Nephew Sausage Sighting #4: My Nephew's Boyfriend

Washington DC, November 2014

Of all the strange phone calls I've received from my mother over the years, the weirdest was at 7:00 am one Saturday morning in November 2014.

"When you're in Washington, DC for your conference next weekend, why don't you drive down to Norfolk to visit your nephew?  He lives there now."

What nephew lived in Norfolk?  Last I heard, my sister's son was in Indianapolis, and Kenny's sons were all in Rock Island.  Except Frank, who lived somewhere in Tennessee or...Virginia.  "Is it Frank?"

"No, it's Robbie."

"Who?"

I can't be blamed for not recognizing his name.  I'd forgotten about Kenny's stepson Robbie.

Kenny's first wife died of cancer in January 1993, leaving him 29 years old, working night shifts at the factory, with four kids, aged 10, 9, 7, and 5.  The grandparents helped out a bit, but everyone gossipped that he remarried less than five months after the funeral to get free childcare.

His new wife, Angie, scandalized the Nazarene Church.  She was a heathen Baptist!  Eight years older than him!  And divorced -- nearly the unpardonable sin!   Plus she had three kids of her own:  two girls, ages 13 and 10, and a boy, Robbie, age 15, nearly as old as Kenny!

I saw Robbie at the wedding, at Christmas dinner in 1993, when Kenny and his family took me out for pizza in the summer of 1994, and at Christmas dinner in 1994.  He was a cute teenager with black hair and glasses, pale, soft, and quiet.  I don't think we exchanged more words than a "how's California?" and "how's school?"

By the summer of 1995, Robbie was living somewhere in Ohio or Pennsylvania with his grandparents.  I don't know why.

Maybe he didn't like his new role as "big brother" to his stepbrothers and stepsister.

 Maybe he didn't like living in the big, rambling house downtown, in a "bad" neighborhood.

Maybe the Nazarene rules seemed oppressive.

Although Ken adopted him, so he was technically part of the family, he cut off all contact with the Davises (he did sometimes call his sisters).  As far as I knew, neither Ken nor Mom and Dad had heard from Robbie in 20 years.

How would Mom even know where he was, let alone want me to visit?

"He doesn't talk to your brother, but he talks to the girls [Ken's step-daughters], and they talk to me.  They even had us over when he flew out to visit a couple of years ago."  She paused.  "It wouldn't hurt for you to go see him."

It wouldn't hurt.  I could ask him why he left so abruptly.

Besides, I love Norfolk.  It reminded me of my old West Hollywood friend Alan, and his boyfriend Sandy.  Beautiful Colonial architecture, the Chrysler Museum of Art, lots of gay nightlife, 50% black population.

So I called -- it took Robbie a moment to remember that "Oh, yeah, Ken had a brother."  He invited me down for a visit.

On the Saturday of the conference, I drove down to Norfolk and got a hotel room -- no need to press my luck.  Then I stopped by an antique store to buy a gift, and drove to Robbie's house.

It was way on the north side of town, in Ocean View near the military base.

There was a teenager trimming the hedges with a weed wacker.  Probably 18 or 19, blond hair, scruffy blond beard, blue eyes.  Shirtless, even though it was in the 60s outside: broad shoulders, smooth chest, lightly tanned, firm but not massive, pinprick nipples, tight abs with an innie belly button.

"Hi!  I was hoping to finish before you got here.  We were trying to spruce up the place."

"Oh, everything looks fine, believe me," I said, looking him up and down.

"You must be Boomer.  My name is Beau."  We shook hands.  "Robbie's inside -- he's a little nervous."  He wrapped a buffed arm around my shoulders.  "Come on, let's do the reunion."

Calling him by his first name --  Robbie must be gay!  Beau must be a boyfriend!

He led me into the house and yelled "The victim for the human sacrifice is here!"

Robbie appeared.  My nephew was 37 years old, tall, slim, eyeglassed, balding on top.  "Is this wise guy giving you a hard time, Uncle Boomer?"

None of my nephews and nieces call me Uncle anything.  Way to make me feel old!

"Oh no, he's great."

"He smells like he's been skinning skunks!" Robbie exclaimed.  "Beau, go upstairs and take a shower, and put on that nice shirt I got you.  We're taking Uncle Boomer out to dinner."

