It doesn’t seem possible that the Stonewall Riots of 1969 were 50 years ago. I remember seeing the news reports. It interested me. I wondered if riots would spread to other parts of the country. It didn’t seem possible then but Stonewall sparked a national current that grew and grew.
I had wondered about homosexuality. I had barely dabbled in it myself. I rejected temptation and chose to pursue a hetero life. At the time of Stonewall I was married, completed one year of seminary, and moved back into a business career. 1969 witnessed landing an American on the Moon. We were exploring living in Chicago on Lake Shore Drive. We explored the city and its cultural offerings but saved our cash for a down payment on a house. We cooked on a portable hibachi grill on the lakefront. We biked along the lakefront. We felt the pulse of the big city and liked it very much.
When we were expecting our first child, Ann strongly wanted to find a house in the suburbs; it was what she knew from her childhood. She wanted the same for our kids. So, we explored suburbs and finally found a house in Wheaton, 30 miles west of Chicago. That was 1971 and we moved in fall after spending the summer months cleaning and fixing up the old house on Forest Avenue.
Looking back, so much happened in the years 1968 to 1971. Seminary, wedding, career change, city living on the lake shore, pregnancy, buying a house, moving to the suburbs, birth of first baby, and then a change in career at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Busy times. Huge personal and family currents of life. Encapsulated lifestyle that carried me forward for many years.
All things gay were not much in my mind in those days. That evolution came slowly but insistently. How many people like me were gay living in an entirely straight life? I wondered about that, but in those days, you didn’t speak of it. It was the ‘temptation’ we prayed to be delivered from. It was the unusual, the depraved, the unspoken sin. It simply was not a part of American conversation.
Observing the social landscape of 2019, I am pleasantly surprised that being gay is not the horror of old thinking. Acceptance is not adoption, but an opening to thinking, feeling and realizing that gay is a way of being human naturally. No one in their right mind would choose such a thing for themselves. Years later I was more certain of my sexual orientation. It didn’t happen overnight. It didn’t occur without serious thought and self-probing. And choosing to do something about it at long last, was painful.
None of us live in isolation. Our lives intersect other lives. My wife, kids, parents, siblings and so many more outside the family were involved. Divorce, sole parent of the household (although the college years by then!), found me unprepared for handling all the responsibility. But I did. And discovered unknown dimensions of myself in the process.
I had a second ‘childhood.’ I had a fresh adolescence. I discovered fun. I found frivolity. I championed it for a while. Then I settled down, created my own business, set out on yet another career path, and learned to be a better, more attendant father. I wondered at all the damage this had done my wife. I hurt for that. The unknown consequences of our personal lives. They are many and profound. And not retractable.
I found a life partner to share this new existence. Rocky has been a stalwart, calming influence for me. We crafted a household rich in aesthetics and thought. We did not take things for granted. We were mature in years and much more knowledgeable than the 20-somethings of the Stonewall era. Yet that ripple in history held meaning for me to be realized so many years later.
Life is strange in its complexity. We are complex in strangeness. With that and other hiccups, we plod this earth and make our way, learning each step of the way.
And I’m not complaining in the least little bit. It is rich with life and purpose. And Use.
We honor that this Pride Weekend 2019.
June 28, 2019
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