The Naked Man in the Peat Bog

Garrett, June 1969

When I was a kid, we visited my parent's family in Indiana once or twice a year, for a week in the summer and sometimes at Christmastime.  We always stayed with my Grandma Davis or Aunt Nora, my father's family.  We visited my mother's family, too,  at my Grandpa Prater's farmhouse in Garrett, but it was sort of boring -- impenetrable Kentucky accents, smoking and drinking, endless discussions of things that happened 100 years ago back in the hills.

And no one to play with, except for my Cousin Buster.   Sometimes my Uncle Paul  would play -- until the summer after 3rd grade, when he got married and turned into an adult.  I have only a few solid memories: swimming in the pool down the road, catching frogs, fishing, having milkshakes with his friends, learning how to "pee in the wind" (with the wind blowing away from you, so the stream is carried a long way).

And the Naked Man in the Peat Bog

There was a peat bog beyond the cornfields, a swampy, mossy expanse that looked like a good place to catch alligators.  But Paul -- he never liked to be called "Uncle" -- told us never to go near it: "There's a Naked Man who lives in there, and he eats kids.  If you get too close, he'll pop out and grab you and cook you for his dinner!"

"Why doesn't Grandpa tell him to move out?" I asked, already aware of property rights.

Paul thought for a moment. "He's been living here a lot longer than we have, more than a hundred years."

"Well, if he's that old, he can't run very fast.  I can get away, I bet!"

Frankly, I didn't believe him.  Besides, I really wanted to catch an alligator, and the thought of seeing a Naked Man just sweetened the deal. Maybe I would even see his "shame"!

So one day in the summer of 1969, when we were visiting for the wedding, I decided to go exploring.  I brought my cousins Graydon and Dayton (Kentucky Kinfolk).

We walked quickly through the back yard, where Paul and three of his friends were playing horse shoes -- they didn't see us -- then past the barn and the vegetable garden.  We pieced our way through the high corn row for maybe a quarter mile, until it opened up into a little grove of trees, with the peat bog beyond.  It was mossy-gold, with little specks of shimmering water.  There was a musty, earthy smell.  I thought I heard splashing.

"Are you sure there are alligators in there?" Cousin Graydon  asked.

"I just heard one!"

We got some sticks and started poking around in the moss, swirling the muddy water that oozed up. I thought I saw a gold glinting shape -- maybe an alligator, or maybe lost pirate treasure, which would be just as good!

Then suddenly the Naked Man came lumbering out of the cornfield.  Pale, muscular, kind of hairy, his chest and belly smeared with mud. Gigantic penis.  An orange mask over his face.  He held his arms up like Frankenstein and lurched toward us, moaning "Ummmmm!"

Shrieking in terror, we ran as fast as we could back to the house, where Paul and friends were quietly playing horse shoes.

"Why...what's the matter, kids?"  he asked in surprise.  "Did you see a rattlesnake?"

I didn't notice at the time that he was grinning.  Or that one of his friends was missing.

For a long time, I thought I had a real paranormal experience.  But recently my boyfriend suggested that Uncle Paul might have set the whole thing up to scare us away from the dangerous peat bog.

It worked.  We never went back.

But why did he think a naked man would be especially frightening?  The gigantic penis became one of my favorite childhood memories.

See also: My Best Man

My First Word Was My Boyfriend's Name

Garrett, Indiana, July 1978

When I was born in November 1960, my parents were living in a house on South Randolph Street in Garrett, a small town in northern Indiana.  We lived there until I was four and a half-years old, when we moved to Wisconsin.

I have very few memories of that time, and none about anyone who lived in the house next door.

But we returned to Garrett for visits at least twice a year, and drove down Randolph Street, past our old house, many times.  My parents often pointed it out, and the house next door:

"That's where your girlfriend lived!"

I didn't have a girlfriend, at age six, or ten, or fifteen, and I didn't want one.  I liked boys.

