RFD Issue 13 Fall 1977 by RFD Magazine Gay

Photo by S. Martin

Recruiting Feminist Drakes CONTENTS Letters Finance Staff Pages Fran: Observations at 50--an interview 13

G_R_A_P_H_1_C_S

Poetry

When I Was 48--Dan Dulaney Allen, CA

A Story for Paul--Bruce Wismer, OR

Dowsing for Water--Allan Berube, CA

Oklahoma you're ok.--Will Ballard,' CA

Poetry

Coming Out As an Old Man--Dan, WA

Confessions of a Kitchen Queen

Forrest Anderson--Sandy Lowe, CA

Finding Wombats in My Mind--Quentin, S. Australia

The G40 Plus Club; Sam--Demian, MA

Robert Francis--Thurston Taylor, B.C., Canada

6. Brender & Brandis Barnstead, Carlisle, Ont., Canada L0R1H0; Pages 2, 9, 13, 42 Demi an Golf Road, Northfield, MA 01360 Page 27 Steven Di Verde „ „ 4525 Lower Wolf Creek Road, Wolf Creek OR 97497 Pages 10, 15, 22, 25, 36, 37, inside back cover Teddy Huckins Portland, OR; page 11 Kretzberg Box 946, Biddleford, ME 04005; pages 34, 43 Steph Martin 469 Eastern Pky, Brooklyn, NY 11216; inside front cover, page 29 Mark Morris, Box 38, Poe, W Va, 26683; page 39

Poetry

The Old and the I-Hotel--Tede Matthews, CA

This Time Around--Dennis Melba'son, AR

Don Posner, 769 Lawrence St., #2, Eugene, OR 97401; page 31 V. Thompson 320 A2 Queen St. E., Fergus, Ont.; page 19 Rene White San Francisco, CA; p. 8 Mikael Wills transient, IL; pages 23, 24. Steven Di Verde/Michael/Candor Smoothstone (of the Wolf Creek Graphics Collective); COVER

Info

Touch of Age--Michael Fernandes, VT

Asylum Thoughts: First Day--Charles Lewis, CA

More from Toad Suck Farm--Bill Morton, FL

Behind Bars--Prisoners' Section

Rolling the Rock of Ageism (a beginninq)-Jai Elliot, OR

Shiatsu; Home Remedies

Poetry

Downhill from 01ympus--Boland Wilson, CA

Ads

Contact Letters

#13 Staff-- Bigs, Faygele, Mikael, Sandy, Steven. R.F.D. Collective-- Candor, Chenille, Samuel, Steven. RFD is published 4 times a year by RFD, 4525 Lower Wolf Creek Road, Wolf Creek, OR 97497. Second class postage paid at Wolf Creek, OR 97497. Copyright RFD 1977. RFD is a non-profit corporation. Donations tax deductible. Subscriptions: $6 a year 2nd class, $8 first class, $7 Canada and abroad, $10 institutions, $15 sustaining, free to prisoners, bookstore discount 32% ($1.20).

Dear RFD: Recently I wrote a brief report on a very interesting workshop I attended last year. The report was published in Hainely Gay, Vol. 4 #3, March 1977. An excerpt follows: "A distinctly open and trusting encounter on 'Aging and Ageism among Gay Men' was shared by 30 men in a work shop at Maine Gay Symposium III, in April 1976. On the final day of that Symposium roughly a third of the partic ipants had started out to attend a workshop on another theme. They ended up in the Aging workshop by default due to cancellation of the other. Yet all of those present moved easily into creating an atmosphere conducive to hon est talk about blocks to entering into relationships with older men. Aided by group support, some of the older as well as younger men acknowledged this as their personal "hang-up". Conversely, one or two younger men who denied any ageism in their behavior with fellow Gays were con structively challenged by the group. Consideration was given to alternative kinds of rela tionships which could include older gays. The problem faced was that often, once older gay men are excluded from con sideration as potential sexual partners, they are also of ten left out of social, non-sexual interactions as well. To make matters worse, the gay male community may be under increasing pressure to limit participation in social gath erings to those conventionally regarded as sexually attrac tive. For example, one member reported an attempt on the part of at least one Boston gay bar to systematically ex clude "fats, ferns and older gays." Members found it hard to believe that the honest and trusting discussion--short on confrontation, long on introspection--had stretched out over 3 hours. About halfway through, one youthful member found it possible to risk re vealing a recent experience. For the first time in his life he had slowly acceded to the longings of a man in his fif ties. The youth had been surprised at the pleasure which his older partner had been able to give.him. This report made quite an impression upon the group. Gradually, during the balance of the workshop, an informal pact began to emerge: over the course of the year ahead members'of all ages would strive to open themselves up to interactions, whether sexual or not, which represented an increment over what they had previously been able to experience with gays of differing ages." In the workshop we were very honest about the fact that older gays are just as infected by the lunge for (con ventional macho) beauty as younger gays. In line with the latter, I have never read a better, more incisive treatment of how gay men get crippled by the het-male programming to stalk "the pretties" than pp. 83-88 of Don Clark's book, loving Someone Gay... Yours in brotherhood and sis terhood Richard Steinman 198 Danforth St. Portland, ME 04102

Dear Friends at RFD, I was interested in your idea of doing an issue on Growing Old. I wish I had something profound to add, but I don't. It's a truism that growing old is something we share with every living person. I'm thirty-five, and I don't feel very old yet, although a sixteen-year-old must see me as at least middle-aged. On the other hand a fifty year-old recently called me "just chicken." (Actually that didn't feel much like a compliment!) According to the Bi ble I'm at the midpoint of my life, half-way through the "three score years and ten." But I am very aware of time passing and I get very impatient when I feel that any area of my life is not progressing. I want to be growing as a loving person and, because I'm not involved in a loving relationship I can't grow. I share this place in the country with my parents. They're both past sixty-five now. I really enjoy watching them because they are both growing--my father from a pres sured businessman into a relaxed countryman, my mother from a worrying mother into a philosophical invalid. And they seem to be growing towards each other, with my father doing a lot of housework that he never used to do, and my mother learning to accept that people (and my father in particular) must look after her while she was used to looking after others. The saddest thing for me is to see people in situations where there is absolutely no room for growth. It's such a mistake to think that, after a certain numerical age, we no longer need to grow. Watching old people grow, in mellowness, in contentment, in under standing: that's very fine. But now and then I feel the fear of growing old clutching at me. Like all fears, it's a destructive thing. I think it could make me do some pretty stupid things. Maybe i t s not just a fear of growing old but of qrowing old alone. Well, there's nothing profound in any of that but it shows that I am thinking about you and what you're doing. Yours, Ger. Brender a Brandis Carlisle, Ont., Can. LOR 1H0

G. Brender & Brandis

Even though I'm a younger person I do not discount the existence of older gays, whether I'm at a bar, party or wherever.. I find older gays every bit as attractive mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically as younger gays. I had one intimate relationship with a man 20 years my senior (and I'm willing to have another one), which was the healthiest and most positive relationship of all the ones I've had. We related to each other as two adults and not as father and son. We've departed from each other, not because our relationship was crumbling but be cause our professional interests led us to live in differ ent regions of the U.S. In spite of that, we are still very close to each other. I do find certain differences between older and younger gays that I come in contact with. I find older gays are more attentive and willing to listen to me and less caught up in their own egotistical glamor trips than my younger gay counterparts. I have a lot to give to a person, and I find older men do too, through their years of experience and developed abilities. Often, but not al ways, I run across younger gays who are energy-draining and afford little to replenish the resources they've used in interacting with me. Anyhow, to me, aging is BEAUTIFUL. Shanti, R. Salazar Pullman, WA

Dear iriends: I've just read No. II issue of RFD. This magazine has a lot of potential. Hampering that potential seems to be an almost complete lack of direction. In the autobiographical sketches of the production staff there are some very good ideas but they haven't been applied. Len says: "I believe that high consciousness can be brought about by unification of purpose." That's beautiful and nobody can deny the truth of that. But it isn't enough to believe that, it must be communicated. Then there has to be a clearly defined purpose. "My goal is to destroy the conditions, ideas and beliefs that homosexuality is a per version and abnormality, by educating the majority to show them that homosexuals as a minority are competent and re sponsible beings equal to any minority." RFSL's International Group Here again no one can deny the beauty of the sentiment Riksforbundet for Sexuellt or the courage that it takes to set one's goals so high. Likaberattigande The fact is, educating a majority so hopelessly trapped in Box 15 148 * illusion is not going to be easy and talking about it cer 104 65 Stockholm 15 Sweden tainly won't get it done. Even if it would you couldn't do it alone. What would you have us do? How can we help you to achieve your goal the achievement of which would benefit so many? Would you, please, use a few issues of the maga Dear Folks at RFD, zine to clearly define your purpose so that we all may un derstand and help in whatever way possible. Since you seem to invite opinions, comments and gene ral thoughts about your magazine I thought I'd break down The movement is looking for leaders with level heads. and write you, as I've intended to do since I started read A headless body can see no light and will stumble in dark ing you with issue #11. There was a number of things I ness infinitely, Our purpose and direction must be clearly didn't quite jive with in that issue but I thought I'd at defined by these leaders, that is all a part of being com least wait 2 issues before I formed a solid opinion. petent and responsible beings. I think it's great that you left the famine of love In love, and feast of glitter in the city to explore your potentials Doyle D. Turner, #127847 in the country, but you should have left a lot of your P.0. Box 520 emotionally needy lifestyles there too and your social Walla Walla, WA 99362 liberation trips too. I find your staff notes so consist Dear RFD, ently neurotic it's ridiculous. It reminds me of the jour I lived out in the country this winter. It was an old nals I kept as a twelve year old. I don't want to condemn farmhouse built around 1890. We had both a wood stove and your emotions but I don't see where you should feel the furnace. It was my first time living with wood heat. It need to print them. They are too personal to be meaningful worked out OK; none of the pipes froze. I'm helping some to your readers. friends build a log cabin this summer. It will be octag Your generally liberation-oriented politics seem a onal to save heat and make the best use of the length (or waste of time. There you are, in the country, appreciating shortness) of the logs. They're going to heat with wood, a free and high life yet you all still seem to think you of course, and don't plan to use electricity or a phone. have something to fight. You shouldn't need your farms to Hope it works. teach you that you are already free, whether you like it There is a real interest in solar heating in Maine. or not, and that when it all comes down to dust, there's The trend seems to be using an active system where forced really no such thing as a "sexist." In the small town I air collects the heat and is stored in rocks. The system live near there's sexists that are more sexually and so is usually backed up by wood or electric heat. People are cially liberated than you. also trying wind generators. The best one I've seen looked I think my one other qualm, and again a delicate sub like it used two 55-gallon drums split down ject, is your spiritual tone. You didn't need to devote a the center for vanes. It was located on the whole issue to bring to the surface that you're all culti coast and always seemed to be going. It was vating some ethereal home-brewed bullshit. I don't blame mounted on top of a classroom building, not you. I got thoughts of my own. There's no need to go chas nearly as high as typical prop-driven gene ing after some crazy organized religion but there's also rators . no need for you guys to constantly harp on your paganistic rituals and candle-burnings. Witchcraft aint my trip and Gay awareness is still coming along, you guys seem to push it a bit too far. Keep your idealized but slowly. In March, the Fourth Gay Symposium was held solipsism a bit more to yourself! in Bangor. It was successful and didn't draw a lot of flak Your issues are devoted so much to being gay that like the first one. The press gave it reasonable coverage. being gay loses any kind of magic subtlety. You never print Over a hundred people came. I met a gay couple who came anything where the author isn't saying I'm gay, I'm gay, all the way from Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. I'm gay (for christsake, we know it, that's why we bought Last year, there was a revision in the criminal code the damn magazine) or talking about his lover or his strug and it became legal for consenting adults to do whatever gle against sexists. Let up, brothers. they want (sexually). However, this year the legislature Being gay is good enough in itself without having to voted down an amendment to the Human Rights Act to include exploit your self-awareness. gays by nearly a 2 to 1 margin. There are still a number I hope I don't, sound high & mighty, my literal accom of bigots around. I found out there's one where I work plishments often get to the point a bit soon. I like you who talks behind my back. I wonder 1f the law had passed, folks. It's good to see some gay hippies. I must say I fell whether it would have changed the situation. Gossip is in love at first sight with that bearded man in issue #11! only stopped by personal action. Some of the other guys I really hope you folks do well up there, my love and hope just walk away from this bigot when he begins to cut up is with you. someone. That's real nice... Today, Love ya, Kelly Lindner Bob Garrecht Tumbleweed Jet. 40 Everett St. Pioche, NV 89063 Bangor, ME 04401 Dear RFD: RFSL-Stockholr (Swedish Federation for Sexual Equal ity) is initiating a boycott of imported orange juice from Florida through-out the Kingdom of Sweden. This action is in support of our Gay Sisters and Brothers in the United States and their struggle for human rights and the disap proval of the inhumane scare-tactics used by anti-Gay groups, such as Anita Bryant's "Save Our Children, Incor porated." The boycott, involving all of Sweden's Gay Or ganizations, is helping to serve as a means of raising the consciousness of both our Gay and straight communities in our fight for Gay Rights in Sweden. We want the entire world to know of the universal struggle for Gay Rights and that human rights ARE absolute.

Dear RFD: The Issue on mechanics was particularly exciting to me. My own involvement with cars had been scant until this past winter. I disliked the idea of driving so much that i flunked my first driving exam. Fixing household machines like toasters, clocks and sound equipment always interested me, but the complexity, smell and grease of cars turned me off, Scared me off. My moving to a more rural location, one where hitching would be sparse, prompted my plunging into debt to get a nice '66 Valiant. It was owned by a mechanic, which is no guarantee that it was cared for. In fact he was very lax about many simple maintenance things which wound up costing me a few extra hundred dollars. My purchasing a vehicle has been an enormous lesson in economics, mechanics, distress laid in around cars and around ownership, and in the "short run" mentality and greed of the car industry. When i was looking for a used car i was very lucky in that a year earlier i had occassionaly helped someone work on their car. This not only helped me to learn the names and functions of various parts, but to also get a sense of what i wanted in a car. This "apprenticeship" proved to be extremely good fortune, for the car i eventualy got hap pened to be a later model of the same car i helped work upon. Another enormous help was the fact that one of my housemates is a mechanic and was very willing to inspect the cars i was thinking of purchasing, and also give me much info and instruction as it was needed. I have learned to not work on anything as complex as a car without: 1) reading a general function book 2) reading a book with specifications on my car 3) having a live person handy to tell me names of parts, which tool to use and things that the book states in correctly or omi ts 4) having proper tools The best book i have ever seen on general car main tenance is called FIXING CARS, A People's Primer by Rick Greenspan and others. It is pub!ished by the San Francisco Institute of Automobile Ecology and is available for $5.50 from "Fixing Cars" 52 Dore St., San Francisco, CA 94103. It is clearly written, has an abundance of well labeled illustrations, and has a lead chapter on sexism, how cars have too long been in the male domain. Cars are a big mass of compromises. They are either a safer car, or a cheaper one. They get us places fast, but they pollute. They create jobs, but the jobs are often tedious and unhealthy. We pay for our mobility with lots of money, the drastic stripping of our environmental re sources, and the exploitation of much of the world's and our nation's workers. Cars are extremely dangerous. At low speeds they are capable of killing pedestrians and passengers. The fluids cars use are toxic and we would do well to have as little bodily contact with them as possible. There is lead in gas, poisons in grease and oil, and the brake fluid eats thru paint in 5 seconds. Anti-freeze contains Ethylene Glycol which is "harmful or fatal if swallowed," the label says nothing about inhalation. When working under a car, iron filings often float down, later rusting in our eyes. There is no known safe level for inhaled or ingested as bestos, the substance used for brake shoes, often seen as a fine powder in the brake drum. By comparison the issue of sexism seems to be easier to deal with than car safety and exploitation of resources and workers. But in fact, they are all wound up together. A strong case could be made for our nation's political and business leaders pursuing imperialistic slavery as a comr pensation for fragile male egos. This culture's machismo has created the "car=power" equation. A corollary being that this power be gained at any cost. It is no accident that the most common language between American males has been focused thru the lingo of caring for cars. It appears that it is safer for men to talk about cars than about their feelings.

I usually insist on accompanying my car when it is being repaired in a garage. This is an attempt to keep them honest and to give me more education. I will not go back to a place where the workers are not happy or to where they don't explain what they are doing. Other places, friendly and informative, have my business. Running thruout all these car shops is the heavy male-only atmosphere, which appears sometimes merely as an ambiance, and othertimes blatantly in sexist "jokes" and dominance procedures. My lack of response to the "jokes" is a beginning toward dealing with challenging the support for this way of re lating. As i had to work on various car repairs, i learned what systems i could deal with and what to bring to the shop. "Always use the proper tool" is the best advice i ever heard, to which i would add, "don't do it alone." Do not stand on your own two feet and "be a man" if you have: 1) never done a particular repair before 2) have a long and tedious task ahead. All repairs take 2 to 5 times longer than you think they will. Everything goes better with helpful company. Learn to be a real man and ask for help. The most profound change for me, as i learned about car care and feeding, was that my fear of cars diminished Hooray. I came to be no longer at the mercy of mechanics, or of ignorance. Having the car stop working somewhere in the wilds is no longer a terror. I have gotten out and under, taken off tires and brakes, tightened electrical wires, and damnit, if it didn't get goin' again. 0 0 9 Dear RFD: Rod returned in 1971 and has found great satisfaction in full time country living on a minute income. Paul has just joined Rod, coming from the East Coast and a city en vironment to Oregon. Both are concerned with the divisions in gay society and say that for everyone's benefit, do not exclude the older gay from your lives. Forget the sexist approach. Don't think of us older ones in a primary sex-object frame of reference because we too, by and large, prefer our own age group--segregationist though this may be--and we can offer affectionate support without sexual involvement. HOWEVER, we think of ourselves as unaged until YOU force us into an aged category. Our love for one another is as uncompromised as yours is. Do not, through inexperience, suppose that you do or always will hold the centre of the stage. We all have a part to play in this drama of gay living. What do older gays have to offer? Country living is isolating for everyone, gay or straight, male or female. Having lived an "isolated-in-a-crowd" existence for so long the older gay may have insights to offer. The burden of daily chores with livestock may make physical escape impossible for you, but correspondence provides some res pite. Also, the older gay may not be so tied down to chores and is freer to visit. If you will receive the interest and affection which is ours to give and not be concerned with our acceptability as your sexual partner, our visits can be gratifying as one from an older brother. As to the content of RFD, (Paul has just read the 10 issues straight), please let's not fantasize. The joys of country life are rewarding but they must be worked for and can be savored even though rare. What we need more is to learn how to avoid doing things the difficult and tedious way so that we can have more pleasure with less sweat. SO, we could use more "how to do it" articles. And don't say, "Oh, we won't print that, everybody knows that," because some city fellers don't know that moss grows on the north side, (or is it the east side?) of trees. Also can we play down the "heartbreak of psoriasis" stories? We have all suffered the same pains and indigni ties for the same reason. Wouldn't it profit us more to read affirmations of the good in our gay lives? . . .