"Yes, Master!" Beau shot me a wink and trounced up the stairs.

"He's cute," I said as Robbie led me into the living room.

"Yep.  On the wrestling team.  And smart, too -- he's going to study engineering at Old Dominion.  I really lucked out with this one."

Lucked out?  Obviously Beau was a boyfriend!  Of course Mom wouldn't have said anything -- the whole family practiced a "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

Robbie opened his gift and talked about his job -- at the Navy yard, but a civilian -- and the house -- $150,000 mortgage --  and asked me about the Plains, while I ruminated:

I'm not actually related to Robbie by blood, and since I only saw him a few times, I have none of the family-bond stuff that stifled erotic interest in my other nephews.  

We could have a three way!  My nephew and his boyfriend!  I wonder if they are hung....

It didn't take long to find out.  Beau came bounding down the stairs -- naked, his penis swinging between his legs.  Bratwurst, cut, low-hanging balls, shaved pubic hair.    I gaped.

"Beau!  Where are your manners?"

 "What -- we're all guys here!  I can't find that new shirt."

"Look in your closet, next to your suit."

"Gotcha." He turned -- nice view of his butt as he walked up the stairs again.

"I swear, that boy is a born nudist!  He would go naked at the Metropolitan Opera, if I let him!  He must have got that from his mother."

His mother?  Wait...

"Does...um...his mother live in Norfolk, too?" I asked.

"Oh, no, she's got her own place in Newport News [about ten miles away].  Beau is just with me on weekends.  That's why I moved to Norfolk -- I wasn't going to go months and months without seeing Beau, so when Kathie's husband got a job out here, I came too."

Wait -- that's a weird thing to do for your boyfriend...

"Um...sounds like you get along well with Kathie."

Robbie shrugged.  "I guess so.  I mean, there's no hostility or anything.  I like Joe, too.  He's a good stepfather, supports the boy, but never tries to take my place."

I missed the implied criticism that my brother had not been a good stepfather -- I was too busy being embarrassed.  Beau wasn't Robbie's boyfriend.  They might not even be gay.

Way to make me feel old: my little brother's kid has an 18-year old son!

Who I just saw naked!

I smiled.  That's got to be one for the record books: Sausage sighting of my nephew's son.

See also: I Visit Alan and His Boy Toy in Virginia

Nephew Sausage Sighting #3: A Fondle and a Penis Sock

After my parents moved to Indianapolis in 1995, I used to stay with my brother when I returned to Rock Island for Christmas or summer visits.

He put me in a room next to his sons, Ethan (born June 1982) and Frank (born October 1983), so I saw them shirtless and in their underwear often, and had several sausage sightings over the years (of course, I only count the ones that happened after they turned 18, when their penises were fully matured).

But his youngest son, Joel (born April 1986), had a room on the other side of the house (actually two houses crammed together), so I rarely saw him at all.




Rock Island, June 2004

When I visited Rock Island in the summer of 2004, Joel was the only nephew still living with Kenny: an eighteen year old punk rocker with a scarlet mohawk, a pierced lip, and several tattoos.  Nice smooth chest, though, washboard abs, thick biceps, more buffed than emo.

I saw him perform with his group, the Dead Eunuchs: five guys with scarlet mohawks, all in their late teens and early 20s.  They did a lot of crotch-grabbing and pretending to lick each other, with lines like "push your cock against my balls" and "everybody is queer."

Quite a penis fixation!  Now I definitely wanted a sausage sighting!


But my brother still put me in the small room next to Frank and Ethan's old room.  I could hardly walk all the way down the hall, go down the stairs, cross the kitchen, and walk down another hall to burst into Joel's bathroom.

There are only two other foolproof ways to get a sausage sighting:

1. Invite him to go swimming or to the gym, where he'll have to strip down, and you can sneak a peek.

I invited Joel to work out with me and my friend Dick, a very buffed ex-bully, at the YMCA.  But he came with his gym clothes on beneath his leather jacket, so he wouldn't have to shower or change clothes there.

2. Have sex with him.

 I got no gay vibe from Joel -- he was always talking about this or that girl -- but with lines like "suck a stud for Jesus" and "press your cock against my balls," he had to be bi or pansexual.

