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.

20 October Hookups, Dates, and Sausage Sightings

It's October,, my second favorite month of the year!  The days get longer, tv and theater seasons are in full swing, the air is brisk, running outside is a pleasure rather than a sweaty chore.  You get apple cider and pumpkin pie.  And the scary, paranormal events that are rare in July happen every day.

Ray Bradbury calls this The October Country: where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist; where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger, and mid-nights stay. That country whose people are autumn people, thinking only autumn thoughts. Whose people passing at night on the empty walks sound like rain. 

In honor of our journey past the border into the October Country of 2018, here are my top October hookups, dates, and sausage sightings.

1. October 1968: My first date.  In third grade, a cute boy invited me to a movie, which was a sin to Nazarenes.  I was certain that God was going to strike me dead with a thunderbolt. He didn't.  Instead, I got to hug a hippie.

2. October 1969: My first kiss.  From Greg, the boy vampire (also an astronomer, geologist, naturalist, and psychic), while we were watching the Gothic soap opera Dark Shadows.  It was a compromise; he really wanted to bite me on the neck.

3. October 1972: Why corpses are called stiffs.  In seventh grade, my friend's brother who worked in a funeral home invited us to come in and look at the corpse of a teenage boy who died that day.  I didn't know that men become aroused after death....






4. October 1974: The preacher pops a boner.  At a pre-college weekend at Olivet Nazarene College, we sat on a lounge in the student union watching a ministerial student make out with his girlfriend. Gigantic boner, the stuff of fantasies.

5. October 1979: The German Choirboy.  During my sophomore year at Augustana College, I spent a quarter abroad in Regensburg, Germany, and got my first real boyfriend, Wolfgang the Choir Boy at St. Peter's Cathedral.  We went out about a dozen times, but never actually spent the night together, since we both had roommates.

6. October 1983: The Halloween Homophobe.  Aka the night I drank 1 1/2 beers.  In grad school at Indiana University in Bloomington, my roommate Viju and I invited some guys over for a Halloween party.  Jimmy the Bodybuilder on Crutches invited his homophobic friend, who didn't know that the rest of us were all gay.  He had a meltdown!

7. October 1987: Heinz and His Crazy Obsession.  In West Hollywood, my sort-of-boyfriend Raul was living with a crazy old guy named Heinz.  I still can't eat Jimmy Dean's sausage biscuits or listen to the song "Come away wiz me to Malibu...."  I agreed to sharing, just to be polite, until I discovered Heinz's obsession.  Hint: Nasssty!

8. November 1990: The Rocky Horror Picture Show Virgin.  I had seen The Rocky Horror Picture Show in theaters twice and memorized the soundtrack, and the moment it came out on VHS, I bought a copy.  So I didn't consider myself a RHPS "Virgin,"  Nor did I think that the audience would demand a "virgin sacrifice."

9. October 1992: The Lawnboy.  What's scary about a lawnboy?  When he lies about his age, and you don't find out until after you've made the date.  Fortunately, I managed to call it off before the jail-bait scalawag arrived.  We finished the date in 1995, after he turned 18.

10. October 1996: My Date with the Vampire.   I may have exaggerated the oddities of Kevin the Vampire, but he definitely had a paranormal aura.  If he stared at you the right way, you would lose your free will.  That's how he got most of his dates.  He got the others with cool Bohemian looks and enormous penis.

11. October 1997: The Fireman Fantasy.   I've dated two firemen, and they've both been rather small in the penis department. Maybe that's one of the reasons they want to work with those big long hoses.  This guy came to our apartment after my crazy straight roommate put some water on the stove to boil and then left for six hours.

12. October 1999: The Boy Who Refused to Leave.  Not only did Ozzie tell an unsettling story about hooking up with John Kennedy Jr. after his death, the next day, after a hookup with me and Yuri, he refused to leave Yuri's room.  Unsettling.








13. November 2000: The Football Player Who Got Stuck in Time.  I really believe (sort of) that the University of Alabama football player I hooked up with that cold Novmber day was on a field trip from 1941.

14. October 2002: The Gay Psychic Angel.  Raphael showed up unexpectedly at my house in Florida, did a past-life regression, told me not to move to Europe, and gave me his phone number.  He was ungodly cute, an angel, but his arms didn't work, and I wimped out on calling him.  I've been kicking myself for it ever since.  I tried looking him up again recently, but I don't remember his last name, and he doesn't appear in the directory of professional psychics in Florida.

15. October 2005: Remy the Jerk.  I've had dates with Creepy Old Guys, Sleazoids, elitists, idiots, and jerks of all kinds, but this guy was a complete, utter *hole, so nasty that it was scary.  It's a good thing we had our date on Halloween.


