Marching through the Years

A drag delight, the Prime Timers’ homage to La Cage aux Folles took home Best Float in the 2008 Pride Parade. Credit: Frank LaPiana; courtesy of the Prime Timers

A Prime Timer reflects on his decades of participation in Boston Pride.

By Dick Bourbeau

It’s February 6, 1970. I have just been discharged from a fouryear tour of duty with the U.S. Army Security Agency (USASA). I’m in the parking lot of my apartment building on Aberdeen Street, just a couple of blocks away from the main campus of Boston University. Since my last 18 months with the USASA were based at Ft. Devens, I took the opportunity to complete the remaining two years of college that I put on hold to enlist in the USASA. I enlisted to avoid the draft, which would have taken me to Vietnam for sure. I went to class that evening and, like I did so often afterwards, I took a walk on the Esplanade. Only, this time, I met a man who offered to take me to a gay bar. I was surprised and excited at the same time. Coming from a small town in Southeastern Connecticut, I had never heard of a gay bar! Sure enough, he took me to Sporter’s on Cambridge Street. It was gay alright. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Walking around the bar, I found some gay publications and learned about all sorts of places and events to go to as a gay man.

One year later, ads began appearing that were announcing a gay pride march to be held in late June. Now that intrigued me. How lucky I was to land in Boston in time to march with pride in the first of what would become an annual event. I was not going to miss that. I got a couple friends to agree to march with me. Pride Day came but I did not march because I was recovering from hepatitis, but made a commitment to participate in the second Pride March in 1972. I recall in particular the excitement of marching down Charles Street with people not only lining the sidewalks but also hanging out of their windows and off their rooftops. It was like being in the North End. We ultimately spilled onto the Boston Common, where there was a Pride Rally at Parkman Bandstand. There were vendors selling items of interest to gay folk and a stage with live performances. I never even dreamed of something like this back in my high school days.

It made me wonder just who was responsible for planning and organizing this event. I wanted to thank them and to encourage them to plan others. I would certainly participate. Over the years, more events became part of Pride. One of my favorite Pride events was Pride Lights at the Cyclorama, probably because it brought Pride to where I lived, on Tremont Street. I really liked seeing the businesses competing for the grandest Pride Lights display in their windows and adorning their outdoor café areas with lights as well. Individual residents also got hooked into this expression of one's Pride and lit up their own windows, gardens, and roof decks. My buddies and I looked forward to Pride festivities each year, and each year our group grew larger.

By participating in the parade and making a great showing, we were combating ageist mentalities, showing people – young and old alike – that aging as a gay person does not mean that one stops enjoying life, having fellowship, or being an energetic and productive member of the community.

In Summer 1987, Woody Baldwin, a retired Simmons College Department Head, and his partner, Sean O’Neil, founded an organization for mature gay and bisexual men, which became known as Boston Prime Timers. Being a founding member of this organization added a whole new dimension of intrigue and fun to Pride Week. We marched as a group proudly bearing our handmade Boston Prime Timers banner in the 1988 Pride Parade and have marched in all the parades that have followed.

There was a four-year period (2005-2008) when we entered a float in the Pride Parade. In our first year of competition our entry won Best Float (tropical theme), and the second year’s entry (“Napoleon Room”) received Honorable Mention, perhaps because our float, which had quite a bit of foam board on it, did not bode well in the torrential rains of the day. Our third and fourth year entries (“Over the Rainbow, Not Over the Hill”, “La Cage aux Folles”) also won Best Float. We stopped producing floats because we lost access to a donated flatbed and insured driver, the cost of which, on top of the costs of designing and building the float, were just not in our budget.

Winning those awards made the Prime Timers a contingent that parade watchers were eager and excited to see each year. By participating in the parade and making a great showing, we were combating ageist mentalities, showing people – young and old alike – that aging as a gay person does not mean that one stops enjoying life, having fellowship, or being an energetic and productive member of the community. Indeed, our award-winning floats showed the community just how vibrant its older adult members are. Maybe it’s time for the Prime Timers to find donors that will afford us the opportunity to reintroduce our much-beloved floats into Boston Pride’s annual Parade.

Dick Bourbeau is a retired civil servant who spent 29 years working with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and four years with the United States Army Security Agency. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Boston University. Bourbeau was born in a small town in SE Connecticut and has been living in Boston's South End since 1970. His years as a Prime Timer have been the best of his life.