I had no intention of going down on my 18-year old nephew, but I wouldn't mind watching while he went down on someone else: Dick or his boyfriend Jack, the "pizza boy," a slim, theatrical twink: oval face, sparkling black eyes, wavy black hair, nice chest and biceps.

They invited us to dinner the day after the workout, which also happened to be the day before I would be leaving Rock Island.  I didn't say anything about a three-way, figuring that it would take care of itself, but the evening had a West Hollywood feel: a guy bringing his new boyfriend over for his friends to "share."

Joel plowed into his steak and kidney pie with a gusto that made one wonder how he kept the weight off -- especially given the increasing bulk of his father and older brother.  "I know Uncle Beach Boy won't be around, but you guy should definitely come and hear the Dead Eunuchs on Saturday.  I can get you VIP seats."

"Does that come with a backstage pass?" Jack asked.  "You know, so I can see you strip down in your dressing room and such?"

Joel laughed.  "I strip down enough on stage for all the girls and gay dudes."

"You take your shirts off," I said, "But you don't show any cock.  You should do something to illustrate your line 'press your cock against my balls' in 'My Uncle is Queer.'"

"Full frontal nudity in Rock Island!"  He shook his head.  "I'd be arrested."

"You could try wearing a sock, like the Red Hot Chili Peppers," Jack suggested.

He shrugged.  "We tried that.  They don't stay on."

"I know the trick," Dick said.  "You just take some string, and wrap it from the top of your shaft.  Want me to show you how?"

He nodded.  "Sure, if Uncle Boomer doesn't mind seeing me naked."

"I don't mind a bit," I said with a grin.

We put the dessert and coffee on hold while Dick went to the bedroom and fetched an athletic sock and a shoe lace.   Joel stood in the living room and stripped -- he was not at all shy about being naked in a roomful of gay men.

Huge Mortadella, thin, uncut.  He didn't inherit that from his father!

"Nice!" Jack hinted.  "I'll bet you get lots of action."

"I do ok.  But you know, the girls are more into your face than your dick.  You can be a pipsqueak, they don't care."

"What about the boys?" he  asked. "I'm sure there are a hundred guys in the Quad Cities who would love to go down on you.  One or two even in this room."

Joel laughed.  "You're right -- the dudes are all about the dick."

Dick knelt in front of him.  "Ok, so you tie the shoe lace like this -- Boomer, would you hold it steady for me?"

Flushed with erotic potential, I knelt and wrapped my hand around my nephew's Mortadella.  Maybe I should go down on him after all...

"Hey, if Boomer gets a grope, I get a grope," Jack exclaimed.  He knelt  beside me.  I let go, and he wrapped his hand around Joel.  He started to stiffen.

"Sorry," Joel said.  "That happens sometimes."

"You just need someone to take the pressure off..."

"Or maybe he needs every guy in the state to stop manhandling him!" Dick exclaimed.  "Now, are we going to demonstrate the penis sock, or are we going to have a gang bang?"

"Um...." I began.

"Penis sock, please,"  Joel said.  "Unless you have some babes waiting in the bedroom."

So Dick finished tying the knot -- it was just like tying a shoe lace -- and Joel swung his penis sock around a few time.  It didn't come off.    Then he got dressed again, and we had our dessert and left.

In the car, Joel said, "Cool guys, but if didn't know better, I'd think that Jack was trying to get with me."

"No way!  He was just being flirty.  Lots of gay gays act like that."

"I know.  I mean, who would try something in front of his boyfriend and my uncle!  How crazy would that be?"

"Incredibly crazy."

See also: Nephew Sausage Sighting #1: The Father-Son Retreat; and My Uncle's Queer: Joel's Transformation from Choir Boy to Punk Rocker.

Nephew Sausage Sighting #2: Gay Dudes Have Purple Cocks

Indianapolis, June 2013

The nice thing about having heterosexual relatives is, they tend to reproduce. And their kids grow up into a whole new group of mega-hunks.

My brother has three sons: Ethan, Frank, and Joel, plus a  stepson, Robbie.

My sister has a transgender daughter whom we thought of as a son until she came out at age 28.

 I've gotten sausage sightings of all of them (I only count the ones that took place after they turned 18, of course).

Frank (born October 1983)

Frank was the athlete of the family, playing baseball and basketball almost as soon as he could walk, going out for every sport at in junior high and high school.  He played Varsity football and basketball made all-State in something or other, and became a letterman.