16. October 2008: The Satyr.    A massive guy, massively fat, with the biggest Kovbasa++++ I've ever seen, before or since.  I'm pretty sure he was a mystical being, Priapus the God of Virility, just manifesting in our reality as a super-hung chub.  His houseboy was cute, too.

17. October 2012: Assaulted in the Locker Room.  I've been yelled at and called names, but the only time I've actually been attacked was in the locker room of a gym in the gay neighborhood of Philadelphia, where a guy accused me of "looking at him" and rushed in to attack.

18. November 2012: The Dark Room. I went to the guy's house to pick him up for a date, and he opened the door naked.  Things went downhill from there.

19. October 2014: My Dad's Old Navy Buddy.   My weirdest paranormal experience to date: my Dad's old navy buddy shows up. Except my Dad was in the Korean War, and this guy is still in his twenties.  Ok, maybe it was his grandson.

20. October 2015: The Twink Who Wasn't Interested.  That's not actually scary, just perplexing for a twink magnet.  Turns out he was interested, he just didn't think I was.  Go figure.

The Joy of Saying "Cock"

When I was a kid, the Nazarene Church prohibited us from using "the Lord's name in vain."  To the extreme.

No goddam, of course, or the word damn, except in the phrase God will damn you.  Even darn was too much.

Gosh, gee, and golly, all shortened forms of "God" and "Jesus," were forbidden.

The British term Lord was shockingly blasphemous.  I got in big trouble with my counselor at Nazarene camp for carrying around a copy of Tarzan, the Lord of the Apes:

"You're practicing idolatry!  You're worshipping a false god!  There's only one Lord!

I never tried zounds, which means "God's wounds."

God also hated words that were obscene or even risque.

The word sex could be used only as a noun: Adam was of the male sex.  Never to refer to coitus.  Instead, the preachers and Sunday school teachers always used the phrase: going to bed: "God will send you to hell for going to bed before you're married."

I can only imagine the younger kids in the congregation misinterpreting that statement and being terrified of bedtime.

You must go to the bathroom, never pee or piss.  So you might say, "I was in the bathroom, going to the bathroom."

We had a lot of fun with the King James Bible's prohibition against coveting "thy neighbor's ass," but referencing the animal was ok.  To reference a section of the anatomy, you had to say backside.  Never butt or ass.

You insulted someone by calling them sinner, heathen, or Catholic, never asshole.

You could imply that someone's parents were unmarried, but you had to use the term illegitimate, not bastard.  Although we sort of cheated with dastard.

For the frontside, you had to use the word shame, or if absolutely necessary, the technical term penis.  Never, ever cock, not even in reference to the rooster.

Once in high school Verne and I tried to joke about the rooster.
Verne:  "I have a cock at home."
Boomer: "Can I see your cock?"
Verne:  "Sure.  You can even play with my cock."

Claiming that we meant "rooster" didn't help.  We were both grounded for a week.

During my senior year in high school, tired of the restrictions and bigotry, I  started breaking away from the Church.

The guilt was heavily internalized, so it had to be gradual, skipping the Wednesday evening service and a Sunday evening service here and there, reducing the amount of money I gave during the four weekly collections, and systematically breaking the rules.  From the least to most horrifying:

1. Reading the Sunday newspaper.

2. Buying on Sunday.
3. Listening to rock music.
4. Wearing short pants in public.
5. Going bowling in an alley that served alcohol.
6. Dancing
7. Going to a movie

By the time I got to my freshman year in college, there were only a few rules left to break:

  

Drinking alcohol.  Too advanced for me.

Going to bed with a girl before marriage.  No way!

Using the Lord's name in vain.

If I said bad words, I could finally be free of the Nazarene guilt!  So I started throwing them into casual conversations with my friends, Mary and Bruce.

Gee, it's hot today.  
Golly, I don't think I can finish this pizza all by myself.

Not even an eyebrow raise.

Our goddam paper is due tomorrow!

 Only a few eyebrow raises.

Excuse me -- I have to pee.

Nope.

This class is a real pain in the ass.

 That got an eyebrow raise.

That asshole cut in front of me!

A brief stare, but no comment.

Ok, time for the ultimate of bad words, the word that horrified men and God alike.

I walked up to Bruce, and tried to say Men have c...

Nothing came out.

Again.  I looked at Bruce, he looked at me.  I said I have a big c....

"What?"

God was looking down at me.  All of the Nazarenes were watching.  It was time to take a stand.

Bruce was staring at me as if I was crazy.

In a loud, clear voice, almost a yell, I said I like to look at cocks!

He laughed.  "Me, too.  And ducks and geese and cows and horses, down on the farm.  Ok, now I have one: want to hear a dirty joke?  The boy fell in the mud!"  

Bruce didn't get it, but by saying cock in public, I was free of Nazarene guilt.  I could go through life without expecting God to strike me dead every moment.