love and light, Demian Gulf Rd., Northfield, MA 01360

Love, Rod and Paul Rte. 1, Box 104B, Lyons, OR 97358

In The Red * Well, it's late and getting later. Of course X volun ways send money. How about benefits? Selling stuff? Another teered to write the financial report. Now here I sit, mailing to libraries? Distributors? We go over the alter facts, figures and feelings all aswhirl in my head. How do natives. Some of the alternatives are good and will be pur you start? The figures are plain enough. This is income. sued, but as the discussion proceeds the sentiment for a These are expenditures. You add them up and...whoops! You price increase becomes stronger and stronger. get a debt. Well, that's a drag. Nobody likes to be in Se we agree to a price increase, but how much? More debt and neither does RFD. So what do you do? talk. More feelings, some of which get hurt. But finally, Well...you could make a desparate financial appeal after much struggle, we compromise at $1.75 retail price (issue *8). Great! So we do that. Success! It works. RFD and $6.00 for a year's sub. We feel relieved that we made readers respond by sending donations a decision, but anxious that it may be and subscriptions, so RFD is sound. the wrong one. Will $1.75 price alienate FINANCE REPORT for the: So, on we go. our readers? Will the price increase keep 12 months: July 1976--June 1977 But those little columns start the wolf from the door, and if so, for getting out of balance again. Pretty how long? EXPENSES: soon it's apparent that RFD is in These are questions still to be an money trouble again. This is in spite swered. So, we bring this problem to you, Rent....................... $1109.60 of the mailings, the rise in number dear readers, for ultimately you have as Utilities..................... 45.54 of subscriptions and the hints and much to do with the outcome of this story Transportation (incl. gas)...914.50 pleas for money. So, come issue #12 as we do. We need your support and feed Supplies & rentals........... 614.32 it becomes apparent that it ain't back. Staff expenses............... 208.50 gonna get printed unless we borrow Phone......................... 51.39 la. Is RFD too expensive for you? If you money. So, do we go to the bank? No. Postage (incl. UPS)......... 1023.92 want RFD and can't buy it for lack of We borrow from us, those of us who Printing.................... 5485.59 funds, write us. We'll negotiate. work on RFD. Samuel gives $100 from Banking services.............. 35.46 lb. If you have some extra money, send the money he has left from selling his Advertising.................. 139.24 some our way. RFD is still in debt. And car. $700 comes from the Magdalen nest Services, fees paid..........201.16 we are tax-deductible. egg, money that is peace of mind aMisc.......................... 35.95 gainst a monthly land payment. Now, we 2. Subscribe. Give subscriptions as gifts. TOTAL EXPENDITURES $9864.17 are not just low income. I mean we are Tell people about RFD. Help us raise our poor. But we dipped into our resources circulation. INCOME: to print RFD #12 because it means a 3. Buy back issues. Available are issues lot to us and also because we feel Donations, gifts........... $2269.00 3-12 at $1.25 each or $1.00 each for 5 or (and some of this is faith) that we Sales-retaining & sustain more. will get paid back. ing, back issues, So, where are we now? This is is 4. Help us with distribution. Send us the stores, distribution 6992.83 sue #13 and you're reading it, so ob name and address of any bookstore in your TOTAL INCOME $9261.83 viously we didn't go under. That's en area that might stock RFD. Ask them to couraging. The debt's not paid off, Net Profit (Loss) ($602.34) carry RFD. though, so that's a bit discouraging. 5. Have an idea about how to raise money But wait, those of us who work on RFD June 1977 borrowed $800.00 to print for RFD? Write us or get together with are not just sitting here adding up issue #12 some friends and do it. columns and waiting in breathless an ticipation for a $500 donation (though we have done that). We don't just wait, we work. And often this means some heavy-duty meetings to talk about what to do. What to do? What to do? The problems are apparent. Rising costs. Our circula tion is on the increase, but with the added number of cop ies comes a larger printing bill. We have switched to a web press and have used newsprint (#12) but the printing cost is still $1300. per issue for 3,000 copies. Mailing and UPS rates have steadily risen. All our supplies and" other expenses have increased. Also part of this financial picture is the desire of regular RFD workers to get paid. RFD was founded and main tained by volunteerism--work without pay. Since RFD moved to Wolf Creek we have tried to move toward paying salaries. The closest we have come is by paying rent on the two lo cations RFD work is generally done. This has contributed to our economic survival, but in terms of the number of people involved and the amount of work done, this is very meager payment. We would like to increase that payment. So the financial problems are apparent, but the solu tions are not so easy. Right off there is a strong move to raise the price. Great idea; raise the price! Right? Wrong!! Some of us feel that RFD is already too expensive and if it were more ex pensive people wouldn't buy it. Uh oh, pull the string that says "Keep RFD at people's prices." How about a money plea? But RFD has had money pleas and calls for help in the last 5 issues. People are gonna get tired of hearing that stuff and besides they don't al

6. Let us know your new address before you move. It costs us 25£ and the post office destroys the mag azine we sent to the old address. Please include both new' and old addresses and ZIP codes. 7. Have you written a grant? We need your help. RFD could qualify for available grants if we had the experience of a grant writer. This could do much to ease the financial burden. 8. Write us and let us know how you feel about the magazine. We could print RFD even cheaper by using lower cost news print and fewer graphics. Do you want a less durable, less visual magazine at a lower cost? Incidentally, the increased size of this issue's format cost nothing extra. What in RFD

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Aging. How can we do an issue on aging? "Some of you are so young." Well, aging is a process that affects us all, that we're all involved in. Our ages range from 42 to 23. Our experiences and memories go back to the 1930’s. We have listened to older people fill in the gaps before that. We know some of the older menwhose writing fills this issue. We have learned from then, and hopefully have been able to reciprocate somehow. Ageism. How do we deal with it all? Indeed, how do we define it? Is working on this issue going to make any changes in how we deal with people of other ages? Hopefully, by becoming aware, we can beoin to break down the barriers that keep our relationships limited to people of one "age group" or another. In an attempt to arrive at a common perspective, we tried to compare our lives, by focusing onspecific years, but that did not seem to hold much importance. We considered significant events in our lives {e.g., coming out, chan ging life styles, political awareness, and realizing that we are getting "old".) But this did not help us to arrive at a collective statement. So instead, the following are some personal reflections by each of us on the staff. 7 lbs. 7 oz. — 1947— Post war, lying there listening to the rest of the babies scream, from this alienating environment of metal utensils and white washed walls. My mother drugged, and my first taste of this saccharin culture. 6rowing--physically, along lines set, trying to stay in between, but finding myself falling out, from time to time— niore and more, accepting less and less. 801 ng Inward— as an escape? Working on me--ignorina the rest: ft'; Drugs... no red meat--no white meat... expression thru the movement of my body, more disciplined, creating new openings, but still in those lines. Two years ago...working on R.F.0___ Summer... new thoughts of: Brotherhood— coupleism--Sisterhood, realizing i wajs a gayman, living in heterosexists stand ards. A move to the city— san francisco--working on free health care, Gay politics. i could no longer ignore--it gave too much power. Realizing power-— all around— my own— the use of it. Being exposed to different dialects and new processes. My philosophy- changing to my politics... realizing my sissy---and that, in relation to other men... Circles everywhere, showing me the magic, me— i— coming into my own— being validated, given sup port, opening to change, accepting criticism— prerequi sites for growth. But then, my dance-after working for years, it takes me away, to live out a fantasy. But it too, becomes com mercial work. Yes- i made my money from what i like to do, but i liked it less. Not working on my own timing— per forming to straight audiences, the spirit was being killed...so i left, seeing that it just perpetuated the workings of straight society.. And now, the first thoughts of aging— i have lived and experienced for thirty years, and all of a sudden, it hits me— i can no longer waste time, no longer put ener gy where it is not needed. My thoughts and values change with who i am now and where i am. Here— stopping for awhile to work, on daily, weekly discussions of Ageism, watching where my energy goes... how conditioned to the thoughts of youth, i am... seeing how these discussions are just a beginning, and realizing for the first time--a future.

STEVEN— 1954— age 23 Most of my important relationships have been with peo ple older than myself. My parents and I have a growing friendship. At 13 I began relating to a group of older kids in the neighborhood. Although the age difference between us was merely a few years, at that age a few years older or younger w_a_s important. Not that it should be, but I did learn what were the restrictions I had to face because of my age. My mother's understanding the hatred I felt for school, allowing me to cut classes, stay out late, etc. contrasted sharply with school life. In school I wasn't taught to ex plore the experiences of others and analyze the world around me, but rather to conform to "established" thought and procedure. It's in the interest of the ruling class of this so ciety to make sure authoritative power be in the hands of those who will enforce (although often blindly) divisions among people of different classes, sexes (in terms of roles) as well as age. Thus the importance (to them) of keeping openly gay people who have the potential to transcend these false barriers out of the positions of parents and school teachers. It's no accident that young persons are almost uni formly kept under the control of the institutions of family and school until at least eighteen, while older people are retired, pushed aside, then "cared for" once again by in stitutions controlled by those same people in the ruling class. The teachers, parents and attendants of rest homes are, of course, not the enemies, but only perpetuate such a system until they see or are shown their error, and either drop out and/or hopefully become radical. Now I'm 23 and the age difference structure continues. I'm still mostly surrounded by persons older than myself. The experiences and perceptions of people older and younger, as well as my peers, are extremely important. I've just gone through several years of experiencing a large amount of fo cus and attention around my sexual power, which is both given to me and which I project. This has significance to my age as well as other factors. It's been a struggle and is by no means over, to deal with that kind of power in a country where the mass media have conditioned us, directly as well as indirectly, to put sexual/sensuality in the hands of a specific age and looks category so that "youth" and "good looks" can be sold to us, thereby creating frustration and fear of the universal experience of aging. Being attracted to a specific age and beauty doesn't come from being a "bad" person, and should not be interpre ted as "...that's just the way I am." We all pick up real material messages that put limits on who we can be intimate with. By making youth into a sexual commodity, we devalue aging and at the same time, place enormous strain on those who are "privileged" by their youth and limit their possi bilities for growth as whole people. It will require contin ued struggle to free ourselves from these alienations.

Ageism is the forcing of people into specified roles and behavior on the basis of their age (e.g., a person under 17 is a student, one over 65 is too old to work). Like sexism, racism and classism, ageism functions to keep people from struggling and working together, keeping us from seeing our commonalities and respecting our differences. It is used to alienate by keeping us from assisting and nurturing one another, thereby holding us powerless, isolated, and preventing resistance in the struggle to seek control over our own lives. --RFD-staff 6

MIKAEL— 1953-age 24

SANDV --1935— age 42

to me

I’d been following the Anita Bryant campaign in the gay press since January. Fuming slowly as the grotesque humor of it all began to emerge into political reality. Then one day a month or so before the election as I was driving down the freeway I had a flash that more than half my life had past. 1 thought: I haven't got that much time left and still I tremble and shake. Oddly enough it was a liberating moment. Tears came to my e.yes and as the fear departed I knew how long I had lived with it. Somehow I had hoped for this moment all my life but never could imagine how or when it would come. The fears and anxieties attached to being gay and growing up in the forties and fifties had shaped my life in some total and immeasurable way. In these last few years they have become tiresome bad habits and now at 42 they have become intolerable. When the Miami election results came in 1 was not surprised. And I recognized that the trembling I felt in the pit of my stomach was no longer fear but rage. The time had come to organize and speak out. The mere sugges tion that I or any of my kind return to the closet is to tally unacceptable. It has become increasingly difficult for me as I have grown older to conceal or deny the strug gles of a lifetime. As we all know,the suppression consumes enormous energy and attention. The flash on the freeway let me see that the time I have left in my life will be made precious by each moment I live outside the closet. I can well understand why I played the closet game when I was younger. I could not have survived otherwise. I was a lot less secure with myself and in the world, and few alternatives to closetry existed for me. I feel much stronger now. My life has been rich in experience and work. I have struggled and grown and come to enjoy the process. Also I earn my livelihood by teaching. I do it well. But there's a threat that if I want to continue I must get back in my closet. The battle lines are much clearer now. How has it been possible for me to come out at all? I recognize now that coming out is not a purely personal achievement. My coming out as an openly gay person was not an unassisted act of courage. It took the historic homosex ual rights movement, the Vietnam war, Stonewall, Women's Liberation movement, Gay Liberation and the on-going strug gles of gay people up to and including the Dade County elec tion to nurture me and support me in my personal struggle. The ultimate weapon seems to have been Breaking the Silence; daring to Speak the Unspeakable and announce our existence to each other and the world. That's why I've come to work on RFD. I have no intention of concealing the struggles and perceptions of my life any longer. And documenting the ex periences of other gay men helps to raise the din. I am truly grateful that the struggle has progressed as rapidly as it has in my life time, and, like any one of my age I am also concerned for the next generation. I have begun to think a lot about the young gay people still trapped in the school system. From what I've seen, not much has changed for them since I was a kid. I feel the ur gency of lending strength to their struggle. At the moment I m not quite sure how to do this other than to persist in spreading the word: that we exist; that our lives have their worth and wisdom; and that we are not alone. The years ahead promise to be full of a new kind of struggle. I feel more excited about the future and more prepared to participate in it now than I did twenty years ago. One might almost say I've been born again.

My first true realization that i was aging came recently: about 3 years ago when i was 21. Aging is nearly synonymous with Changing; awakening to this fact and ac cepting the impermanence of things have been important Steps in my maturing, a process that i see as never ending, Resisting the flow of age got me nowhere, letting go and embracing Change has freed me from many of my illusions of stability.

Much friendship and interaction has until now been un available to me: i have a fear sometimes of relating to because of their age. Working so intensely with RFD on thoughts of the aging process has made me aware of many of the causes of this disability. I grew up in a situation where i was expected to respect older peo ple, when i found that they didn't respect me, i took refuge in those my own age or younger. In spite of what i feel is a willingness to change the situation, i still find that the large part of the people who surround me are young— under 30. I ask myself: what is it about our differing ages that keeps us separated? I learned from my parents and grandparents that age brings with it a resistance to change, an end to questioning, the beginning of wisdom. Their greater length and range of ex periences closed the door to re-evaluation and self-criti cism. They were always right for, after all, they had been there before. The day i figured that out was the day i stopped looking for friends in older people. It's not that there is no truth to this; experience is good and should be shared. It's harmful when experiences are viewed as an absolute and cause a stubbornness that prevents open and rational discussion. The happenings of a life are valuable only when they are seen from the perspec tive of: 'this is what happened to me then,' rather than: ' this will happen to you because it happened to me.'

FAYGELE--1944--age 33 I suppose my first feelings of ageism were being told, early on in elementary school, that I had to respect elders such as teachers, simply because they were older. Anti-au thoritarian that I've been so long, that was difficult, and I often challenged teachers on the basis of knowledge, or when that failed, simply out of plain orneriness. Recently I had a conversation with a lawyer who'd handled various radical cases over the years, including many of the gay legal cases we've generated. We mused over being now in the "over thirty and therefore untrustable" generation. And what were we doing with our lives? Had we sold out, and left politics behind, moved to the suburbs? Nope. We were still hanging in there, part of a chain of continuity that includes people in their 70 's and 80's, who've been fighting some of the same battles for most of those years. Upon reflection, it seems to be some sort of ageism on my part that, coupled with intolerance, makes me rage against people, and especially young people, that have dif ficulty in "coming out" in post-Stonewal1 society. I recently made a choice to return to live with my mother, a widow age 57. Most of our social friends in com mon are closer to me in age, but somehow age doesn't seem to be an overall factor in the relationships. We also have gotten beyond parent/child roles, and have become equals, although I willingly grant her additional years of living experience in our discussions. Of late we have had quite meaningful talks on aging and death.

We grappled with the issues of editing policy for this issue, and set some basic guidelines (but not hard and fast rules: try to maintain the person's writing style; try to preserve the person's work; correct obvious typos. We were trying to avoid making everyone's writing reflect a middle-class, college classroom style, and felt it was demeaning to assume that that style should automatically be used. So...after vigorous proofreading, we're fairly convinced that any "misspellings' or unwieldy grammar reflects the style of the author. In some cases we were spe cifically warned not to edit, in others we were given permission. This is a subject that we don't feel we have com pletely resolved yet, and welcome further input. And, of course, the staff of each issue will have final say. As always, we reserve the right to edit unless requested not to. 7

I went to Fran's work place equipped with a tape recorder and about five years of growing friendship to steal an hour or so from his busy schedule to do an RFD interview. I am an old city boy transplanted to the country. Fran grew up on the farm. He has been a health care worker for years and is currently employed in the city, but he is still very much attached to the old family farm. When the season and the crops demand, he stretches his labor and endurance to work seven days a week both in the city and on the farm. This often goes on for months. The time for our little get-togeth er was carved out of the harvest. *** Fran is handsome, strong and in remarkable good health at 50. He is also a gen tle and proud gay man who remembers the oppressions of the past and who is struggling to convert his experience into an active concern for up-coming generations of gay people and for all who are still oppressed. Fran's jubilee occurs in September. He reminded me that he was born a few days after the murder of Sacco and Vanzetti. -Sandy, RFD Sandy: This will probably be a first for RFD because it is one of the few interviews to be done where neither party is loaded. But we'll try it anyway. Fran: What does loaded mean?

F.: In those days maybe some city kids knew or were aware of or had contact with others who had same sex preference. You're so isolated in a rural area. There were not many opportunities. I had a few experiences with other kids...

S.: Stoned.

S. : ...in the traditional hayloft? F.: No; in a creek bed; out in the vineyard...the oppor tunities for knowing about yourself and your own sexual feelings, your awareness of such things are much less in a rural environment than they would be in the city where you'd see a lot more of other kids. It's hard to say. I can't really compare the way it worked with city kids growing up. I didn't know many city kids. Even in the small town nearby where I lived; I didn't really know many of those kids.

F.: Stoned on fatigue... S.: ...well you're stoned on fatigue. You work too hard.

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F.: Well let's talk about how it was growing up gay in the 30's and the 40's, how it was growing up in a rural envir onment, on a farm for someone born at the beginning of the Great Depression. And for someone who was just becoming consciously aware of things at a time when the economic situation in this country was way at the bottom. I can re member when the election returns came in and Roosevelt was elected in 1932. I have a fairly clear memory of that.

S.: How about school? F.: Oh, I hated school. I went only because I was forced to. I much preferred to be out in the fields. But...what constitutes awareness? I know how I felt but, it's very true, it didn't even occur to me that there might or there might not be somebody who had the same feelings. And even those few times when there would be some sexual activity with another child, long before teenage; it was still not anything you talked about or that you had any awareness of. It was just something that spontaneously happened. I think part of it is just that at that stage of maturity that’s correctly about all the importance that it has. It doesn't become a really import ant thing in your life until puberty, when the drive sudden ly becomes so much more insis tent emotionally in one's life. So, it wasn't until high school that I really recall meeting other kids at school who I real ly felt emotionally close to. And they, like me, were affected by the prevailing attitudes of that time, although again we didn't have any real conscious awareness of it.

S.: Was that a happy event? F.: Not in the rural areas; because the rural areas were mostly Republican. S.: Even though they'd been smashed by the Depression? F.: No understanding... S.: Well, I'm curious: what happened after that, when they began the New Deal programs; was there a change of support for Roosevelt? F.: 1 think most people you met around town or when you went to other farms really opposed the Roosevelt ad ministration. It didn't do much for farmers in our area. .It did help the farmers where the farm vote was very strong in the Mid-west [and the South --Ed.] - cotton, corn, tobacco. Lots of Federal programs to help them. But there was very little for us. And conscious decisions were being made by politicians in those years, regardless of whether it was the Republicans or the Demo crats - there isn't that much difference anyhow - to remove real support and help from the small farmers and to emphasize big farming, more and more of the corporation-type farming. It became more and more difficult for the small farmers to survive.

S.: When you say "they," do you mean other gay people? F.: Other kids who you might think of as gay now. There was one I felt closest to. We would feel very close to each other and at the same time we really didn't know what to do about it. We would never see each other, except at school, because we lived so far away from each other, miles and miles away; and we both had farmwork and chores to do when we got home after school... It's a funny thing. We would be close at school and never have any further contact. It's only in looking back that I recognize that if there had been an opportunity I'm sure we would have discovered that we were both emotionally interested in our own sex. I haven't any proof with this one person, yet I'm almost certain. I was certain then when it happened,

S.: And you lived on a small farm? F.: Oh, yeah. So while the Roosevelt administration was there then, it would have been just the same story with the Republican administration. * * *

S.: Did you know that you were gay?

that when it became impossible for him to face it; about a year after he got out of high school, he killed himself. The conflict between the way he felt sexually and the pres sures that were on him from his family, and his religion...

mean not just acceptance of one thing or another but a lot of real change in people's willingness to accept diversity in our culture. ♦ ★ *

S.: Do you evaluate that now, or did you think it then?

