Bill and I Become a Mama and a Papa

Rock Island

When I was a kid, my boyfriend Bill and I were constantly on the lookout for evidence that sometimes men like men, and marry them, and live with them in a house.  But the adults talked in riddles, or pretended not to know what we were talking about, or downright lied.  So one day, I think when I was nine years old, we took matters into our own hands and became Papas.

Bill was spending the night, and as a special treat Dad took us out to eat at A&W.

It was a drive in: you parked your car, ordered through a radio thing, and a girl in a short skirt (called a car-hop) brought your food on a tray that attached to the car window.

We actually preferred Sandy's, a few blocks away, where cute college boys in Scottish kilts sold Edin-burgers.  

A&W had good chili dogs, french fries, and root beer, and sometimes little toys came with the meal, but the hamburgers were heterosexist.  Selection was based on your role in the heterosexual nuclear family:

Papa Burger
Mama Burger
Teen (boy) Burger
Baby (girl) Burger

My brother and I always ordered the Teen Burger.  No one wanted to be a Baby, and we were too young to be Papas.

Even as a kid, I knew that there was something wrong with this scenario.  What about baby boys and teen girls?  Or young adults, like my Uncle Paul, who were married but didn't have kids yet?

Or boys who liked boys?

Bill and I looked at each other and grinned, tacitly agreeing.  When Dad asked what we wanted, we said "Papa Burger" in unison.  "And fries and root beer," I added.

He stared at us in the rear view mirror, perplexed. "Are you sure?  They're pretty big."

"We're hungry," I said.  "Being Papas is hard work."

"You can't both be Papas!"  my brother Ken exclaimed. "Where are the Mamas?"

"We adopted our kids," Bill said, playing along.

"Single men can't adopt kids," Mom pointed out. "You'll have to have Mamas sooner or later."

"Ok, so I'm the Papa and Bill's the Mama." Strangely, no one thought of the musical group.

"No way!" Bill protested.  "I'm not changing any diapers!"

"If you're a Papa and a Mama," Ken said, "You got to kiss."

"Ok."  I leaned over and tried to kiss Bill on the mouth, but he turned away, and I got his cheek.

"Ok, Skeezix, that's enough!" Dad yelled, suddenly angry.  "You're both getting Teen Burgers, and that's that!" (He always called me Skeezix when I failed to demonstrate heterosexual interest.)

We cringed in the back seat.  What was he so upset about?  We were just playing!

But sometimes even a hamburger can be a form of resistance.

Coincidentally, that was about the time Dad and Mom began insisting that I play a sport.   Sports as a remedy to gayness?

Cruising at the Bookmobile

Other kids spent the summer waiting anxiously for the ice cream truck.  I spent the summer waiting anxiously for the bookmobile.

Back in the days before the internet, there were hundreds of bookmobiles, vans carrying an assortment of books for those underprivileged readers who couldn't get to the public library.  Such as kids.

 You could check out up to 3 books at a time, and keep them for two weeks. If you read 10 during the summer, you got a prize.

I don't remember any of the prizes, but I remember the books.  Some of my top childhood favorites came from the bookmobile, like  My Village Books of Sonia and Tim Gidal,  The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet, Tom Sawyer, and the boys' adventure books of Robert Louis Stevenson.

The bookmobile pulled into the parking lot of Denkmann Elementary School every Tuesday morning at about 10:00 am. Other neighborhood bookworms had to wait on the blacktop.  I could hear it coming from inside the house, and then run over.

But soon I discovered a reason to wait with the others: the bookmobile was a good place for cruising.

I met a lot of cute guys while cruising at the bookmobile. Like Greg, the Boy Vampire who gave me my first kiss.  Joel, the curly-haired soccer player who came with me to A Little Bit O'Heaven.

And Robbie, a dark-haired boy wearing a red muscle shirt.

I was only about 10 years old, but I already knew the rules of gay cruising:

1. Select a venue with mostly guys.  Check.  The early birds were usually boys; girls came later.

2. Cruise early. Check. The bookmobile came in the morning.

3. Cruise with a buddy.  No, I went by myself.


4. Do not drink while cruising.  Check. I hadn't had any soda or candy all day, in case a cute boy invited me to Dewey's Candy Store.

5. Gather information. Check.  Robbie was waiting to check out a book on caves, because he was going to Mammoth Caves in Kentucky with his parents later that summer.  He was a Cute Young Thing, a year younger than me.  He liked Star Trek, and his favorite subject was math.

6. Don't discuss sizes or acts.  Nope.  I definitely asked about his size: "You have really big muscles.  How strong are you?"

7. Word the invitation carefully.  If you invite him to do something specific in the future, it's a romance. Something vague in the future, it's a friendship.  Something vague right now, it's a hookup.

After we checked out our books, I asked, "Wanna play?"

Hookup.


8. Invite him to your place.  Check.

9. Take your own cars.  Well, we were walking.

10. Make sure someone knows where you are. Check. My Mom was upstairs.

11. Clean your house in advance.  Mom always had the house clean.

12. Hide your valuables.  I was a kid.  I didn't have any valuables.

13. Bring condoms.  Um...I was a kid.  We sat on my bed to look at our books, then we played space explorers in the back yard. I did get to feel his biceps.