And I had come out.

Dating the Preacher's Son

Verne, Mark, and a guy I don't remember

Rock Island, May 1977

During my junior year at Rocky High (1976-77), most guys were obsessed with demonstrating that they were not Swishes (our word for "gay").  The best way was to become a Rock (jock), or be seen in public with one -- they hated men with muscles.

I wasn't on a team -- being an athletic trainer didn't count -- so I had no choice but the only other option: date a Rock.

But most Rocks were very busy, having sex with eight or nine girls in various combinations every night, so they had little time or energy left for boys.

 One day in November, a few weeks after my date with Todd's girlfriend, I was running around the indoor track, when I saw the preacher's son Verne (not his real name) playing one-on-one basketball in the gym be-low. Verne was a senior, so our paths rarely intersected. At school, I saw him only in the locker room after football practice, when he was anxious to get to the showers.

At church, he was always encased in a shell of fawning groupies. Practically our only contact came a couple of months ago, when I helped him Pray Through to Victory at an altar call.

As I ran, Verne finished his game. He guzzled Gatorade from a plastic bottle, then ripped off his t-shirt and collapsed, shimmering with sweat, onto the lap of a girl.  He was hugely tall, with broad shoulders, hard thick biceps, short dark hair, and dark blue, almost purple eyes.  And he was a Nazarene -- no sex allowed!  He would be perfect.

It took a week for me to bolster my courage enough to call. Even then, I dialed and hung up three times. When Verne came on the line, I said, “There’s a gospel concert on Saturday. Um. . .if you’re not, like, busy or anything. . .would you like to go?”

Verne burst into raucous laughter.

“Sorry to bother you,” I said stiffly, my face burning with humiliation.

“No – it’s ok, sorry,” Verne said. “It was just funny the way you asked. I’m busy Saturday, but what about the basketball game Friday? You can do more touching at a game, anyway. I’ll get us a couple of girls.”

I spent the rest of the evening exuberantly calling all of my friends, and wondering why do we need girls?

During the game, Verne and I sat with the girls on either side, so that our thighs and knees sometimes brushed together, and whenever the Rocks scored a point, he enveloped me in a warm, sweaty hug. Next came Alfano's for Canadian bacon and sauerkraut pizza and two pitchers of soda, one for the boys and one for the girls.

We had a lot to talk about.  Verne was taking AP Spanish and French; if it hadn't been God’s Will for him to become a preacher, he would have become a linguist.

When we dropped off Verne’s girl, he walked her to her doorstep “for safety,” but returned almost immediately, complaining that her father had left the porch light on.

My girl came next; her porch light was dark.

When I returned to the car, Verne asked “Did you get any?”'

I assumed that he meant kissing, so I said “Sure. Lots.”  I had kissed her on the cheek.

Verne and me

Verne reached over and punched my shoulder and exclaimed “Awright!” I was disappointed that he didn’t walk me to my doorstep to “get some,” but otherwise I was elated by my success.

During the winter and spring of eleventh grade, we went to a a jazz concert, the spring musical,  an orchestra banquet, two basketball games, a baseball game, hiking, jogging, tennis, and swimming.  That was more enough for us to be “going together,” though no one at Rocky High seemed to notice, referring to us only as buddies.

 Dating Verne summarily ended any suspicion that I was That Way. Even at church, people spoke to me in a civil tone.  It also ended pressure by my Crowd to date girls -- apparently Vikings were dreamy enough.

 Maybe that's why he always insisted on girls for evening dates.  He usually provided them, but twice I brought Becky, my Just Friend, and once I acquired my own, by casually saying: “Oh, and Verne will be there, too.”

At some point Verne always disappeared with his girl for ten or fifteen minutes, and on the way home he had the annoying habit of asking “Did you get any?” But these complaints were trivial; I was dating a Rock!

In May we spent a weekend camping with his friends at Starved Rock State Park at Starved Rock State Park, about 100 miles from Rock Island.

 Though we shared a tent, I avoided any repeat of the scapular incident last summer at music camp. I didn't want to discover that Verne was one of these guys who drops you the moment things get physical.  But I did get a sausage sighting.

Showering with Two Boys at a Church Conference in Switzerland

When I was sixteen years old, I was selected to join 500 Nazarene teenagers from around the world in Fiesch, Switzerland for our International Institute.

It was like summer camp, with daily sermons, Bible studies, jump quizzes, and seminars on soul-winning, except we had afternoons and one full day off for field trips and sightseeing  We could go out on our own, as long as we:
1. Didn't try to make friends with the locals.
2. Didn't set foot in any Catholic church.
3. Were back by 7:00 pm.

But every good Nazarene knows how to bend the rules.

The full post is on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends.