Now some thoughts on the relevance of being gay to faming. We're still trying to make the farm work and pay its own way, and it's very hard to do that on a small farm. There's very little left over after the bills are paid. So you end up earning your living some other way, and just because you have a real feeling for that life you keep the farm going although there's no economic reason to be doing so. It is a lot of work to keep it going.

F.: As soon as I heard he killed himself, I immediately knew why. And I was just his own age. It hit me very hard. Even though, at the same time, we had never actually... well, just because we never found an occasion when we were together privately, we had never developed any real sexual or genital/sexual relationship, but we were very close. That's the way it was for me. That's all I can really talk about. As soon as I got through with high school I got out of that whole environment and went to the pig city. Well, not the BIG, but a good size city. Within a year I had met someone else. We fell in love. But this was no longer a rural environment...so that's another story. I think probably now that the last stronghold of that old point of view, where it's really still strong, is in the more rural environment. Maybe things haven't changed that much for kids growing up rurally.

S.: What do you think of collectives and communes trying to make a go of it; do you think they're going to have the same difficulty maintaining a small farm? F.: Those that I know of; if that is their major source of income, those that I know of are starving. Unless they have some outside source of income to pay the bills required to keep the farm. It's just that they haven't got the return economically from the farm. As I see it, as someone who's grown up on the farm and been into farming to some extent all my life, I can understand how they feel about a rural life. But to me most of them just appear to be city kids or people from the city environment who have this romantic thing about rural life. The thing I share with them is a love for that rural environment. As so many of the rural farmers who are my neighbors will say: if you're in farming it must be be cause you love it, because you're sure not going to make any money at it. I think that in most of these dropout communities--the ones that I've seen--unfortunately they don't really know any thing about farming, and they're not really farming. They're not doing anything effective in a farming sense. I guess that's alright, but it bothers me as someone who's been a farmer that there's no attempt made to keep the farm going productively. S.: Of course even if there were some talent and energy put toward that; as you mentioned before, the economic situa tion works against the success of any small venture.

S.: Which point of view; do you mean the conservative point of view? F.: Not just the conservative point of view, but the really oppressive condi tions for kids; especially for kids who are gay who really don’t have any op portunity to explore their own feelings for someone else of the same sex. And if they try, I'm sure in a rural envir onment they're still more than likely to be suppressed. ★

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So I went to the big city and learned to do a fairly tech nical job working in health care; and that's how I earn my living. Yet I've still all of those years kept rural con tacts; all of those years doing a certain amount of farmwork on that same farm; and still doing it. The last seven years I've been spending roughly one-third of my time do ing farm work, taking care of the farm so I still have a valid rural point of view. S.: How does it look when you go back there now? And from what you see of the young people...

F.: Yup, they would not be much better off if they were working and putting all their efforts into trying to make a farm work because they would still be in real poverty and they would have no spare time to do all these other things that they want to be doing.

F.: Well it's in northern California. Psychologically for kids growing up there I don't think it's changed very much yet. That is, a child who's going to be gay would certainly be very isolated and even now suppressed. There'd be much more of a possibility of acceptance for such a child in a larger city. I'm sure it's not so great there for kids ei ther who are growing up gay. I've been looking at some of the Gallup polls comparing one generation with another: the people who were born in the twenties who are mainly heterosexual and Americans are still full of those repres sive attitudes toward gay people they learned in their childhood. The youngest age group in those same polls are much more accepting and open and willing to provide a space for gay people in our culture.

S.: Well then, what do you see is the future for any kind of farming in this country; do you see any possibility for people to live on the land in a productive way again? Or is it all going to be a corporate rip-off? F.: I think that the most hope for a more sane relationship of people to the land is in a socialist/political environ ment because there would be largely a removal of the ele ment of greed or rip-off, as some people call it, that pre dominates now. I think people would again come into a more meaningful relationship in such a system. I think we're com' ing to a time where a lot of things are catching up to us. The true value of energy isn't very well understood. That is, just a minute, if I can find it I have a figure here, a quote from the Western Fruit Growers Magazine, which is a great publication for farmers. The issue of January 1974. I don't know where they got this figure, but I wrote it down because it was impressive to me. It relates to energy; it gives you an idea of the true value of energy and what es sentially is happening with modern farming where a huge amount of fossil fuel goes into agricultural production. I'm talking just about production. Processing and distri bution puts huge amounts more fossil fuel Into the food chain. Their quotation is: it takes .5 calories of fossil fuel to produce one calorie of food on the farm. That's just on the farm.

S.: Do you think the movement away from what Marx calls the "idiocy of village life" has allowed for more accepta bility of human diversity? F.: I'm sure it's contributed to that and the fact that in the 60's the whole generation of middle-class kids were in revolt against the old ways including opening up their sexuality has had a huge effect on America's way of think ing about that. S.: It was primarily an urban and suburban phenomenon. F.: It's just now beginning to hit working class people and beginning to hit into the rural areas. It takes about a generation for some of those ideas to reach throughout the whole culture, and I think they're still spreading. I 9

environment, how many of us could stand that isolation and that lack of contact with the many things that you find in the city. It's a drudgery and you pretty much have to keep after it all the time. Even a small farm would need 4, 6, 8 people to do the neces sary work that had to be done. You'd need that many people to get it done in a timely way. There would be so little money from trying to run a small farm in that they would be living pretty much in poverty, all of them just barely surviving. How many people would be willing to put up with that? Of course along with all of that, it might be in an other generation or two when a true value is put on the cost of fuel and the cost of food becomes so much higher, maybe, at that point the small farmer will be in a much better position. The big mechanized corporation farms would face prohibitive fuel costs, while the small farm might actually be able to function with the labor of people. Possi bly there might be a lot of gay people turn ing to farming at some time in the future. S.: Also, I would imagine that there are quite a few women who would like to live $.: We could do just as well eating the oil directly.

rurally and who would like to raise their children rurally but who are no longer parts of nuclear families who could well work alongside or together with gay men. Perhaps groups of progressive people: I guess I'm thinking in terms of not a nuclear, heterosexist family but more of a soc ialist family working and supporting one another; finding the energy and talent to make a go of it on the land. Do you see something like that as something more acceptable for gay people?

F.: The implications of that statement are just enormous because in the long run, no matter when, everyone agrees that fossil fuel is going to run out; in a hundred years at the current rate, or longer...so farming as it's going on now, large industrial farming cannot go on indefinitely in our civilization because there won't be adequate returns in terms of energy going in and energy coming out. The cost of that energy input for large industrial farming will be so great that I just don't see how it can go on indefinite ly, and I don’t think that people are going to get out of that dilemma by saying* "Oh we'll use nuclear fuel," be cause for now, at least, it’s just too dangerous. I think we may eventually come to a re-evaluation that sets a much higher value on the old way of farming, using a lot of hu man energy; horses or whatever else that can all live off current food stuffs; or oxen or so on. Maybe not in our time, but I think those things will become more valued again.

F.: Well, yes, unless it was obvious that the women were gay women and the men gay men, the neighbors would prefer to assume that these were heterosexual couples all living together. S.: Is there £o be a closet on the farm? F.: Well, that might be more acceptable...

S.: That would also mean moving more people back to the land. F.: Yes. There will have to be a real reassessment and a movement to get people back out onto the land. But it won't be a romantic thing. It will just be a necessity. S.: Along with a realignment of priorties for the rest of society as well. Some of the big cities are just being aban doned, these great ruins of cities; so obviously there needs to be a realignment of priorties clear across the board. * * *

S.: Well I'm not talking simply about acceptability for the neighbors but about its acceptability as a life-style and as a support system. F.: It depends what people want. If people really want to live in a rural environment and to live in a farming way they could just barely survive. You know, when I was a kid we all worked almost every day; we worked taking care of animals. And we were especially needed to help when the crops came in. S,: Was your farm mechanized? F.: No, notreally. We had a truck and a tractor and that was it. Not the way they are now. Things that are done now with great mechanization were done then by hand labor. *

F.: Yes; I do wonder what it would be like for a group of gay people who wanted to get into farming. Whether it would be allowed by the neighbors. Gay communes now do not have too friendly a relationship with some of their neighbors.

S.:

S.: How could you imagine that happening, say, out where your farm is? F.: Just from talking to some of my neighbors I get the usual sense: gay people are not considered respectable. If the average American knows someone who's gay, openly so, they don't respect that person. I just wonder how long they would tolerate a bunch of openly gay people. S.: What if they came in and they really ran the farm; they really did it? F.: I don't know. I think about it at times because I wonder how much longer I'm going to keep doing this. It's a lot of extra work for me. Running the farm. Takes an awful lot of my time and energy. It takes me away from other things that I would like to be doing. If we didn't grow up in a rural

What doyou

see as the future of your farm?

F.: It's in the San Francisco Bay area, close enough to it, in the great reaches of it, that the greed is I think going to take it over in a few years. The real estate developers are getting closer all the time. What happens essentially is when a real estate development or some big complex goes in, even though you live a mile down the road, your land gets re-assessed as though it too was going to be used for real estate development. A much higher assessed value is placed on your land and your taxes go up. And you simply can't bring in enough money from farming to pay those taxes and all the other farming expenses. So you're forced to sell to the real estate developers. I think that's what's going to happen in general. But not necessarily bt'ause, if it's true as more and more signs point out that .n the next few years, this country along with the re^t nf che capitalist world goes into a real economic depression; then that sort of thing just comes to a stop. Not many

houses were built in the thirties and if we have another depression as bad or worse than that (and there have been worse ones) it could stop all of that development and we could hang on a little bit longer.

F.: essentially I don't feel much different from when I was 20 or 30 years younger. S.: You're going to be fifty this year too. When will that be?

S.: The recent recession sure slowed things down in terrs of construction. ♦ * ★

F .: Soon. S.: Will I be here? Will it be before Labor Day?

F.: I think I should say one thing more about farming as it's practiced. California and many other parts of this country are fanned with irrigation. We close our eyes to an inevitable development: you bring water to the land and there are salts in the water, the salts stay when the wa ter is used either by the plants or by evaporation of wa ter passing through the land so that as the years go by the soil gets saltier and saltier until finally crops don't grow well or die.

S.: In September. Oh, fabulous, listen, we're going to have a bash. F.: I'm going to tell my boss I want the day off. S.: Why of course; it’s every American's right. Your birth day off from work. F.: Let's see if they swallow that. S.: The Gay Alliance is thinking of having a bash in Sep tember. Maybe we can make it a birthday party too.

S.: Where do the salts come from?

F.: Just after Labor Day.

F.: Even the water that you drink absorbs minerals from the land that it runs over on its way to you, wherever it comes from, a well or a river. The water that falls as rain is generally very free, pure like distilled water, but irri gation water is full of dissolved minerals and they stay in the land and build up after so many years, depending on the amount of salts in irrigation water. This was learned three or four thousand years ago. There were great irriga tion projects. I guess that the earliest ones that we know of were at the Tigris and Euphrates River in ancient Baby lon. They all had to be abandoned because of the salt build up in the land. The water was still there but the land had been made useless by salts after so many years of use by those irrigation projects. Well, this country has just fin ished its second hundred years, but again in future genera tions agriculture with irrigation will become increasingly difficult because of the salt build-up in the land. In time I suppose water will be carried to new land to get around that, but eventually you run out and you have to revert. You can't continue that type of irrigation forever. A large part of this country does not grow its crops that way. In the Mid-west they depend on summer rainfall. In California, before irrigation, you would grow winter crops because the climate is mild enough that you can grow winter crops using just the rainfall. And that type of agriculture can go on indefinitely. Well, there'll be great changes. Assuming we don't blow ourselves up, I feel there will be great changes coming in agriculture along with social changes that make it very possible for gay people to be part not just of city life but of rural life, openly--no longer being suppressed or having to hide themselves.

★ * *

S.: All that you've been talking about pleases me a good deal, because it's been difficult to formulate an approach to talk about ageism. And my sense is that in speaking with an older person, the thing that's most valuable is just that there are just that many more years of observation and thought that have gone into the way we live our lives, and that seems to me to be enough. In other words, to talk not about one's age but to talk out of one's age; which we always have to do anyway. F.: Well, we should speak about how we feel. Do we feel any different? The fact is I really don't feel much differ ent; I wouldn't want to go back, unless of course I could go back knowing what I know now. S.: And none of us is going to do that...

F.: Generally speaking, I feel about as strong and energet ic as I ever did. I guess the main difference is that I still feel about as horny as I ever did, but at the same time I begin to see...you know, as one gets closer to what one would expect to be the end of your life, you put those last years to the best use. You really think about it... what your priorities are. The things that are most impor tant for you to be doing. And reorganize your life that way. I'm going through a lot of that thinking now. I think there'll be changes in terms of work. Working in a health care field, I want to be able to work in a way that relates my philosophical point of view and not just to see how much money I can make. In other words, to take a job where I can be working with a community that's really having a hard time and helping to make things a little better for them. Just now I am working in health care in a minority conrnunity. The more I think about it, politically things are al most to the point now where, if it's properly done, gay organizations could sponsor a gay health care thing for people who are out and openly gay. In the large cities, be cause many of them are openly gay, there are just not many jobs, or the jobs they can get are low paying. This puts them in a low economic situation where they can't really afford adequate health care. There's a real need in the gay community for such a health service. So, I'm thinking more and more about getting together with some people who are wanting to get such a health care organization together. A place where you could go to and be openly gay and be wel comed instead of having to hide it. That's one of my real priorities for the last part of my life. Another is to do what I can to change things; not so much to mitigate as to

make some fundamental change in our society which is a cap italist society, mainly built on greed. The more I see of it the more appalling it is that greed should be the main driving-force in a society. So those are some of the things that, as one gets older, one begins to pay more attention to, even though personally you are quite apart from the ageism, still very Interested in sexual activity...it has to share a lot of its importance with other things in your life and not be the main thing that occupies most of your time. At least for me that's one change I notice in myself. ♦ * * $.: Do you want to say anything about relationships at all? Has the quality of relationships changed for you, along with what you're saying now? F.: Getting into all of that: In the past the most impor tant relationships have been for me not exclusively, but somewhat monogamous and very close and long-lasting. I'm really reluctant to get into another relationship like that now. I'm not saying it wouldn't happen, but it would take too much of my time and my energy. I really want that time and energy for other things. Anything could happen but I would be very reluctant to give up that space right now to a relationship. I have more relationships in a sense of feeling a certain closeness to many people but I don't let any one of them become out of proportion to the others. I still have lots of very good feelings and closeness with many people. At least that's the way it's turning for me. I don't know whether it's partly a result of ageism, be cause as you get older, as was said in a recent issue of one of the hardest things for one of the people to take who was interviewed there on getting older and gay, as he got into his 70's, was to see most of his friends that he'd known most of his life dying and gone He was forced to rely more and more on people much younger than him for his friends and relationships. Ageism does be come important then because most of those people, he and the others, are affected by it, however you want to define it. I think for that reason one could not expect so many close relationships. I think those things happen much more easily when people are the same age. Not to say that they can't happen; it's much less likely to happen. There is a lot of isolation for such a person. One of the things that makes me very optimistic about the future is that I just assume as generations go on, more and more of the world will continue with its moving into a socialist system of organization in political and social life. There is a lot more value and support for older people in such societies than there is in ours, and there are provisions made; per haps by that time in those societies, too, gay people will be able to be quite openly gay as they get older and also be provided for.

S.: Well, that certainly doesn't hold for you, does it? F.: I don't want to get fired from my job over that issue either. I could be. There is absolutely no protection on that issue. I could be fired quite openly. There would be no recourse; if my employer wanted to fire a queer, he could fire a queer. I would have no recourse to try to stop him.

Gay Comc.rn.itij News,

S.: Yet you've been active in Gay Liberationist activities for a long while? F.: Oh, yeah. My fellow employees, many of them know about me. If it isn't brought to the employer's attention in some strong way, and if they value your work, they won't cause you any trouble. So I can see why--even though most of their fellow employees know--most of them would choose not to do anything that would jeopardize their jobs the last few years in some career that's still progressing. But I think that eventually, being more out is really the answer because, while it might hurt the individual, it increases the pressure and the demand for changes that would accom modate a really important segment of our society in a way that would make room for them that isn't being provided now. And it's only the gay people who are out who can real ly get counted. On last night's Fruit Punch radio program someone was saying that disability insurance should be granted to gay people. If our society wants to say that be ing openly gay is a disability (you can't hold a job for that reason and still be openly gay), it should be recog nized that this is an employment disability and you should get disability insurance benefits.

S.: Well that may take the rest of our lives; now there's a struggle. F.: There are plenty of older gay people around and I know a few of them--I've been pretty close with some of them who are in their seventies. I really value them, although I recognize that most people don't. And they feel very hesi tant making friends. *

their careers. Or they don't want to do anything that would upset their neighbors who are usually heterosexual people from the same generation. I remember talking with a man who was in his seventies and still productively working. I said to him: why don't you subscribe to some of these gay pub!ications--this was a couple of years ago--he was visiting me and he was reading some that I had on hand. I said I'll even give you a subscription to one or another. He said: "No, don't. I'm living in a suburban, well, really a tract of working class houses, and the postman would see this and tell the other housewives around the street and I just don't want rocks through my window. I have too few years left in my life to put up with anything like that." He said: "It just isn't worth it for me, I’ve been through too much in the past. I just want peace the last few years of my life." So I think that was one response. Obviously there are quite a few older gay people, some of them older than me, who are supporting the Gay Liberation movement helping in various ways. For many of them, just as for straight, non-gay people, as they get older they get very cautious and don't want to take any chances. They've reached some accommodation in their lives and they just would rather not have anything to do with the Gay Libera tion movement, even though they are enjoying some of the benefits.

S.: Either that or job protection. F.: Right, it can't be both ways. So this might be an in teresting legal fight. With courts being the way they are now I can't see that argument being acceptable. But just raising the argument and to keep raising the argument might open a lot of people to thinking about how things are real ly stacked against being openly gay.

S.: Do you want to say anything about Gay Liberation, most specifically since Stonewall and the place of older people in the movement. Do you feel that Stonewall and Gay Liber ation has made a difference?

$.: I think coming out and being out is the single most important aspect of Gay Liberation. The more I read about fragments of our history it becomes apparent how literally unspeakable gay life and life style used to be. The very act of speaking makes breakthroughs. Of course there are still lots of people who can't listen.

F.: Yes, it's made it easier for those older people to be at least a little out. It was pretty bad compared with now. Not to say that now is so great. People who had grown up in that environment, I don't think are ever going to open up. They've been hit over the head so many times by society and there's just no point in taking any chances from their point of view, although maybe there isn't that risk now that there was. They just don't want to do anything that might jeopardize what's left of the time they can spend in

F.: In summary, room has to be made eventually for people who are going to be openly gay and who want to be openly gay and want to participate in a productive way--rurally or in the city. We’re a long way off from that. Sandy Lowe P.0. Box 408 Windsor, CA 95492

AUNT EUNY Aunt Euny--wa'nt no kin of mine-Just ever'body called her that-She lived and died in a one-room cabin Too little to swing a cat in Up Hog Creek way, So far back the owls roosted with the chickens. Bob--He's her oldest-He tried to get her to move in with him, But she wouldn't have it, Not even when she busted her hip.

GETTING HOME

He us't to bring her what she needed Up the creekbed in his truck. Then one day she just didn't answer his horn. Bob went kinda crazy and burnt her and the house.

The muscles of young men spring taut as Nureyev on stage. The muscles of old men sag, mussed pillows on a bed of love.

He's in California, now. They planted corn over her last spring.

Smoothness is not all. Gaps between crooked teeth tell more than Pepsodent smiles and are more generous.

R.A. Burns Star Route Jackson, MO 63755

Why choose young men as if you could get home following a blank map. Steve Abbott 67 Albion St. San Francisco, CA 94103

23 FROM ALBERTA He called me "kid" and fucked me and took me to dinner in my wonderment as I'm thirty-seven and he's twenty-three.