14. Don't kick him out afterwards.  Check. Robbie stayed for lunch.  Mom made us hot dogs and potato chips.

15. Don't pretend you want a relationship.  Check. I didn't give him my phone number.

I saw him at the bookmobile a few times after that.  We talked politely, but I didn't ask him over again.

Not a friendship.  Not a relationship.  Just play.

The Backsliders at the Ponderosa Steak House

When I was growing up, my church had a huge number of prohibitions.  We discussed them and memorized them for prizes in Sunday school class, heard sermons about them on Sunday mornings, heard testimonies about them on Wednesday nights, and received our own black-bound copy of them when we became members of the church at age 12.

Some were harder to follow than others, and therefore caused more guilt when we backslid:

1. No restaurants or stores that sold alcohol.
2. No movies.
3. No work on Sunday, including homework.
4. No buying anything on Sunday, including eating out.

It seemed that my unsaved friends were constantly trying to get me to go to Dewey's Candy Store for ice cream or Schneider's Drug Store for comic books on Sunday afternoons!  Sometimes I gave in, only to feel a combination of intense guilt and fear, as if God was about to strike me dead and fry me in the Lake of Fire for all eternity.

My parents found the rule difficult, too.  On vacation, we usually rented a cabin or stayed with friends so we didn't have to drive far or cook on Sunday.

And at home, Mom usually put a roast beef in the oven to slow-cook while we were in church. If she didn't have time or was out of roast beef, we had to wait until around 2:00 pm for her to cook something else (cooking didn't count as #3).

One Sunday morning in the spring of 1969, when I was in third grade, Mom was out of roast beef, so she said she would make a tuna casserole when we got home.  My brother and I griped and complained, but what could we do about it?

She didn't realize that this Sunday was the start of the Spring Revival!  Instead of Brother Tyler, our usual preacher, who let us out at 11:45 sharp,  we got Brother Smith, an evangelist, who screeched and stomped about how we weren't meeting our Christian obligation to save souls until well after noon, and then led us in endless choruses of :

Faith in God can move a mighty mountain.
Faith can calm a troubled sea
Faith can make the desert like a fountain
Faith will bring the victory.

Repeat, then repeat again, 3,241 times, until you have thought of at least 12 ways to make fun of the lyrics.

THEN he had the audacity to hold an altar call!

By the time we got out of there, it was 12:45!  By the time we got home, it was 1:00.

We changed into our street clothes, and then Mom and Dad pushed us into the car again.

"Wait -- where's dinner?" I asked.

Mom turned around to the back seat.  "We're going to Ponderosa Steak House.

I liked the Ponderosa Steak House.  We usually went on Tuesday nights for their special -- a ribeye steak, baked potato, dinner roll, and salad.  But...

"We can't eat out!  Today is Sunday!"

"There's not enough time to cook," Mom explained.  "Your little brother and sister need to eat."

"But it's a sin!  God will strike us dead!  We'll spend eternity in the Lake of Fire!"

"Just be quiet.  It's an emergency."

Seething in righteous indignation, I was silent all the way down 38th Street to 7th Avenue.  I was Daniel going into the Lion's Den.  They could bring me into that house of abomination, but they couldn't make me eat.  No drop of food, no sip of water, nothing.  I would starve before I disobeyed a law of God!

We parked.  I trudged across the parking lot, so slowly that they told me to hurry up.  Into the jaws of doom.  Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death...

It was cafeteria style: you paid, got a tray, and grabbed what you wanted from steam tables.

And just ahead of us, waiting to buy on Sunday, was Brother Tyler and Brother Smith, and their wives.

It was like seeing your priest in a meth lab.  It was like Young Goodman Brown, who discovered that all of the good churchgoers in his village were really witches.

Brother Smith didn't recognize us, but Brother Tyler did.  He looked down at his feet, heavily embarrassed.

No specific gay content in this story, but it did allow me to see that sometimes people don't exactly practice what they preach, which made it easier to reject the Nazarene rules later on.

No nudity, either, but here's a naked man to tide you over.

My Wild Night: Pancakes, Massage, and a Wiener

One day in the winter of 5th grade, when I was ten years old, a cute boy named Mark approached me after school.

"Wanna go out to eat?" he asked.

That was an odd dating request.  Boys usually just invited you over to play, or to Dewey's Candy Store.  If they were were rich, they invited you to a movie downtown.

But I said "Ok" anyway.  Mark was short and solid, with blue eyes and a severe military crew cut, and his brother Darryl was a high school wrestler.  "Out to eat" meant the whole family, so I could see them both!

"When do you want to go?" I asked, expecting him to say "Friday night."  But he said "Right now."

"Is your Dad here?"  I looked around for a car.

"No, just you and me."

"That's dumb! There's no restaurants in the neighborhood."

Our "neighborhood," the parts of Rock Island we could roam freely through without supervision, was bordered by 18th Avenue on the north, 31st Avenue on the south, 38th Street on the west and the city of Moline on the east.

There was nothing in it except Dewey's Candy Store and Schneider's Drug Store.


Was there some new place that I didn't know about?

"I have to go home first, and tell my Mom where I'm going."

"Don't be a baby!" Mark exclaimed.  "We'll be back before Captain Ernie is over."

