High School Graduation: Getting Down with a Dude

Rock Island, May 1978

My brother Ken wasn't the only one who seemed to "know" in the winter and spring of 1978, my senior year at Rocky High, as I studied for AP exams and filled out college applications.  It seemed that I spent the whole semester protesting "No way am I a Swish!"

1. Darry (below), who explored the ghost of Davenport House with me, gave me a portable chess set for Christmas, with the card saying: "You'll need this for your honeymoon with Xaviera Hollander."

Xaviera Hollander was a New York City madame who told about her exclusive brothel in an autobiography, The Happy Hooker.  She was widely recognized as the most beautiful woman in the world.  Why would I need a chess set for my honeymoon with her?  Obviously because we wouldn't be having sex!








2. My Career Planning teacher assigned the Strong Interest Inventory, which matched you to jobs based on a series of Zen paradoxes: would you prefer to draw maps or feed zebras,  solve people’s problems or drive race cars, chop wood or program computers? When the results came, I was a good match for journalist, chemist, historian, and astronomer.

And female lawyer.  But not male lawyer.

Hot with rage, I stormed up to the teacher.  “This test thinks I’m a Swish!” I yelled.

With the offending score under his nose, he stumbled around for a few moments and finally came up with an excuse:  "Male and female lawyers draw on different sets of skills. The men are more aggressive,  and the ladies are more nurturing."  He looked up at me with watery wounded eyes.  "It doesn't mean that you have homo...homosexual tendencies or anything."

3. After the Sunday evenings service, the teens gathered for "Afterglow," a sort of party with games, Gospel music, and snacks.  Since it counted as a date, the ten or fifteen minutes between altar call and Afterglow was filled with preening, evaluating, and drama.

Church royalty usually had many invitations to choose from, especially Debbie, who was spoiled, snooty, and arrogant.  So I was surprised when she approached me with three of her cronies in tow, pressed her flat palm hard against my chest, and commanded, “You’re taking me to Afterglow.”

When I refused, she stared open-mouthed for a moment, as if she had never heard such nonsense, and then said "Figures.  I knew he was a Swish."  Her cronies giggled with delight.

4. For a skit in Spanish class, my female partner and I pretended to be parked at a lover’s lane. I took her in my arms, and an accomplice cut the lights, giving us time to muss our hair and clothes as if we had been necking. It wasn’t supposed to be funny, but the class roared.

Later my friend Tom, who would invite me to visit him in Los Angeles two years later, explained: “It was just the idea of you with a girl!”

I thought he meant a Nazarene, forbidden anything past first base, but now I realized that he thought I didn't like girls, so the sight of me pretending to kiss one was hilarious.

5. Craig, who went streaking with me in junior high, invited me to his graduation party.  "There'll be mattresses in the basement," he said, "In case you want to get down with. . .um. . .anybody."

Surely he meant "with a girl." He would be shocked and outraged if I used the mattress to get down with a dude.

Wouldn't he?

But he did say "get down with...um...anybody."

No way was I a Swish!

The Boy on the Prospect List

When I was growing up in Rock Island,  anyone who set foot inside the Nazarene Church for any reason, but didn't "get saved" and become a member, was placed on the Prospect List.

Even if they just came for Vacation Bible School, or to cheer for a friend at a Jump Quiz Tournament.

They stayed on that list forever, unless they asked to be removed or the Church Board decided to purge the list of names from many years ago.

Every August, about a month before the fall revival, our Sunday school teacher gave each of us the contact information for 10 age- and -gender appropriate Prospects.  We were supposed to make it our business to "win them for the Lord," or at least invite them to church.

During the next month, we received 1 point for each Prospect that we prayed for, 2 points for each letter or post card, 5 points for each telephone call, and 10 points for each in-person visit, plus an extra 10 point if they actually came to church.

The rest of this story is on Righteous Gemstones Beefcake and Boyfriends

The Sausage Sighting Prank at the Funeral Home

I was saddened to hear that Larson's Funeral Home in Rock Island is closing.