G. Brender d Brandis

I tried to think "We're a timeless union." But the thought got nowhere We got nowhere. And eventually he asked my age and I answered expecting anger. But what I got - as he rushed out the door was only fright. Jon Franck 527 Castro St. San Francisco, CA 94114

setts. I felt like the only over-30 gay person in all of New England, yet I did decide there must be plenty others stashed somewhere with their lovers. I was happy the cab bage grew large there; it grew blue and green and gray and large. I was happy too when I used to spend hours watching the wide Connecticut River. But I couldn't wait to leave. Now aged 48, I've been teaching English at City Col lege of San Francisco throughout my forties. Most of the time I've liked it immensely. So far I guess I've enjoyed my forties more than any one of the preceding four decades. I feel that I am less subject to living solely at the whims of other people than I have ever been in my life. And I think I'm aware of the strength and energy of my feelings more than ever before. I think I am nearer than I've been to having the ability to accept whatever happens to me. I don't mean to give the impression that I haven't suffered in my forties, that I haven't had periods of de pression, but I feel I'm able to accept suffering as valu able experience. I know more clearly now than I ever have before that suffering is as vital a part of life as joy is. I think I am acquainted more with who I am and who others are than I was in any previous decade. Yes, in many ways my forties are my best decade, and I'm looking for ward to my fifties, sixties, seventies...Eighties? Of course, life would be better if people didn't keep impressing their weird prejudices on older people, treating everyone over 40 as if she or he were Whistler's Mother. When are we going to treat people right? As my father said over and over, "You gotta treat peo ple fair." I think it's possible that a person will have happy older years if her or his parents did, if they were people who were open to experience. If so, I'm fortunate because Daddy always was a stylist; he could convince any one that he was a toe-dancer. And he used to shake the meanest shimmy in the state of Texas for all six of his young ones to watch. He was hard and even mean when he drove a mule, and he rode a mare very gently. He was tough, sharp and angry, and it was difficult for me to talk with him without my getting yelled at. He died just three months ago. The religionists in the family might bet he's happy at Old Hall Graveyard because Mother, another stylist who spent decades burning incense while listening to romantic phonograph records, died five months before. And the two of them didn't cotton to being separated. Age? They were old. In fact they were 79 and 82. I'd say their best years were from their fifties until about three or four years before they died. If heredity pertains, I think my best years are yet to come. Their worst years were those last three or four and those from the time I first knew them, their mid-thirties, to their fifties. Their last few years, they must have hated the way we treated them like fogies, the way we screamed at them as if they were stone deaf and the way we insisted that their thinking be linear. I hope things improve before I turn 78 or 88, and I'm going to try to do something on my end. How about all you young country men trying on yours?

A few months ago a friend, Stevernkto, handed me a copy of RFD. I leafed through it, a world where only one person seemed to be over 23. My comment was charged with some of the anger that I felt as a man in his late 40s, but it was also ageist: "Nobody here is over 23. Oh, they did throw in one old fart." Now, I see that RFD is plan ning an issue on Growing Old, Do you mean it? Photograph me in overalls with all my beautiful wrinkles showing, and I'll believe you. Let me look back at the last forty years, skipping ten years at a time, considering myself at the ages of 8, 18, 28, 38 and 48. Being eight years old was not much fun. I had to top onions in Lewisville, Texas, a town that had been stuck at a census of 783 souls since 1920 or 1930. I hated topping onions because my hands blistered, and onion juice got in the sores where the blisters had burst. My face, hands and arms felt sore, and my eyes burned from the juice of the hot bermuda onions. My brother Paul and I got a dollar and a baloney sandwich for each of us as pay for a 12-hour day. We had had fractions, so it wasn't dif ficult for us to figure out we were making 8-l/3<+ per hour. Moreover, the age of 18 was not the most pleasant period in my life, and I'd never want to go through that year again. I could get school clothes by other means than topping onions, picking cotton and monkeying wire on an old stationary hay baler. (I could wash dishes and serve food to people.) I rushed through high school; it was a graduating class of eight people, and I beat them all out, finished in January of 1947 by going to Demonstration School in the summer. I moved to Denton, Texas, though at that time nearly everyone from Lewisville who went to college commuted to North Texas State. The main reason I moved was to keep from having to milk the old guernsey cow we had had for years--Brent, her name was. Although I liked Brent, I hated stripping down her slick, wet tits where the calf had sucked. This stripping down, of course, had to be done to keep her from going dry. Well, 18 was not a very good year. Being 28 was all right, but as I think back, I real ize that I was much older then than now, to borrow Bob Dylan's observation. At 28 I was teaching at the high school in Geyserville, California. I taught English and typing and biology, and my lover taught--oops, there goes his closet. Well, I'm sure any Geyserville people of the 600 population knew we were lovers, if they were inter ested. We shared an apartment, got drunk, made love oc casionally, fought a lot and drove to San Francisco and Berkeley, about 70 miles away, every weekend. Sometimes I would look out the kitchen window at all the pretty prune trees waiting to be shaken. Grapes were hanging not far from the front porch as well as throughout the whole countryside. I used to walk along the prune or chards to get away from my lover, for as I said, he and I fought quite a bit. Well, being 28 was all right, I guess. But I certainly didn’t mind leaving 28 behind. When I was 38, John Kennedy had been dead four years, and I was feeling isolated at Pioneer Valley in Western Massachu

Dan Dulaney Allen 455 Diamond St. San Francisco, CA 94114

When I Was 48, It Was A Pretty Good Year 14

A STORY FOR PAUL We had been sitting on the sloping front porch for over an hour, watching the evening creep across the garden toward us, before Paul told me the thing that had been on his mind. "I remember when I was a kid,'1 he said, his voice soft and wistful. “Every day seemed like a fresh, new thing; a golden opportunity to get done whatever you wanted to do, a million things or nothing at all. The sun always made you feel warm and happy and the rain made you feel somehow magical or maybe sad in a strange, happy sort of way. Even the bad days were easier to live through, then, and easier to forget.” "Sometimes,” he said, his voice even softer, his eyes on the shadows lapping at his feet. "Sometimes when I'm here, running around naked down by the river or playing with you and the goats and drinking beer in the afternoon, I feel just like a kid again, free to do and be anything I want." He looked up at me. "But I'm not. When I go back to the city, I feel my age. I'm caught in a suit and apart ment lifestyle that I don't know if I want, but can't es cape. I'm forty-five and growing old in a system that doesn't believe in aging, doesn't believe that you can be young until you die of old age. It gets me down and I be gin to feel the way they say I should feel...old and worthless." It was as if the approaching evening had brought the thought of aging along with the shadows that rose quietly higher like the tide, seeping into the corners of the porch and rippling now around our knees. I was taken by surprise by his intensity and sat stunned. How could he feel that way? The days he spent here were made bright by his presence, like a child's visit to Grandpa in the coun try. He brought warmth with him in the winter and a cool energy in the hot, listless summer. We had gone jogging yesterday morning - his idea, he never missed a day. With his long legs muscled like some god's, he could easily have outdistanced me, but he never let himself out, and when I was panting like a St. Bernard in summer, he was still as cool as a dewy morning, as calm as a Chinese landscape painting. That afternoon we went swimming and I watched him cut through the water, his body as sleek and agile as a seal. He played like a boy, swinging from a rope into the water, Bruce Wismer

climbing the trees to dive with a scream into the deepest part, attacking me on the bank like a crocodile, hauling me protesting into the river for his merman kisses. He had always seemed so happy here that I had been in sensitive to the problems he must face in that other part of his life, where I didn't exist. He lived in the city, had responsibilities and obligations there, a reputation and other friends who didn't know the boy in him that I knew. In the city, I might not even recognize him; dressed in a suit, surrounded by so many others like him, distant and preoccupied with the work that tied them there. But here, on the farm and down by the river, with me and our friends, he was free to be what he was - natural and lov ing. I couldn't help but love him and it never occurred to me to think of him as not much younger than my own father. Immersed in the shadow now, I could see only the out line of his body still leaning forward, hands clasped be tween his knees and head hung. He looked up as I came over and when I sat down beside him, he put his arm around me with a great sigh of relief, a sign that the crisis was past. I wished that I could do more for him, but we both knew that any comfort I could give to him here would be of no use to him when he returned to the city. He would still be a part of the world that regarded his age as a fault and his sexuality a deviation from the norm. He knew that he was welcome to stay with me forever, but the farm and .my love for him were a safety valve that protected his san ity, not a way of life. Characteristically, he accepted the problem, seeing no other solution to it, and I hugged him close, happy for his acceptance. But he needed one last bit of assurance • before he dropped the matter. "You know," he said, a hint of question in his voice. "You're young and you have everything going for you. I don't see why you don't find a young man, someone to live out here who shared your interests." I couldn't help but laugh. "What would I do with an other young man around here? You're more than I can handle already." The darkness was at high tide now, but here in its depths it was light and warm. The darkness couldn't touch us until he was gone again.

27966 Chambers Mill Rd.

Lorane, OR 97451

DOWSING

I was no older than seven when Pe-pere (Quebec-French for grandfa ther) first showed me how to dowse for water. Sometimes he asked me to go with him on his walks in the woods around our Massachusetts farm. Each walk with him stretched my world a little more - past my uncle's hill, past the barbed wire fence across the road, past the land he virtually gave away during the Depression. Me showed me a fireplace built by Indians hun dreds of years ago, how partridges will feign injured wings to distract you from their young, how to hypno tize frogs with a stalk of timothy grass so you can pick them up with your hands. This walk took us past the cowfield across the road, over a stream that ran red with iron-rich water, and into a swampy clearing edged with fruit trees. Our walk had no particular purpose, but when Pepere noticed the fruit trees, he took out his pocket knife and, look ing for a perfect branch, explained that you could find water wi th a stick. The stick must be Y-shaped with the forked ends the longest, and it must be cut fresh from an ap ple tree, although a pear tree might do. He stripped the leaves from the branch, and whittled each end to a point. When we got back to the house he showed me how to hold the stick, each hand holding an arm of the fork with the short single tip point ing up. I held the ends with my palms up, wrists facing inward and thumbs pointing outward. Then he told me to squeeze my hands as tight as I could and press my el bows firm against my ribs. Walk across the lawn, he said, and see what happens. I did, and after a few steps the stick started to pull. Squeeze tighter, he said, and as I tightened my grip the stick moved downwards, stripping its bark 1n my hands. That's where the pipe from the spring goes under the lawn and into the house, he told me. I had found water! I contin ued to criss-cross the lawn, finding the septic tank and another water pipe. I kept that forked Stick long after its usefulness, a symbol of the magic of that day. Shortly after I was born, when my father was building his house next' to the farm, Pe-pere found water for his well by using an apple-branch dowsing rod. My father knew how to

FOR

dowse, too, and later taught my young est sister. It was the men in the family who taught us how to dowse (my mother was the only woman l remember learning) but when the aunts and uncles and cousins got together for our annual late-summer corn feast, one of our games as kids was making dowsing rods and finding water. I never really thought about dowsing again until over 15 years later in 1971, when I was living by myself in a cabin in north-central Vermont. I had heard about a weekend convention of the American Society of Dowsers in nearby Danville, and asked my father if he would go with me. To my surprise he said yes. Danville, Vermont has been host ing the annual Dowsers convention since its beginning in the early six ties. Men and women dowsers from all over North America assemble to share techniques and experiences, watch demonstrations, and enjoy the Vermont

WATER

ducing, which she verified, and then he located an area where a new well might be dug, telling her how many gallons per minute she should expect to find. There were many theories of why dowsing works, ranging from psychic powers to magnetism. I learned that most children up to 5 years old are able to find water by dowsing, al though most adults have difficulty; that dowsing is thousands of years old, dating back to pictures of dow sers in African cave paintings; that dowsing has been linked in European history to witchcraft, hence the de rogatory term "water witch"; that there is an endless list of "tools" ' one can use to find water, from forked sticks to pendulums to bobby pins; that you not only can locate water, but can determine its rate of flow, depth, impurities, and direction (there were people at Danville who were 90% successful at this). Most scien tists take a dim view of dowsing. They are often so certain of its in effectiveness that they refuse to test it scientif ically. One physics professor from Springfield, Mass, has said "Dowsing is by far the most widespread example of mass self-delu sion in the histo ry of civiliza tion." The U.S. Geological Survey has refused to test dowsing be cause it "would be a misuse of public funds." Many dowsers feel the stigma of the official as well as the popular notion that dowsers are witches, fak ers, quacks, and a little bit crazy. As a result, the convention had some of the character of a large support group, re-enforcing each other's abil ities and gathering evidence for our "cause". The variety of people who have dowsing ability is wonderful. El derly Vermont farmers, psychic women, business men, husbands and wives, and yes, in retrospect, I recall seeing one or two older gay men. There was a surprising tolerance for difference among the dowsers, because, I think, their powers had set them apart, mak ing them a little "queer" in the eyes of others. I was about the only young man there with long hair and, judging from the appearance of the group, I expected a conservative, negative re action to me. But, on the contrary, people were warm and friendly, happy

hills. I met a woman on the common who said she could find water with just her hand. I asked her to show me. Danville is high on a hill, so from the common you can see valleys and several ranges of hills. She opened her hand wide, and slowly scanned the valleys with her outstretched arm. As her hand moved she could feel each pond and lake in her fingers. What does it feel like? I asked her. Like water moving through your fingers when the water is the same tempera ture as your skin. A man showed us how he could lo cate water on a map using a pendulum. A woman from Martha's Vineyard drew a sketchy map of her property including a well that was going dry. He criss crossed the map with a pendulum and found a swampy area that she knew about but had forgotten to include on the map. He told her how many gallons per minute her present well was pro

to see a father and son cone together to the convention. At a time before I had come out to my family, the con vention provided an opportunity for me to share something “queer" with my father. Three years later I was able to share my gayness with my father at a time when he began to share his psychic experiences with me, many of which were a result of his exploring abilities he discovered at the dowser's convention. My own theory about dowsing is this: most animals, to survive, are able to locate water in ways other than by sight or smell. People, too, have this ability, but, along with so much else that is non-rational, we have locked this power somewhere in our unconsciousness. The existence of this power is threatening to aca demic scientists, government offi cials, and others whose careers and value systems depend on every phe nomenon having a rational explana tion. But many people, especially children, whose conscious minds haven't completely taken over yet, are able to tap this power in them selves. I realized this when I dis covered the meditative qualities of dowsing. When I dowse for water, I have to feel sure that my mind and will are not controlling the dowsing rod. So it helps to have my mind clear, to feel centered and calm and open. When my mind starts working, doubting, anticipating, it jams up the process. I think the tool itself has little to do with finding the water, whether it is a pendulum or rod or forked stick or radio antenna balanced on your forefinger. What matters is that you have faith in the instrument and that its movement is not affected by your conscious will. It seems particularly timely for people to learn how to dowse, what with the 2 year drought on the West Coast, so here are some easy ways to see if you have the ability. My favorite dowsing instruments are the angle or "L" rods. The angle rods look like this:

and there are two of them, one for each hand. They can be made by cut ting and bending coat hanger wire. Hold the short ends of the rods in each hand, with the long ends pointing straight out in front of you. Try out different hand grips until you feel that you are holding the rods in such a way that your hands cannot control their movement. Now walk over an area where you know there is water: water pipes, a septic tank, an underground stream. It helps if the first time you do this is with a friend or neighbor who knows where the water is and you don't. As you slowly walk, focus your mind on an image or thought of what you want to

find: water pipes, stream, tank, etc. This is very important in dowsing. It can take the form of asking your self a question - Where is the water pipe in this area? - or visualizing an image of a water pipe. What you focus on is what you will (or won't) find. So if you think of hot but tered cornbread your dowsing rods won't move because there will be no hot buttered cornbread underground. As you walk you may feel the right or left rod move outward a little (or inward for some people). Turn a little in that direction (the rod is pointing the way for you to walk) and continue walking until the rods are stretched outward in a straight line. If you continue walking the rods will point behind you until they touch your shoulders. Now walk away, point the rods straight ahead again, and criss-cross over the spot from several directions to pin-point its location as accurately as possi ble. Ask your friend if he/she can certify the existence of water below. (It's most exciting if your friend has some exact knowledge of where the water is and how deep below the surface). Now, standing over the spot with the rods pointing straight ahead again, ask the rods/yourself questions concerning the depth of the water. Start with large intervals and then zero in on the precise mea surements (this is more important with wells than water pipes): Is the water below me 5 feet down, 10 feet down, 15 feet down? When you get close to the true depth, the rods 'will begin to open again until they are in a straight line. This takes more practice than simply locating the water. An experienced dowser can find the depth, rate of flow, direc tion, etc., just by asking and focus ing on a certain set of exact ques tions. This takes a lot of concentra tion and can be exhausting. Try different dowsing instru ments, too. There's the forked branch, and also the pendulum, which can be bought or made by attaching an object (a glass ball or large bead will do) to the end of a string or fine chain. To determine the proper length of string, rest your elbow on a table and slowly lengthen the pendulum string until the ball begins to ro tate. Tie a knot at this length and hold the pendulum at this knot when you are dowsing. A pendulum works by asking it yes or no questions. For example, the pendulum swinging toward and away from you can be a "yes" answer, and side to side can be a "no". Holding the pendulum steadily in front of you, walk over an area as with the angle rods, and when yoif reach the spot you are looking for, the pendu lum will say "yes" by beginning to swing toward and away from you. The use of the pendulum can get very com plex - each diagonal swing or circu lar direction can have a particular meaning. The pendulum is capable of taking very accurate measurements and

takes more practice to use than the angle rods. Once you have gained confidence in your ability to find water in pla ces that others can verify, you can try your hands at finding new sources of water for yourself and others. You can also try using the dowsing rods to locate things other than water: missing tools, animals (my father can find deer in to woods with his pen dulum), locating North when you are lost, or even finding unhealthy parts of your body. The possibilities are exciting. If you want to find out more about dowsing, ask around to see if there are any dowsers in your area, look in your library, or write to the American Society of Dowsers, Danville, Vermont 05828. And please feel free to write to me or RFD about your at tempts at dowsing. It would be great to share our experiences and feelings and maybe form a growing circle of faggot water witches. Allan Berube 125 Lyon St., #5 San Francisco, CA 94117

to Allan and Carl (RFD veterans from the earliest issues), for the use of their home Golden, in Wolf Creek, for the pro duction of issue #13, giving Mag dalen Farm a breather from RFD madness

O k la h o m a

y o u 're

The farm women who nursed their babies

o k.

on the long bench in front of the laundryMurky laundry funk reading dirty comics

Brown full tits- smell of baby shit, milk

In back bathroom leaky pipes standing water

dirty laundry and in the summer the

salt smell of water softening machine

smell of newly cut hay timothy, alfalfa peanut- the oil well workers and wives

alkaline sweet smell cum from new found toy

dreaded because of the scrubbing necessary to clean

Furtive season of discovery cash register stealing to buy bigger and better lunches

the tubs after they finished. The young

Mom was lenient or had her own things

German woman and her mother fueling my

going and I did work my ass off carrying

fantasies of far off places. German

dirty clothes in clean clothes out making

women were for me the ideal wives and mothers

starch and change washing an

for years. My step-grandmother who

occasional load hanging them to dry

was German began the fantasy: first-generation

trouble shooting

German but uneducated: proudly "writing her

Hundreds of coca colas and

name in German" for m e ....

hamburgers

old fashioned milk shakes tuna salad sandwiches

after I informed her I wanted to learn German

with pickle slices. Known by all the

and bugged her for years for information on her

merchants. As what? Hot towel and

parents where they were born what they

lemon pimple cure by next door barber Jim

did in Germany, etc. Hearing from

Tobacco juice everywhere. The Red Wing Cafe

my mother all about Grandpa and Grandma

down the street. Only one of three "shady"

Gessman how they all spoke Deutsch when

places on the main drag. All of them

they didn't want the kids to know what they

frequented by Uncle Bud

were saying. How they grew terminally ill

Good looking stud

and died in the alien household of their

farmboy rebel

Irish-American blockbuster of a son-in-law. Or by their

Hair raising incidents/accidents

culture and presence did they dominate the household?