But nearly every time we drove past that house on South Randolph Street:  "There's your girlfriend's house!"

It was the most annoying of the "what girl do you like?" interrogations that tormented me as a kid.  I roiled at the blanket assumption that I, like every boy who had ever lived and ever would live, swooned over feminine curves and smiles, that my destiny lay in the prison of wife, kids, factory job, and small square house.

Like the two-story frame house with the ugly gray paint and the broken front door where, according to my parents, I had a girlfriend at the age of four.

We drove down Randolph Street a lot.  On the way to visit my grandparents -- both of them.  On our way to Auburn or Rome City to visit my aunts and uncles.  On the way home.  On the rare occasions that we did something in downtown Garrett.  A dozen times per visit.  And inevitably:

"That was where your girlfriend lived!"

Sometimes Mom added a few details: The girl's name was Rebecca.  She was three months younger than me, brown hair, blue eyes.  We played in our bassinets together.  My first word, other than "Mommy" and "Bye-Bye," was "Becky."

My first word was a girl's name.  I found that horribly depressing.

In July 1978, I was 17 years old, a new high school graduate.  I had just figured "it" out, but no one knew except my brother.

We usually left Rock Island as soon as Dad got off work, at 4:00 pm, and drove six hours to Rome City to spend the night with Aunt Nora.  The next day all of Mom's brothers and sisters gathered at Grandpa Prater's farmhouse outside Garrett and spent the day playing horseshoes or board games, watching tv, and talking, with a picnic or barbecue in the summer.  But today Grandpa Prater wasn't feeling well, so we just stopped in for a brief visit; the family gathering would take place at Uncle Paul's house in town.

"Look!  Your girlfriend's house!" Mom exclaimed as we drove down Randolph Street.

I started to worry.  Was it possible that at the beginning of my life, I liked girls?  Did something happen to turn me gay?  And if you could turn gay, could you turn straight again?

Going out with a girl, sitting with her on a couch, touching her on the face and shoulder, squeezing her breast, kissing her, seeing her naked...gross!  No muscles, no penis, nothing masculine, nothing attractive!  Was that my fate?

Garrett is a small town.  Uncle Paul's house was only five blocks from my girlfriend's house.  In the afternoon, while everyone was getting ready for the barbecue, I put on my t-shirt and shorts, said I was going for a jog, and ran over to meet this girlfriend I had at age four.

After 13  years, it was unlikely that she was still living there, but on the off chance, I walked up to the front door and knocked.

"There's no one home."

A boy was walking across the yard, a baseball bat in hand: a little older than me, my height, dirty-blond hair in an old-fashioned 1950s style, deep-set blue eyes, and high cheekbones.  He was wearing a muscle shirt that displayed small but firm biceps.  Cute!

So cute that I almost forgot my quest after my "girlfriend."  "Um...hi.  I used to live next door, and I'm looking for a girl I used to know, named Becky.  About my age, brown hair."

"That's my baby sister.   Well, not that much of a baby, only a year younger than me.  I'm Ben."  We shook hands -- warm, tight handshake.  "She's at work right now, but she'll be back soon.  Do you want to wait?"  He grinned.  "Or we could go surprise her."

An adventure with a cute boy!  I was in!

We walked up Randolph Street to Garrett's small downtown -- a hardware store, a newsstand, a movie theater, some bars.  I told Ben about my college plans and the Fourth of July party I went to last week where the guys got naked -- he found that hilarious!  He told me about high school -- turns out that he knew my Cousin Buster -- and his job at the car wash.  It was warm and comfortable, yet exciting, like a first date.

It was hot, so Ben took his shirt off.  Even more exciting!  Smooth tanned chest, pinprick nipples, outtie belly button. I found some excuse to wrap my arm around his shoulders.  He grinned.

Becky worked at a small store that specialized in women's dresses.  It was deserted in mid-afternoon.  A girl sat behind the counter, reading a magazine.

"Hey, where's Becky?"  Ben asked.

