How's that for a title? Well I drove the coast highway up to San Francisco form Glendale. I went right through the Big Sur but never stopped. By this time I had some time issues. I wanted to get back to New Haven for the wedding of my friends so I had to choose what I did. So I drove right through to San Francisco and to the home of my other Aunt Naomi. In San Francisco I was able to get in contact with those images that moved me so much in the movie the Graduate. In fact the movie no longer has any power over me. I also met with Diana for lunch one day. She was working in a storefront counseling service in Haight Ashbury. The Haight was legendary as the hippie capitol of the world, but it was skid row in actuality. I was by that time as much a hippie as about anyone around and the Haight's romantic days were long gone. The scene was hard drugs and drunks and people living in the streets. It wasn't pretty. I also had rid myself of the Diana demon. We met we talked and I left and never looked back. Maybe I was making progress becoming a man! I visited my childhood home in Pleasanton and our old nextdoor neighbors still live there. I visited a short while with them. I am not proud of it, but I had once swipped a bra from the mother. She was slight and her bra fit me. I of course didn't admit this to her then, I just visited. Back in San Francisco I visited the usual sights and attractions and a few that people don't usually think of. I took a taxi ride up and down the hills. You've got to do it once! I also had a chance to visit some with my aunt. That was the last time I saw her.
Eventually I started the trip home. I came the southern route where highway was still mostly under construction. I went home the northern route. That route took me through Sacramento and then to Reno Nevada. I stopped in Reno because the next stop was a long way away Salt Lake City, Utah. It was a short ride but I welcomed the distractions of Reno. Before Las Vegas there had been Reno. I walked around a bit and finally went into one of the casinos rather randomly. I went to the bar and ordered a drink, a Gin and Tonic I think. At the bar in the bar itself there were slot machines. I sat there feeding the slot machine and drinking a while. Eventually two young women came and sat next to me. They were bubbly and obviously English and we struck up a conversation. It turns out that one of them had been the secretary for John Lennon (I was a little sceptical of this at first.) We talked and they kind of picked me up. They had all sorts of cupons for drinks that they wanted to cash in and they kept feeding me drinks as we moved from casino to casino. I have no concept of what I drank or how much at that point. As it got later the one who claimed to have been Lennon's secretary took us to a club and said she knew a member of a band there. By golly if she didn't really know an elecric guitar player for Louis Prima! She introduced us and then Louis Prima came out and we all met him. We were given a table at the front of the club and complimentary drinks (not that I needed any more.) After the show we went for some food. Earlier in the evening it looked as if things would lead to some sex, but in fact I got so drunk it just ended up with me collapsing into bed and passing out. The next morning early I paid for the whole evening. At 5 am I had to get up and start driving for Salt Lake. Between Reno and Salt Lake was mostly desert and Salt Flats and it was hot and miserable. I was hung over and dehydrated, but drove on in spite of it all. All I could say to myself was "What were you thinking?" I was never so glad to see a place as I was Salt Lake City. As I came over the crest of a hill leading down to Salt Lake there was a thunder storm over the city. It was wet and beautiful. I got a motel room and soaked. Later I drove to see some of Salt Lake City. I had no idea I would years later spend a lot of time there. There was no sleep as welcome as the sleep I had that night.
Saturday, June 26, 2004
Thursday, June 24, 2004
The Summer of 1969
When I arrived in Glendale I was expecting to move into the garden house at Billie's place. She moved me into a room in the house proper. Billie was a bit older than my mother and a very large woman. She had a heart of gold. We became friends. Though I had put myself back together somewhat on the drive to California, having a friend at that time was very nice. The idea was that I would look for some significant kind of work. I called around and finally started looking at jobs that were less significant. I had at that time modestly long hair and a moustache. It was neetly trimmed and not very radical. I certainly didn't look much like a hippie. Well I guess looking like a hippie was a relative thing, because the hair and the moustache were issues to some potential employers in Southern California. I ended up getting rid of the moustache but kept the hair. I finally got a job as a janitor in a local hospital. Now I was the only non-hispanic working in the hospitals maintenance department. I was also the only student working there. Everyone else was supporting themselves working there. The job was explained to me and I was shown my area. I started working. I had all my work done in an hour and a half. I had finished the day's work. The head of housekeeping then started to give me additional work. When I broke for lunch I sat to eat with the other janitors. They explained "making time" to me. You see I was expected to stretch out the work to fill the day. Finishing so quickly just made the rest of them look bad. I could understand their point of view, but "making time" wasn't something I could do. I finished a week of work and then had to leave. I couldn't do things their way.
I then decided to just travel and experience Califirnia and then go home for the wedding of my best friend at the time. The first thing to experience was a Rock Festival. It was billed as "Newport 69". There had been a series of festivals that had been held in Newport California and this was the latest. The only thing, I wasn't held in Newport California, it was held in San Fernando valley in Northridge. I should have guessed that there was a reason for moving the festival. I went to the festival. I bought my ticket and went in. By that time I looked more like a hippie than not and I fit right in. Some of the big names were there and that was exciting, Credence Clear Water Revival, Joe Cocker and Jimmie Hendrix were a few of the groups. There were others and some I had never heard of. There was a lot of being high and mellow. Some serious Pot smoking and some drinking and some other things. In the day it was very hot. The evening was more tolerable. The second day when I went back, ticket in hand, I was confronted by the sight of kids fighting with cops. Apparently some of the kids thought they deserved to get in free and the cops needed to bust some heads. It was an incredible scene; kids, cops and police helicopters. I didn't go back for the third day.
