Tracking Down my High School Crush

Italy, May 1985

I spent my year in Hell-fer-Sartain (1984-85) studying Italian and reading books on Italy, so naturally before escaping to West Hollywood, I had to visit.

I had been to Europe three times before, plus to Colombia and India, but this was the first time I traveled on my own, not part of a group or with a friend.  It was daunting -- and expensive, leaving little left in my checking account to pay for my move to West Hollywood.

I wanted to practice my Italian, check out the gay scene, and visit important Renaissance sites, like Michelangelo's David in the Galleria dell'Accademia in Florence (which looks much different in real life.)

But mostly I wanted to look up Giovanni, a foreign exchange student from Bergamo whom I crushed on at Rocky High.  We even kissed, sort of.  He told me to call him when I got to Switzerland for the Nazarene Youth Conference in the summer of 1977, but the phone number didn't work.

Assuming it was my fault for writing it down wrong, I had been kicking myself for seven years, and imagining a tearful and sexy reunion.  Maybe we would sit in a sidewalk cafe, and Giovanni would give me a rose and say "Those girls meant nothing to me!  It was you, only you!"

So my itinerary looked like this:
May 18-20:  Rome
May 21-22: Florence
May 23-25: Tearful and sexy reunion
May 26: San Marino
May 27: Back to Rome

My friend Craig didn't have a current address or phone number, but he thought that Giovanni was working at a bank in Bergamo, about 3 hours north of Florence.

Easy -- how many banks could there be in Bergamo?

I soon found out: 83.

I spent the afternoon and evening of May 23rd calling the Giovannis with his last name in the telephone directory.  Luckily, #3 went to school with "my" Giovanni's brother.  So I called him:

"No, no, the bank was long ago," he told me.  "Giovanni quit there.  Now he manages a hotel in Viarregio."  Go back to Florence, and turn right!

I went down on May 24th.  Giovanni lived and worked in a hotel that catered mostly to French tourists. Except he wasn't there!

The desk manager told me that he was spending the weekend with his friend Luca. In Livorno, about an hour south.  Yes, he had the number.

I called, and got Luca's answering machine.  I took a day trip over to Pisa to see the Leaning Tower, and returned to find a message -- Giovanni had called me back!

On May 25th, I caught the train to Livorno.  Giovanni and Luca met me at the station.  He was still cute, more muscular, and pale from his desk job.  Luca was thin and tanned, with black curly hair and obvious beneath-the-belt gifts.

We went boating, had dinner at the Cafe del Borgo, and in the evening we danced together at a disco.  On May 26th they dropped me off at the train station with full-body goodbye hugs.

After all that wild-goose chasing up and down Italy, Giovanni turned out to be straight!  Luca, too.  I guess sometimes high-school crushes are one-sided.

But there were other gay guys in Italy.





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Christopher George's Nude Photo

This is the uncensored photo of Christopher George from Playgirl, to illustrate the story "Christopher George: Heterosexual Icon with a Gay Connection."  The complete profile, with more nude photos, is on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

The Beefcake Restaurant of Rock Island

Rock Island, October 1977.

My senior year at Rocky High. I haven't figured "it" out yet, and even if I had, I would never tell anyone.  The interrogation of "What girl do you like?" has continued.  Intensified, even, since during my senior year I'm expected to find "the girl of my dreams."  It's possible to find a romantic partner after you turn 18, of course, but the ideal is to fall in love in high school and stay together through all the twists and turns of life, then celebrate your 60th anniversary surrounded by children and grandchildren.

So the "What girl do you like?  What girl?  What girl?" is incessant and demanding, especially on Tuesday, the day you call girls for Saturday-night dates. "Who are you going to call?  Who?  Who?  Who"" from my friends all day, and "When are you going to call?  When?  When?  When?" from my parents all night.

Why is everyone so insistent that I hang out with a girl?  When I successfully arrange a date, I can't stand the exclamations of joy, the slaps on the back, and the "our little boy's growing up!" from my parents.  And the next-day interrogations from my friends: "Did you touch her boob?  Did you feel her down there?  Was she good or not good in bed?"

And my obligation to say:  "Oh, yeah, I felt her everywhere.  We did lots of sex stuff!"