He was definitely a mesomorph, maybe tending toward endomorph, with thick, hard muscles in his chest and shoulders, thick biceps, and a little belly.  In his 30s he went to fat.

After 1995, when my parents moved to Indianapolis, I stayed with Kenny during my Christmas and summertime visits to Rock Island.

He had a very big, very crowded house, so he put me in a tiny room with a single bed and a sewing machine, at the end of a long, narrow corridor.  The room Frank and Ethan shared was next door, and a half-bath (toilet and sink only) next to that.

I often heard Frank's loud snoring through the wall.

The bathroom had no lock on the door, so it was not uncommon for someone to burst in during the night and get an eyeful before the half-asleep occupant could say anything.  

I saw Frank sitting on the toilet or standing to urinate on several occasions when he was a kid.  And he saw me a lot -- so often that I suspected he was lying in wait, listening for my footsteps in the hallway.

He graduated from high school in 2001 and joined the army, and when his military service was over, found a job in Nashville or Memphis or somewhere like that.  So I saw him once a year, at Christmastime, and sometimes not even then.   

My sausage sighting came in the summer of 2013, when my niece (then male-identified as Joseph) got married in Indianapolis.  Frank, now age 29, came to the wedding, along with a wife, son and daughter that I had never met before.

He was not an athlete anymore: he had thick arms and a belly.  Thick hair, a beard, a little redneck looking.  Tattoo, cowboy hat, chain-smoker.  And a card-carrying GOP conservative, even more conservative than my other crazy relatives.

I steered clear of him.

Except for some reason he and his family were staying at my parents' house.  They got the guest bedroom, and I was stuck on the pull-out couch in the home gym.

I almost called my ex-boyfriend Fred in Indianapolis to see if I could stay with him instead, but it wouldn't have been polite.

So for three nights, I lay on the fold-out bed, listening to Frank's loud snoring through the wall.

One night, late, the snoring stopped.  I heard padding in the hallway -- Frank in the guest bathroom?

I waited, but didn't hear a flush.  He must be out in the kitchen, getting a snack.

Feeling the urge myself, I put on a bathrobe and walked out to the guest bath.  I opened the door and flipped on the light.

Frank was sitting on the toilet in the dark, looking at something on his cell phone.  He had his hand on his cut Bratwurst+.  Semi-aroused.

Was he masturbating?  

Well, he had been sleeping in a small room with his two kids for the last three nights.

"Hey, turn out that light!" Frank whispered.

"Sorry.  I didn't know you were in here."  I flicked the light off, but his face and penis were still visible in the glow of his cell phone.

In the morning I took Frank aside and said "Sorry about last night.  Mom and Dad really should put a lock on that door."

"That's ok.  I guess we're even now.  Remember all the times I burst in on you while you were in the bathroom?"


"Yeah.  It happened a lot."

"I'll tell you a secret -- I was doing it on purpose." He leaned in conspiratorily. "My crazy brother said gay dudes have purple cocks, and I wanted to see if it was true."

Nephew Sausage Sighting #1: The Father-Son Retreat

We typically get our first sausage sightings from relatives, uncles, brothers or cousins, and they remain a reliable source through our lives, especially when the new generation of nephews and second cousins (your cousins' kids) starts to mature.

You don't have to have any erotic interest to enjoy seeing a nice penis, and there's always some curiosity: did they inherit your brother or brother-in-law's size?

My brother has three sons: Ethan (born June 1982), Frank (born October 1983), and Joel (born April 1986), plus a stepson.  I've gotten sausage sightings of all of them (after they grew up, of course).  First up: Ethan.




Manville, Illinois, June 2000

I am in grad school in New York, but visiting my parents in Indianapolis for a week before flying out to South Africa for a conference.  I offer to drive to Rock Island, to visit my brother, but Kenny says that he and his sons will be at a "father-son retreat" that weekend.

Held at Manville, the Nazarene camp in eastern Illinois.

Having spent innumerable summers fighting the flies, mosquitoes, heat, deplorable food, sports, flirting girls, and screeching sermons at Manville, I scoff.  "If you want to torture your kids, why don't you just tie them to an ant hill?"