The tractor turned over on him threw

My grandmother on Saturdays (when she came

him in a ditch. Gave the old man a run for his money and nerves.

to town reluctantly to shop) would come by the laundry and I would go with her into a few shops

The baby boy who relieved everyone by

see the people she knew. And maybe she would

marrying and moving to the city-

buy me a soda.

Married a sweet girl- a distant cousin

Working for my grandfather during the

and settled down five children and

summers of my 14th and 15th years, she would

5 hell-raising years later. Anyway there were two Virgils on the block one sold those 25

explain (and even help me do half the work) after grandpa's abrupt and not too clear

orders about a job. She never wore shoes

burgers and the other junk.

around the house and yard, and never wore her

South Main St. was Nigger town

teeth except for company and to go to town.

never-never land for me. Warned in the

Lizzie Gessman Mehan was like a delicate

8th grade about a certain little black slut

transplanted flower. I think she was my

had given several important white

first contact with the "other". An outsider

boys VD or whatever they called

who flourished and made an impact in an

it then. My interest in girls was

alien environment without giving up her

clean and idealistic (purity&sweet nothings)

uniqueness, her strangeness. I don't know

Gut lust was directed at Uncle Bud

if others in the family perceived this, but

hairy men and certain Junior Hi athletes.

I was immediately attracted to her (in my earliest

Being in the woods alone was often enough

memories of her) and clung to her as a kindred spirit.

Water holes also had fascination as did horses, dogs, cats, chickens, cows and

Will Ballard 1879 Oak St., #3 San Francisco, CA 94117

goats. Remember aching for at least two days after masturbating with soap in milk house wash vat Sat. nite bath.

SOUL FIRE I guess I'd rather be in Chicago Where the wind is wild And the snow is deep And the air is cold And your bodies freeze And I could live - in the subway. I guess I'd rather be in Chicago Where the smog is thick The streets aren't clean And your children are sick And your eyes can't see And I would live - in the subway. I want to leave California Where the dream was killed By the men I'd meet On my hands and knees Like a dog in heat And my soul's on fire - with Winter. SIGN In a city of many avenues an avenue

Contemplation of

the Beloved

crowded

north gate to south it is difficult to make ones way freely

Parrallel along this

avenue an alley

Of the Blind

Here one moves with ease one quarter to another by touch

moves

hand over hand

feels the ancient walls and (perhaps later) hears the sound of a river beyond the ramparts Jackson Allen Box 643 Inverness, CA 94937

I guess I'd rather be in Chicago I'd shuffle along like I didn't care And I'd be lost in the midnight air And I could lay with the men I meet Down in the subway. Cecil 4016 Piedmont Ave. Oakland, CA 94611

Coming Out as an Old Man A funny thing happened to me towards the end of the recent Faggots and Class Struggle Conference held in Oregon last year..,.I came out as an old man. The act of standing up alongside of several other of my brother old men and facing a lot of young people to proclaim both our solidar ity and differences in relation to them was, for me, the end point in a rather long process. For the last year or so 1 had -been bothered by nagging questions about my age dif ference in relation to the people I live with and work with, and that morning I had been lying in my sleeping baq try ing to figure out just where I stood in relation to the rest of the people at the conference. I finally decided to get up and go down to camp and find one of the other four or five older men among the 130 participants and say "Hey! I'm old, and you're old...let's talk." Doing this ended a period of hiding, repression, shame, and fear not unlike that which preceded my coming out as a gay person some years before. I would like to share with others some of my experi ences at this point, I would like this to lead to further study and analysis by myself and others about how age in tersects with economics, sexual, sex-preference and other class variables to create the clearly oppressive gulch be tween the young and the old that I experienced at the con ference as well as generally throughout our society. In particular, I want my newfound pride to lead to a little organizing since I see organizing as the best manifesta tion of consciousness and pride among the oppressed. I want to say immediately that when I use the word "oppressed", 1 am not feeling sorry for myself. It was be fore I came out that I was feeling sorry for myself. But that was a private feeling...nurtured within me and re vealed to others only in brief, distorted, indirect flashes. Now I feel quiet, content, angry, and triumphant. So far I can put my fingers on two inter-related as pects of this age oppression that I am involved in. One is personal and the other is organizational. The personal as pect is particularly ironic for me since I came out as a gay person 10 years ago at the late age of 36 so that I could finally enjoy the loving/sensual and sexual rela tionships with men that I had missed all those years. Now I find myself close to being excluded from those very re lationships by the community which I chose to join because my body and mind are old. I say "close to" because the fact is that I seem to be remarkably well preserved for an old man, and I some times have the experience of having people attracted to me because they believe I'm in my early 30's . Everything is fine with my body and my lovemaking until they find out I'm really 46. Then the idea of relating with an old man blows than away. This is a good indication of the powerful role that illusion plays in creating and maintaining personal relationships. Then there are those who clearly recognize that I'm older and are attracted to me for just that reason. But these relationships inevitably get bogged down in mutual expectations about father/child, teacher/student, therapist/client. These scripts get very complicated, but the bottom line is that younger people cannot believe and re spond to my efforts to express my weakness and need to be nurtured, which is always as deep as theirs. 20

My experience tells me that this is similar for mid dle-class men in both the straight and gay worlds, with there being a bit more ageism among gay men. I do not know about differences for older women and people in other eco nomic classes. The easiest response to all this is to ask why I don't get together with people my own age. One important reason is, of course, that I have been as infected with youth-wor ship as everybody else. On the few occasions where I have gotten past that addiction and turned towards my age-mates, I have found them ogling the young and avoiding me. I can only say that struggling against this tendency in ourselves is the first task for us older people in raising this issue with young people or the society as a whole. In fact, it was only because I personally had finally gotten very close to the point of saying that I would rather have no sex at all than have it as a fix for my youth addiction that I was able to take the steps I took at the conference. Another concrete reason why I don't have much success with people my own age is that there are so damn few of us in leftist/alternative lifestyle circles. For example, there were only five or six older men at the conference which had been billed as preparation for building a new so ciety. Whatever the reasons for this, the situation at the conference was the usual one in movement activities...a few older people imbedded in a sea of youth. The conference was highly successful in bringing together gay men to discuss leftist class politics, but it clearly reflected the excep tional level of ageism that is present in both the new left and the gay men's movement. But even if there were a lot of older people in the movement, one of the ideals that we all speak of in rela tionship to socialism and communism is to not have to split our work life off from our living situation and our loving situation. Yet the demand that I not expect to form personal/sexual relationships with younger people has the re sult that the people I live with and the people I work with are not the people who are available to love with. Thus age must be recognized as another factor that blocks us from becoming the unity that we seek. This de mand that the young relate to the young, and the old to the old, seems to be simply an extension of the competitive stratification of our capitalist, masculine society that starts out by telling first graders that they ought not to play with second graders and that later develops into the crippling distinctions between race, sex, nations, etc. This could be seen as a plea or demand on my part that some young people 'gotta' start getting it on with me to satisfy my personal and sexual needs. I am very aware that love cannot be demanded and am aware that v/orking through the issues involved in this problem will take far longer than my particular heart and desires will last. So due to my particular circumstances I am rejecting the solution of getting into a study group, collective, or affinity group and then demanding that we struggle over how they might satisfy me. Rather, I am working to gain a modest level of per sonal contentment while having a full and productive life involving my work and my children, but without a steady, personal, intimate relationship that combines work, living, and loving or without the easy fluid series of sensual en counters that are available to those who are privileged to have bodies that are young. (In other words, I'm finally understanding what Freud meant by sublimation.) Further, I am moving toward the Puritan/Marxist goal of study and organizing around this issue so that things will be better in the future for others. This leads to the second, or organization aspect of the age-oppression that I experience. This aspect centers around the fact that whenever I am in conferences, rap groups, working relationships, political formations, etc., struggling over issues around both theory and practice, I become aware that I have worked at some of these issues for 20 years longer than the rest of the people present. That is, I have experience. Not answers. Not final judgements. But experience. And experience counts for something. It is true that sometimes experience will say, "The wheel cannot be invented" and thus block progress in seeking to find the thing that will allow the wagons to roll forward. But then at other times experience can say, "The wheel has al-

ready been invented' and thus make unnecessary further ef forts at re-invention. There is no formula to tell for sure at the time whether experience is helping or hurting prog ress, but surely the American society as a whole and the new left in particular has gone way overboard in rejecting the experience of age on the grounds that it is not pro gressive, or is an authoritarian trip, or is a parents trip, etc. The new left has many of its roots in the youth move ment of the 1960's and has never put any kind of priority on attracting older people to the ranks. Those of us who joined anyway for our own reasons were accepted largely to the extent that we did not act like people in our 30's, 40*s, and 50 ‘s. The most common reaction I have had over the past ten years is along the line of, "You don't look like you're 40," or "You don't act like you're 40." I have always accepted this with the same "pride" that I imagine black people felt in the late 19401s and 50‘s who were try ing to "pass" as whites and were told by white friends that "I never think about you as being black." The necessity to live out this kind of denial of self has obviously severely limited the number of oldies in the new left. There are, of course, many older people who have long careers in left activities dating back to the 1920's and 30's. I can recall my own "youth-oriented" reaction to these people when I first began to meet them in the 1960's at different meetings, conferences, and rallies. I viewed them as being either burnt out old war-horses or the last remnants of a failed movement. I felt I had nothing much to learn from them since they had obviously failed to bring about the revolution and it was now time for bright new faces with our "whole new" approach to take over and achieve victory. Later I can recall feeling a lot of pos itive feelings of empathy and respect for some old Wobblies as I heard them tell their stories of the struggles around the time of World War I. But I was seeing these people as walking history books, rather than co-partici pants in a struggle. But now I am beginning to experience my own feelings of being burnt out and having failed to realize my dreams of victory. I see my young colleagues madly consulting the "old masters" like Marx, Lenin, etc., and vigorously competing among themselves for intellectual correctness-partly, I am sure, as a valid search for solid direction, but partly, also, as a grasping at straws to cover up their own emerging feelings of frustrated failure. How nice it would be if all of us with different age and ex perience levels could talk openly to each other about such experiences as failing hopes, setting long term goals, fear of being put off on the sidelines, living through peaks and valleys of political cycles, use and misuse of theory, rewards and punishments of factional fights, etc. Such discussions might lead to collaboration among us rather than setting us off into camps of the active, the semi-retired, the old-liners, the burnt out, etc. To put all this another way, at times I get feeling very wise. Like having dealt for 25 years with numerous theories, organizations and eager aggressive leaders (me among them) who promised to do away with human pain or suffering gives me a somewhat calmer approach to the new est fad that is billed as being just what we have been looking for to lead us to the promised land. Or like when I realize that what a young person promises to do today is not usually what he or she will be committed to do to morrow. Or like what I know that a certain organizational form will result in greater centralization rather than the greater mass participation its proponents claim for it. For many years now I have either completely sup pressed such insights or have offered them in very indi rect and disguised forms for fear that they would be seen as power tripping, playing guru, blocking struggle, etc. Then I would simply wait around for people to go through the experience for themselves and learn what I already know. Recently I have been feeling that a lot of this is fine and necessary for the young people but it is a waste of time for me. Rather than pretending that I am learning what they are learning, it will be more productive to quietly recognize that I don't need to do that struggle again and slip off into struggles that are truly new ones for me.

The issue here, of course, is how and under what con ditions can an experienced person pass on knowledge to an inexperienced person and thus save that other person from having to learn it "the hard way." It is clear, for exam ple, that only a few of us need to observe first hand the splitting of the atom. Those who do it can report the re sults to the rest of us. We do not all have to see it for ourselves. Likewise, we can save a lot of time by learning algebra from a master rather than doing it ourselves on a trial and error basis. On the other hand, in my years spent as a child and family therapist, I learned that only the experience of struggling through relationships between spouses and parents and children can give the in-depth knowledge necessary to deal with problems in these fields. Teachers and texts can do very little to speed up the ac quisition of this kind of knowledge. A relevant example of this for all of us is the cur rent argument over whether good leftists should be in volved in "liberal" or "establishment" organizational ac tivities as a way of bringing other people to a socialist perspective. Most all of us went through liberal and/or hippy stages on the road to radicalism. We now would like to short cut and capsulize this process for others so that they can make use of our experience and come directly to socialism. This is a noble wish and is closely akin to how I wish I could teach my children all that I know so that life will not be as painful and perilous for them as it was for me. Yet in the area of both political and per sonal growth and development, it seems to me that the role of the experienced person is more limited that she or he would like. Such developmental growth is most like a trip that each person must take for themselves in their own way. There are, of course, several things that those who have taken a trip before can do to help those who come later. By making clear statements about what they exper ienced and where they eventually progressed to, they can demonstrate that such trips are both possible and pro ductive. They then can make the trip for others a little less risky by drawing maps that show options and dangers. And lastly, at times they can go along to offer support and companionship. But they cannot short cut or capsulize the trip for another person without it turninq into an at tempt to substitute authority for growth. This "trip" analogy is not perfect. But it does point to where I feel my present struggle must lie. I want to join with others in looking carefully at the way that present cultural, social and organizational systems have dealt with the issue of passing experience in different matters from one generation to the other and see how these promote such factors as stability, change, skill building, authority, creativity, etc. But most of all, I intend to come out of the closet and start putting my experience on the line with those with whom I am working so that it be comes an open, tangible ingredient in the situation we happen to be struggling with. I would like to get together with others who want to do this same kind of study/practice. This could include people of any age, sex, or sexual preference. If a large and diverse group comes together, we might decide that part of the work is best done through caucuses or study groups formed along lines of special interest. But init ially I would like to hear from just anybody who is inter ested in a serious approach to the issues raised in this article. People can contact me. Dan 203 14th Ave. E. Seattle, WA 98122 206-323-5076

influence of my hippie days still shows up when I use whole wheat flour in one of my French specialties. My cooking is a hodge podge (or for those who like, a pot pourri) of influences from over the years, and at its base is an abiding love of food of all kinds.

Well, here I am sitting in my mother's kitchen read ing one of my favorite books, The Joy of Cooking. A few days away from the farm to relax and visit my parents... and their refrigerator. Mmmm. So much food. Typical mid dle-class abundance. All the eggs, butter, bacon, cheese, etc., etc. that you could hope to lay tongue to. I often find myself eating my way through the cupboards not be cause I’m hungry, but because I know that if I don't eat It now, I won’t have another chance till my next visit. I most often return from visits like this about ten pounds heavier than I left. Sitting here dreaming about coq au vin or quiche Lor raine, I wonder how I rose from my meat and potatoes back ground to my present gourmet status. It wasn't easy. In the small town where I grew up gourmet cooking was hot dogs with cheese sauce. If anybody knew anything else they weren't talking. Not that we didn't eat well when I was a kid. On the contrary, we had all the fried chicken, corn on the cob, hamburgers, and pot roast on Sunday that we could stuff away. And we loved it. It wasn't until I left home to go to school that I discovered that food as a general classification, included more than what I ate as a child. College dormitory food was the first change, not that it was that big of a change from what I knew, but it was a change. After leaving college (via the dropout system) I adopted a hippie lifestyle with accompanying changes in foodstyle. Meat was out; I became a vegetarian. The days of brown rice and vegies had begun. Whole wheat bread be came my staff of life. I inherited the legacy of legumes (who ever heard of lentils or soybeans?). And to top it off— sprouts. Those were the days when I felt that pot smoking and organic eating could set us free. It did set me free in some ways, but the wave of the future did lit tle except to erode the long established eating habits of my youth. My hippie naivete faded in time and so did my preoc cupation with "new age" foods. About the time I cut my hair, I also became a vacillating vegetarian. Alas, I had become semi-organic. The next major change to hit my food habits was what I call the cosmopolitan influence. This came about from living in a larger city and through my association with friends from the more urban and cultured cities of the east coast. There was the ethnic influence--lox, bagels, matzoball soup, and blintzes. Yum. I decided I must have a Jewish stomach. Then foreign cuisine became available to me--French, Italian, Indian and more. My previous ac quaintance with "foreign" food consisted of periodic visits to a Chinese restaurant (something akin to Chun King) and an occasional Shakey's pizza. Now I didn't eat Chinese, I ate Mandarin, Szechuan, or Cantonese. Restaurants were not just eating establishments, they were institutions of high er learning, as I was exposed to new taste treats and went on to cook them myself. It took me a while but I acquired a jaded palate. Time has passed and though I still love a good res taurant and savor a souffle, economics has become an in fluence in my eating. My cooking is more often affected by what we have in the pantry than by my international flights of fantasy. Not that you can't combine the two; the cooking of third world countries is often suited to bare pantries. So you see, over the years my food ideas changed and grew as I swept from one food fad to another, floated in and out of vegetarianism, and generally became more jaded and urbane in my tastes. Not that I have left my food past behind me. No, it is still a part of me. Pot roast still has a place in my heart and my stomach. And the organic

Here are some recipes from the kitchens of Wolf Creek. Candor's "sweet baby" pancakes Take any basic pancake mix. Substitute whole wheat flour for white. Double or triple the sweetener (use honey) Add three or four times the vanilla (if it doesn't call for vanilla, add it anyway, lots). Add a bit more oil and an other egg. Now add depending on availability— grated orange or lemon peel, smashed ripe banana, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, chopped nuts, anything that turns you on. Now if the mixture seems too dry, add more milk, oil, or another egg. If it seems too wet stir in some more flour. Paranoid the pancakes won't rise? Add more soda or baking powder. The final secret is the taste. The batter should taste good and sweet like cake batter. Try it. Practice will help you per fect your own version. Love, Candor Magdalen Farm 4525 Lower Wolf Creek Road

Some people think of peanut butter as something spread over a slice of bread or perhaps on a piece of celery. Well, that's fine, but I've found a wider variety of uses, sometimes to the dismay of my housemates, at other times to their delight. For a "non-cook" like myself, peanut butter comes in handy. Some of my more successful peanut butter dishes: Peach-Peanut Butter Cobbler Banana-Peanut Butter Pie (with cream cheese) Tuna-Peanut Butter-Cottage Cheese-Wheat Germ Mush So when my cook night rolls around, I try to use peanut butter in some form or other. I've started a reputation around the use of this food and I'd hate to disappoint my fans. I'd like to hear from others with their‘favorite peanut butter dishes. Here's one for salad dressing. I don't use measurements. Oil and vinegar Two cloves garlic, pressed (I like heavy garlic, you might want to use less) cake raw tofu Spoonful of mayonnaise Dab of mustard Chunky peanut butter to taste

(Consistency should be thick) Steven Di Verde 4525 Lower Wolf Creek Road

She is risen! Breadmaking has long been a source of pleasure for me --it's creative, and like Jesus, I like to say: "Take, eat, this is my body" {only it probably wasn't his body that did the work but one of his subordinates like Mary Magdalen; those men were always too busy causing trouble to worry about anything so mundane like the staff of life). I find it immensely satisfying to work with dough, to feel it come to life, literally, beneath my hands--to recog nize differences in texture from time to time, to realize how weather affects the dough. And now especially, since I (and Nature) created my present yeast culture, without help from the little packets from the store. Breadbaking is 1/3 art, 1/3 skill, 1/3 luck. Good luck!