We walked right past my house -- it would take only a second to go in and tell Mom.  But Mark, and his blue eyes, and his muscles, led me on, past 20th Avenue, all the way to the corner of bustling 18th Avenue. There were cars streaming in both directions, and the only traffic light was way down on 38th Street.



There were several restaurants on the other side of 18th Avenue, but the one that caught my eye was the Hasty Tasty Pancake House.

I had never seen anything so beautiful.  It glittered in red and gold like a palace from the Arabian Nights.

The Forbidden Fruit.

"I'm not allowed to cross 18th Avenue by myself," I protested.  "It's too busy.  We'll get run over."

"I do it all the time!  It's easy -- watch."  Mark waited until there was a momentary lull in the traffic and darted across the street.  My heart pounding, I followed.

The other side of the world!

Everything was different here.  The sky was darker, the air was cooler.  The houses were small and grey and shabby.

We went inside and sat at a garish red booth, and Mark bought us pancakes and milk.

They didn't taste good.  I felt too guilty for being on the other side of the world without telling Mom.

It was 4:00.  Sometimes I played after school, or went to Dewey's, but I always got home by 4:00, in time for Captain Ernie's Cartoon Showboat.  Mom would be wondering where I was.

"I have to get home to watch cartoons," I said.

"Come to my house. We can watch Captain Ernie there."

"Well...it's late, and..."

"I'll let you feel my wiener," Mark offered with an evil grin.

 "Um...well..."  I had only seen a few wieners before, and I never felt one. Bill never let me.  And Mark was cute...

"It's real big,  As big as my brother's, and he's in high school."

That sealed the deal.  We darted back across the street and walked to Mark's house, on 20th Avenue near the border of Moline.

Mark had a portable black and white tv set in his room. We sat side by side on the floor, watching Cartoon Showboat for a while. There was no clock, so I couldn't tell what time it was.

Dad got home at 4:00, and we ate dinner at 5:00.  I had to go!  What was the hold up?

Finally, after an eternity of cartoons.  Mark turned the tv off and drew the blinds.  Smiling, he took my hand and pressed it against his crotch.

"No fair!  All I can feel is your pants!"

"Ok."  He started to unzip.

Then we heard a noise in the hallway outside, and he quickly zipped up.  The door opened, and a big boy came in.  Darryl, the high school athlete!  He had his shirt off -- he had muscles!

"What you dorks doing in the dark?" he asked, leaping onto the bed and turning on the light. "Whoa, what a workout!  I need a massage!  Either of you guys a masseur?"

"I am!"  I said with a grin.

"Ok, great -- it's right there in my shoulder.  Dig in good."

I got to sit on the butt of a semi-naked high-school boy and rub his muscular shoulders!  But still, I felt guilty.  I shouldn't be here!  Dinner is at 5:00 -- Mom and Dad will be worried!

Eventually Darryl said "Thanks, little man" and left.  Mark shut the door behind him.

It must be almost 5:00 by now.  I had to hurry.  "You said I could..."  I began.

"Oh, sure."  Mark unbuttoned his pants, and pushed my hand inside.

It was nice, bigger than mine, with an impressively solid shaft.


"Now I get to feel yours, too."

I unzipped, and we fondled each other for awhile.

"I know how to make it get bigger," Mark said.

"But I have to...."

Then a voice yelled up the stairs, "Mark, is your friend staying for dinner?"

We quickly zipped up again.  He looked at me.  "Do you want to?"

"If my parents say it's ok," I said.  "Can I call them?"

"Sure.  The phone's in the kitchen."

There was also a clock in the kitchen.  6:30!  

My heart started to pound with fear.  "6:30!  But you said it was dinnertime!"

"That's right -- we eat at 7:00."

I was three hours late!  Without saying goodbye, I rushed out the door, into the winter darkness, and raced home.  Mom was calling all of my friends, and Dad was out scouring the neighborhood.  They thought I had either been kidnapped or fell into a ditch.

Years later, I learned that I could get away with any misdeed by claiming that I had been trying to meet a girl or impress a girl.

But "I was trying to feel a wiener" obviously wouldn't work.  I was grounded for two weeks, and forbidden from playing with Mark again.

My Five Minutes as a Cub Scout

I was never a Boy Scout, but I was a Cub Scout -- for about five minutes in the winter of fourth grade.

They promoted it heavily in school, with film strips and guest speakers, and a giant assembly where they extolled the wonders of the Loud Thunder Boy Scout Camp.

Lots of cute boys hugging in swimsuits.

It sounded like a good way to increase our cruising options, and get more cute boys for our sleepovers, so Bill, Joel, and I joined.

I liked the cool blue uniforms, the Indian lore, and the various guidebooks that demonstrated how to win merit badges: swimming, diving, life saving.

And our  pack consisted mostly of boys we didn't know from class, so we did get some new opportunities for meeting cute boys.

The pack leader was cute, although I never saw him like this.

Bill and I always cut out just before the final song, "God Bless America," and ran home through the dark winter night to catch The Partridge Family.  It was fun being out after dark by ourselves.

But the benefits were far outweighed by the horrible arts-and-crafts activities!

First, we had to glue something together.  How was I supposed to know that new tubes of glue need a pin-prick?  I squeezed and squeezed, and the whole thing burst all over my scout uniform.