I visited with my aunt Naomi in San Diego for a week. She put me up and fed me. She had rows of Avacado trees growing in her back yard and I ate avacado in all sorts of ways. I even brought some great big ones home with me. Her house over-looked a kind of canyon called an arroyo which in turn over-looked the Sports Stadium. I went down to Tijuana with my aunt and bargined with the vendors there. I bought some souveneers and I got myself a leather vest. I wore the leather vest without a shirt the rest of the summer. So there I was, everlengthening hair, leather vest and sandals to boot. I was going native(flower child native). I also found an Ankh and strung it on a leather thong along with some beads and wore that all the time also. When I went back to Glendale I decided to shorten my Summer some so I prepared to go North to San Francisco to visit my other Aunt Naomi. First I did some chores for Billie and a little painting on the house. I was pretty lean in those days and very tan and muscular. I also had a very young-looking almost feminine face.
Next - going North
I then decided to just travel and experience Califirnia and then go home for the wedding of my best friend at the time. The first thing to experience was a Rock Festival. It was billed as "Newport 69". There had been a series of festivals that had been held in Newport California and this was the latest. The only thing, I wasn't held in Newport California, it was held in San Fernando valley in Northridge. I should have guessed that there was a reason for moving the festival. I went to the festival. I bought my ticket and went in. By that time I looked more like a hippie than not and I fit right in. Some of the big names were there and that was exciting, Credence Clear Water Revival, Joe Cocker and Jimmie Hendrix were a few of the groups. There were others and some I had never heard of. There was a lot of being high and mellow. Some serious Pot smoking and some drinking and some other things. In the day it was very hot. The evening was more tolerable. The second day when I went back, ticket in hand, I was confronted by the sight of kids fighting with cops. Apparently some of the kids thought they deserved to get in free and the cops needed to bust some heads. It was an incredible scene; kids, cops and police helicopters. I didn't go back for the third day.
I visited with my aunt Naomi in San Diego for a week. She put me up and fed me. She had rows of Avacado trees growing in her back yard and I ate avacado in all sorts of ways. I even brought some great big ones home with me. Her house over-looked a kind of canyon called an arroyo which in turn over-looked the Sports Stadium. I went down to Tijuana with my aunt and bargined with the vendors there. I bought some souveneers and I got myself a leather vest. I wore the leather vest without a shirt the rest of the summer. So there I was, everlengthening hair, leather vest and sandals to boot. I was going native(flower child native). I also found an Ankh and strung it on a leather thong along with some beads and wore that all the time also. When I went back to Glendale I decided to shorten my Summer some so I prepared to go North to San Francisco to visit my other Aunt Naomi. First I did some chores for Billie and a little painting on the house. I was pretty lean in those days and very tan and muscular. I also had a very young-looking almost feminine face.
Next - going North
Wednesday, June 23, 2004
There and back again
Yes I paraphrased the title of the Hobbit, but the trip to Claifornia was kind of like that. From New Haven, Connecticut to Glendale, California is a bit over 2,500 miles. If you really move you can do it by car in about 4.5 days. In 1969 the Interstate Highway System was still mostly a dream and much of the trip was on rather small roads. Why would I set off on such a trip? It wasn't for fame and it wasn't for fortune. I am sure of that. We need to go back a bit that year to understand the trip. In the winter some friends and I went to the movies together. It was a rather common event. We lived in old theaters and we watched subtitled movies and cheap science fiction and just anything that was there. This time we were seeing "The Graduate". If you remember it is a story of a young man lost after graduation from College. He is discovered by the mother of a friend (Mrs Robinson)who seduces him. Later, he falls in love with Mrs Robinson's daughter. Well the movie has some significance to me since I was very much a lost soul in those days and I was seeking to become a man. I had pretty much decided earlier in my life it was futile to keep the fantasy of becoming a girl. I tried to be a boy and then a man. Like the hero of the graduate I was caught in the web of a woman. Being caught didn't help me become more a man. I was just used and I was pretty much vulnerable. The movie struck a note. It also took place partially in San Francisco and across the bay at Berkeley. There were scenes of Golden Gate Park and the Bay bridge that dredged up childhood memories. I want home and got drunk immediately - stinking drunk. I probably would have stayed drunk for days if I hadn't decided to go to California and visit those places. So, come spring I was off to California in my Mercury Comet. My goal was to drive a minimum of 500 miles each day. In actually I drove some days over 600 miles. I drove alone and for the most part it was extremely dull. I dis have some time with myself though and I really needed that. Each evening I would stop at a motel and soak in the bath tub to ease the muscle aches and wash the grime off my body. I would then get something good to eat. It wa interesting to see what people were like in different parts of the country. They weren't much different where ever I went. The food was different and the mucic on the car radio was very different. McDonalds was everywhere and was often my lunch choice. Dinner was special though and I always went somewhere interesting. Occasionally I would go to a bar and have a couple of drinks, usually Gin and Tonic. Clsoe to the end of the long journey I was driving through the Mojave desert and I stopped in Needles Claifornia. I was very near my destination, Billie's house in Glendade. I went to a bar to have a few drinks. The bar was down the street from the Motel and I drove. When I wen into the Bar it was about 7 pm and the temperature was over 100. It was a small dive of a bar. The sort of bar I sometimes frequented in New Haven with friends. I was alone here though. I had two Gin and tonics and was going to leave when this guy sitting next to me start talking to me. He must have been 55 or 60 and he was talking about going to LasVegas and betting a large sum of money. He went on and on about it and them he tried to convince me to go to Las Vegas with him. I guess he was trying to pick me up. I never have had homosexual tendancies so it wasn't even tempting. It was interesting though. It was the first, but not last time that summer I would have someone try to pick me up in a bar. I left the bar about 11pm and when I went out to the car the temperature was 99. I am sure glad the air conditioning in the motel worked. The next day was a short ride to Glendale, where I met Billie. She was a grand old lady and I often look back to her with great affection. More to come....
