On this day in 1969 the Stonewall riots began in New York City. They lasted for 3 nights. The Stonewall Inn was a “gay” bar and the patrons of the bar had finally had enough of the police and public harrassment. So they fought back. It was the beginning of the modern day Gay Rights movement.

So much has been gained over the last 38 years. And there is still so much ground to till for further growth in the culture regarding gay issues. Intolerance toward gays is the providence of, amazingly, religious people who preach hate… It is time to build a stone wall against gay prejudice in this country. It should, under no circumstances, be tolerated.

Bless you, Tom Young, my friend and writing comrade. Your life ended far too early. I am doing my best to keep our Stonewall script/movie dreams alive… I love you, Perky’s dad.

… it is far more desirable to be on the arriving end of the move than it is to be on the departing end of the move…

I’m home.

Our defense budget dollars at work – a gay bomb funded by the Defense Department, meant to drop chemicals on the enemy, chemicals intended to turn the troops gay — so that instead of fighting, the soldiers would be lying around in fox holes all over the battlefields, having neverending sex — so much sex that they would forget about their weapons and would be an easy kill for the U.S. Military. 

KABOOM. You’re gay. 

Does a Straight Bomb act the same way? 

Luke and I are moving to Palm Springs.  The last time I moved, twelve years ago, from Vashon Island in Washington State to San Diego, I remember telling myself as I poured my belongings into boxes that I would sort through all my personal papers once I arrived in San Diego.  Well, I didn’t. 

During the middle of the seven years we lived on Vashon Island Luke and I moved to Flatridge, Virginia during the summer of 1992.  We lived in my deceased maternal grandparents’ farmhouse.  A U-Haul was rented and every last thing from the Vashon Island house was crammed into the U-Haul.  I even dragged my Peugeot behind the U-Haul on an orange carrier that left the back tires to bounce across three thousand miles of hot pavement while the front tires were tied down, pointing skyward.  And let me not forget the green and white Chevy pickup truck, with no AC, that Luke and I traded off on driving behind the U-Haul and bouncing Peugeot.  We lived in Flatridge for exactly three months and then turned around and moved everything, including both vehicles, back across the country to Vashon Island. 

Before the move to Vashon Island, I alternated between Seattle and L.A. for 10 years, never bothering to purge papers or clothes.  I simply added to my swelling menagerie.  And before that, I attended 4 colleges.  I moved from one to the next one, adding to the initial belongings I took with with me after I graduated High School in Roanoke, Virginia. 

The point of this post?  Tonight, some thirty-five years after graduating High School, I came across two things:  a letter I wrote to my maternal grandmother when I was seven-years-old and never mailed and a shirt I wore during the summer of ‘73 when I traveled to St. John’s, Newfoundland to Memorial University where I had been accepted.  The question is:  will I finally purge my personal papers and clean my closets or continue icing the uneaten moving cake as I head into the desert to start the next phase of my life on Earth?  Stay tuned…