunch, except maybe Ricky Nelson and Wally Cleaver. No Will and Grace, no Ellen. The movies provided the only relief. Dad was fascinated by The Picture of Dorian Gray, perhaps subconsciously recognizing the homosexual undertone. He also felt strangely akin to Brandon De Wilde, the little boy left behind and alone in Shane.

In his senior year his family moved to Tarpon Springs, Florida. A small town of about 15,000, his parents moved there because Dad's cousin, Marjorie, and her husband, Wally had moved there from Pittsburgh's wintry climate when he got a job teaching in Tarpon Junior High. Harold was starting another soon to be failed business called Suncoast MobileLift Equipment, Inc.

Dad continued to have friends but never acted on his impulses and attraction. His friends strangely enough came from all types of backgrounds. Some were particularly ignorant and formed a Redneck class. Some were jocks. The fact that my father was able to associate with such a wide variety of people demonstrates how well he was able to hide himself, and frankly how smart he was. Dad was always able to impress anyone. He knew his way about the world. People gravitated to him. Still he felt alone.

After his senior year, Dad would enter the College of William and Mary on a full scholarship. He'd stay there for two years and then transfer to Florida State where he would get his undergraduate degree and Juris Doctorate. Dad would always regret this decision to leave William and Mary. He'd look at this as one of the reasons he did not make it into the big time. He had that all too common male tendency to see oneself as the next Napoleon. To not do so would be counter to our basic genetic structure that has been making men unhappy since we first left our caves in search of greener pastures.