Monday, June 21, 2004
Summer not so blissful
The summer of 1968 I was in a Clinical Pastoral Training program at Westboro State Hospital. It was an old style mental hospital. It had residential patients. There was also a Tuberculosis ward. I lived on the grounds of the hospital and went and visited some of the patients. Every morning during the week we started out with group therapy. The whole experience was designed to make us better able to visit and deal with people in hospital environments. Living in a mental Hospital wasn't easy by any means. You see so much that is so hard to deal with. One of the things I witnessed was Electro Shock Therapy. It was awful. The electrodes were place on the patient and the patient was sedated. The shock was then administered by the Psychiatrist. The shock went through the patient until the patient started to go into convulsions. The patient would convulse maybe 30 seconds or so and then they would move on to another patient. I talked with some of the people who had had shock therapy and it was just as bad for them as it looked to me. Afterward they would have memory lapses and disorientation. I know it was a legitimate therapy but it really seemed barbaric to me. There was a man there who looked like a human Gargoyle. He seemed to afix himself to one of the walls in a hallway and just stand there all day. One of the other chaplains in training couldn't take it and left mid summer. That summer was the an election year and the Democratic convention was being held in Chicago. We watched it some until there were riots in the street. The riots weren't from the demonstrators, but from the police. There were anti-Vietnam War protests and the police started bashing the heads of the protesters. The newscasters were shocked and we were shocked and stunned.
To start the Summer I had stayed at school in my room before going to Massachussetts to the Hospital for the program. It was a good thing I stayed because it took me a week to dry out from all the alcohol that year. I hadn't had significant gender problems during that period. I did spend a good deal of the time under the influence though. I am not really sure what that was all about, but the next year was quite different. For all the drinking and being at Yale I got straight A's that year. Theology classes were a real challange. They were designed to scramble or preconceptions by more than a little. They were successful at that. Theology is more about asking questions than knowing answers. We learned how to ask the hard questions.
The next year was much different. We already had had a sort of revolution and more was to come. During the first year we were expected to wear Academic gowns to class and to worship and we were able to remove that requirement. The next to go was a requirement that the male students wear Jacket and tie to dinner in the refectory. Now we had at that time to eat there and we were the only ones eating there at night. We wore such outlandish jackets and ties that the requirement was removed. Eventually I was able to be excused from eating there at all. The food was a real experience. We would be served sandwiches that we called Turkey lung sandwiches. And mystery meat was a common dish. The cook would capitolize on any opportunity to feed us cheeply. A truck carying crushed pineapple turned over on I-95 and he bought it up. We had pineapple in everything. I mean everything.
That year we had the entrance of the first female student. Women students at Yale were very few and far between. If a woman wanted to go and be ordained it just wasn't done then. She was rather frail looking and quite attractive. She wasn't what you would call a beauty, but definately easy on the eye. She was one woman surrounded by a bunch of drooling men. It sure must have been hard for her to adjust at first. As time went on I got to know her. Her name was Diana and we talked occasionally. The seeds of real trouble were being planted. I am the sort of person who is uaually more than willing to help and in this case it got me in real trouble. I don't remember all the details of how it began, but after a class we had together Diana and I started talking. She started to talk about her personal life and the next thing I knew she was crying. I tried to comfort her and then we were kissing. I was hooked and I didn't have a clue. I was totally lost in the experience. I hadn't had any real romantic involvement since Mary and I broke up. We were in bed together before I knew it. She was real screwed up at the time and I apparently was just as screwed up. She couldn't make up her mind whether she wanted me or she wanted her old boyfriend. Then she started to occasionally date a friend of mine. Eventually she actively pursued him, but it was futile. He was Gay. All the while she juggled me and my friend and her old boyfriend with masterful skill. I finally just got the message and backed out. I was real messed up though. I eventually found out that she had tried to involve quite a few of the male students, even some of the married ones. My best friend knew about her the whole time, but didn't clue me in until things were over. She really had me going. I didn't know whther I was coming or going I was so screwed up. I was trying my hardest to be manly and pursue her and it just didn't work. It never dawned on me at the time that it was her problem. My state got so bad and I was so mixed up that I eventually went to the Yale Psychiatric service. I sat in a dark office with a woman therapist opposit me and couldn't put words to what was the matter. As I think back I really believe I didn't know what the matter was. My male identity was very shallow and it's limits had been reached. I didn't really know what to tell her and so I left with no benefit. That was almost a fatal thing. I knew something was wrong with me and I so much wanted to be an assertive male and it didn't work. I was so confused and frustrated with myself I took some pain pills I had for kidney stones. In college I had passed kidney stones. I woke up one day with cramps and thought that I needed to go to the bathroom. The cramps got worse and turned into excruciating pain and I headed to the University Medical center. On the way the pain was so bad that I had to stop and dry heave several times. When I got to the Medical center I found that they were unable to give me anything for the pain until the Dr called. I suffered in the pain for most of the day. I dry heaved and I peed blood. Finally the Dr ordered some pain medication and I passed the stone immediately. My family Dr prescribed pain pills for me to have in case I had another attack. It was those pills I took. I don't remember how many there were but I took them all and then I started drinking whisky. I finished most of a bottle of Seagrams and didn't feel a thing. I wasn't drunk and I wasn't unconscious and I wasn't dead. When I started I really intended to kill myself and put myself out of my misery. My own sense of who I was was all screwed around. I had no sense of who I was and who I was supposed to be I walked the streets of New Haven that night looking to die. It didn't happen. I talked with my best friend at the time and told him what I had done. We talked some and that is when he told me about Diana and the others. Some of the problem was that I was dealing with a very mixed up young woman and I was mixed up myself and I couldn't distinguish one from the other. A lot of guys, and many did, could just was her out of their systems and move on. I was sucked in and crunched and left an almost empty shell. She went to her clinical training in San Francisco the same summer I went to California. I visited her there before I went home. I was over her.