Not the best way to attract the attention of a cute boy.  My mother never did get it clean again.

And we were supposed to build cars out of a block of wood, and paint them.  Smelly, messy, disgusting.

But the worst was the Boy Scout Jamboree that we had to attend downtown.  Boy Scouts demonstrating inane skills, like gardening and being nice to old people.

The one I remember the most vividly is "how to build a fallout shelter" for nuclear war.  Way to put a damper on the afternoon!

The opportunity for cruising wasn't worth it.  Bill and I dropped out.  Joel stuck around.

A few years later, Harvey comics featured a series in which Casper becomes a Cub Scout.   Spooky and Hot Stuff join, too.

Apparently they are all eight years old.

I couldn't figure out why someone who regularly fights mad scientists, monsters, and aliens would want to spend his evenings glueing things together and carving cars out of wood blocks.

Unless Casper was looking for new cruising opportunities, too.

The Face of Pure Evil

This story has been moved to RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

Island in the Sky: My First Boyfriend

Rock Island, February 1969

Just after Christmas in 1968, when I was in the third grade, a boy named Bill, short and deeply tanned with black eyes and small hard fists, suddenly started to chase me across the schoolyard to my house every afternoon, threatening to pound me for some offense. But I proved too swift, and my house  too close by, to make pounding feasible, so Bill took to walking next to me instead, pointing out the other boys he had pounded or planned to pound.

This isn't him, of course.  This model is well over 18.  But it will give you an idea of his arms, shoulders, and smile.


The "pounding" attempts went on for a month or two.  One day in February, when we reached the chain-link fence, Bill announced, “I’m gonna go to Dewey’s and get an ice cream cone.” Dewey’s was a store in a white building on 20th Avenue, facing Denkmann to attract rich South Side kids as they walked home with allowance money bulging in their pockets.  It sold mostly kids’ treats: ice cream, candy bars, Hostess Twinkies, little bags of Lays Potato Chips.

“It’s too cold for ice cream,” I said.  "Anyway, a Mean Boy named Dick hangs out there."

“Ok.” Bill turned abruptly and walked away, his boots crunching loudly on the ice-encrusted snow. But after a few steps, he turned back. “They have other stuff, too,” he said in a low dismal voice.  "Uh. . .you know, if you want, you can come with. I got money.”

Finally I understood, and I almost laughed. Bill was asking me for a date! For all his tough-guy posturing, he was shy and nervous when it came to talking to boys. Maybe this was why he became a bully – they rarely dated anyone. They substituted pounding for hugs, pointed out faults to avoid being rejected.

“That sounds cool,” I said. Bill had muscles, and he was forceful, always in charge, so we could play adventure games and Bill could rescue me and I could exclaim “My hero!” And it would be fun to date a bully; imagine the stares and double-takes when we played together at recess!

After buying a Milky Way for me and Hostess Snowballs for himself, Bill suggested that we eat at his house instead of staying at Dewey’s, where the fat man behind the counter always glared at kids and muttered about long-haired hippie freaks. Besides, Captain Ernie's Cartoon Showboat would be on in a few minutes.

Bill was rich.  He lived in a gigantic house with lots of levels and an arbor out back.  He and his brother and sister all had their own rooms. There was a separate dining room, and a family room with oak panels and chairs shaped like barrels and a piano in the corner.

We spent the rest of the afternoon in the family room, watching Bugs Bunny and The Three Stooges on Cartoon Showboat and drinking Squirt from thick, heavy glasses, the first I had ever seen that were actually made of glass, not plastic.

Bill’s family kept rushing in, all bubbly and excited. His Mom, a squat brown smiling woman, invited me to stay for dinner. His Dad asked what I was studying in school and lent me a book on the ancient Aztecs. His older brother, a high schooler named Mike, mussed my hair and called me “Bud” and offered to drive us places.

Later I found out why everyone was so excited – Bill had never liked a boy before! This was the first time he had ever invited a boy over as an actual date!

This photo is not really of him; I only have a few photos of me and Bill together, and most of them make us look like little kids (that's really his house, though).

After that Bill invited me over to his house almost every day after school, and on weekends he always thought of something fun to do: miniature golf, hiking at Black Hawk Park, a “young people’s” concert at Augustana College, a trip to the Putnam Museum in Davenport to see Egyptian mummies and a huge Aztec calendar stone.

Sometimes Bill asked me to sleep over, and if it wasn’t a school night we got to stay up as late as we wanted, even later than his big brother. We lay propped on thick starchy pillows on Bill’s bed, eating Lay’s Potato Chips and listening to “Chicken Man” on the radio and reading comic books. I had only a few comic books of my own, donated by uncles or traded with cousins, but Bill had hundreds, of every type imaginable: Superman, Tarzan, Archie, Donald Duck, Little Lulu, Casper.

One of the Casper comics was so beautiful that I begged Bill to let me keep it. The cover showed the ghost-boy scaring a superhero. In the story inside, Casper flew an island in the sky called The Elysian Fields. There he met the gods of Greek mythology – Zeus, Apollo, Ganymede, Hyacinth – all with beautifully sculpted muscles. They lived together, eating grapes, throwing a discus, playing horseshoes on a unicorn horn, their idyll threatened only by the mischief of a green-faced trickster god.