"Oh, it wasn't busy, so she left early.  I don't know where she went."

Ben turned to me.  "Sorry to bring you all this way for nothing.  We can go back to the house and wait, if you want."

"I have a better idea.  My uncle is having a barbecue this afternoon.  Why don't you come?  Buster will be there, and you can meet my parents."

So Ben came as my "date" to the barbecue at Uncle Paul's house.  We ate hamburgers, potato chips, salad, and pie; we played horse-shoes with the adults and slip-and-slide with the kids.  Mom and Dad introduced him as "the brother of Boomer's first girlfriend."  I introduced him as Ben.

"Oh, this is Benny, your little buddy!" Uncle Paul exclaimed.  "It's cool how you found him again."

"Little buddy?" I asked, perplexed.

"Yeah, when you were a baby, the neighbor lady used to babysit in the afternoons, while your Mom was at work.  She had two kids of her own -- Benny, and I forget the girl's name.  We called him your 'little buddy.'"

"I remember that," Ben said, wrapping his arm around my waist.  "I thought you looked familiar.  My long-lost bud!"

"You boys were crazy about each other, let me tell you!" Uncle Paul continued.  "I used to come over after school to pick you up, and you would hug for dear life and not let go."

"Um...what about Becky?"

"Was that her name?  You liked playing with her, too.  But you know what your first word was?  Other than Bye-Bye and Paul -- it was Benny!"

Later I met Becky again.  She was perfectly nice.

But my parents got it wrong -- my first word was the name of a cute boy.

See also: What's Funny about Kissing a Boy?

My Kentucky Kinfolk Grow Up

Maysville, Kentucky, January 2004

My mother's family moved to Indiana when she was seven years old.  She was born in Magoffin County, Kentucky, in the Appalachians, where the Hatfields and McCoys feuded, where ultra-fundamentalist churches handle snakes, where everyone goes barefoot and listens to Country-Western music and rides around in red pickup trucks.

Really?

My Uncle El was old enough to stay behind, working on the farm, then for the gas company, marrying, and having a huge number of children -- 12 in all.  Three were my age or a little older, El, Graydon, and Dayton.

We met in Indiana, at my Uncle Paul's wedding, where we saw the Naked Man in the Peat Bog.

 During the summer after 7th grade, my parents and I drove down to visit.  I liked hanging out with them so much that for years I thought of Kentucky as a "good place," where same-sex desire was open and free.

I didn't see them again.  When I was a kid, we always went to Indiana to visit our other relatives instead, and when I was living in West Hollywood and New York, I flew back to Illinois twice a year to see my parents and brother and sister. There was no time for Kentucky.  And the years passed and passed and passed.

I got my Ph.D.  I moved to Florida.  I hadn't seen them for 30 years.

At Christmastime in 2004, I was back in Rock Island for the holidays, when the phone rang.  My Uncle El had died on January 1st, his birthday. Did I want to drive down for the funeral?

I had only met him twice, but I wanted to go.  I wanted to see Kentucky again.

Uncle El had 12 children, 31 grandchildren, and 14 great-grandchildren, plus brothers and sisters, cousins and second-cousins, and third cousins, and some friends who weren't even relatives, all filling up the Maysville Baptist Church, the Howard Family Cemetery, and then the white frame house on a mountaintop that I remembered from 30 years before (except now it had running water, an indoor bathroom, internet access, and cable tv).

Was Kentucky still a "good place"?  Not hardly.

It was heterosexuality as far as the eye could see.  There were Howards, Shepherds, Praters, Gearhearts, and Handshoes, all reuniting over casseroles and pies and cakes, all introducing boyfriends and girlfriends and husbands and wives and kids,

Graydon, now 43, was working for the power company in Michigan.  Dayton, 45, and El, 47, ran an auto repair place in Mayville, Kentucky.  They were all married with children, and some grandchildren.