I pray through to Vic-tray, with Phil's hand on my butt

When I was growing up in the Nazarene Church,  most church services ended with an altar call: an invitation (or exhortation) to come down to the front of the sanctuary, kneel at the long, low wooden rail, and Pray Through to Victory (all preachers had a Southern accent, so they said "Victray). 

 It was similar to Catholic confession, with no priest: you asked God to forgive all the sins you could think of, and if He decided to, you became a Christian or got saved (from an eternity in hell).

Praying through to Victray  wasn't easy -- you had to work, sobbing and begging and moaning, for at least ten minutes, sometimes more.  And afterwards, the most trivial of sins -- an angry word, a lustful thought, a glance at the Sunday newspaper -- would negate your salvation, so you'd have to start all over again.  It was not unusual to go down several times a year, and some especially sensitive types went down at almost every service.

Usually just adults went down -- kids were excused, and teens had regular invitations to "bow your head right here and ask God to forgive you" in Sunday School (just before the morning service) and NYPS (just before the evening service), so we were usually saved by the time the altar call came around.

But in ninth grade, the first year that I was officially a teenager, I discovered a benefit to going down to the altar (other than the not going to hell thing).

Praying Through  was such hard work that you needed someone by your side, entreating God on your behalf.  So whenever you went to the altar, Christians of the same sex rushed down to help.  Two, three, or even more, depending on your popularity. 

They pressed against you, hugging and holding, arms around waists and shoulders, even pressed on your butt as if trying to push you into heaven, and when you successfully Prayed Through, you became a single mass, bear-hugging and back-slapping and pressing together.  During those moments, I felt a lifetime's worth of hard muscle, and sometimes even private parts pressed surreptitiously against me.

Going down to the altar allowed me to get hugged, held, and caressed by the preacher, the preacher's son, my Sunday school teacher  and lots of other cute boys and men.

And the next service, if I was still saved, I had carte blanche to go down and touch, hold, hug, and fondle any guy I liked.

The full story is on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends 

The Preacher Pops a Boner

Kankakee, Illinois

When I was growing up in the Nazarene Church, we spent a lot of time at Olivet, our college on the prairie of eastern Illinois.  The church wanted to make sure that we went there after high school instead of some secular university where we would be taught liberalism, atheism, and evil-lution.

So there were ball games and special concerts, and beginning in ninth grade, an annual Olivet Weekend every fall, with a party, a nature hike, a church service, classroom visits, and the opportunity to spend the night in a real college dormitory.

It was actually sleeping bags on the floor of the lounge in the freshman men's dorm, but still, I was surrounded by cute college men!

In ninth grade, our host was David, a senior religion major (and baseball player) who told us how he was hoping to get a church near his home town, and his girlfriend Ruth, who mostly bragged about how she had scored the "handsomest guy on campus."

The full post is on Righteous Gemstones Beefcake and Boyfriends

My Sunday School Teacher's Stripper Sons

When I was a kid in the 1970s, my favorite Sunday school teacher was named Brother Dino (not his real name).  He was young, in his mid-20s, with black hair and a thick black moustache -- rare for Nazarenes.

He had only been saved for a couple of years -- before that, he was a Catholic! -- and he knew all about movies, dancing, drinking, card-playing, carnivals, circuses, and Catholic Masses. He framed them as destructive and evil: "Look how horrible my life was before I got Saved!" -- but the stories were brash, colorful, and seductive.

Brother Dino was our cabin counselor at Nazarene summer camp during the summer of 1974, just after eighth grade. One day I saw him naked in the shower.  He looked like this guy: muscular body, hairy chest and belly, very impressive beneath the belt.

Nazarenes typically didn't have many kids -- why bring kids into the world, when the Rapture would come at any moment -- but Brother Dino and his wife had lots, four girls (born 1968, 1970, 1973, 1975)  --and, just when they were giving up, two boys, Mickey and Dom (1977, 1978).   I didn't pay them much attention -- I left the Nazarene church when the oldest was only about 10 -- but my mother told me about the them their talent show and jump quiz triumphs, their dates with the new preacher's kid, their participation in International Institute, their colleges and marriages and children.

She never mentioned the stripping. But my brother Ken did.

At Christmastime 1999, I was back in Rock Island home for the holidays, and as my brother drove me away from the airport, we passed a low gray building.  "That's a new strip club," Ken announced.  "Where girls take off their clothes," he added, as clarification.

"Any male performers?"  I asked.

"As a matter of fact, Tuesday is lady's night, with guys taking their clothes off."

I didn't ask how he acquired that information.  "Hmm...lady's night, only women allowed, I guess."

"And you know who the top dancers are?  Brother Dino's kids, Mickey and Dom!  Brother Dino can barely hold his head up in church anymore!  What did he expect, when he gave them Catholic names?"