I had another straight A year, who can figure? I almost quit school. I talked with my minister at home and decided to spend the summer traveling. I decided to drive across the country to California and visit my two aunts and my minister's mother. Both aunts have the first name Naomi. One was in San Francisco and she was my father's sister. The other aunt Naomi lived in San Diego and she was my father's sister-in-law. She may still be living. I haven't heard from her in a long while. My minister's mother's name was Billie. She had been an actress in silent pictures in her youth. The base of operation was to be a little garden house at Billie's house. I would pay her rent as long as I was there and I would look for summer work. The plan almost worked. I drove across the country, but my minister's mother moved me into her home and took me under her wing. We became friends ans she wouldn't take rent.
Well I skipped over many things and we need to go back to the trip across the country. I think I was in search of my manhood that whole year and we will see if I found it in the next installment.
To start the Summer I had stayed at school in my room before going to Massachussetts to the Hospital for the program. It was a good thing I stayed because it took me a week to dry out from all the alcohol that year. I hadn't had significant gender problems during that period. I did spend a good deal of the time under the influence though. I am not really sure what that was all about, but the next year was quite different. For all the drinking and being at Yale I got straight A's that year. Theology classes were a real challange. They were designed to scramble or preconceptions by more than a little. They were successful at that. Theology is more about asking questions than knowing answers. We learned how to ask the hard questions.
The next year was much different. We already had had a sort of revolution and more was to come. During the first year we were expected to wear Academic gowns to class and to worship and we were able to remove that requirement. The next to go was a requirement that the male students wear Jacket and tie to dinner in the refectory. Now we had at that time to eat there and we were the only ones eating there at night. We wore such outlandish jackets and ties that the requirement was removed. Eventually I was able to be excused from eating there at all. The food was a real experience. We would be served sandwiches that we called Turkey lung sandwiches. And mystery meat was a common dish. The cook would capitolize on any opportunity to feed us cheeply. A truck carying crushed pineapple turned over on I-95 and he bought it up. We had pineapple in everything. I mean everything.
That year we had the entrance of the first female student. Women students at Yale were very few and far between. If a woman wanted to go and be ordained it just wasn't done then. She was rather frail looking and quite attractive. She wasn't what you would call a beauty, but definately easy on the eye. She was one woman surrounded by a bunch of drooling men. It sure must have been hard for her to adjust at first. As time went on I got to know her. Her name was Diana and we talked occasionally. The seeds of real trouble were being planted. I am the sort of person who is uaually more than willing to help and in this case it got me in real trouble. I don't remember all the details of how it began, but after a class we had together Diana and I started talking. She started to talk about her personal life and the next thing I knew she was crying. I tried to comfort her and then we were kissing. I was hooked and I didn't have a clue. I was totally lost in the experience. I hadn't had any real romantic involvement since Mary and I broke up. We were in bed together before I knew it. She was real screwed up at the time and I apparently was just as screwed up. She couldn't make up her mind whether she wanted me or she wanted her old boyfriend. Then she started to occasionally date a friend of mine. Eventually she actively pursued him, but it was futile. He was Gay. All the while she juggled me and my friend and her old boyfriend with masterful skill. I finally just got the message and backed out. I was real messed up though. I eventually found out that she had tried to involve quite a few of the male students, even some of the married ones. My best friend knew about her the whole time, but didn't clue me in until things were over. She really had me going. I didn't know whther I was coming or going I was so screwed up. I was trying my hardest to be manly and pursue her and it just didn't work. It never dawned on me at the time that it was her problem. My state got so bad and I was so mixed up that I eventually went to the Yale Psychiatric service. I sat in a dark office with a woman therapist opposit me and couldn't put words to what was the matter. As I think back I really believe I didn't know what the matter was. My male identity was very shallow and it's limits had been reached. I didn't really know what to tell her and so I left with no benefit. That was almost a fatal thing. I knew something was wrong with me and I so much wanted to be an assertive male and it didn't work. I was so confused and frustrated with myself I took some pain pills I had for kidney stones. In college I had passed kidney stones. I woke up one day with cramps and thought that I needed to go to the bathroom. The cramps got worse and turned into excruciating pain and I headed to the University Medical center. On the way the pain was so bad that I had to stop and dry heave several times. When I got to the Medical center I found that they were unable to give me anything for the pain until the Dr called. I suffered in the pain for most of the day. I dry heaved and I peed blood. Finally the Dr ordered some pain medication and I passed the stone immediately. My family Dr prescribed pain pills for me to have in case I had another attack. It was those pills I took. I don't remember how many there were but I took them all and then I started drinking whisky. I finished most of a bottle of Seagrams and didn't feel a thing. I wasn't drunk and I wasn't unconscious and I wasn't dead. When I started I really intended to kill myself and put myself out of my misery. My own sense of who I was was all screwed around. I had no sense of who I was and who I was supposed to be I walked the streets of New Haven that night looking to die. It didn't happen. I talked with my best friend at the time and told him what I had done. We talked some and that is when he told me about Diana and the others. Some of the problem was that I was dealing with a very mixed up young woman and I was mixed up myself and I couldn't distinguish one from the other. A lot of guys, and many did, could just was her out of their systems and move on. I was sucked in and crunched and left an almost empty shell. She went to her clinical training in San Francisco the same summer I went to California. I visited her there before I went home. I was over her.