They lived together – that was the most important part, the reason I asked for that comic book out of all of Bill’s hundreds. I had never heard the word "gay" before, but I knew that this was proof positive that grown-up men got married and lived together, and maybe when we were grown-ups, Bill and I would get married and live together  too.

The comic book reappears, when Darry and I search for it during my senior year in high school, and when I write a story about it during my freshman year in college

A High School Boy Gives Me His Underwear

This story has been moved to RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

Grandpa Prater's Wrestling Moves

My Grandpa Prater, my mother's father, was a big man, towering over my father and uncles, and rugged even in his mid-60s, with thick arms and shoulders and huge hands.  He wore overalls, sometimes with a white t-shirt underneath, sometimes without, so you could see his hard round pecs dusted with white hair.

He was a man's man, always doing something with his sons and sons-in law and various friends: hunting, fishing, playing horseshoes, working on cars.

He had a thick Kentucky accent that was virtually incomprehensible, but he didn't say much anyway.  When the family gathered in the living room to play cards and exchange gossip, he kept silent unless someone asked him a question.  The indoors was uncomfortably stuffy; he'd rather be out with his friends and some dogs on a midnight hunt.

The only time he perked up was when someone asked him to play his banjo.  Then he'd play "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" or "Cotton Eyed Joe," as good, and as fast, as the Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs at the Grand Ole Opry.

There was a sadness about him that I didn't pick up on when I was a kid.  Something deep and dark, that the little joys of everyday life couldn't penetrate.  It wasn't just that he had lost his wife, three older brothers, and four of his eleven children.  It was a dream deferred, a hope from his childhood that he abandoned.

More about that later.

I have two good stories with Grandpa Prater.  The first is about judo.

The summer after fifth grade.  We're all at the farmhouse, but my brother and Cousin Buster are off somewhere, so I'm the only kid.  Dad and my uncles are up by the Old House, playing horseshoes.  I'm not allowed because I'm too little.  I don't necessarily like horseshoes, but I like hanging out with the men, especially when my only other option is sitting in the farmhouse with my Mom and aunts, gossipping about who did what with whom thirty years ago.

I'm wandering aimlessly through the side yard and the rhubarb patch when Grandpa Prater appears, wraps his huge paw around my shoulder, and says "I hear you're taking wrestling."

(I'm not going to try to transliterate his incomprehensible Kentucky accent.  Use your imagination.)

"Wrestling?  No, I'm studying judo.  It's a Japanese sport.  We wear white robes and throw each other."

"Judo?"  He repeats the unfamiliar word.  "Did you know I was a wrestler in high school?"

He takes my hand and leads me up the hill toward the Old House.  It's difficult to understand him, but by interrupting with many questions, I get the gist of his story:

In the Kentucky hills in the 1920s, it was unusual to go past the eighth grade, but the adolescent Tony (who I assume looked like this) was smart as a whip, so his parents allowed him to go on through twelfth grade at Salyersville High School. His best subject was music -- he sang and played the banjo, like on the Grand Ole Opry. That got the bullies riled, so to prove that he was a he-man, he went out for wrestling and basketball, too.

I have that problem!  At Denkmann, raising your hand too often or getting high grades on too many tests draws the ire of Mean Boys.

By now we are on top of the hill, in the men-only zone behind the Old House.  Dad asks, "Wanna join us, Tony?"

He doesn't ask me.

"Well, sure, but right now Boomer's going to show you all his wrestling moves.  Judo, I mean."

I'm what?   Try to throw someone who is twice as tall as me, and a solid mass of muscle?  And my grandpa?  I don't think so!

But Dad and my uncles are gathered around to watch the show.

"C'mon, you can't hurt me.  I'm strong as an ox.  I was wrestling guys before your Daddy was born."

Sighing, I grab Grandpa by the shoulder and hip and try the easiest throw, basically tripping your opponent.  To my surprise, he goes down easily and pulls me on top of him.

"Dagnabit, you did it!" he exclaims.  "That there judo is powerful stuff.  Now pin me.  Come on, pin me to the ground!"

I scamper on top of him, feeling his hard firm chest, smelling his Aqua Velva cologne and hint of whiskey, and press his arms over his head.

He pushes his arms down and slides me down his trunk, as easily as one might push off a pair of pants.  I feel his hard belly and the mass of his crotch.

"Well, your pinning needs some work, but other than that, you're a natural.  Hear that, Frank?  You sign this boy up for wrestling!"

Dad grins at me as if I've achieved a major goal.  And maybe I have.  "C'mon, Boomer," he says, "Play horseshoes with us.  You're old enough now."

I did go out for wrestling a year later, when I started junior high.

The next story about my grandpa involves sneaking into his bedroom to "borrow" his banjo.

See also: Grandpa Prater and his Banjo

My First Kiss, from Greg the Boy Vampire

Rock Island, October 1969

I'm pretty sure that I kissed the boy next door when we got married  in the first grade, but it was a purely ritualistic kiss, necessary to seal our bond.  My first unscripted kiss was in the fall of 1969, in fourth grade.  But not with my boyfriend Bill

I used to rush home from school to catch most of Dark Shadows (1966-71), the Gothic soap opera about tortured vampire Barnabas Collins. Bill didn't like it -- he only liked science fiction -- so he would sit in the bedroom reading comic books until it was time for Cartoon Showboat, or else come over after.  So I invited Greg, a fourth grader who was taller than me, with brown hair and braces, well-built but preternaturally pale, as if he had never been in the sun.