Mickey and Dom were now in college -- one at Augustana, the other at St. Ambrose, the Catholic college in Davenport.  And on Tuesday night they made extra money by performing at the strip club.

Men were allowed in "if accompanied by a lady," so I called an old college friend, and we went to the 10:00 show. I was the only man in a crowd of twenty or so women.

Having not seen the boys since Mickey was a toddler and Dom a babe-in-arms, I didn't know what to expect.  They came on stage dressed as college jocks in sweatpants and Augustana and St. Ambrose sweatshirts.  They pretended to argue about college rivalries, and in "anger" stripped each other out of everything but their jockstraps.

 They had smooth, muscular bodies -- rather surprising, given their dad's hairiness, and not as sculpted as the male models of West Hollywood, but certainly impressive.

They danced together on a little stage, then separated and worked the crowd.  I think it was the oldest, Mickey, who gyrated toward my side of the room.  I held up a dollar.

He approached, grinning, his smooth chest shining with sweat, and thrust his crotch suggestively toward me. "I'm an ex-Nazarene, too," I told him, shouting to make myself heard above the music.  "Your dad was my Sunday school teacher."

He looked surprised, but kept grinning.  "Small world!" he said.  "You gay or is she your girlfriend?"

"Just a friend."  He straddled my lap.  I shoved the dollar inside his jock strap and felt around to see if he was as big as his dad.  He was.

"Cool!  You guys the best tippers!  Wanna kiss?"

"Sure!"

He bent over and kissed me briefly on the lips, as I shoved another dollar into his jock strap.  The crowd squealed in shock or delight.  Then he rose and backed away and gyrated toward a woman who was holding up a dollar.

My mother tells me that both Mickey and Dom are married with children now, working in human resources and telecommunications, respectively.  Their stripping days are far behind them.  But I'm sure that they're gay allies.

Rock Island has changed.

See also: A Nude Party with the Golden Boy

I Learn About Oral Sex in the Church Parking Lot

When I was a kid, our Nazarene church had only one preacher, whose main job was screaming and banging the pulpit for an hour three times a week (researching and writing sermons is more time-consuming than you may think).  

But when I was in ninth grade, we got a Youth Minister, in charge of kid and teen activities like Junior Joys, Nazarene Young People's Society, the Afterglow (a party after the Sunday evening service), and Canvassing (going door to door to witness).

The Preacher might be elderly, but the Youth Minister had to be young, cool, and attractive enough to keep kids interested.  Ours was Brother Bob, fresh out of Olivet, in his early 20s, tall, with enormously broad shoulders, a barrel chest, and gigantic hands.

Unfortunately, I never saw him shirtless -- he always wore a suit and tie, the Nazarene equivalent of a clerical collar.  But when I went down to the altar to get saved or sanctified, he came down and wrapped his huge hard arm around me, and I could feel his hard barrel chest against my back.

You could hardly miss the gigantic Mortadella+ swinging around in his pants every time he moved. Particularly in NYPS, when we were kneeling to pray, and he walked from person to person to see if we needed help: his crotch was exactly at eye level.  And at least once, when he hugged me after altar call, I felt it press against me like a salami stuffed in his pants.

One Sunday night during the summer after ninth grade, I walked out into the parking lot during altar call to escape from the frenetic shouting, and saw Terry and Dave, twelfth grade best buddies, talking in the shadowy area by the church bus.

The full story is on Rigtheous Gemstones Beefcake and Boyfriends

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.

You might think that the Prospects would be buried in letters or harassed by constantly-ringing telephones, but in fact most people settled for prayer. It's a daunting prospect to cold-call someone you don't know, who has been to your church just once.

During the fall revival, the kid, teenager, and adult with the most points received awards, usually Bibles, while the whole congregation clapped and yelled "Amen!"

During the summer after 5th grade, the first year I was eligible, I wimped out with "prayer only."

In 6th grade,  I sent a few post cards.

In 7th grade, I tried phone calls, only to get two "wrong numbers" (which didn't count) and one "You made a mistake -- I never went to that church."

During the summer after 8th grade, I decided to go all the way with a personal visit.

I was fascinated by a name that appeared on the Prospect List every year: Francis DePew, who came to Vacation Bible School one summer, but never appeared again. He was in the same grade as me, and he lived on the Hill, but he didn't go to Washington Junior High.

That meant he went to Jordan Catholic School!

The full story, with nude photos, is on Righteous Gemstones Beefcake and Boyfriends

I Meet the Nazarene Teen Idol

When I was growing up in the Nazarene Church, twice a year, in the fall and the spring, we had a "revival": a full week of screeching, foot-stomping, Bible-thumping sermons by an evangelist who made his living going from revival to revival, getting people saved and sanctified.