I had another straight A year, who can figure? I almost quit school. I talked with my minister at home and decided to spend the summer traveling. I decided to drive across the country to California and visit my two aunts and my minister's mother. Both aunts have the first name Naomi. One was in San Francisco and she was my father's sister. The other aunt Naomi lived in San Diego and she was my father's sister-in-law. She may still be living. I haven't heard from her in a long while. My minister's mother's name was Billie. She had been an actress in silent pictures in her youth. The base of operation was to be a little garden house at Billie's house. I would pay her rent as long as I was there and I would look for summer work. The plan almost worked. I drove across the country, but my minister's mother moved me into her home and took me under her wing. We became friends ans she wouldn't take rent.
Well I skipped over many things and we need to go back to the trip across the country. I think I was in search of my manhood that whole year and we will see if I found it in the next installment.
Revisited
Before I go on to the Graduate school years let's go back to 1952. I was seven years old and we had just moved to California. I might just say back to California because I was born at the very tail-end of the Second World War in Oakland, California. My father had been in the Army Air Corps during the war and in the Infantry before that. He was among the first to go out into the Pacific after Pearl Harbor. In fact, he was a couple of days out from Pearl Harbor in an unarmed troop transport when Pearl was attacked. In 1952 he had just returned from Japan where he had been stationed, now in the Air Force, during the Korean Conflict. We moved with him back to California and lived in three different places that year. We lived in a motel while my parents looked for housing and then we moved to a small rental in a community called Pleasanton. It was right near a very large Air Base called Parks Air Base. It was an Air Force Hospital. It received the wounded from Korea after they stopped at another Hospital in Hawaii. Eventually we moved into our own house. My mother was a house wife and my father a Master Sargent in the Air Force. To help pay the bills my father worked a second job at the Air Base and manged the Base Bowling Alley. All these things were significant in my life, but another event happened in 1952 that was pretty important. A young ex-soldier went to Europe and had one of the most publicised series of Sex change operations ever. She came back to the U.S as Christine Jorgensen. She was all over the papers and the radio. We didn't have a television yet so I don't remember anything there, but I bet it was there also. I do remember the publicity in the papers and the painful opening up of the details of her life. Her surgeries were not like the surgery today. She was castrated and then had a penectomy. There was no reconstruction and no vaginoplasty. In a true sense I believed that she had been mutilated. As a young gender confused boy her experience was terrifying. "See what happens to Gender confused men!" It all added to the background of my long struggle with my gender issues.
Several years later there was another very significant happening. It was more personal and more terrifying. I can remember my mother in tears one night and wondering what it was all about. The next day she explained that she had found a lump on her left breast and whe was afraid it might be cancer. Cancer in the mid 1950's wasn't something that was often cured. When she came back from the Dr's office she explained that she would have to have an operation. Later she explained that they would remove her left breast if they found cancer in the lump. Parks Air Base was still a large Hospital and she went there for her surgery. I couldn't visit her there because children were limited from visiting. They had to remove my mother's breast and she was away in the Hospital a rather long time. I did all the chores in the house. I cooked and cleaned and I did the laundry. Doing the laundry in those days wasn't easy. The washing machine was a big tub with a center agitator. After the cloths had been washed and then rinsed in the tub they had to be put through a wringer to remove as much water as possible. The wringer was a contraption attached to the tub with two rollers and the cloths were squeezed between the rollers. To dry the cloths I had to hang them on the line until they were dry. I would then take them off the line and fold them. I hadn't mastered ironing and I still am prety poor at it so I was spared that.
When my mother came home she was still pretty weak so I had to continue being the "woman of the house." I really didn't mind it all that much. In fact there was a certain satisfaction to it. My mother had not only had her breast removed, but all the lymph nodes on her left side and her upper left arm. She could barely move her left arm. She had a tremendous wound on her side. Eventually she showed it to me. It was horrible. She healed though and eventually lived to be 74. She was one of the few cancer survivors of her day. There was no chemotherapy and radiation was so experimental and grossly overdone that it wasn't practical. Eventally my mother resumed her palce as the woman of the house and I went back to my normal life, if you could call it normal. My mother did struggle emotionally though. She felt less complete as a woman. There was no good plastic surgery for reconstruction. A year later I was crossdressing every night as I have already described. When my mother discovered some of my cloths and confronted me I had assumed she had also told my father. I was so humiliated, but very little came of it. I discussed that time just recently with my father and he doesn't remember it at all. Maybe my mother hadn't told him after all. I was always very close to her and we talked frequently. As I grew older the conversations got more adult. Thinking back makes me kind of nostalgic. I miss her terribly. When she died so many years later I couldn't cry. It took me all of 17 years to really allow myself to accept her death and grieve.