It may seem strange to get nostalgic over a funeral home, but the gigantic blue-stone structure in downtown Rock Island was an important part of my childhood.

1. It sent out advertising calendars to everyone in town every year, perhaps as a momento mori.  I checked the date hundreds of times on a red-emblazoned calendar from Larson's Funeral Home.

2. It was the site of a major sausage fondling.

In the fall of 1972, when I was in seventh grade, my friend Craig's older brother had a job at Larson's Funeral Home.

Jim was sixteen years old, tall and lean, with sharp features, a thick neck, and hard wiry biceps (I never actually saw him naked).

All he had to do was stay in the office overnight to answer the telephone, take down the information about someone who just died, and call the mortician to arrange a pickup.

Most nights, no one called, so Jim just camped out in the office: there was a television and a couch where he could sleep.  Down the hall there was a kitchen, with lots of leftover hors d'oevres in the refrigerator.

No one said Jim couldn't have friends over.  On more than one occasion, he had just enough time to shoo everyone out and dispose of the pizza boxes and beer cans before the mortician arrived with a pickup.

Seventh graders were all in awe of the boy who had a brother who worked with dead bodies!  Was it gross?  Was it creepy?

Could we see one of the dead bodies?

We asked, but Jim refused:  "I could get into a lot of trouble."

"Come on -- you let your friends visit all the time."

"Yeah, my friends.  Grownups, dig?  I could get into a lot of trouble letting little kids run wild in the funeral home.  What if you knocked over a funeral urn, and scattered some poor guy's ashes all over?"

That only made us more anxious to go.

Finally, one Friday morning around Halloween, Jim gave in.  "We just had a new pickup last night," he told Craig.  "That boy who died in the car accident down in Coal Valley.  He's still in the embalming room. You guys come over tonight around 10:00 pm, and I'll give you a tour."


10:00 pm?  We had to be in bed by 10:00! This would take a little strategizing:

1. Brett, the cute dark-haired boy I danced with at the canteen, invited Craig, Bill, and me over for a spur-of-the -moment sleepover.

2. At 9:00 pm, Brett's older brother and his friend offered to take us all out to Happy Joe's for pizza.  They said "We might be back a little late."

3. At 10:00 pm we parked on a side street and, talking and laughing to cover up our nervousness, walked up to the front door of Larson's Funeral Home.

Jim let us in, told us to wipe our feet, and showed us around.

The lounges, the music room, the library, the coffin room.

Jim demonstrated why Barnabas Collins, the vampire on Dark Shadows, was never filmed getting out of his coffin.  There's no way to do it without looking ridiculous.

That was interesting, but we wanted to see the dead body!

The small chapel, the large chapel, the kitchen, the office.

What about the dead body?

"Ok, I saved the scariest part for last," Jim said loudly, stopping in front of a tan metal door.  "I just want to make sure you're prepared.  Sometimes the eyes are still open, and they follow you around the room.  And do you know what rigor mortis is?"

We shook our heads.

"You know why they call corpses stiffs?  Because their bodies stiffen up.  Everything stiffens, even, you know, down below."

"No way!" I exclaimed.  "Not the dick!"

Jim nodded solemnly.  "Everywhere.  It's pretty gross.  I won't make fun of you if you decide to stay behind."

Are you kidding?

He opened the door and led us into the embalming room.  It looked like a doctor's office, all white cabinets, rubber gloves, and gleaming steel implements, but on the examination table lay a naked teenage boy.

Blond curly hair.  A cute round face, a red mark on his forehead.  Eyes closed.  Smooth hairless chest, pale arms and legs.  Beautiful, thick Bratwurst.  Fully aroused.

I  couldn't take my eyes off it.

"You can go up and touch him if you want," Jim suggested.

The others hung back, hesitating, but I moved forward to the table.  Jim looked surprised when, instead of touching his hand or face, I gently wrapped my fingers around his penis.

It was warm!

At that moment Corpse Boy opened his eyes.

I jerked myhand away.

He sat up and yelled "Uggh!"

We all screamed and ran from the room, out into the small chapel, and into the foyer.   Brett got to the front door first.  It was locked.