You were encouraged to bring your friends who went to other churches, and thus might not be amenable to visiting on a Sunday morning.  But on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday night, they were free, right?

We did get a few converts during every revival, but not nearly enough for the evangelist, who stomped and shouted with more and more urgency as the week wore on and nearly everyone who needed to get saved was already saved and only a few people went down. Or no one.

The only bright spot of the whole ordeal was the gospel group that accompanied the evangelist. During the fall revival in my junior year in high school, the evangelist was the young, muscular but bellowing Brother Jonathan, and the musical group was the Smith Family (not to be confused with the punk rock group the Smiths, which I have several times).

They sang fast, upbeat songs which I assumed they wrote -- there were records for sale in the lobby.  Church oldsters used to old Salvation Army-style ballads like "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms" were scandalized by their country-inflected lyrics, not to mention their guitars, drums, and tambourines.  One of their songs goes through my head intermittently to this day:

I've got confidence, God is going to see me through
Whatever the case may be, I know He's gonna fix it for me.

(I just discovered that "I've Got Confidence" was not a Smith Family original: it was composed by Andre Crouch and popularized by Elvis Presley.)

I haven't been able to find any photos -- too much interference from other Smiths on the internet -- but they looked something like this: middle-aged husband and young-adult daughter as the lead singers (baritone and soprano), teenage son on the guitar, preteen son on the drums, and wife on the tambourine, piano, or organ.

 Scott, the teenage son, was a year younger than me, tall and buffed with big hands, a round face, short blond hair, and dreamy blue eyes.  The Nazarene equivalent of a teen idol, our own Shaun Cassidy!  I was desperate to become his friend, or at least feel a warm strong handshake, but I didn't have a chance.  He was mobbed.

Girls were swooning, batting their eyes at him, writing him love notes under the guise of prayer requests.  Old people (anyone over 30) were pushing to tell him what a "fine Christian boy" he was and getting him to autograph any piece of paper they could find, even the "notes" page of their study Bibles.  Boys were rushing to kneel at the altar in the hopes that Scott would come down from the podium and put his arm around them as they moaned and cried and "prayed through to victory."

Unfortunately, I couldn't join them at the altar, because I had made a major tactical error.  You could go down only to get saved (forgiven of the sins you had committed), sanctified (made holy, so you would be incapable of future sins), or to help someone else pray through.   And, not knowing that Scott would be there, I got sanctified just a few weeks ago!

Going down again so soon would be admitting that I had never been sanctified at all -- that I had been deceived by Satan into rising from the altar without praying through. Or that I was lying to get the praise and prestige.  A major faux pas. a major humiliation!

The full post is on Righteous Gemstones Beefcake and Boyfriends

Escaping Church with Shaun Cassidy

Rock Island, Fall 1977

When I was a kid, I hated the Nazarene church.

Hour-long sermons three times a week, with dull funereal hymns from a hundred years ago, full of "thou hasts" and "wilt thee."

The preacher pacing the stage and pounding his Bible and screaming about how evil the world was.

Excruciatingly long altar calls, where the backsliders and the sinners had to go to the front of the church, kneel at the altar, and beg and whimper and sob for God's forgiveness from their sins.

And there were lots of sins.  God hated movies, cards, games with dice, swimming, dancing, short pants, long hair, earrings, bad words, Catholics, comic books, restaurants that served alcohol, carnivals, circuses, rock music, science fiction, and evolution.

And the three sermons per week were just the beginning.  There was Sunday school, Nazarene Young People's Society, Afterglow, choir practice, Calling (visiting people who had missed last Sunday), Canvassing (knocking on doors of strangers to try to Win them for Christ),

Having a school activity or a lot of homework was excuse enough to skip the weeknight activities, but the Sunday morning and evening services were another matter.  You had to go.  No exceptions.  I tried various ways to get out of it:

1. "I don't want to go to church!" That didn't work, even if I started to cry.

2. "I have a lot of homework to do."  Nope.  It was a sin to do work on Sunday, even homework.

3. "I have an upset stomach!"  Foolproof, right?  No one can say that you don't.  But then my parents would sneakily serve fried chicken and apple pie for Sunday dinner, with some thin soup and jello for me.

4. "My friend invited me over for a sleepover Saturday night."  Nope.  First I had to be actually invited to a sleepover, and then Dad would pick me up Sunday morning early enough to get to church on time.

5. "My favorite tv program is on!"  Nope.  You'll just have to miss it.

In junior high and high school, I attended regularly, due to my fondness for the jump quiz and Verne, the Preacher's Son, and because I wanted to be chosen to go to Switzerland for the Nazarene International Institute.

But during my senior year, Verne was gone, Switzerland was over, and the preacher had discovered "homa-sekshuls,"

I wanted out.  