I usually try to get out of the whole mess by calling a girl so far  out of my league, or suggesting an activity so lame, that she invents a prior obligation (if she's nice) or laughs and slams down the phone (if she's mean).  Then I can mope around, rejected by "the girl of my dreams," playing "One is the Loneliest Number" on my stereo Saturday night, and if I'm lucky, Dad will slip me $5 to "get over her." $5 buys 5 paperback novels or a whole sausage and pepperoni pizza at Happy Joe's. 

Tonight I try out Jan, a tall blond girl from my Spanish class who my friends claim is "as hot as Farrah Fawcett."  She's one of the stars of Charlie's Angels (1976-81), about three private detectives who solve crimes by going under cover as bikini models and aerobics instructors.

Completely out of my league!  She's sure to laugh in my face!

I stall until 8:30, just to be on the safe side: requests for dates start coming in after dinner, around 7:00 pm, so by 8:30 most girls are already booked for  Saturday night.  Leaving the family pretending to watch tv but actually watching me, I go into the kitchen, close the door, and dial.    

Jan answers immediately, and I use my standard lame opening line.  "Hi, this is Boomer from school."

"Hi."

"Hi.  Um...I was wondering if you're free Saturday night?"

To my shock, she says  "Yes."  

Yes? Gulp...but she's a Farrah Fawcett lookalike.  She can't say yes!  Doesn't she have to wash her hair?    

But the deal isn't closed yet.  I still have to suggest activity.  The worst, lamest, dorkiest activity possible...Jump quiz?  Church revival?  Dinner with my parents?

I blurt out "Would you like to go to dinner at the Bring'er Inn?"

The worst restaurant in town.

First, what 1970s women's libber wouldn't be outraged by the logo, a caveman dragging in his girl by the hair?

Seond, it's a "supper club."  The menu is strictly from the 1940s, steaks and "chops," whatever they are.  While you eat, lounge-lizards sing -- Rat Pack favorites only.  And you get up and dance -- I don't know what kind of dances, maybe the Charleston.

Teenagers wouldn't be caught dead there.  Not even our parents -- it's for Grandma and Grandpa to reminisce about the Good Old Days.

But to my shock and consternation, Jan says "Sure. I've never been there, but my grandparents love it. Pick me up at 6:00."

I plod into the living room.  My parents and brother and sister are watching expectantly.  "She said yes," I tell them, and there are so many hoots and howls and hugs, it's like I accomplished something phenomenal.

"Where are you going to go?" Mom asks.

Wait -- all is not lost. There's no way my parents will let me go to the Bring'er Inn:
1. It's in Milan, the small town across the Rock River.  I'm not allowed to drive outside of Rock Island.
2. There's alcohol and dancing, two of the worst sins in the Nazarene Manual.  God will sentence us to an eternity of hellfire for even setting foot inside the place.

But when I say "The Bring'er Inn," Mom is all smiles, and Dad offers me an extra $10 for expenses.

On Saturday night, I pick up my friend Joel (of course it was going to be a "double date," and we dutifully pick up thegirls.  We cross the river, sort-of-discussing who was seeing whom among our mutual friends, but I'm really wondering: Why am I here?  Why is it so darn essential to have girls along?  Why can't it just be me and Joel?

We arrive at  the restaurant just before our reservation time, 7:30.  A stunningly handsome, broad-shouldered guy in a tuxedo takes down our names and escorts us to our table.

Then another stunningly handsome, broad-shouldered guy in a tuxedo brings us water and sodas, and shows us the menu.

I barely notice my "chops" (lamb meat), or the flowsy man-woman duo singing "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" on the stage.  I'm busy cruising.

There are at least five stunningly handsome, broad-shouldered guys in tuxedos working the kitchen, bringing out glasses of wine, chatting up the Geritol set.  Plus stunningly handsome teenage boys in black uniforms bussing the tables.

It's like a strip show before they take their clothes off.

Jan nudges me.  "Nice place, huh?"

"Um...yep.  Well, I could do without the dinosaur music, but the service is great."

"Be sure you give our waiter a nice tip."

And my phone number?  I think.

Later I discover that Lee Mohr started the restaurant in 1939, and staffed it with his stunningly handsome sons, sons-in-law, and grandsons.

Suddenly the Bring'er Inn is my favorite restaurant.  But only if I can bring a boy.














It burned down in 1980, but Lee Mohr's grandson Greg and his partner (business, not romantic) run several restaurants in Chicago, continuing the tradition of restaurant hotness.