Greg liked science, like Bill and me, but he was also a fan of the paranormal: haunted houses, Bigfoot, UFOs, fairies, demons.  He had a painting of Lucifer falling from heaven on his bedroom wall.

He first introduced me to Greek mythology by lending me one of his books.  I remember a picture of a hairy satyr with goat legs and horns, his arms wrapped around a muscular teenager who was playing a five-reeded flute. They were both naked. (I think it was this famous statue of Pan and Daphnis.)

One day Greg and I were watching Dark Shadows alone -- Bill was coming over later -- when suddenly he jumped up and ran into the bathroom. He returned with a bath towel tied around his neck like a cloak. He raised his arms like vampire claws and exclaimed “I am Barnabas Collins!"

"You'd better be!" I said.  "If my mom catches you with that towel, you're dead!"

"I am a vampire!" Greg continued.  "See my fangs?"  He opened his mouth to reveal sharp chiseled canines.

Fake fangs! I thought. He must have gotten them from the Dark Shadows game, which came with a set of "real' Barnabas fangs. But they looked real.

“If you’re a vampire, why can you go out in the daytime?” I said, trying to play along, but also somewhat disturbed. Part of me was wondering if Greg really could be a vampire.

“Barnabas goes out in the daytime!” Greg said in an impatient tone. Vampires aren’t magic! They just suck blood.” He flounced atop me and knelt on my lap. “I’m going to suck your blood right now!”



Before I could protest, Greg’s mouth was clamped down against my neck. I felt his lips, the hard plastic of the fangs, his tongue -- and shoved him roughly aside.  "Get lost, Spazz! If you suck my blood, we can’t be friends anymore.”

Pouting, Greg returned to his seat.  “Barnabas sucks Willie’s blood. It doesn’t hurt. It feels groovy – like a kiss!”

“Boys don’t kiss!”

“Sure they do. Like this.” Greg took out his fake fangs, leaned forward and kissed me briefly on the mouth.  It was cool and hard, but still exciting.  My heart was pounding.  

I pushed him away and yelled "Knock it off!"

Apparently discouraged, Greg didn't try to kiss me again, though we continued to be friends until his family moved away, shortly after we visited A Little Bit O'Heaven in sixth grade.

And when I tried to kiss Bill, he always pulled away,  so I got his cheek.  I didn't succeed in kissing anyone on the mouth until junior high.

Is My Judo Master Gay?

Rock Island, January 1971

Denkmann Elementary School didn't have any sports teams, so I was spared the "play a sport...play a sport...play a sport" litany.  Until the beginning of fifth grade, the fall of 1970, when Dad suddenly came home with a pamphlet advertising "Rock Island Parks & Recreation Kids’ Sports.”

"It’s not just ball games, Skeezix,” Dad said. “They have boxing, judo, and karate. Those will be better at teaching you to fight anyway.”

“Couldn’t I join the orchestra instead?”

“Orchestra won’t teach you how to use your fists,” Mom pointed out. “You’re going to have to learn to fight sooner or later. All boys do.”

I sighed.  I get punched by a Mean Boy one time, and they start a "learn to fight" kick, insisting that people will be challenging me to fistfights regularly for the rest of my life.

Or maybe they were responding to the incident at the A&W, when Bill and I became "a Mama and a Papa."  Or asking for an Easy Bake Oven for my birthday.

“How about we make a deal?” Dad said. “You can join the orchestra if you take one of these classes, too. Boxing, judo, karate, whichever you want.”

Judo seemed the least horrible – no actual hitting, and you got snacks – so when the new kids’ classes began in January, I walked four blocks west to 38th Street, to the Rock Island Martial Arts Center. I changed into my stiff white judogi with the novice white belt, and learned about bowing, falling, and randori, or exercises on the mat.

I considered sneaking through the glass doors, looking at the comic books at Schneider’s for an hour or so, then going home and lying to Mom and Dad about how much fun I had. But it was too cold to go outside without a coat, and besides, most of the other students were cute junior high boys, and if I stuck around I might be able to see them take their judogis off in the locker room.



The sensei, or teacher, a Japanese guy named Sammy, was tall and broad-shouldered, with a smooth, golden chest slightly dampened with sweat (I don't have any pictures, but he looked like Japanese bodybuilder Hidetada Yamagishi). During the break, when we got to drink tea and eat almond cookies, he took me aside and wrapped a huge hard arm around my shoulders and said “Don’t worry that you are little. Some of our greatest champions are little guys. I bet in a month or two, you will be able to throw me.”

And, in a month or two, I did manage to throw Sammy (but he helped, practically leaping over my hip). I started to look forward to my Tuesday and Thursday afternoons at the dojo, with the tinkling Japanese samisen music, the faint smell of bleach and incense, the cute junior high boys, and Sammy’s fascinating stories.

One night during break, as we were eating almond cookies, Sammy said, “I better stock up. At home all we got is peanut butter sandwiches.”