My parents cautioned me to not "talk about guys"  (their code for "gay topics"), lest the Bible Baptists lynch me, so when I was asked "Where's your wife?" and "Did you leave your wife back in Florida?", I replied with a vague "Oh, I'm not married."

When I was asked "How old are your kids?", I replied with a vague "Oh, I don't have any kids."

When men gave me an inclusive nudge and exclaimed "You know how women are!" or "You know how wives are!", I responded with a noncommittal shrug.

Was there even a glimmer of gay potential in this paeon to heterosexual marriage and reproduction?

Maybe a glimmer.

1. Cousin Graydon and his wife were big fans of Will and Grace.  "That Jack always cracks me up!"

2. I told Cousin El about Angels in America,  the HBO miniseries about gay people that aired a couple of weeks ago, and he smiled politely.

3. Cousin Dayton introduced me to his 15-year old son,  Joel, "a real lady's man!"

"Dad, that's lame!" Joel protested.

"But it's true!  He's always hanging around with girls.  He even joined the drama club at school, just so he'd have his pick of the girls."

"Dad!  I joined drama club because I want to be an actor!"

Wants to be an actor?  Always hanging around with girls?  

"I lived in West Hollywood for 13 years," I said.  "I know quite a bit about the movie business. When I get home, I'll send you some of my old books."

"That'd be cool," Joel said noncommittally, anxious to be rid of the oldsters.

When I got back to Florida, I sent Joel a box of books: a history of Hollywood,  my old textbook from acting class, some Shakespeare and Ibsen, and "accidentally," Geography Club by Brent Hartlinger, about a teen who starts an undercover gay club at his high school.

He sent me a nice card, thanking me, but not mentioning Geography Club.

Some glimmers of gay potential.

My Best Man

Indiana, June 1969

When I was a kid, I knew that a boy who liked a particular girl called her a "girlfriend."  But no one gave a name to a boy who liked a particular boy.  It wasn't "boyfriend" -- I tried that, and got corrected.  Superman called Jimmy Olsen his “boy pal."  On My Three Sons, Robbie Douglas called the boys he liked "buddies."  But I found out the real word in the summer of 1969, just after third grade, when we went to my parents' home town of Garrett, Indiana to watch my Uncle Paul get married.

Uncle Paul was my favorite uncle because he was still a teenager, in high school, and he wanted to be called "Paul," not "Uncle" anything.  When I visited, we did cool things, like going swimming or catching frogs or playing hide-and-seek in the cornfield.  He drove us to movies (my parents didn't know) and to the Blue Moon Drive-In, where he bought us milkshakes and introduced us to all his high school friends.

There was no bathroom in my grandparents' house, so you had to use the outhouse or pee into the wind.  Paul taught us how, giving me my first glimpse of an adult penis.

 But in the summer of 1969 (the same summer I saw the Naked Man in the Peat Bog), Paul was a grownup, and like all grownup men he had to go to work in the factory and get married.  He was marrying a petite girl with small hands and freckles, who said we should call her Lana, not "Aunt" anything.

At the wedding, five men and boys lined up on the little stage next to Uncle Paul, and five women and girls lined up next to Lana. My Cousin Buster, only one year older than me, got to stand up there, but not me; I had to sit in the wooden pew next to my parents and little brother and baby sister.

“Don’t worry about it,” Mom said, noting my disappointment. “Someday when you get married, you can have anybody you want standing next to you.”

“Bill?”

“Sure. He can even be your best man.”

I beamed. When Mom said boys don’t get married, she meant they didn’t have wives, they had best men! So when I grew up, I would stand on that little stage with my best man, Bill or someone like him, and we would get married while all of our friends and relatives clapped.  Then we would go on a honeymoon trip to Hawaii to look at muscular surfers, and afterwards we would move into a house together.

Nearly a years passed before I discovered that "best man" meant something else altogether.  But I still used it as code, calling the boy I liked my "best man" through high school.

Meanwhile, my parents kept snapping those pix.