I thought of the "what girl do you like?" interrogations of my parents and practically every other adult.  They were so obsessed with compiling evidence that I was wild about girls that I could get away with anything, from coming in after curfew to losing my new jacket, just by claiming that I had been trying to impress a girl or meet girls.  

Why did you sign up to fight tigers? "I heard there would be girls in the audience."

Why did you jump out of the airplane?  "There was a girls' school below."

Getting out of the Sunday evening service suddenly became easy:

6. "I want to stay home to watch The  Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries," with Shaun Cassidy, Parker Stevenson, and...um... Pamela Sue Martin."

"You have a crush on Pamela Sue Martin!  Great!  Wonderful!  Stay home and watch her all you want!"

Later I tried Wayne Rogers...um, I mean Loretta Swit of M*A*S*H.

Sunday morning was a little harder.

7. "A girl invited me to her church."  No -- I would actually have to get a girl to invite me, and then it would just be more church.

8. "I want to go to the library to study.  There will be girls there."  No -- the library was closed on Sunday.

Ok, think!


Awhile ago, church princess Debbie  asked me to go with her to the Afterglow, the teen party after the evening service.

When I refused, she stared at me for a moment as if she had never heard such nonsense, then flounced off in a huff.  Ever since, neither she nor her cronies would talk to me.

9. "I can't go to church -- Debbie will be there!"

"Rejected by the girl of your dreams!" My parents commiserated.  "Heartbreaking!  Of course you can stay home!"

I still had to go on occasion.  But it was a start.

See also:The Backslider at the Ponderosa Steak House

I Learn How to Cruise in the Nazarene Church

I feel torn about growing up in the Nazarene Church. 

There were a lot of rules no movies, dancing, theater, carnivals, circuses, rock music, secular literature, or shopping on Sunday -- but there were lots of ways of sneaking around them.  Life was quite interesting, one caper after another.

The three hour-long fire-and-brimstone sermons every week were tedious --God hates everybody and everything, I get it -- but the altar calls were fun. Nothing beats the adrenaline rush of "praying through to victory" while half a dozen cute men and boys are hugging and touching you.



It was gratifying to realize that only Nazarenes, out of all the hundreds of religions and Christian denominations in the world, got it right, knew how to avoid going to hell for all eternity.  But it was also a big responsibility: you had to win souls. Your family (if they were unsaved), your classmates, strangers on the street.

In high school soulwinning class, we learned that there were five main techniques, ranked from least to most difficult:

1.  Just be cheerful. Smile.  Say "Isn't it a beautiful day?"  Sinners are miserable all the time, so they will eventually beome curious and ask: "Why are you so happy all the time, when the rest of us are so miserable?"

"Well, that's because I'm saved."

"Really? How could I get saved, too?"

I don't care what our soulwinning coach said, that conversation never actually happened in real life.

2. Invite them to church.   Preferably to the evening service, when there's more likely to be an altar call.  We got points and prizes for contacting prospects -- people who had attended Sunday school or church and then dropped out.  Sometimes they just attended once.

3. Witness.  Inform the sinner that you are saved, and let them make the first move:

"Sorry, I can't go to the Breaking the Ten Commandments party this weekend because I'm saved." 

"Really? How could I get saved, too?"

That conversation never happened in real life, either.

4. The Soul Winning Conversation. This was the most difficult, and therefore the most prestigious.  Walk up to a stranger, start a conversation, and win their soul right there on the spot. 

The "mark" should be about your age, and of the same sex (coach didn't explain why).  He should be alone, not in a group.  He should be in situation where he won't have to leave right away, say studying in the library or eating in a restaurant.

Start the conversation by finding a topic of common interest.  Then encourage him to talk about himself.  Eventually he will mention being miserable, like all sinners are all the time, and you can say something like "What if I told you you could be happy all the time?"

Boom! Pull out your Bible.  If he doesn't run away, you've got him!

Actually, that never worked, either, but through high school I had carte blanche to approach any cute boy I wanted, just by saying that I wanted to win his soul.

And when I started cruising -- meeting guys in gay bars, or in gay neighborhoods anywhere -- I found the soulwinning techniques invaluable.

1. Someone who is alone, not in a group, and in a situation where he won't leave right away.

2. Start with a topic of common interest.

3. Encourage him to talk about himself.

4. Eventually he will let you know that he is interested in sex, or a date, or both.

5. Boom!  Pull out your phone number, or your penis, or both.

Sausage Sighting of the Preacher's Son

Rock Island, May 1977

When I was in high school, Verne the Preacher's Son was my kind-of boyfriend (at least when there were no girls around).

Nothing erotic happened, but we hugged, and I got a number of sausage sightings.

This guy is over 18, older than Verne at the time, but he has the grin, the same chest and shoulders, and the same beneath-the-belt gifts, a sizeable Bratwurst.