“Why don’t you tell your wife to make pot roast?” I asked. “That’s what Uncle Charlie always makes on My Three Sons.”

“We never have that,” Sammy said with a weird half-smile. “Too complicated to make, too many ingredients.”

Why was pot roast too hard for his wife? I wondered. Weren’t all grown-up women expert cooks? But. . .boys couldn’t cook, or if we tried, it had to be something easy. When Mom was in the hospital having my baby sister, Dad made macaroni and cheese three nights in a row.

The answer was obvious: Sammy was married to a man, not a woman!

I didn't know the word "gay" yet, but I assumed that Sammy was in a same-sex relationship for almost a year.  Until the summer after fifth grade, when he invited some of his best students to his house for a cookout.

When Dad dropped me off and I walked onto the screened-in porch and knocked, the door was answered by a petite Caucasian woman in a flowered blouse and Capri shorts. I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach. Sammy was married to a woman after all.

Where were all the men married to men?  Or were they all forced to marry women?  Maybe the litany "what girl do you like" shifted gradually, as you grew older, to "you must choose a wife!"  And if you refused, you would be forced.

Bill and I Find a "Little Bit O'Heaven"

Rock Island, May 1972

When I was a kid, one of my birthday presents was always an excursion for me and two or three friends to anywhere we wanted in the Quad-Cities.  Unfortunately, my birthday was in November, so most of the fun places were closed.

But then I got the bright idea of postponing the excursion to May: then my friends and I could go to Mother Goose Land, Longview Park, the Putnam Museum, or the Niabi Zoo.  Or, the spring of sixth grade, A Little Bit O' Heaven.

B. J. Palmer, son of the founder of chiropractic medicine, traveled the world collecting Chinese, Indian, and European art.  Now it was on display in a contemplative garden on the grounds of Palmer College of Chiropractic.

The commercials promised: "Mystical idols from the forbidden East! Treasures of Greece and Rome!  Dangers around every curve!"

I imagined a temple out of Johnny Quest, with statues of Greek gods and naked natives brandishing spears.  

As my boyfriend Bill and I talked it over, the Little Bit O' Heaven became bigger and bigger.  Acres of statues.  40-foot tall slabs of muscle. Flexing bodybuilders.  Natives who were completely naked!  Rows of penises that you could see and touch!

It was settled.  We were going to A Little Bit O'Heaven!

I invited Bill and two other friends who liked muscles: Joel, a cute curly-haired soccer player, and Greg, the boy vampire who gave me my first kiss.  My brother wanted to come, to do research for his own birthday excursion in June, and of course Dad drove us and paid the admission fee.

It started out ok: we walked through an ornate gate into a tropical greenhouse with macaws and parrots, and a 40-foot waterfall splashing through a miniature town.  Then a 10-foot tall statue of the Buddha, some totem poles, and a pond full of live alligators!

That was cool, but we were anxious to get to the acres of muscles and penises.

Next came a courtyard where you walked along a winding path, past statues.  A fat Buddha.  A naked lady.

Another turn, another naked lady.

"Where are the men?" Bill asked.

"They're coming up, probably saving the best for last," I assured him.

Another turn, another fat Buddha.  And another naked lady.

"You said there would be Greek gods," Greg protested.

"Naked," Joel added.

"Um...maybe they're in storage," I said.  My stomach was starting to hurt.  "Dad, where are the men?"

Another turn, another naked lady.

"It's art," he said with a shrug.  "That means women."  

"Gross!" Bill exclaimed.  "Who wants to see that?"

I was hot with disappointment, outrage over the false advertising -- and embarrassment.  I promised my friends muscles!  "Dad -- let's get out of here!  Can we go to the Putnam Museum instead?"  

"No way, Skeezix!  This is your birthday trip, and it cost me a fortune."  He always called me Skeezix when I failed to demonstrate heterosexual interest.  "Now quit whining and enjoy it!"

My friends never forgave me for subjecting them to the Little Bit O'Heterosexual Heaven.

Although getting ice cream on the way home helped.

A Naked Indian God at the Pow Wow

Rock Island, September 1970

Every summer the Sauk and Fox Indians, who used to live on the site of Rock Island, returned for a Pow Wow at Black Hawk State Park.  On the Fourth of July weekend in 1970, just after fourth grade, Bill's big brother Mike and his girlfriend took us to see it.

We wandered the booths where Sauk/Fox  ladies sold beadwork, moccasins, feathered headdresses, little toy drums, fried bread, and ice cream sandwiches. For some reason, the phallic Weinermobile was there, selling hot dogs.

Mike bought me a small green-plastic statue of a Sauk with a round face, long flowing hair, and bulging muscles.


The lady at the booth said that he was Wisakeha, a beautiful youth who created all of the world's rivers.  He fell asleep on the day the White-Eyes first bridged the Mississippi, but someday he would awaken and banish war from the world forever.

Mike got quiet after that, maybe thinking of Vietnam.

The show came later: Fancy Dancers fluttering with fringed shirts and enormous feathered headdresses, Medicine Dancers in animal masks, Eagle Dancers with red and green streamers fringing from their pants. A "Wild Indian" blew cigarette smoke through his nose and scared the little kids with his tomahawk. Sauk women marched single-file across the dirt, chanting to the corn spirits.   Teenage boys wearing only buckskin pants marched across the dirt, pounding on drums and screaming. They invited the kids to scream as loud as we could to awaken Wisakeha.