In school the girls were changing and beginning to develop and I so much wanted to be just like them. I on the other hand started to grow facial hair, lots of it. It was dark and covered my whole lower face. My father made me shave and I was shaving daily by the age 12. Hair grew other places also and my voice started to change. I had a wonderful high singing voice and all of a sudden I was croaking out a deep base. It was totally shattering and I made up my mind to accept it and move on. I couldn't see any acceptable way of changing things, so I made the best of it.
Back to Graduate school - Yale namely. In college, The Universiy of Rhode Island, I had been one of the smartest and on the top of the class. When I went to Yale I expected to be just average. Either Yale was over-rated or I misjudged my own capabilities. I was at the top of the heep at Yale also. My first masters degeree was Cum Laud and my second was with Honors. The system had changed by my second Masters. Both degrees were in Theology. Undregrad Philosophy and Grad Theology. Not a lot of income potential in either. Those were stormy years, both politically and personally.
My introduction to graduate school was a keg party. Religious graduate programs are called Seminary. So I went to Seminary and was greeted by an alcoholic bash. That year was pretty much an alcoholic blurr. Every evening after chapel there would be a sherry party. Sometimes the faculty would have one and at least one student would have one in their room. As the year wore on the sherry diminished in quality generally and the parties graduated into harder alcohol. I soon discovered that I had a remarkable ability to drink vast quantities. I got terrible hangovers also. I wasn't drunk on a daily basis, but it happened all too often. I also had Migrane head aches. That only lasted a few years, but they were paralysing. I had to retreat to my room and pull the drapes and sleep it away. Star Trek was on TV, the original one. I didn't watch much TV though. I had a few dates, mostly casual ones. Nothing serious or sexual. Near the end of the school year we had a Picnic. I had a date with a gorgeous girl from Albertus Magnus College just up Prospect Street in New Haven. I was excited and I liked her very much. It was our first date. That morning I sprained my right ankle so bad I had to go to the Doctor. It was a bad sprain and I had to walk on crutches. The date was a misreable failure. I was responsible totally. I was such an ass. She was very gracefull about the whole thing and I got drunk -real drunk. I was so ashamed I could never look her in the face again even though she got word to me that she still wanted to go out. As I said I was an ass and didn't take her up on the date.
Next the Summer
Several years later there was another very significant happening. It was more personal and more terrifying. I can remember my mother in tears one night and wondering what it was all about. The next day she explained that she had found a lump on her left breast and whe was afraid it might be cancer. Cancer in the mid 1950's wasn't something that was often cured. When she came back from the Dr's office she explained that she would have to have an operation. Later she explained that they would remove her left breast if they found cancer in the lump. Parks Air Base was still a large Hospital and she went there for her surgery. I couldn't visit her there because children were limited from visiting. They had to remove my mother's breast and she was away in the Hospital a rather long time. I did all the chores in the house. I cooked and cleaned and I did the laundry. Doing the laundry in those days wasn't easy. The washing machine was a big tub with a center agitator. After the cloths had been washed and then rinsed in the tub they had to be put through a wringer to remove as much water as possible. The wringer was a contraption attached to the tub with two rollers and the cloths were squeezed between the rollers. To dry the cloths I had to hang them on the line until they were dry. I would then take them off the line and fold them. I hadn't mastered ironing and I still am prety poor at it so I was spared that.
When my mother came home she was still pretty weak so I had to continue being the "woman of the house." I really didn't mind it all that much. In fact there was a certain satisfaction to it. My mother had not only had her breast removed, but all the lymph nodes on her left side and her upper left arm. She could barely move her left arm. She had a tremendous wound on her side. Eventually she showed it to me. It was horrible. She healed though and eventually lived to be 74. She was one of the few cancer survivors of her day. There was no chemotherapy and radiation was so experimental and grossly overdone that it wasn't practical. Eventally my mother resumed her palce as the woman of the house and I went back to my normal life, if you could call it normal. My mother did struggle emotionally though. She felt less complete as a woman. There was no good plastic surgery for reconstruction. A year later I was crossdressing every night as I have already described. When my mother discovered some of my cloths and confronted me I had assumed she had also told my father. I was so humiliated, but very little came of it. I discussed that time just recently with my father and he doesn't remember it at all. Maybe my mother hadn't told him after all. I was always very close to her and we talked frequently. As I grew older the conversations got more adult. Thinking back makes me kind of nostalgic. I miss her terribly. When she died so many years later I couldn't cry. It took me all of 17 years to really allow myself to accept her death and grieve.
In school the girls were changing and beginning to develop and I so much wanted to be just like them. I on the other hand started to grow facial hair, lots of it. It was dark and covered my whole lower face. My father made me shave and I was shaving daily by the age 12. Hair grew other places also and my voice started to change. I had a wonderful high singing voice and all of a sudden I was croaking out a deep base. It was totally shattering and I made up my mind to accept it and move on. I couldn't see any acceptable way of changing things, so I made the best of it.