"It's not like when we were little," Kenny says.  "They have tennis courts, hiking trails, and a gym now, and we stay in a 'family cabin' with its own bathroom and kitchen."

"No more walking down that terrible snake-strewn path to the toilets, huh?  But it still sounds awful."

"Why don't you come out on Friday, and see for yourself?  The cabin sleeps six, so there will be plenty of room for you."

I am definitely curious --  I haven't been to Manville since high school, over 20 years ago.  Besides, spending the night with Kenny and his sons will be fun, like the sleepovers we used to have as kids.  So on Friday I drive my rental car the three hours out from Indianapolis.

The long, low tabernacle is still there, and the dining hall/ snack bar where we bought hot dogs on innumerable nights after altar call.  There are still rows of damp, airy cabins.   But Ken is right about the new gym, the tennis courts, and the hiking trails that lead through the tall grass of the prairie.

Manville is occupied entirely by cute dads and their teenage sons.  Since there are no women around, they don't have to follow the rules prohibiting short pants or going shirtless.

The beefcake almost makes it worth the trip.

Of course I have to stay closeted, or they would chase me out of the camp with pitchforks, but Kenny still introduces me as his "brother from New York City."  Ulp!  That's one of the wicked "cities of the plain" that God plans to destroy during the upcoming Tribulation.  Labeled a "sinner" in need of salvation just by my residence, I get a lot of witnessing and shy attempts to start soul-winning conversations.

A very muscular high school boy named Kyle approaches me at the gym with the oldest soulwinning opening: "If you were to die tonight, and God asked why He should let you into His heaven, what would you say?"

I have to laugh: I used the same line in Kankakee 25 years ago!

I talk him into going hiking with me and Kenny.  Nothing erotic happens, but Kenny says "You can pick them up anywhere, can't you?"

The family cabin is cramped -- two stacks of bunk beds, a small couch, a table and four chairs, a kitchen area, and a bathroom with a toilet and shower -- but it beats those drafty cabins with the shower room half a mile away.

It has electricity, but no tv, and no heat or air conditioning -- and it's hot and sticky in the central Illinois summer.

But Kenny comes up with an interesting solution: we all go naked!

At first I balk, just stripping down to my underwear, but Joel says "Come on, Uncle Boomer, don't be a weenie," so I strip down too.

"Not bad," Joel says.  "Could be bigger."

Kenny glares at him. "Don't tease your uncle."

Cooking naked seems like a bad idea, but it's just hot dogs, canned baked beans, and potato chips.  Then we do the dishes, play a game of Bible Monopoly, pray while holding hands, and go to bed.

Ethan, Kenny's oldest son, will have psychiatric problems and an aggravated assault conviction in a few years, but at age 18, he's stiill a Johnny Nazarene, scrupulously following all the Nazarene rules, looking forward to his freshman year at Olivet (our college on the prairie). 

 He's a slow, soft, big-boned kid with a little belly, some hair on his chest, and long thick arms.

He sits with his legs spread, so you can get a good sausage sighting: a short, thick penis with a prominent head, like his father's.

Frank and Joel are naked too, of course, but they are 16 and 14 years old, so I don't count them as sausage sightings.  I'll have to wait until they turn 18.

20 Uncles, Cousins, and Nephews on My Sausage Sighting List

Many guys have told me that their first inklings of same-sex desire came when they saw a cousin or uncle naked.  Sometimes they even had their first sexual encounter with a relative.

It makes sense -- uncles and cousins live far away, so you don't see them often, and the "mystery" necessary for sexual desire is retained, but there's a familial intimacy that makes sausage sightings much more likely than with strangers.

Here are my top 20 family-member sausage sightings, gropes, and grabs.

My Family

Ken, my brother.  Lots of times.

Terry, my sister's husband.  A bit homophobic, but still, I got a glimpse in the locker room when we stripped down to work out together.














Dad's Family, the Davises

Cousin Joe.  My very first sausage sighting, when I was 7 1/2 years old and went to the bathroom late at night, to see my older cousin there, washing off in the sink.  I saw him again, fully aroused, in high school.

Cousin George.  From South Carolina, exactly my age.  When I went to visit him at age 10, we took a bath together, and slept in the same bed, naked: "only fools wear pajamas."

Uncle George.  His father.  When we went swimming, we all changed clothes in the same room, and I got a good view of his cut Mortadella+ hanging down.