TOMATO RELISH 3 lb. firm ripe tomatoes 1 lb. onions 2 lb. sugar 1 level teaspoon curry powder 1 level tablespoon dry mustard a pinch of cayenne pepper 2 tablespoons salt 3/4 pint white vinegar Wash and cut the tomatoes into medium sized pieces. Place on a dish, sprinkle with the salt. Grate onions (or put through a mincer) and put on a separate dish, sprinkle with remainder of salt. Let both stand for 12 hours, then drain off liquid. Put onions and tomatoes in a saucepan, cover with vinegar. Boil for 15 minutes, then add sugar, a tablespoon salt, cayenne, and stir in the curry powder and mustard mixed with a little cold vinegar. Boil for about one hour or until sufficiently thick. Bottle and seal while hot. Carl Caperneex 26 Clyde St. Parkside, Australia SA 5063

The "she" of the title is my new friend Raisa (named after a Puerto Rican nationalist who was indicted "by a grand jury and is serving a jail term for refusing to divulge'information which her employer, the Episcopal Church, later turned over to the government) or Raisele, a diminutive Yiddish name. She was born during the last RFD--I was parent, mid"wife". This feat was achieved by combining about a quart of warm water, a tad of honey (as much as stuck to the spoon) and enough whole wheat flour to make a pancake batter con sistency, and setting all in a gallon jar behind the cookstove. A few days later the ingredients, somewhat crusted over, began to swell and smell. I then mixed the activated mixture with another liquidy mixture of rye flour and water, about 4 cups total, and let that all stand in my bread-rising bowl for a few days. It's not necessary to cover it unless you have prying pets. One night, with no peering, curious on lookers, she rose above the lip of the bowl! Now the process began in earnest. I scooped out a cup of this mixture and refrigerated it ("starter" for the next time) and mixed in another cup of rye flour, a cup of gluten flour (expensive but compensates for the low levels of gluten in rye flour and makes for a nicely-risen loaf of bread) and enough additional whole wheat flour to be able to knead the mixture. Knead. Back to the bowl (now oiled) for another extended rising (exact time is not important; it can easily be overnight). Then another quick kneading and loafing, adding a generous pinch of salt and a fistful of caraway seeds. Then I place them in greased breadpans and let rise, at least an hour, preferably until quite ob viously risen. Place in a cold oven and set temperature (since I cook on a wood stove, this is highly theoretical --temperatures for baking can range from 250 to 400°, with 325 being a happy medium). Bake until bottom of bread re sounds nicely to tapping (a hollowish sound). Cool on wire racks. If you can't wait for it to cool off, cut with a serrated knife. Now, when I want more bread, usually at least once a week, I mix well the starter with 4 cups of water (some times potato or other perversion of pure water), sometimes a bit of sweetener (molasses, honey) and enough rye flour to make a mixture and set bowl aside for a few days. As I walk by, occasionally I stir the mixture. Other times I simply stare at the bubbles forming and bursting. Water cannot be too hot lest it kill the yeast (body temperature is a good maximum). One of the pleasures of working with bread, especially a new-found friend such as Raisa, is that we have a very symbiotic relationship--my actions bring life back from the dormant stage, and in return, I get fed. No back talk. No hassles. No lovers on the side. Simple unchanging demands. A chance to take out anger by kneading— and even if I'm not angry, kneading is a very centering operation. We under stand each other.

soupy

Faygele ben Miriam Magdalen Farm & Rt. 1, Box 92E Efland, NC 27243 23

Forrest Anderson was an "ordinary" gay person. To be sure, he worked at his craft and became a notable pub lished poet. At the same time, he worked his whole life as a merchant seaman and sustained himself by those la bors. He did not grow rich off his poetry. Perhaps, too, it was the nature of his work; his romance with the sea and his long intimate times with it, that enabled him to record his perceptions and experiences and pass them on to us. Most working people will not have that opportunity. We are sure that there are many gay people like For rest Anderson who spent their lives in labor. Perhaps they wrote. Perhaps they only sit now full of years and many rich memories who still cannot "come out" with family and friends. But times are changing. We know they are there. Many of us are ready to listen. The pressure on gay people to remain silent and in visible all of our lives has been enormous. Encountering the works of Forrest Anderson has been like discovering some lost member of our family. The feelings he expresses in his poetry are recognizably the same as ours. The op pression is too much the same. It is sad that so many of us had to live our lives concealing our loves and sorrows, going quietly to our grave. Perhaps the change has begun to happen.

In January of this year Forrest Anderson left San Francisco, which had been his home port for most of his life, and came to live with his niece in Wolf Creek. Me was in poor health and in April, at the age of 74, he died. While Forrest lived his life as a gay man, he never discussed the matter with his family. Still, his niece, who is an astute, gleeful and generous woman, seemed to understand Forrest's sensibilities; and she respected his privacy and style. She and her husband have been buying RFD locally for a while, and she knew some of us from Magdalen Farm to say hello and chat at the country store. Recently she con tacted us to ask if we'd be interested in looking through some of Forrest's legacy: Fight footlockers full of manu scripts and notebooks of poetry in both English and French; seven published works of poetry and one unpub lished novel. She also wished to make us a gift of For rest's collection of the Mattachine Review dating back to the 1950's. We visited with her the very next day. What we discovered was that Forrest Anderson was a fine and recognized poet who had spent a great part of his life at sea. He earned his livelihood as a merchant seaman. Certainly he must have had many stories to tell. In Wolf Creek, we lived only six miles apart and felt sad that we never got the chance to meet and speak with him. Still, we were told that he had at least connected with us by reading RFD and "never read what he didn't enjoy." And now we have begun to "meet" him through the abundant work he left behind. In addition to the personal excite ment we felt encountering Forrest's work, we also began to sense a broader historic or cultural event taking place. Jonathan Katz, the author of Gay American History, indicates that he paid particular attention to "document ing the experience of ordinary Gay people." He made no particular effort to document the lives of notable or cre ative homosexuals (neither did he ignore them). He chose, rather, to abandon the method of previous gay historians who often emphasized celebrity as a way of defending gay life style against the slander and censorship of straight society. His purpose was to document the lives of the great majority of gay people who may never have attained fame, thereby giving simple validation to our "oppression, resistance and love." So he dug around and persisted in enormous research and uncovered a vast number of ordinary gay people dating back to 1528. We feel that all of us are just beginning to do the same thing: to uncover the myriad qualities of our separ ate lives and struggles, and to establish them as undeni able historic and cultural fact. The changes have begun to happen.

Forrest Anderson was born in Weiser, Idaho on August 9, 1903. As a young man he became a merchant seaman and actively remained so until his retirement ten years ago. In the 1920's he settled for a while in Paris amidst the community of American expatriate artists and writers. He returned to this country during the Depression and worked on some WPA Writers Workshop Projects. When not at sea he usually resided in San Francisco. He began writing and publishing poetry in 1929--both in English and French. By 1970, Forrest Anderson had won recognition from French, British and American literary societies for his works. Anderson's engagement with life and labor; his loves and separations, his exhilaration and despair are expressed most often in the rich images and experiences of the sea. The following poems are taken from a collection of Ander son's favorite works entitled Toward Other Shores (PanGraphic Press, San Francisco, 1961). SLAUSON-SATIVA (Siva?) is an excerpt from In the Forests o f Hell and o f Heaven; the poem Acedia Amoris is being published here for the first time. Sandy Lowe

ADONIS ON A WAVE

DEAD SEA FRUIT

If I could keep you forever as you in that moment were, you would no longer be you, of course, and time would cease to be a measure.

you had a dream, you had several, if one did not work out, perhaps some other would through all changes remaining somewhat the same the world around, to come at last to this no region conquered, few convictions retained a certain light to follow, however, to the very end

If our minds could know the merging that our bodies briefly do, our thoughts might find their ultimate in their own center.

then flood over me generously, all ideas The cries of cities were traded for cascades of clouds chill flames were drained while no word spoken your face asked to be aloof as the winter moon beside the rails a late cricket persisted in his song Your youth was wiser than all ray experience seeking to prolong an encounter beyond itself; we dealt with reality as realists must, I suppose: together being generous, going on to face The-N'ext-Day alone Yet if we had fallen all-far with the waterfall, we could anticipate another surge to lift us back again; for when we held each other in our arms, we found we had come into our homeport at last, at least for a while.

what else could there have been for you that you would truly value? poor or rich, the same desires you would likely follow to realize them, or not - nothing else would do your thirst assuaged by a drink of but one name your hunger asked for nothing else so strange for certain persons, hell and heaven may contend this one for the sea, that one for the land but you, you belong to conflagrations, legends, hurricanes, earthquakes, scandals and sensations brought on by the sharp wine of love - poured out copiously, and the dregs would be....a poem.

SLAUSON-SAT1VA (Siva?)

WILLOWBROOK-CHANNEL heartbeat of the universe tar-fish-crude oil.... under-the-dock smells like a breath of fresh air at last or a drink of mountain water, straight off the snow, loneliness, you are yet peopled with old loves for me. to them i say (as i salute) it was worst of fates to outlive you. you, or my youth i regret? mocking crickets in the magic marsh, i like you fine, i'll never solve your mystery and i'll never try for

this

is San Pedro and it's "the End-of-the-Line" give me a rusty old scow bound for nowhere!

PRAISE FOR A PASSERBY in this soft summer night i know many loves circulate and look for satisfaction, some are savage in the hunt, others drift along like clouds merely waiting for the wind to blow them where they want to go.

ACEDIA AMORIS SATIATION

soon i shall join the pack again, but not yet. not yet... only wait a while and think of you: on how near we were to perfection: needing me as i needed you, with faith restored -and gratitude

LOVE WEARY

as when the lark breaks off song to swerve and dip to obscure pleasuring, or a rose lifts her welcome to the rain at dawn in showerings down of notes distinct from some far concerto , with murmurs of compassion, appreciative in the extreme for caresses eager, toward fraternal solicitude were met, and stronger for it afterward there is nothing that can take the place of love now as against the common talk of those around i can find an intoxication by recalling what you left unsaid while whispering to myself carefully your name starts up another wind to chase sad moods away.

We who have eaten of the lotus root will never see the world the same again can life ever be as fine as the dreams of youth or another love live up to an earlier vision Many a later garden grew only bitter melons through which we searched quietly desperate moving ail the while on to that something else savoring of someone indistinguishably last or first

Graphic by Steven Di Ver.de ( from a portrait of Forrest, l'j62 )

A>'*G IN

MIND

° M ards would sun, and later the herons would start to come home, flying greatly. It was always bad near fire-time, then the marsh would get very dry, and the herons wouldn't come home. I always wondered about the chicks.

My grandmother used to say Australia had never seen the colour green. She was born here, but had lived most of her life in England and Ireland. She married a Scot who took her back to the country of her birth, but not before she had done her Duty and evacuated Gallipoli, and escaped death narrowly when the World War I hospital ship, the Mauritania, was bombed. Both my families were colonials. Whilst my maternal family were nursing and fighting in the Middle hast, my paternal family were administering her royal majesty's british empire in India - until those damned natives got sick of being fucked over by white hypocrites.

My uncle died and I grew. My parents and 1 were occasionally friendly, as we still are, and my school and I were worst enemies. The farthest corners of the yard, the back of the church, and the back of the schoolroom were my domain, though 1 quickly learned that the front of the room was safer due to the watchful (and occasionally vengeful) eyes of the teachers. My first school years were spent under the thumbs and whips of nuns. Our family had the unfortunate habit of Roman Catholicism. Still there was the bliss of escapeto-the-bushes at the back of the school, and inside-abook everywhere else.

And so I was born. Of parents that weren't quite sure about why there were no native bearers; a mother to whom a sun that shone, in stead of fizzled, was an alien, and alienating experience; and a father only recently "liberated" from the harrowing experience of being not quite hnglish, due to a slight indiscretion on the part of one of my imperialist ances tors. The strain of being more pukka than the British, in order to give lie to a faint tinge to the skin, proved too much for them when India got its independence, and they fled. And so the not-quite-so-green of Australia threw open its recently discovered arms. This discovery of two hundred years ago came only forty thousand years after Ab original settlement but that's a minor detail - it's get ting more and more minor every day. My mother will still tell, in reminiscent moments, of the sheep paddock that was to be converted into what is now a nice little sub urban middle class (capital il please) Home. Only one other house, electricity, running water, and an intermittently

By the time I went to high school young men had heard of poofters. And so had I - not so much heard as..... I found them in the City Swimming Pool, in the local pool, Railway station toilets, sports grounds and at the bottom of several public gardens. In one garden there is still a plaque attached to a carved tree trunk, the sculptress dedicates her work to "The Fairies at the Bottom of the Garden - Whom I Love." It's called the Fairy Tree. Kids love it. Those were the days of constant hard-ons. Aint adolescence wunnerful! But I could not escape to those forbidden arms very often, so to escape the forbidding arms of my school"mates", I would take long walks over the marsh and far away, as far away as possible. And there it was - The Bush. And it took me as far as I wanted. There is nothing like gum-treed silence in the afternoon, days hissed with cicadas; it's all covered with the trans latable. I'd like to let you see it, touch it here, before the multi-nationals really fuck it. Perhaps one day thei'e will be a Special Section of World Botanic Gardens, New York (Inc.) where we'll be able to see a unique and au thentic replica of the extinct Australian bush. Uranium and aluminium'll get us yet.

running railway line to civilisation. Oh, and a new (1949) mental asylum for the "criminally insane" just over the hill - everything a young, convent-bred bride could wish for. She got used to it. Australians get used to every thing. It's a national habit. My parents didn't really like each other for fifteen years or so - but they got used to each other - after a while so did I. I'm an Australian. Looking back I could almost be lieve we were pioneers ourselves, we got used to so much. My birthdays were often marked with a slow, dry fear.

Perhaps the revolution w e ’re building'll get them instead. Hope.

When 1 was old enough to look up during those periods, I was puzzled by the heavy brown of the sky, the sun magni fied as if by muddy dam water. But the sun only sulked in angry silence, the word most often spoken was "BU5HFIRE!" The coldest thing 1 saw during those times was the fear in my mother's eyes - the only blue left, now that the sun was dirt red and the sky, dirt grey. But those times passed, and we never really did get burnt out, though friends did, The snakes didn't get burnt either, they came to live under our house instead. Fun. Fear.

One good place to escape to was about five kilometres from home, an old abandoned horizontal gold mine that the local council had unsuccessfully filled in. Part of the mouth had been re-excavated by a wombat, the shaft was only about one and a half metres high, and the floor was under water but that didn't matter. It was enough to be away from home in a completely different environment that hard ly anybody knew. I would sit for hours at the lip of that mine watching the river below, and seeing how many birds, lizards and rabbits would come close if I stayed absolute ly quiet. Something like meditating. Once I took some meat with me and left it a little way off - I got what I was hoping for - a kookaburra came to tea. (Look it up in an Lncyclopedia of Natural History.) Hours of walking and sitting in the bush, fantasies of living in bark-huts, talking to bell-birds (which have a ringing cry like a bell) and magpies (large black and white birds that have an indescribably beautiful warble that is a delight to wake to in the morning), and trying to catch sight of my excavating wombat. Being nocturnal animals they can seldom be seen in the day.

Even now 1 am strangely fascinated and repelled by the un de nieaths of houses. My maternal uncle lived with us, he was older than my mo ther and was my friend. His friends were all men who my parents didn't like, and he was a professional photogra pher and didn't marry. Those men felt "funny", or so my parents would say, giving each other knowing looks. My uncle would take me for walks down our wild and unmade road, and over the hill and even sometimes far-away, and we'd be late back for tea. We'd often go to The Hill near by and down the other side to the marsh which is now mur dered. That marsh! MMMMMud.' And in the afternoons the liz-

But the city and Life errrept on.

In a sudden ejection of re-birth I moved from ray birth place Melbourne to Sydney, that was an eye-opener! Nothing like a rotten inner city to wake someone brought up in the relative calm of a semi-rural environment. 1 went into the world of the male left, draft-resisting, and helping to support the casualties a capitalist city and imperialist nation leaves. Working with derelict alcoholics, and ab originals; helping to establish a self-supporting recy cling community for the derelicts. We won our battle against conscription, but the battle of rehabilitation for the derelicts, for what? Most of the people involved in the work were refugees'from the dominant culture them selves, all we could do was dry people out, only to hang them up in the main stream again. I decided to do some thing more definite. AND THEN! Gay Liberation! TARAA TARAAAA! Well I gained a political awareness of my sexu ality and a theoretical knowledge of the Women's Movement and I wrote a lot of pamphlets and I got arrested for Australia's first Gay Pride Week and generally slaved my guts out for--- nothing. I was very much a Man, albeit a "hippie" of the liberal mystic type, I was surrounded by Men, albeit ideologically sound Men, but still very much Men all the same, and I was living in a city that was all but killing my body and almost certainly killing my mind. I had very little money to support myself, and very little support from my brothers, there were few men I knew that I wanted to know and of those I did want "better" relation ships with there was always a meeting to go to instead....

Living on the coast of Victoria in a cliff cave. Change begins. One month, sea washing me, living on rock pool fish, not much else, rocks shooting from the sea bed make my mind move like nothing else, I found an old man living in the scrub who stole food and clothing from a nearby town to stay alive, a wise man with nothing much to say, he let me look in his eyes as he looked out to sea, he'd been living alone, hidden from the day-trippers for fif teen years, seagulls are not gurus, but yes I found things on the sea shore, sometimes the sea was a mirror, images of Botticelli, messages are born, he said he didn't know how old he was, he drank methylated spirits and with the washed, diluted eyes of metho drinkers he leaned over and touched my arm. I found an old man living in the scrub. He'd always been alone. I knew why. From the time I was taught to approach the Great Mother, chronology lost its rigidity. I started the process of excavation, rejection of ray up bringing. Wicca, and lightning and I played games of no significance, power and pinnacles of still adolescent en ergy, I played poltergeist with myself, travelled to the awe-full stars, met the inhabitants of those places, and found I could fly. Even the people of the Goddess, the Craft of the Wise, even they hold shears for wing clipping, and they who shine so bright can also lie brightly-- man tras held me tight for the next while and celibacy hid my sexuality from lots of people, even sometimes me, but then in the darkness of Hare Krsna temples they too can be swayed, will sway you themselves, in the night, urgently, before they can catch themselves at it. Also I did have moments of genuine bliss, but A.C. Bhaktivedanta was a cretin. Probably the vanguard of a newly fascist bourgeois lies wrapped in sweet smelling garlands. To you, Oh! gurus

I moved to the much smaller and gentler city of Adelaide. I have been here three years now, this city, as a city, is o.k. for me, it's very definitely a place of transition, but a benevolent one. I can look up almost anywhere and see the hills or the sea, even from the main street. I can get right out in twenty minutes and riding a bicycle here is heaven. I have done a lot of real growing here, drawn together a whole lot of disparate threads, though the tap estry (to strain a metaphor) isn't nearly finished, maybe never will be. I've got a goal to further the revolution (marxist feminist with leanings toward atheistic buddhism) through education and so am suffering teacher training un til they'll give me a diploma. Meanwhile I try to combat sexism/racism as much as possible and cram as much as I can of Alternative education into my head. Eventually I'll be merging into the hills somewhere around this city (I think) to herb, goat, and school farm. Nice dream, eh? Maybe. I think I'll have to get to the States and Canada (esp.) to really work out my head regarding alternatives in education first.

of the world, the maharishis, the maharajis, the richard alpert baba ram dass', the frederick peris, the willy reichs, you who write honeyed words of natural order, I give you floral symbols, that, given time and Nature's course, will rot around your necks like a thousand Alba tross .

Metaphysics ousted by an insistent reality I find God - I mean politics.

And so, maybe I'll see some of you dancing under those jmuch boasted Oregon etc. pine forests. Or here. Yea! May the pure Light within us guide our ways home. (Does anybody in education? I'd people who've had ternatives in ed. (?) people!]

know anybody working like to hear from experience with al esp. gay or leftist

Quentin 46 King St. Mile End, S. Australia

THE

G40

PLU S

CLU B

The G40 Plus Club was formed by and for gay men of 40 and older. We have found that there is no reason to put ourselves on the shelf just because we've become ma ture. We make friends, exchange ideas, participate in mutual interests, and continue to grow in the safe, com fortable, supportive space our club provides. To our surprise and continual pleasure, we have created an at mosphere of mutual respect and friendship that all mature men need but seldom achieve. We are constantly bombarded by the propaganda of a youth-oriented society. In the G40 Plus Club maturity communicates with maturity in great comfort and humor. The rewards of experience are valuable enough to make us take new interest in our world. We find the G40 Plus Club an excellent way to join the community, and meet our brothers. The major function of the club, so far, has been so cial. We have held sensitivity groups, general raps, groups for consciousness raising, play reading, political activity and other special interests. The possibilities are limitless. There are auxiliary organizations, such as a hiking group. Many members enjoy meeting for simple socializing or play board or table games. We have cooperated with research organizations and projects exploring problems of older gay men. We communi cate and collaborate with other groups, such as the Wed nesday Forum, San Francisco and Berkeley Gay Raps, Oper ation Concern, etc. We hope to work with groups of mature lesbians. We also hope to contact elderly gay people living alone and offer them the social and personal contacts and help we have available. Another goal is to be a catalyst in forming new, similar groups in other places. We have found that our club fills a long felt need. We will be happy to give help and encouragement to anyone wishing to form a club with like ideas and goals.