Back to Graduate school - Yale namely. In college, The Universiy of Rhode Island, I had been one of the smartest and on the top of the class. When I went to Yale I expected to be just average. Either Yale was over-rated or I misjudged my own capabilities. I was at the top of the heep at Yale also. My first masters degeree was Cum Laud and my second was with Honors. The system had changed by my second Masters. Both degrees were in Theology. Undregrad Philosophy and Grad Theology. Not a lot of income potential in either. Those were stormy years, both politically and personally.
My introduction to graduate school was a keg party. Religious graduate programs are called Seminary. So I went to Seminary and was greeted by an alcoholic bash. That year was pretty much an alcoholic blurr. Every evening after chapel there would be a sherry party. Sometimes the faculty would have one and at least one student would have one in their room. As the year wore on the sherry diminished in quality generally and the parties graduated into harder alcohol. I soon discovered that I had a remarkable ability to drink vast quantities. I got terrible hangovers also. I wasn't drunk on a daily basis, but it happened all too often. I also had Migrane head aches. That only lasted a few years, but they were paralysing. I had to retreat to my room and pull the drapes and sleep it away. Star Trek was on TV, the original one. I didn't watch much TV though. I had a few dates, mostly casual ones. Nothing serious or sexual. Near the end of the school year we had a Picnic. I had a date with a gorgeous girl from Albertus Magnus College just up Prospect Street in New Haven. I was excited and I liked her very much. It was our first date. That morning I sprained my right ankle so bad I had to go to the Doctor. It was a bad sprain and I had to walk on crutches. The date was a misreable failure. I was responsible totally. I was such an ass. She was very gracefull about the whole thing and I got drunk -real drunk. I was so ashamed I could never look her in the face again even though she got word to me that she still wanted to go out. As I said I was an ass and didn't take her up on the date.
Next the Summer
Sunday, June 20, 2004
The first
I guess I might as well start with the inspiration for the title. When I was nine or ten, I can't remeber the exact date my mother spoke those words to me. What inspired them was the fact that my mother had found a stash of girls cloths I had been wearing. I was born with male genitalia and was raised a boy, but it didn't stick. This encounter with my mother is just one instance of how being a male didn't stick. What my mother found was some cloths I had been using occasionally that were in a gym bag. Why she looked in the gym bag I'll never know since she died seventeen years ago. What she didn't know was that was the tip of the iceburg. Every night for a long time I went to sleep as a girl. I taped falsies to my chest and wore a bra and panties to bed. She never found out about that.
What drives a boy to do such things? I certainly didn't understand it at that age. It wasn't the beginning.
I remember before I went into the first grade, dressing in my mothers cloths. That's not so special in itself, but the feeling I remember having was special. It felt so good and natural that I remember it to this day. Right along with that memory I have one of me dressed and accidentally locking myself in the bathroom. A neighbor had to climb into the bathroom window to unlock the door. I remember embarassment from that. Just before the first grade and during that year I was picked on by the kids both older and my age. My father was in the military so we moved frequently. By the second grade I had figured out that being a sissy wasn't a good thing. I was never picked on again.
I am describing the experiences of a person who was born with a male body and a female brain. When I was young it was very hard to figure out how to be. No matter how hard I tried to be just an ordinary boy, it didn't quite work. I was always a little out of step with the rest of the other boys. I was clever enough to keep from being tormented, but I couldn't solve the issue. Well my mother solved the issue for a short time. I was so embarassed and so afraid of being further found out that I disposed of all the evidence and stopped. Yes, I stopped. I had cured myself. Well what actually happened was that I started to grow facial hair and my voice changed and I got tall. This all happened when the girls around me were getting softer and rounder and they weren't growing facial hair. More embarassingly I started to have nocturnal emissions (wet dreams.) This all said to me -"you are a boy so stop the foolishness." I tried to be a boy. I was a Boy Scout and played baseball. I ran track. I played war. My father even taught me to box and to use judo. I rode horses and lifted bails of hay. I was a boy, right? Not so fast. I still had some hurdles to deal with; dating and girls.
Now girls were a definite turn-on and they still are. The problem was that I couldn't be agressive. I struggled with my sexuality and I was in the midst of adolescance. I ocassionally would sneak into my parents room when no one was there and dress. I would do it for only short periods and only occasionally, but I did it none the less.
In my Junior year of High School I met a girl I eventually dated. We were both in the Drama club together. At first we didn't get along very well, but as time went on we hit it off. I think she was my first true love. Her name was Mary. She was intelligent, talented and above all feminine. I would walk her home everyday from High School. It was a long way out of my way home, but I loved just being with her. We talked on the phone until my parents or hers made us hang up. I had no thought of bing a girl or dressing in those days. I basked in her femininity. We were an item for several years. We spent as much time together as we could and we got just next thing to having sex. She was Cahtolic and I am Protestant and she wouldn't. We wqouldn't have been able to use birth control even if we had and with my luck she would have gotten pregnant. Condoms were illegal in Rhode Island in those days. The pill just didn't exist yet.
We went to different Colleges after High School. I went off to study chemistry and she to study design in New York. We kept in touch and saw each other during breaks. We kind of grew a little distant I thought and I was beginning to think that things were over when I got a letter from her saying "I love you. I need you." It floored me! I was thinking things were over and then her letter came. I wrote her a love letter back, but never sent it.
I guess I chickened out when things seemed to be getting serious. During Christmas break I planned to see her and apologise. I even bought her a gift. You guessed it, I chickened out then too. As I think about it I probably saved that dear sweet girl from the grief that was sure to follow.