Cousin Phil.  One Thanksgiving evening my brother and I had to share a room with my older cousin.  I got not only a sausage sighting, but a sausage grope and fondle.

Cousin Donnie.  Actually my third or fourth cousin, from Canada.  Grandma Davis brought us out to visit one summer.  I got a good view in a bathhouse at the beach.















Mom's Family, the Praters

Uncle Paul, my mother's youngest brother.  He taught me how to pee "against the wind," and of course had to pull it out to demonstrate.  But I'm sure that the Naked Man in the Peat Bog was one of his friend.

Cousin Graydon, his son.  When he was grown up, I tried to get a sausage sighting, but didn't make it.  But my boyfriend Troy got one.

Uncle Edd.  When I was ten years old, Cousin Buster and I spied on him in the outhouse, hoping to get a glimpse of his "gun."  I saw something else instead.

Cousin Buster.  We spent a lot of time together, so I got several sausage sightings, including one when he was fully aroused.

My Kentucky Cousins.   The summer when I was twelve years old, we went down to Kentucky to visit my Uncle Ell and his family.  My three boy cousins and their two friends and I went skinny dipping in the creek.  Lots of butts.

Uncle Ell.  They didn't have running water in Kentucky, so they took baths by heating water on the stove and pouring it in a bathtub.  Uncle Ell went first.








My Indian Relatives

There was a complicated story that I didn't figure out until I was an adult.  As a kid all I knew was that we sometimes visited Grandma Rani in the Potawatomie Nation.

Cousin Javon.  Grandma Rani's grandson, so my cousin.  During an "enemy interrogation" game, I pulled down his pants and got a sausage grope.

Uncle Clyde.  I had to go to the bathroom while he was taking a shower.  He invited me to come in anyway. A glimpse of his massive penis through the opaque curtain.

My Kentucky Kinfolk

Eastern Kentucky, Summer 1973

My mother was born in the hills of eastern Kentucky, and moved to Indiana as a child.  She always felt like an exile; the hills were her true home.  So she was a big fan of all things Southern, from hayseed comedies to Glen Campbell

We drove down in a camper in the summer of 1973, about a month after I saw two boys kissing at Longview Park Pool, to visit her older brothers, uncles and aunts, and sundry kinfolk left behind in the hills.

My Uncle El lived in a cabin like that in the Beverly Hillbillies, with electricity from a generator outside, and tv, but no running water.  There was an outhouse back by the chicken coop.

There was no town, just a feed store a mile away, where you could get ice cream and candy, if you didn't mind eating it beside giant bags of fertilizer.

No books of any sort.  Not even comic books.  I saw a Bible in a great-aunt's house.

No teen idols -- even the teenagers listened only to Country-Western music.

They only got one tv station, from West Virginia, with The Brady Bunch and The Partridge Family on Friday nights, but otherwise nothing good on.

But:  Uncle El and his wife had something around 12 kids, with three teenage sons and some toddlers still at home. My cousins (El, Graydon, and Dayton, who I met for the first time at Uncle Paul's wedding) had tight, muscular chests and thick biceps, and wore only overalls or cut-off jeans.

At night, since water had to be trotted up from a pump outside, we had to bathe together.  And we slept three to a bed, wearing only underwear, pressed together in the night.

They had two friends, Robbie and Sam -- I never knew if they were brothers, cousins, or lovers -- who drove us in a rickety red pick-up truck up the mountain to a stream where we all went swimming.  Nude.

Not one of them ever mentioned a girl, or asked me about what girl I liked.

One night they drove us into Salyersville, about 10 miles away, for a drive in movie: Cahill, U.S. Marshall, starring John Wayne as a sheriff whose two sons escape from prison and rob a bank. Later the Duke and Danny (Gary Grimes) try to return the money.  They were father and son, but the erotic tension between them was palpable, especially on a hot night in the hills, sitting in the back of a pickup truck with a group of tanned, shirtless musclemen.

I know now that Eastern Kentucky is one of the least gay-friendly regions in the U.S.

But in 1973, I wanted to stay forever.