Statem ent of P rin cip le s The G40 Plus Club exists so as to assist gay men of forty and over to combat the loneliness and isolation incumbent upon reaching'maturity in American society. Its aims are to bring them together for friendly sociability and mu tual support and to work together in finding further ways in which to grow. Likewise, its aim is to find ways to assist and aid in all acts that will benefit older gays, particularly those who for any reason are unable to fra ternize other persons.

w ith

Simultaneously, the Club works with attempts to change the present prevailing attitudes towards older persons, with the aim of making others aware that "Gray Gay Is Good" as well as assisting in any researches that will add to the present body of knowledge on the problems of the older gay. Through all of this our intent is not to fulfill the needs of any one group of persons, but rather have as many diverse types of activities as there are varied persons belonging to it.

SAM A couple of months ago Sara drove by our house twice. Too scared, i believe, to drop in and say hello. He said later that he was waiting for a specific invitation. I told him to come over anytime. He finally did. "Here are some magazines on country living and a series of articles on homosexuality," he said. "You can keep the magazines but i'd like the articles back." Sam carries too much weight for his own health and wears thick glasses. The thick hair on his head is grey and white. Sam's hip was crushed in a car accident. He has had a series of hip operations. He has pain. He walks with a cane and a limp. He is self-conscious about his infirmity and his nearly 70 years of age. I'd visited him about a year and a half ago, before he moved to an apartment complex for the elderly. He had two dogs. One was blind, the other barked a lot. His cabin was packed with mementos, old furniture and the kind of neatness that comes from having to please no one but yourself. Semi-functional chaos. The place was surrounded by woods and isolation. He has more neighbors now, but i think he'd rather have been able to keep his dogs. His wife died 10 years ago. "Yes, she knew i was gay. We didn't talk about it very often. But she was aware and supportive of me. We loved each other. I didn't tell her details of my sexual encounters. She knew i was gay and loved me. We had a good relationship. She loved me." Sam was planning a trip to Amsterdam. "Gay Amsterdam." A nice vacation. A time for rest and sex. Sam told me he's had no loving embraces in years. He says he must go away for love. He's worried that family relations might find out something about his preference and he can't tolerate the idea of possible rejections. "I'm too old to fight now." His need for a recent hip operation cancelled all vacation plans. I asked him if he'd do some articles about his gay experiences of thirty years past. "Don't know where or how to begin." "Care to see the rest of the house?" "Can't go upstairs. Too tired. It's a long drive here. Sitting here is just fine." "When I was recuperating from my last operation i had a nurse take care of me for a while. I thought he was gay, but wasn't sure. So i left a bunch of Gay Com munity Newspapers around the livingroom. It worked! He and his current lover have taken me to a gay bar on sev eral evenings. My god, the first gay bar i've been to in over 30 years. It's all so different from the gay bars i used to frequent during the world war two years in New York City. The Astor, the Pink Elephant, the Twenty One, i forgot the rest of the names. It's not like the old days. The gays seem to have matured a good deal. I re member that in the old days we all seemed to be such bitches. Now there seems to be genuine affection, love and understanding. I like it a lot better now." "I don't have Carl as a nurse anymore, but i go to see him, and his love Tom, on those bless'd gay bar evenings. I can't dance, of course, but i do enjoy watch ing everything. Can't talk much there, the disco music is too loud. However it's the only chance i get to see the children these days, and i miss them. My apartment is so lonely. Ever since i had to get rid of my dogs..." Demi an Gulf Rd. Northfield, MA 01360

If you think you would like to join us or want more in formation, please send a stamped self addressed envelope. The G40 Plus Club P.0. Box 6741 San Francisco, CA 94102

A Fear Against a falling snow I heard him long ago

Robert Francis:

A young man who could prove Old Goethe could not love Old love he both denied And equally decried. If I were young and cold I'd be afraid to scold The old in love for fear The god of love might hear And hearing me might freeze My five extremities.

Robert Francis wrote this poem when he was in his late sixties--it was first published in Like Ghosts o f Eagles: Poems 1966-1974 (Univ. of Mass. Press, $3.00). He published last year a 40-page booklet Certain Distance (Pourboire Pr., Woods Hole, Mass., $3.00) containing 33 poems, some old, some new and in prose--"pictures" he calls them, stimulated by an "erotic impulse...far transcended." Some will feel that the eroticism of many of these pieces was too far transcended. And indeed other poems of his, not in this booklet, suggest an eroticism more powerful than a mere picture could convey. "A Fear" echoes with a singular resonance for those who have read one short chapter in his autobiography, The Trouble with Francis (1971, Univ. of Mass. Pr.). This reticent New Englander, brought up in a Baptist parsonage, a heritage he may have outgrown but certainly never rejected, and living for some forty years as ascetically as Thoreau in Amherst, the town of Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost--he "came out" at the age of 70, in this book. Not very far out, perhaps, but quite visi bly. He tells how, in his late 50's, after a lifetime of concealment and of poetic sublimation, he found a lover, an Italian business man twenty years younger, met on shipboard, and again ten years later, when Francis was in Florence on a travelling fellowship. With this man, and apparently only with him, Francis experienced sexualemotional expression and fulfillment for the first time. Francis' poem makes reference to Goethe, with whom he certainly would hardly compare himself. But, like Goethe, Francis was not afraid. The repression he exper ienced and accepted most of his life, he turned into poetry. To a considerable de gree he still accepts it, steady New Englander that he is. But he learned to accept and to express love, without fear, in his sixties. One thinks of lines in another even more remarkable poem, written late in life and very possibly after his shipboard encounter, “Swimmer." (Come Out into the Sun , 1965, Univ. of Mass. Pr.)

Observe how he negotiates his way With trust and the least violence, making The stranger friend, the enemy ally. The depth that could destroy gently supports him. With water he defends himself from water Danger he leans'on, rests in. The drowning sea Is all he has between himself and drowning. II What lover ever lay more mutually With his beloved, his always-reaching arms Stroking in smooth and powerful caresses? Some drown in love as in dark water, and some By love are strongly held as the green sea Now holds the swimmer. Indolently he turns To float. The swimmer floats, the lover sleeps.

submitted by: Thurston Taylor 2180 Nelson Ave. West Vancouver, B.C. Canada V7V 2P7

SAILING NORTHWARD Sailing northward from Scotland where we first met, Along the western coast of Norden (a word he taught me), Publicly I am here for tourism and consultation But secretly (known only to the woman I love) I am drawn here by the chance--remote in the extreme-To make love to a brilliant son of Norway Who for most of his thirty years has skiied the snowcapped mountains I now gaze upon from shipboard; Drawn by his mind and feelings and not at first by his body; By his half-a-lifetime of silent torment; By the solemnity and pleasure of his sexual-political liberation; By his terse and total honesty; Now drawn also by the forbidden day-dreams Of physical beauty which might lie Hidden under non-descript garments.

TRUE COLOURS ON A SUNDAY AFT have and give away want and refuse to accept or accept without gratitude touch but make sure not to feel. say it but don't ever say it all retain a reasonable level of mystery live with an acceptable amount of misery die at an amiable plateau of self understanding or haunt your own closets and rattle like hell because you're the one you want to have hearing it all Or just say thanx and stop worrying about anything or nothing, dedicate time to everyone while making sure your time is yours even if you don't value your own company Allow yourself to feel as though you're being shit on. Take care not to wipe it off completely or you'll soon forget how much you want

But because I care deeply for the whole of him; Because I cannot bear to risk wounding him with embarrassÂ ment and pain, I will take no steps to lose him. Because I fear deluding myself with his eager, immediately responsive letters, Because his written word, "love," is so utterly different from the words, "I love you," Because I fear with such certainty it is only for my mind and spirit that I have been invited here, Because I have no physical beauty left for him to have begun dreaming of during these four months time, Because, I feel sure, I lack his acquiescence in seduction In none of my dreams, waking or sleeping, have I been able to undress him. And so, fortuitously but sadly, My eyes can gaze innocently into his When they first meet Across the customs barrier An hour hence. Richard Steinman Whitefield, ME 04362

So go ahead and touch but make sure not to feel in the name of self defence. Joseph Reid somewhere near Kitchener Deeply imbedded in a severe case of the FEBRUARIES

THE OLD & THE I-HOTEL * *

Old people on the trolley tree limbs for support ignored like a rotting pile of compost waiting for everything, the inevitable big dump; Acknowledgement of each other their ghetto of age reach out to each other aiding each other, holding back the throb of impatient youth breathing down their back. That hungry machine greed claws continually at their lives shelved away, a shell, anywhere where most easily forgotten; Cold or damp or drugged usual sleepmates are the rats & roaches only visitor the collectors or in final scene death vapours over, chipped paint for colour the life of the old lies in a shell buried deep. Pressure is now applied to the shell quickly remembered as the machine gets hungry, irritation acts out its ironic karma & the agitation sets rebirth in motion & the pearl rolls forward in waves of ocean roar. Old people roll restless in the hospital beds & one room cells we abandon them in, spirit is drugged moaning - it shows life life never killed. Old people cry out- enough! are we with them? the Four Seas try to swallow as fierce as a Rockefeller fledgling, their kind is the substance that crowds into the shadow the giants cast; The Four Seas company hands out clean linen once a week to all tenants A flurries of poison pen signatures send their barrages of eviction note posters; Tenants watch from upstairs windows tidal waves of supporters rise to challenge the Four Seas, aged comrades pushed to the final wall, the jewel of resistance- the pearl its will cracks the shell of oppression...

EXPLANATION: The International Hotel has stood for many decades as part of San Francisco's Manila & China towns. Over the years the city's financial district has consumed much of the area until most of what was Manila town is now high rise office buildings for Amerika's corporate empire. The I-Hotel is now owned by a multi-national corpo ration, the Four Seas Company, which is based in Hong Kong. Their aim is the eviction of the tenants of the hotel to make way for 'business progress'. Many of the hotel's tenants are elderly Filipino & Chinese men who came to S.F. as labourers in their youth. They were not allowed to bring family. Since their arrival the hotel & each other have been their family & support. Capitalism tries hard to destroy non-white families in the same breath as it turns our families against us as gays. The hotel also houses a number of Asian community groups including an arts workshop & a progressive book store. All the tenants are active in resisting the combined forces of Four Seas & the government of the city & county of S.F. Over the years, sectors of the working, feminist & third world communities have come to the aid of the tenants in their just fight for the right to manage the hotel & for the city to set it up as low income housing. Faggots involved with Bay Area Gay Liberation (BAGL) have formed a security team to help with arson watches & the general alert against eviction forces. Many community groups have donated such energy. At support demonstrations that attract as many as 5,000 people, lesbians & faggots are the largest visible group of supporters. We're out to show gay solidarity with these tenants, many of them old & with no place else to go. We demand an end to attacks on third world & poor communities. Whether it is logging or strip mining in the country, high rises & evictions in the city or defoliation in Viet Nam, we will not be silent at this war against us & our Mother, the earth. We gays are realizing our righteous place in the fam ily, of earth. The militant resistance of the elderly at the I-Hotel has stopped many of the ageist concepts i had of 'helpless' old people. These strong old people, their love & strength has helped me to look forward to a long life as a faggot freedom fighter. * *

The pearl will glow in the rising sun.

[As th is issue was going to press, we learned that the resid en ts o f the I-H otel were fo r c ib ly evicted, by the San Frdncisco p o lic e. — Ed. J

Tede Matthews 529 Castro St. San Francisco, CA 94114 32

Dear RFD Collective: Mulberry House seems slowly but certainly cowing back together. Our time physically apart from each other has given us strengths & insights into our struggles. We have land now, bought & paid for. Our next task is to combat east & west coast chauvinism & pray the Goddesses will send us 20-25 sissy faggots to help create the Reality of a fairy farm. Spread the word I Gotta dash. Goddess bless y'all.

This Time around...

★

The times are trying for elder middle-class faggots involved in movement struggles. Our conditioning is strong, deep, and of long duration. It's often hard for younger brothers to understand the survival techniques we acquired in order to get thru the Depression, World War II, and the McCarthy era. We survived--if^ we survived--alpne. On our own. Each faggot for himself. We are strong today because we survived. But too often we use the tools of our survi val destructively. I know I do. Ageism is just another way capitalism teaches us to ignore each other. And we are taught to ignore each other in so many different ways: class, race, sex, looks, as well as age. The young suffer as much from ageism as the elder. They are ignored because they aren't yet "mature"--that is, their brainwashing isn't complete. The elder are ignored because they are no longer "useful"--as breeders, workers, or cannon fodder. The worst oppression elder faggots suffer, I feel, is the way we ignore each other. I know this was certainly true in my bar-going days. And now, living in the country, I sometimes feel surrounded by a sea of young. There is no one with whom I can check out my reality. In my experience (male, white, middle-class, "educa ted," 44!), ageism is a subtle oppression. It creeps up. The faggots I live and struggle with are ten to twenty years younger, and for a long time we pretended there was no age difference between us. But there is. There is a reality gap between me and my younger broth ers. Everything I have ever been taught, every computer card of programmed behavior, is being challenged. I thought my survival depended on becoming an individual middle-class white liberal gayman. My survival techniques are no longer useful. I have the right tool--strength--but I must learn to use it nonselfishly. For myself, the strongest survival technique I found was the use of words. Growing up with books and radio and the "literary" movies of Warner Bros., I early learned the power of words. As a physically small Sissy who wore glasses and grew up in Texas, I quickly learned to talk my way out of violence. I bullshit my way thru college and learned to suppress my Sissy. In order to survive in the fifties, I learned to play games with words, to figure out if the "good-looking hunk" on the next barstool was a plainclothes vice cop or an FBI agent. Politics became survival. The vice squads were sent into the syndicate-run gay bars just before election time, and prices were raised. I cruised the streets until 4 A.M. because faggot discussion groups were twenty years in the future. In time I earned a cushy middle-class job in pub lishing; words were paying for all those "nice things" I'd been programmed to want. Finally, words got me out of the city into a teaching job. The use of words has been the tool I have used to gain power over my survival.*

As programmed into the middle-class, language is used as a tool to cut us off from each other. A huge vocabulary of big words is an oppressive tool against both the hearer and the speaker. Both faggots are cut off from understanding/feeling each other. My younger and working-class broth ers use words to express their feelings. I express my feel ings in words. The distance between the two is the width of the reality gap that separates us. I use words to describe what I am feeling rather than coming out with the feeling. It's a very middle-class trait, only made worse "because^ I've been at it so long. Our collective has had to learn how to cope with these struggles by a process of trial and error. It hasn’t been easy. My younger brothers have had to learn how to have pa tience without being liberal. I have had to learn how to come out with my feelings and get in touch with my long-sup pressed Sissy spirit. The challenge to my reality presented by my younger brothers has been only partly the result, of our age differences. It's been mostly because my reality has had no political or class analysis. Ageism is subtle and double-edged. I use it too often as an excuse not to change my classisra, sexism, or racism. When my story becomes a Sissystory, then everyone will be involved. Living collectively is more than just sharing expenses. It takes patience, perseverance, and above all commitment to each other. It means being responsible for each others' health and well-being. It means learning to nourish and comfort each other at all times, most particularly during those inevitable dark nights of the soul. It means learning to recognize the vital uniqueness of each faggot, and learn ing how to share space so that each faggot can express his uniqueness. It means learning to overcome our male condit ioning. It means becoming strong Sissies. Middle-class faggots must take responsibility for be coming involved in these struggles. Money and skills must be shared with working-class faggots of all ages, but elder faggots must not be ignored. Particularly elder working-class Sissies. Even dishwashing jobs are closed to elder Sissies if someone younger is available. Capitalism pits us against each other for our survival. One way to beat this trip is for younger and elder fag gots to live together collectively, learning to share respon sibility for everyone's survival. No matter what our age or how we live, middle-class faggots must learn to be responsi ble for our oppressive attitudes and behavior and be willing to change. One way to begin is by sharing money and skills with faggots who are committed to the survival of ALL fag gots: poor faggots, black faggots, Third World faggots, han dicapped faggots, imprisoned faggots, fat faggots, and elder faggots--as well as the young and the beautiful. The days ahead are looking grim for lesbians and faggots in America. The forces are ripe for another witchhunt, and those of us who survived the last one need to learn how to adapt and share our survival skills. This time around, my elder friends, we will not survive alone. And we won't sur vive by sticking to our class or our couple or the political party of our choice. We will only survive TOGETHER. Dennis Melba'son Mulberry House 438 W. Lawson

* 1 am aware that my use of the word "faggot" to include all gaymen is racist. Historically, the word faggot comes out of white gaymen's oppression. As slaves, black gaymen were oppressed because they were not. breeder- . Blaci lesbians had no choice; they were raped. Christian patriarchy slaughtered gay shamans because they were pagan:; (which means "of the peo ple") . So far, we have no word-symbol that involves all of us. I rather like "fairy," but that word also grows out of white (Celtic) folklore. Sissy is my favorite word. Ideas?

touch of a<jP*e

I head down the corridor with the Director and the i patients watch my cane and careful walk with an interest that belies their catatonic response to the regular staff. The Director greets the flock, bolted to benches and wheelchairs, with that smiling, too-audible bellowing, the way we talk to 'foreigners1--as though our inability to communicate is their organic condition. HELLO CLARENCE. WHERE’S YOUR SMILE TODAY? DO YOU KNOW MICHAEL, CLARENCE? GOT ANY NEW TATTOOS? TRY TO FIND THAT SMILE, CLARENCE. And as though Clarence were deaf, or dead, the Director tells me how he's only sixty-four, how he was a successful businessman in town with a wife and several grown children and how last year he got it into his head to split from everything, strike out on his own, hit the road, head west old man, until he had a massive heart attack in a bus sta tion in St. Louis and was brought back home--since which time, the Director says, he's been depressed and withdrawn --doctor thinks his heart probably will fail soon. MAYBE YOU SHOULD TALK TO MICHAEL SOMETIME, he says, like telling the errant child to confess. I'm a sort of inside-outsider at the Home, a gay lo cal shrink volunteering time with the old men. I'd be seen as a staff person, I think, except for the paradox that my , cane presents--alive and well at thirty-two with a wasting muscle disease I've had since childhood--a visible con1 cession that part of me is dying just like they are. I was supposed to have died by twenty but I didn't.

The halls are a collage of frenetic nurses, sculpted inmates and walls of framed photographs--you've seen it-pictures of patients at the annual carnival looking coma tose in costumes of balloon and crepe-paper. Clarence watches my cane from the corners of his eyes as the Direc tor and I continue down the hall. I'm going to see old Willy this time, the one who's lost most of his face to cancer. The Director's been put ting off having me spend time with him since you can see i right into his nose, mouth and throat, and it was figured I wouldn't want to see that. The Director says Willy'll die soon and asks again if I'm sure I want to see him. He's in a four-bed ward with his section curtained off so as not to upset other people's visitors. Coming around the curtain you see a felt board hanging above his bed with felt numbers, one to ten, glued onto it. On the night table there are ping pong balls wrapped in felt strips. I'm introduced to the balls and board first, they were the Director's idea, Willy can throw them up to the board, they stick, see? MICHAEL WOULD LIKE TO SPEND SOME TIME WITH YOU, WIL LY. He lay there staring up at the felt board and I got that uneasy sense of the conspiracy, wanting the Director to leave us, wanting Willy and all the others to separate me from the plot to dull and distract them. The room was large and bright with furniture and plants brought from home. When the Director left I sat in the chair beside Willy's bed and had my first focused look at what was left of his skeletal face. There seemed to be no particular place where his breath went in and out but I could see his chest rising and falling in the movement of living. I thought of the story Ram Dass told about his mo ther's death, about how cancer is like being in a building that's burning, and I felt myself open more to meeting l this man, the one living in the disintegrated body beside me. He looked over and I got a glimpse of him through his eyes. I said hello but he was busy scanning me, focusing the silver chain 1 wear around my neck. Can you enough from there? I asked and got up to sit

beside him on the bed. He reached up to the chain and touched it with his fingers, moving his hand slowly from one side of my neck to the other. Then I saw his eyes again. Pretty, he said. There wasn't much of a mouth left to speak with.