The rest of College was a real nothing. I hung out with the artsy crowd and was one of the stranger fixtures on campus. Years ago I had switched to Philosophy as my major. I took as many minors and credits as I could. I was a Bohemian. I developed some friends who were female and I seemed to feel more comfortable in that environment. That worked until their boy friends started to complain about them being close to me. I just then hung out with a small circle of friends.
It was the beginning of the Viet Nam war and young men were being drafted. Being in College gave me an exemption. For the first two years of College I had to take R.O.T.C. (Reserve Officers Training Corps). Some of my friends stayed and took two more years and ended up in Viet Nam. It was a strange time. I could have finished my undergraduate work midterm my Senior year, but I might have been drafted. I therefore took extra courses. I ended up with six minors. On top of that I had two jobs, one for the Philosophy department tudoring Logic, and one for the music department managing the band. I also took Greek on the side. I had to get tutored in Greek because the University didn't offer it.
The Summer after graduation I worked in a Summer Camp. The girl counselors were very hot and horny. The problem was that they were for the most part still in High School. That was a real test in self control. I was ready to exert some maleness, but that Summer wasn't the time.
Next off to Yale for Graduate School.
What drives a boy to do such things? I certainly didn't understand it at that age. It wasn't the beginning.
I remember before I went into the first grade, dressing in my mothers cloths. That's not so special in itself, but the feeling I remember having was special. It felt so good and natural that I remember it to this day. Right along with that memory I have one of me dressed and accidentally locking myself in the bathroom. A neighbor had to climb into the bathroom window to unlock the door. I remember embarassment from that. Just before the first grade and during that year I was picked on by the kids both older and my age. My father was in the military so we moved frequently. By the second grade I had figured out that being a sissy wasn't a good thing. I was never picked on again.
I am describing the experiences of a person who was born with a male body and a female brain. When I was young it was very hard to figure out how to be. No matter how hard I tried to be just an ordinary boy, it didn't quite work. I was always a little out of step with the rest of the other boys. I was clever enough to keep from being tormented, but I couldn't solve the issue. Well my mother solved the issue for a short time. I was so embarassed and so afraid of being further found out that I disposed of all the evidence and stopped. Yes, I stopped. I had cured myself. Well what actually happened was that I started to grow facial hair and my voice changed and I got tall. This all happened when the girls around me were getting softer and rounder and they weren't growing facial hair. More embarassingly I started to have nocturnal emissions (wet dreams.) This all said to me -"you are a boy so stop the foolishness." I tried to be a boy. I was a Boy Scout and played baseball. I ran track. I played war. My father even taught me to box and to use judo. I rode horses and lifted bails of hay. I was a boy, right? Not so fast. I still had some hurdles to deal with; dating and girls.
Now girls were a definite turn-on and they still are. The problem was that I couldn't be agressive. I struggled with my sexuality and I was in the midst of adolescance. I ocassionally would sneak into my parents room when no one was there and dress. I would do it for only short periods and only occasionally, but I did it none the less.
In my Junior year of High School I met a girl I eventually dated. We were both in the Drama club together. At first we didn't get along very well, but as time went on we hit it off. I think she was my first true love. Her name was Mary. She was intelligent, talented and above all feminine. I would walk her home everyday from High School. It was a long way out of my way home, but I loved just being with her. We talked on the phone until my parents or hers made us hang up. I had no thought of bing a girl or dressing in those days. I basked in her femininity. We were an item for several years. We spent as much time together as we could and we got just next thing to having sex. She was Cahtolic and I am Protestant and she wouldn't. We wqouldn't have been able to use birth control even if we had and with my luck she would have gotten pregnant. Condoms were illegal in Rhode Island in those days. The pill just didn't exist yet.
We went to different Colleges after High School. I went off to study chemistry and she to study design in New York. We kept in touch and saw each other during breaks. We kind of grew a little distant I thought and I was beginning to think that things were over when I got a letter from her saying "I love you. I need you." It floored me! I was thinking things were over and then her letter came. I wrote her a love letter back, but never sent it.
I guess I chickened out when things seemed to be getting serious. During Christmas break I planned to see her and apologise. I even bought her a gift. You guessed it, I chickened out then too. As I think about it I probably saved that dear sweet girl from the grief that was sure to follow.
The rest of College was a real nothing. I hung out with the artsy crowd and was one of the stranger fixtures on campus. Years ago I had switched to Philosophy as my major. I took as many minors and credits as I could. I was a Bohemian. I developed some friends who were female and I seemed to feel more comfortable in that environment. That worked until their boy friends started to complain about them being close to me. I just then hung out with a small circle of friends.
It was the beginning of the Viet Nam war and young men were being drafted. Being in College gave me an exemption. For the first two years of College I had to take R.O.T.C. (Reserve Officers Training Corps). Some of my friends stayed and took two more years and ended up in Viet Nam. It was a strange time. I could have finished my undergraduate work midterm my Senior year, but I might have been drafted. I therefore took extra courses. I ended up with six minors. On top of that I had two jobs, one for the Philosophy department tudoring Logic, and one for the music department managing the band. I also took Greek on the side. I had to get tutored in Greek because the University didn't offer it.
The Summer after graduation I worked in a Summer Camp. The girl counselors were very hot and horny. The problem was that they were for the most part still in High School. That was a real test in self control. I was ready to exert some maleness, but that Summer wasn't the time.
Next off to Yale for Graduate School.
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