Instead, we spent a week at Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

See also: The Shy Boy at the Bathhouse; and My Grandpa Howard's Gay Connection

Tracking Down the Greek Boy of Mykonos

June, 2016

My friend Doc just returned from a holiday on Mykonos, the Greek island five hours from Athens by boat (or a direct flight from London, Paris, Brussels, and Vienna).   He invited me but I refused.  I've already done enough traveling this year, and besides, I don't like gay resorts.

1. They're beaches, with no museums or art galleries for miles around, and nothing to do but get sunburned and incredibly bored.
2. There's an awful lot of booze and drugs floating by.
3. They're packed with white upper-class elitists.  I can get those at home.

But it did give me the idea of tracking down the Greek boy of Mykonos.

When I was a kid, I loved the "My Village" books by Sonia and Tim Gidal, photo-stories about real 10-12 year old boys living in traditional villages in Japan, Israel, Denmark, Morocco, Finland, and so on.  Although they were published during the 1950s and 1960s, the modern world had very little impact on the villages: the house might have electricity, but automobiles were rare, and there were certainly no tv sets, fast-food restaurants, or tourists.

The stories were told in the first person, present tense ("I get up and..."), with very minimal plots, mostly involving going to school, learning a little of the country's history, meeting colorful villagers, and taking a trip to a nearby big city.  But since the boys were all extraordinarily cute and not the least interested in girls, I found them kindred spirits, hints of gay potential amid the incessant "what girl do you like?" interrogations of my childhood.

My Village in Greece, published in 1960, starred a boy named Yannis, who lives on the island of Mykonos, in the Aegean Sea.  His story involves going to school, catching octopuses on the beach, buddy bonding with his friend Markos, learning about Odysseus and Theseus, picking figs, and visiting the Island of Delos.

Yannis and Markos are inseparable, and neither mentions having a girlfriend!  A gay paradise!  There's even a statue of Hercules in the museum by the harbor.

When I read the book as a kid, I didn't realize that the Gidals were manipulating us into thinking that Mykonos was tiny, isolated, and untouched by the modern world.

Yannis mentions that there are nine coffee houses in town, an archaeological museum, and 350 families.  That's a total population of 2,000, a small town, not a village.  But even a town of 2,000 doesn't need nine coffee houses, unless there are a lot of visitors.

It turns out that in the late 1950s, Mykonos was already a thriving tourist destination, a playground of the rich and famous.  During the 1960s and 1970s, tourism boomed; annual arrivals increased by 800%.  Mykonos became more famous for its trendy nightclubs than for its whitewashed houses and narrow cobbled streets.

In the early 1970s, Italian artist Piero Aversa settled there and opened the island's first gay bar. By the late 1970s, it was a gay mecca.

Yannis and Markos, iconic figures of my childhood, emblems of gay potential, grew up in a gay mecca.

Could I track them down, find out if they were gay?

There are actually 10 villages on Mykonos, but the only one with 2000 people, an archaeological museum, and views of the islands of Tinos and Siros from the harbor, is the main city, called Mykonos City or Chora.

And the Gidals give the full names: Yannis Nikou and Markos Constantinou, as well as names of other people in the village.

Surely they were pseudonyms?

No -- an internet search revealed five entries for Yannis Nikou from Mykonos, under various spellings.  In 1973, the society page of the San Mateo, California Times announces the engagement of one Jill Carson to Yannis, described as a "merchant and exporter."  He would be about 24 years old.

Other newspaper articles describe their wedding and their move back to Mykonos.

There's also a reference to his export business.  It specialized in women's clothing.

Jill lives alone in San Mateo now.  I don't know if she's widowed or divorced.

Ok, Yannis was probably heterosexual, but what about Markos?

Several of those -- it's a common name in Greece.

One Markos from Mykonos currently lives in Luxembourg.  He was in the Greek Air Force from 1970 to 1973, got certified in aircraft maintenance, and now works for an aircraft company.

I'm going to guess heterosexual.

But another is probably gay.  At least he works at the Elysium Hotel -- expensive ($400 per night), predominantly gay but "straight-friendly."

And it's a 10-minute walk from "Marco's house" on the map on the flyleaf of My Village in Greece.

I'm not sure that he's the Markos from the book.  He might be a son or grandson or some other relative, or someone not related at all.

But it's nice to imagine that one of the iconic books of my childhood features a straight boy and his gay best friend.

See also: The Gay Villages of Sonia and Tim Gidal