Jim and his friends were laughing.  "We got you good!"  he exclaimed.  "Meet my Cousin Boris, from Transylvania."

Corpse Boy emerged, pulling on a pair of jeans.  He was still partially aroused.   "I vant to suck your blood!" he said in a Dracula accent.


I was pretty sure that it was all a prank before I grabbed Corpse Boy's penis.  But not entirely sure.

Years later, I ran into Jim at the Mall.  He asked "Have you felt up any corpses lately?"

I get nostalgic thinking about Larson's Funeral Home.

My Third Grade Boyfriend

Rock Island, July 1968

When I was 7 1/2 years old, we moved from a nice house in Wisconsin, a block from the beach, to a gross house in Ill-An-Noise, in back of the grade school. Yuck!

This new world was stupid and boring, but I was determined to make the best of it.  The first thing I needed was a boyfriend.  Somebody to show me around, introduce me to other kids, point out the places to get necessities (like cookies and comic books), and the places to avoid (with mean dogs, mean boys, crazy ladies, and escaped killers).

He should be a boy, of course, around my age, and preferably both nice and cute.

In August, when school started, there would be a whole roomful of boys choose from, but that was over a month away, an eternity for a 7 1/2 year old!  I needed somebody now!

Fortunately, 1968 was the heart of the Baby Boom, the biggest generation in history.  There were 77 million kids growing up in the U.S., some in nearly every house on every street in the country.  It didn't take long to compile a list of prospects who lived within a couple of blocks.

Bill, who became my boyfriend in February, wasn't on the list -- I think he was away on vacation at the time.  Joel and Greg, who would become close friends later on, lived three blocks away, too far.

But there were a lot of boys left. You have to figure out who I chose:

1. The Little Kid, aka Mike (top photo), who lived next door.  He was a year younger than me, but he had muscles and a brown smiling face.  We ran under the sprinkler in his front yard, clothes and all, which soaked my shirt and pants and got me in trouble.

2. The Cereal Boy, a cute redhead with freckles, a year older than me (left).  He invited me to watch Saturday morning cartoons and eat cereal -- but it was Froot Loops!  I hate Froot Loops!

3. The Football Player, aka Mean Dave, who punched me in the stomach and called me a "girl," then helped me to my feet and said "I was just kidding.  You want to go to the high school and watch the football players practicing?"  They didn't have football at Denkmann, but he was playing on a summer enrichment team, and he wanted to be a football player when he grew up.

4.  The Parakeet Boy, aka Nice Dave (left), a curly-haired blond boy who had two dogs, a rabbit, a parakeet, and a hamster.  He talked to the parakeet, and made it eat a cracker out of his mouth, which I found gross.  But I liked petting the dogs and the rabbit.

5. The Old Guy, much taller than me, with all kinds of muscles.  But he was eleven -- almost a teenager!  Way too old for me, sort of like a West Hollywood twink dating someone in his 70s.  And he said crazy things, like he already knew how to drive a car and he could stay up until midnight if he wanted.  He had tons of toys in his room, plus a sticker labeled "panic button"; he said if he pushed that, sirens would go off and the whole house would shake.

I tried.  Nothing happened.  He said "It only works for me."

6. The Sick Kid (left), pale, kind of ugly, always looked like he was pain, but he had a round plastic pool in his back yard, and his Mom brought us lemonade in plastic glasses with little palm tree straws.

7. The Angel, aka David Angel (there were a lot of Davids in the neighborhood): puppy-dog cute, but  painfully shy.  When I try to talk to him, he ran to the back of the house.  When I went to the back of the house, he ran to the front.

8. The Rock Star, aka Craig (left), who wanted to be a rock musician.  He had weird hippie hair that turned me off, but he never wore a shirt, which was nice. We went into his basement and played rock stars with his drums and guitar.

9. The Indian, aka Bobby,  a year younger than me, short and slim with black hair and a bright smile.  He wasn't really from India, but he looked like Raji, the boy on Maya.   But it was hard to get close to him, since he lived on the other side of the house where the Killer lived, a crazy-evil blond boy who attacked anyone who came nearby.