During my junior year, I applied for early admission to Olivet, our Bible College on the prairie, because Verne was going.   It offered 30 majors, but everyone assumed that I would be studying to become a preacher, evangelist, minister of music, or missionary.

As the days and weeks of my junior year at Rocky High passed, Verne began to conjure an idyllic future for us.  We would be roommates at Olivet, of course, and take lots of the same classes. He would play football, and I would be an athletic trainer.

Then, when we graduated, we would get called by the same church, maybe as preacher and minister of music.  They often worked as a team.  We would plan church services together.  We would go on retreats, prayer breakfasts, and sabbaticals. Our wives would exchange recipes in parsonage kitchens.  Our children would grow up together, and eventually marry each other.

Sometimes these conversations involved hugging.  Sometimes they involved playfully grabbing at each other while changing clothes.  I had already seen Verne nude in the locker room, and on our camping trip, but there was something especially erotic about nude horseplay, in his bedroom at the parsonage on a Saturday afternoon.

A random guy

One day in May 1977, shortly after Scott the Cornetist disappeared (later we discovered that he died), we were changing clothes after jogging, and I got tired of the "wives and kids" litany.  "Why will we need wives?" I asked.  "Why can't it just be the two of us?"

He looked at me like I was crazy.  Then, after a long pause: "Have you ever seen a Nazarene preacher that didn't have a wife?"

"Um. ...no."

"Every preacher -- every man --  has to get married.  It's  a fact of life.  But friends are just as important.  Maybe more."  He put his hands on my shoulders and drew me into a warm, sweaty, hug "The Bible says that David loved Jonathan 'more than the love of women.'"

I wasn't satisfied.  "Why can't David and Jonathan live together without women?"

Verne laughed and broke away.  "Man, you get the craziest ideas!  Without women, they would be Swishes!"

Little White Lies in High School

When I was growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, the Nazarene church was very strict: no movies, no dancing, no eating out on Sunday, no shopping in a store that sold alcohol, and absolutely no lying. 

Lying wasn't as bad as going to a movie, but it was still bad enough to send you to Hell for all eternity.  Our Sunday School teacher told us to be especially careful of four situations where people thought lying was justified.  It was not.

1. "White" lies that you tell to avoid hurting someone's feelings.

If Mom asks "How do you like my brocolli and lima casserole?" and you don't like it, say so. Don't lie just to avoid hurting her feelings.

2.  "Kidding," lying as a joke. 

If your friend asks "What's the homework assignment?", don't answer "To eat fried worms."  Don't try to be funny.  Tell the truth.

3. Misdirections, lies that are technically true. 

When the Sunday school teacher asks if you have witnessed to anyone (told them about Jesus) since last week, and you haven't, don't say "I talked to some of my friends."  Obviously you did talk to your friends during the last week, but you are not answering the question. 

4. "Necessary" lies that you tell to avoid something that you think is worse. 

During the Tribulation, when they round up and shoot all the Christians, if someone asks "Are you a Christian?", you must answer "Yes.."  Better to die right away and go to Heaven than live a few more years and go to Hell.  .

I appreciated this list of types of lies, since I was lying all the time.

   

1.  My parents, teachers, and friends were constantly asking "Is there any girl in your class that you like?".or "Is there any girl at church that you like?", and by around 9th grade,  they began asking with intensity, fervor, and a look of joyful anticipation. 

"No" was not an acceptable answer. It didn't mean "no," it mean that I didn't trust them enough to reveal my secret crush.

So I picked a girl at random and named her.  A little white lie to avoid hurting their feelings.

2. Whenever a new girl appeared in class or at church, or a girl broke up with her boyfriend, they pushed me at her.  "Don't be shy!  Ask her out!"

I couldn't tell them that I didn't want to date her, or any girl, for that matter.  So I waited a believable amount of time and said "I asked her out.  She said no." 

Just kidding.

3, In high school, on
Tuesday nights (the night you call for Saturday dates), I would get a constant interrogation from my parents "Who are you going to call?  Why haven't you called?  It's getting late!"

So I called a male friend and asked him to 'hang out."  Then I reported back:   "I made a call."

"Do you have a date?"

"Yes."  Dates refer to any plans, not just romantic ones, right?  Misdirection.

4. My friends were constantly asking "Isn't that girl hot! Doesn't she have nice breasts?  Wouldn't you love to get her in the sack?"

If I said "No," they wouldn't believe me.  Or maybe they would, and discover that I was the only boy on Earth who was not interested in girls.  I couldn't even imagine the consequences.  Psychological tests.  A mental hospital.  Or maybe medical tests, dissecting me to see what went wrong. 

So I said "Sure, she's totally hot." 

A necessary lie to avoid something worse.