When a white-haired old man in a red-beaded headdress began to screech in the old Sauk language, Bill and I decided to look for Indian arrowheads in the hickory-oak woods. We walked up a steep trail that led away from the Pow Wow until we could no longer hear the shrill song or the murmuring voices. Sometimes we caught a glimpse of the river through the foliage, glinting down past a white-brick dam.

Suddenly the woods became very quiet. We saw a figure standing a little down from the path, facing the river.  An Indian! One of the teenage performers, I thought, still in costume, except his buckskin pants were down around his ankles, leaving him naked. I saw the side of his thigh, the curve of his clenched buttocks, his thin striated belly, his massive chest painted green like the forest. He was peeing, I realized with a start -- and he had a garden hose between his legs!  It took two hands to direct the stream of urine into the undergrowth.

I had only seen a few penises before, or what the grownups called "shames": my brother's, my cousin Joe's, and my Uncle Paul's.   (I didn't count the Naked Man in the Peat Bog, because I thought he was a monster.)

He couldn’t be a real Indian boy! I thought. He was too muscular, too alien, too beautiful. His chest was green, but the rest of his body was dark gold, like a statue. He must be Wisakeha, the god that the Sauk and Fox worshipped, who would soon banish war from the world. We watched in utter silence, afraid to move or breathe.

Suddenly the boy noticed that we were watching. He turned, his muscles taut, his eyes pools of black. And he screamed. It wasn’t angry, like the screams of wild Indians on tv, or the preacher at church – he was screaming with joy.  He wanted to be seen.

But we were too terrified to stick around.  We ran back to the Pow Wow as fast as we could, and collapsed yelling into Mike’s arms.

Maybe we did awaken a sleeping god that day.

My Grade School Boyfriend and the Old Lady Schoolteachers

Rock Island, Fall 1984

You're probably wondering about my "boyfriend" Nick who saved me from The Killer one summer (I'm guessing the summer after 3rd grade, when I was eight years old).

The muscular, redheaded law student with freckles on his chest who took me out for an ice cream soda afterwards.

I don't have many more details, no long-ago smiles or glimpses of his shame.  He visited a few more times, that summer and the next -- once he took me and Bill for a ride in his convertible with the top down.

Then he vanished without explanation (or maybe he just happened to visit when I wasn't around.  I was busy every summer with Nazarene Bible camp and vacation and summer enrichment classes).


He left me with one connection: his grandmother.

Her name was really Mrs. Lindquist, and her companion was Miss Deverr or Devere, but everyone called them the Old Lady Schoolteachers because they had taught at Denkmann Elementary School for many years, beginning when it first opened in 1934.

I never knew their first names.

When I was growing up, Mom knew them from the PTA or the Safe House Program or something (Safe Houses had brown stars in the window, signifying that you could run there if a stranger tried to abduct you).  She used to go over and visit them -- maybe they reminded her of her own mother, who died in 1965.  Occasionally they sent banana bread or cookies back with her.

They always made popcorn balls for Halloween.

Sometimes my brother and I went over to shovel their sidewalks or mow their lawns.  We were supposed to do it for free, but they always tipped us a quarter each anyway.  They invited us inside once, while they fumbled about in their purses.  I remember dark, ponderous furniture, General Hospital on tv, and dozens of framed pictures of relatives. Nick was smiling in a graduation gown.

Miss Devere died when I was in high school, leaving Mrs. Lindquist alone in the house.

I brought my first boyfriend, Fred, over to meet her.  She gave us Swedish cookies and asked what we were studying in school.

Mrs. Lindquist died in 1984, during my year in Hell-fer-Sartain, Texas.  Since I was 1000 miles away, I didn't go to the funeral, but Mom and Dad were there.  They talked to Nick briefly: he was a lawyer, living in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, with a wife and two kids. No doubt he was still buffed, with freckles on his chest.

The obituary they sent filled in the details in the life of Mrs. Lindquist: born in Galesburg in 1896, graduated from Augustana College, married Axel Lindquist, had two children.  She taught at several Rock Island schools, and at Denkmann from 1934 to 1961, when she retired. Her husband and her son Jonah preceded her in death.  She had four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Miss Devere was not mentioned.

At the time I didn't think that they might be a lesbian couple.   After all, they lived on the next block!  They made banana bread!

But now I wonder: were they just heterosexual roommates, sharing the bills, describing the penises of their male lovers, on Friday nights gazing lustfully at aging sleuth Barnaby Jones on tv?

Or were they "together"?  Back in the 1930s, did they wear cravats and smoke cigarettes and read to each other from The Well of Loneliness?  Did they teach together, and then stroll across the grassy field to their house, a lesbian couple living freely and openly during the 1940s and police-state 1950s?

I might be able to find Nick on the internet, reunite with him, and ask for more details.  But I'm not sure I want to.  Living in Cedar Rapids, he's probably conservative, and might not amenable to the suggestion that his grandmother may have been a lesbian.

Besides, he's about 70 now.  I would rather remember the muscular redheaded teenager with freckles on his chest who rescued me on that hot summer day a thousand years ago.

See also: The Face of Pure Evil