Ok, which of these 9 hot guys did I choose to become my summertime boyfriend?

Answer after the break.

What Does "Brian Gives Free LBJs" Mean?

Rock Island, June 1974

One Saturday in the summer of 1974, just after eighth grade, the sky was clear and bright, the air smelled like new lilacs, and the grass was sprinkled with dandelions. I invited my friend Craig  to ride bikes.

As we passed the back of Washington Junior High, we saw a small, strawheaded seventh-grader in a blue windbreaker standing against the red brick wall, near the windows of the gym. When we drew closer, we saw that he had a sponge and a yellow bucket sloshing with soapy water. He was scrubbing furiously at a piece of graffiti.

This model is much older, but he has Brian's sandy hair and slim physique.

I recognized him as Brian, the boy my parents used to babysit.  They stopped because he had a smart mouth.  Once when we were playing in the back yard, he offered to tell us “a dirty joke,” right in front of my Mom! It didn’t matter to her that the joke was “The boy fell in the mud!”

“Hey, Brian!” I yelled. “You’re not supposed to be writing on school property.”

“You gonna call the fuzz, big guy?” Except for the belligerent smirk, he was cute, with a tanned face, sandy blond hair, pale blue eyes with eyelashes so blond we were almost white, and thin, pinkish lips.





His hands were raw from scrubbing at a line of graffiti: Brian gives free LBJs in letters nearly a foot high.

“What’s a LBJ?” Craig asked.

“It’s the president, Gomer!  I mean the old president, Lyndon Baines Johnson.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense!” Craig said.  "You can't give away presidents!"

“So what do you give?” I asked. “Can I have one?”

“I didn’t write it, ok?  It was a Mean Boy. Now can it, before I pound you.”



I tried to restrain a laugh at the thought of this slim, slight boy trying to pound me, after years of wrestling and judo. The posturing seemed to be hiding something scared, something wounded. I thought of Bill, who also threatened to pound me, long ago.

What kind of insult did giving LBJs signify?  Brian's feverish attempt to destroy the evidence made me suspect Acting like a Girl -- but graffiti was an unlikely Mean Boy punishment.

“You can’t erase paint with soap and water.  Why don’t you just mark it out?”

“Sometimes you can  And the paint’s in the garage, and if I go through there, Emmitt will see me. Ok, Mr. Know-it-All?”  Emmitt was his Dad.

“Why would Emmitt care what a Mean Boy says about you?”

Then we heard a clumping noise inside the building: a teacher or custodian, insanely working on the weekend, coming to the window to accuse us of disfiguring the school!  Brian kicked the bucket over and started to run away, but I knew he'd never find a hiding space by running east: the schoolyard in that direction was empty scrub for hundreds of miles. So I yelled “Get on my bike!”

Brian jumped on without protest and wrapped his arms tightly around my waist, and we sped away past the back of the school. We hid in the alley for awhile, panting and laughing. Then we went back to pick Brian’s bucket and sponge, and rode him home.

We became friends, of a sort, after that, but Brian didn't tell me what LBJ meant, or who wrote it, until many years later, when we were both in college.  By that time, I had already figured it out (You probably think it has something to do with sex, but it doesn't.)

Season after season, year after year, Brian gives free LBJs remained on the wall, faded but still faintly legible, stubbornly resistant to the generations of custodians who attempted to erase it.  It was the biggest riddle of my childhood, and not mine alone.  Generations of junior high students have wondered who this Brian is, and what LBJs are, and if they find out, how such things can exist on 20th Avenue in Rock Island, Illinois, in the world of everyday experience.

As far as I know, it's still there today.

See also: The Secret Message Behind "Brian Gives Free LBJs"

The House Full of Men

One Saturday in the fall of eighth grade, my friend Craig and I rode our bikes through Lincoln Park in Rock Island, and then past Alleman, the Catholic High School.

Nazarenes said that Catholics were dangerous, demon-possessed, anxious to brainwash you with their weird Latin chants.  I didn't really believe it -- but still, the sense of danger was exciting, like approaching a cage of roaring tigers.

Across the street from the Catholic school was a big white house with a fence of spiked logs, like they used in the Old West.

"See that house?" Craig asked. "Do you know why it has such a big, spiked fence?"

"Because it's full of Catholics?"

"No, because it's full of men with guns.  If you go in there, they'll shoot you."

Men with guns?

I wasn't afraid of guns.  My Dad and uncles had been taking me hunting ever since I learned to walk.  I liked the all-masculine preserve, and the phallic symbolism of a gigantic gun pushing up from a guy's crotch.

 "So...what do the Men with Guns look like?"

"Oh, they're big.  With big muscles.  They can tear a steel girder in half with their bare hands."

Being a naive twelve-year old, I didn't realize that Craig was putting me on.

"Let's take a look!" I exclaimed.  I was anxious to see these muscular men polishing their guns and tearing steel girders in half.

"Um...er...we can't do that.  We'll get shot."

Ignoring him, I parked my bike, walked around to the back, and peered through the gaps in the wooden spikes.  I could vaguely see a grassy yard, two trees, and some lawn chairs -- wait -- was that a guy in a swimsuit?


I needed a better look.

No way was I going to try to climb that fence!  In fifth grade, I nearly killed myself falling into an outhouse while looking for Uncle Edd's gun,  and last summer, I banged my head into the side of the pool trying to see if my boyfriend Dan was kissing another guy.

How about just going to the door and knocking?

I had an excuse: the preacher was always talking about the importance of soul-winning, going door to door to win strangers for Christ, or at least inviting them to church.  Two or three times a year, the high school kids divided into groups of three and went soul winning in different neighborhoods in Rock Island and Moline.

I was too young to go with them, but maybe I could convince my Sunday school teacher, Brother Dino, to bring me.

The next day in church I told him, "There's a house by the Catholic school, and it's full of Catholic sinners.  I rode past on my bike yesterday, and God laid a burden on my heart to win the souls inside."

"Are you sure?"  Brother Dino asked.  "You're a little young for soul-winning."

"I'm mature for my age,"

"But...Catholics are advanced.  Satan has a strong grip on them.  They'll try to brainwash you."

"You're big and strong," I said, taking his arm.  "You can protect me from anything, I bet."

So the next Saturday, I went soul-winning with Brother Dino and a high school girl named Cecilia (two women weren't safe going out together, and two men were intimidating, so you always went soul-winning in a mixed-sex group of three)

We walked up to the door, and Brother Dino knocked.  I felt my heart racing.  Any moment now, I would see the inside of the house, with muscular men cleaning their guns.

A cute guy in a black shirt with no buttons answered the door. He eyed our Bibles suspiciously.  "May I help you?"

"I'm Brother Dino, and this is Boomer and Cecilia.  We're here to share some Good News with you."

"Good news?  What...."

"The Good News that God has a place in heaven waiting for you.  All you have to do is accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior."

"Um...ok, won't you come in?"

He ushered us into the most Catholic room I had ever seen.  A framed portrait of the Pope! Statues of saints and the Virgin Mary! Crucifixes, rosaries, candles!  A scary, evil Catholic Bible on the coffee table! Catholic magazines!

"This is the rectory of Saint Mary's Church," he said.  "I'm Father Benedict.  Father Andrew is puttering around in the garden somewhere."

Seeing our faces drained of blood, he grinned.  "Maybe you'd like some tea before you tell me about Our Lord?"

Brother Dino turned and ran from the house as if he was being chased by monsters.  Cecilia and I followed.  We jumped into the car and zoomed away, and didn't stop until we got back to the Nazarene church.

Then he started yelling.  "Catholic priests!  You brought me to a houseful of Catholic priests!  Do you have any idea how dangerous they are?  We were lucky to get out of there alive!"

But I couldn't help thinking: There were two men living in the house without wives.  They had found a way to escape the "what girl do you like?" brainwashing, not with guns, but with Catholic cassocks.  .

See also: The Boy on the Prospect List