He lay quietly except for the reflexive swallowing that was constant at the back of his throat. Never seen a boy, he said...wearin that...nothin hangin...from it...s'pretty, he said again. That's why I wear it, I told him. Some folks say a man's not supposed to look pretty, but some men are feeling like looking pretty nowadays. Good, he said, and chuckled. Lived on farms, alone most of the time, town clerk for a while. His speech was labored and he stopped to rest between phrases. Boys here cleanin floors...got long hair...not in my day, he said. Is it strange to you? I asked. Willy looked up at the board and his eyes smiled. S'nice, he said, and chuckled again. Clarence was wheeled into the ward room and parked by the window next to Willy's bed. Alls he does is stare, the orderly said, this is his favorite view. Going to grow your hair long? I asked Willy. He laughed. Not here, he said with propriety. You? he said. I told him I'd had long hair and cut it short again. Willy laid his hand on mine and closed his eyes. Without his eyes it was the body again, the burning building. His chest quietly rose and fell, the breathing no longer young and involuntary as though he'd stop it when he was ready. Clarence was making a gurgling sound deep in His throat, a careful cough like someone considering something he might say. You married? he asked suddenly, still staring absently out the window. I told him I'd been married, about five years, but not anymore...you're married, aren't you? Yes and no, he said, mostly no. You ever travel? he asked. Lots of times, I said, and told him some adventures in Paris and in Czechoslovakia when the Russians came. You? I asked him. He looked over for the first time and rolled up his sleeves to show the tattoos he got during 'the war.' I was in Paris too, he said. He looked silently out the window and I asked him where he'd head now if he were traveling again. He sat without speak ing. Then he cleared his throat and said; things happen in a war, you know, things you're supposed to forget when you get home. I had a buddy there, he said. What a time. Best friend I've had. He paused again. Last I knew he was in California. I was going out to see him last year. Haven't seen him in a long time, maybe twenty-five years. You didn't get there, huh? Right, he said. Willy opened his eyes and looked over at Clarence. I tried to imagine how Willy'd looked with a face. You know, I said, I think you'd look good with long hair. He gave one of those chuckles and turned back to stare at the felt board. Won't be here...long enough, he said. Be over...soon, I think. Can you tell? I asked him. He nodded. Already there...sometimes, he said. Dream a lot now...sometimes don't...know which...is the dream. Don't wonder...about it much...anymore. He closed his eyes again and I found myself wanting to touch him. I began gently massaging his temples and his eyes opened as though he were startled. Is it o.k? I asked him. His eyes closed without answering. My own body stuff was coming up and I felt uncomfortable. No one's been touching him lately, I thought to myself, and my per ception of him began quickly alternating between the person in the building and the ugly old man.

You break your leg? Clarence asked. He was looking at my cane. I explained my disease to him and how I use the cane for easier walking. Better watch they don’t keep you here, he laughed. Anyway, he said, you look good to me. 1 continued rubbing Willy's tem ples and began to wonder if I'd feel comfortable massaging his face, the parts left around the cavernous emp tiness. I felt the old feelings about ugliness, the anger at not be ing able to make my body stronger, the hurtful issues of attraction... Good to talk to a man that's travel ed, Clarence was saying...anger at the part of me that still struggles against age and feelings of ugliness, anger at the feelings of unworthi ness, unworthy being gay and unmuscular, unworthy of being touched... You got any maps? Clarence asked... anger when I feel ugly and cruise for beauty, buying the messages about what makes the man, as though we're not all in a beautiful burning build ing...What sort of maps do you want? I was saying...my hands slowly wan dering down over Willy's face, gent ly touching, caressing, feeling my self let go into a connection, through his face, me in my hands, to where he was, on the other side of years and beauty.

\ I | j

ASYLUM THOUGHTS: FIRST DAY

Any maps, Clarence said. They won't give me any here. They say I shouldn't be unrealistic, shouldn't expect what I can't have.

Mother Betty, whose guilt won't let her go, whose embarrassment curtains the glass, sends her son off to the asylum in a Greyhound.

Willy was asleep and I got up to leave. I wheeled Clarence out of the room and down the long corridor of photos.

The world comes in pictures One after the other like Burma Shave. The last one's the one, the one that kicks you on your ass and leaves you laughing.

I'll bring some on Thursday, I said to him when I left. It's rela tive, I thought to myself, every thing's relative. Which is maybe why it doesn't feel much different hang ing out here or at a bar, each a de testable and companionable place in its own way, both places I go to be with the basics, body-life and the fear of decay skirting around in the mad dance, as though, if they touch, they lose themselves to one another. Michael Fernandes RD 2, Box A4C W. Brattleboro, VT

I am taken into a room, bed and chair facing. The shrink's head framed through the "V" of my heels touching. My clothes are taken. I am left with soft clothes and sponges. The world swings full doldrum, and all I wonder is Congo drumming and the chalk blue of my robe.

05301

This is the Balzac I was bussed to. Why I'm afraid to love the twin in me is the sweet cum of it all. The shrivel peeps through the "V"... shrank back on slick black plastic, focused me blue chalk and lived his Freud. Charles Lewis 422 Nevada Moss Beach, CA 94038

Photoâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; Steven Di Verde

This photograph was taken June 26th at this year's Gay Freedom Day march and rally in San Francisco. Country faggots joined the hundreds of thouÂ sands who celebrated, as it may not be possible or desirable for many at this time to be openly gay in the small town or rural setting. In the wake of the anti-gay forces, non-city people too have organized, with some towns holding marches for the first time. So although it is imporÂ tant for those of us who live outside of the cities t o b e visible and counted in our environments, unified marches such as this one are made and felt by people everywhere.

from to a d su c k ( a rm ..

Another pointer about surviving on the land is not to over extend yourself when you first move to the country. In any agricultural enterprise you are going to be dealing with perishables, either during the production period or when they are ready for market. It is very easy to count the number of bushels of fruit your tree will produce when it is blooming, but risky. Not all the eggs will hatch. Re member, the garden you planted will be food for you and a host of other little undesirables. And frequently there are a lot more of them than you counted on. Farm animals that you may have around can do considerable damage to your efforts. Chickens and gardens will require fences. Go in small, and have a little laid away to pay for your mis takes and education. In a few years you'll know how it isn't done. A novice on a farm is his own worst enemy. Na ture can work harmoniously for you, or disasterously against you depending on how much you know about Nature. Experience is achieved only with time, and no amount of cold hard cash will buy it for you. The number of failures on the land are living testimony to that. Before you go to the country, know precisely what you plan to do to support yourself. Even if you have to commute back and forth to town to support your efforts for a while, have positive direction. I taught landscape design, and general horticulture at a local university for a while on a part-time basis to make ends meet. All the while I was building my nursery business. Be sure to stick it out. Any business takes time to get on its feet, unless you are fortunate enough to buy an estab lished farm. The physical facility will cost something more than most of us can imagine. The barn that you didn't need at the beginning'wil1 be indispensible after the makeshift outfit you make caves in and your harvest rots. Last fall I sleeved 1,000 schefflera plants for shipment north. The sleeves cost 10<J each. I have no packing shed. It rained. We spent a whole day picking wet paper off the plants, and buying another $100 worth of sleeves. The packing shed I didn't need before has become more important as my business has grown. No trucker wants to set around all day while you sleeve them one at a time and put them on the truck. They want to back up to the shed and have them loaded. There have been times of financial crisis. All farmers ex cept dude farmers have them. Keep cool, and try to have your finances arranged so that you can run out of money, and at the same time not go broke. Having no money for gro ceries or the light bill is different from foreclosure. In the one case you're out of money, in the other you're out of business. Possession is nine-tenths of the law. Even if the wolves make it to your door, it is likely you can stave them off, given the gall and brass to do so. Try to be inventive. Last fall we had an oversupply of ban anas. Despite our best efforts we couldn't eat them all, although we ate them with peanut butter, in puddings, fried, baked, brandied, out of hand, and finally mashed up in the food for the dogs. I refuse to plant pumpkins again for that very reason. Where do you put them and how many can you eat? After Halloween you can buy a year's supply for a couple of bucks. They are excellent in soup with rutabagas and turnips. I love this place. I remain by choice, a choice made just over five years ago. Since I have been here, I have changed. My goals are clearer, and my sense of responsibility to the place greatly increased. I now know what they mean when they say that farmers are the solid foundation of a country. They have to be in order to be farmers. So, girls, head for the country. You'll never be the same. Bill Morton Toad Suck Farm 13029 Morton Way Delray Beach, FL 33444 37

Finally, during my last parole I met someone who had no rules, no requirements for how I should act and through him I was at long last able to give vent to what I felt-Hoorah! I know who I am. I know what I feel. I can be what I want to be. I love you my people and I am a human being who is finally free. Oh— ^you ask who I am? I have heard several terms used that fit my self-identification but don't like defining terms so--I am a man who enjoys a close relationship with another human being. I dearly love women and their sexual/ sensuality but find I prefer my own sex as a steady diet (no pun intended). I identify with all groups seeking liberation and ex pansion of their influence in their world. I have been the underdog and hurrah for anyone who is trying to raise them selves and be allowed to live as they wish to. Don't know how much I've said that’s pertinent but I wanted and needed to say it to someone who could understand I'm back in this sick world of restrictions (I do be lieve this is the last trip--it's served its purpose in my life) but due to be released the latter part of this year. I’m really into rural lifestyles and for a year and a half had a place at Dry Creek, midway between Roseburg and Diamond Lake on the Umpqua. I've done an amazing amount of reading on "alternatives," i.e. rural construction, garden ing, independent power sources, and homesteading in general I'm also a craftsman. I would enjoy hearing from anyone who cares to write about anything. I love people! I'm 35, 6'2", 200 lbs., blond and blue and sexually free, long hair and neat beard, gentle and open to loving. Love ya people, thanks for listening and thanks for being. It'll all be O.K. if we keep trying. Greetings Brothers and Sisters, Just received the Summer '77 edition of RFD and really feel close to you, my people, and wanted to write and just rap and ramble about life, me, you, our growing conscious ness, and some thoughts from prison--so--my words from the Bastille. I'm 35 and at long last beginning to break out of the restrictions of the almost mandatory stereotyping of sexual roles imposed on us here in the penal society by our peers, and sadly enough, staff as well. I've bounced in and out (mostly in) of the California prison system for close to 20 years (I know that’s sad and perhaps shocking but not what I want to write about). I went through the usual homosexual experimenting that most of us go through in our early youth and.thought little of it until I entered the radical sub-culture of prison life at age 15. Then I discovered that in any male/male rela tionship I must fit into and conform accordingly to one of 2 strictly structured roles, that of fern, sissy, queen, punk, or kid, or the opposing role of jocker, daddy or old man. Because I was young, slender, smooth and not of the "tough guy" breed I easily accepted the passive role and was quite satisfied with it since my only concern was sat isfying my need for some kind of sensual/sexual contact. However, after many years of accepting my status I real ized that my actions were not a product of who I was but merely a response to the expectations and dictates of my peers. What a battle that started--no more plucked eye brows, tight pants, swishy walk, or compliance with others expectations which meant I then had to be ready to not only fight to prove my sincerity in demanding to be allowed to be myself but had to put up with frequent threats of being stabbed and twice had to pick up a knife in my own defense. This process took several years but at last I was left alone and allowed to "do my own number." I even suceeded in taking an effeminate lover and becoming a recognized mem ber of the "jocker" circle. What a farce. I was still role playing and still trying to meet someone else's expecta tions of how I should conduct myself. During my periods of freedom I tried a strictly het erosexual lifestyle and though it was fairly comfortable it was still far from being “me".

Peace--Love--Laughter, Chuck Hill B-38822 P.0. Box 2000, H-170 Vacaville, CA 95688 P.S. RFD is fantastic. It really fills a need. I pass it on to others here and it gets well read. You're appreciated. Hope you know it. How are you, the gay community, getting along with the rural community? I get flashes of redneck loggers and frightened country parents.

A copy of the RFD magazine arrived at this prison to day. It was confiscated by the censor and sent to my be longings. I'm enclosing a copy of the notice I received from the censor. It is sad to say that such actions occur in the Germany of today. I never cease to be amazed at the censorship actions of these people. I wish I could relate to you some of these experiences but I doubt if this letter would ever leave the prison were I to do so. This one cen sorship action should give you a glimpse at the overall conditions of this prison. I thank you for sending me the magazine although I won't be able to read it. Sincerely yours, from Landsberg/Lech, W. Germany

Yes, mail plays a big part in a person's life in pri son. If more people would write people in prison, and try to understand them we wouldn't be put down so much. If people could just take 5 minutes and write an inmate it would really help. I wish there was some way I could pro ject this factor out to people on the outside, but my hands are tied. But I'm going to start a "write your fellow in mate" program when I get out of here. In Gay love and pride, Ray Barker Box 7309 Boise, ID 83707

Dear Bro's and Sister's on the inside, Let me first say that if it weren't for RFD I wouldn't be writing this letter or you writing yours. There have been many nites I've laid awake thinking of you crying for you. Knowing you exist barely in your little cells that have to be called home, for now. I cry for the young boy who enters those cold and scary holes society calls their rehabilitation centers (prisons). I pray for each of you who have to walk in pairs to keep the rest of the prison off you. And most times I know that even pairs won't help. So the weak ones brake and find them an old man to keep from having to be the property of all and any who are stronger than you. My knowing that the five or ten dollars Mom sent you went to buy the old man a high for Friday nite. You had to go to the hospital how many times now for stitches? Were caught P.C. once or twice but not even that works. But let me tell you of people like RFD, Join Hands and our other gay papers. People out there in that world, our world, are looking, searching, doing, but most of all their caring. Just as this leter is coming from Cummins Prison here in Arkansas. So do your letters, your prayers and your tears come from your private hell. So keep in touch Bro's & Sisters. This common bond can't be taken from us. Because we care & love enough to write. Maybe we won't get change over nite but together we will get it. Remember no matter how feminin or weak. How masculine or strong we are, if something is worth having then its worth our sacrificing for. God be with each of you, (Jimm) James L. Estes A.D.C. 61496 BKS 4-West Box 500 Grady, AR 71644

I am what you would call a straight-male prisoner. I support gay rights, but I don't understand gays. I've had relationships with gays on the sexual level only, never in the mind. I would like to write, or visit? So as I can understand gays. The gays in Seattle and S.F. have been giving us their support in our struggles for rights and treatment of us prisoners, and I believe all oppressed be ings should support and give strength to oppressed bro thers and sisters. I wish to thank all that have given support, ask all to continue, and know that I, and all people I know that are together, support the struggle of gay prisoners, gays on the streets, and all oppressed people the world over. With complete unity we will throw off the yoke of op pression. In love n' struggle, Danny Atteberry, >“126377 P.0. Box 520 Walla Walla, WA 99362

THE BODY submitted by James Estes We used to break stones in the longest road I ever saw, hotter than hell I was the youngest. I said no when the guard got me under a tree. No though he pushed me down The leaves rattled like snakes I had just enough time to pretend someone When they fished me out of the creek First they thought I was a stone Then they thought I was a bottle. But everything worked out OK They found My number sewn on the back of my shirt.

PRISON TONE POEM #12 for tommy the smell of you and roses linger near my face, the odor of mortals bruised by the winds gentle carnage quivering nature's trembling unfurled chastity tenuously resplendant fragrance on wings beaming shapes gleaming in the sky he is my sun and the smell of roses near my face.

Author unknown

edward de pasquale E/H 440 bldg #13 fishkill correctional facility box 307 beacon, ny 12508

grasp c la s s s tr u g g le , and a l l problems can be s o lv e d ." - mao tse tung

Rolling

the Rock of Ageism (a

the broken words the song the rhythm the gate latch the goats

beginning)

the rust on the horse shoe

On the feast of the Precious Blood (1 july) Blind Michael disappeared. He was the veteran farm cat, he came with the land. By the time i first met him (1 november 1976) he was almost totally and fairly In this condition he spent most of his time behind the stoves in the Magdalen community house, or on the front porch, or in transit from one spot to another. At that time of meeting few Magdalanese bothered with him, most seemed totally un aware of him except when he was "in the way". Within the next eight months, his last eight months, we all started to relate to him more, to appreciate him better. To some of us he became a very special part of Magdalen.

o ld ,

b lin d ,

deaf.

the sun the moon

the farm cat getting lost and confused

My impressions of Michael are colored with the fact that i am in general a cat lover, and specifically he was the most amazing cat i have known. He got me in touch with a lot of feelings and understandings of myself and others. He and i were cordial from our first meeting, but it wasn't until 1 february, when i worked on RFD #11, that i was to really understand a lot concerning him. I think we all saw parts of our selves in him, and reacted to that. I also think we related to his in ac cordance to how we deal with the rules society has come to put ori our relationships with people who have similar Although i do not want to go into an analysis of how we at Magdalen dealt with Blind Michael, specific ally, i think it is safe to generalize for a moment and say that we felt the basic pity, amusement, and disgust with him, in much the same way we learn to feel towards people who also from or physical and men tal

d is

a fflio tio n e .

s u ffe r

old age,

b lin d

a fflic tio n s ?

ill

o ld

deaf

So it seems to me, in my case at least, i was taught to re spect the state and not the process. It is a less demanding form of respect. It takes little time, understanding, or care. It draws a line between and and this di vision is an ugly one, because no one wants to be on the losing end...and no matter how much bourgeois ideology tries to tell us that warrants respect, we know that this is very seldom the case. In u.s. america is feared for all the loneliness that being forgotten causes. It is feared for the difficulty of surviving on welfare state cash when costs (food, medicine, etc.) are always going up. It is feared for nursing home and state hospital wards. It is feared for feeling no purpose in life, a contradiction to what we are told when

young

handicap, d is a b ility ,

What of terms and concepts such as and Why do we think in these terms? Why do we separate ourselves like this? What is our fear and how do we act off of it?

su ffe rin g ,

amputee

o ld

Where do terms and concepts like and come from? And what of Why do we bother to make such distinc tions? What role does majority normalcy play in this? How do we as faggots (definitely not a part of the majority normalcy) turn around and use the tools that that majority has developed? How does this help to continue divisive ranking amongst us? How does this help to continue normal authoritarian structures and institutions? Who does it serve?

old?

disorder.

Closer to home was how i was taught to respect people, how i learned to love my grandparents because they were and had lived through a lot. I learned to be polite around them, to respect them, and to manipulate them on certain levels our relationship encouraged. I never learned a lot from them, which they learned from their experiences, but only gave them respect because i was supposed to. I call this false respect as it was respecting them for the wrong reason. It wasn't until years later that i discovered them for the first time, felt a deep sharing with them, and learned a material love for them. A real reason for loving and respecting. Unfortunately that was in the last year of their lives.

aging

handicapped,

As a child i was taught to pity those who "were not as for tunate as i". I learned well to pity anyone with a physical or mental I was taught to feel thankful for being normal and heal thy...to feel distant from anyone who was not as lucky as i. When i encountered a person who was was an or mentally i first felt pity, and then revulsion. I didn't understand why they were like that nor why i reacted that way. It all seemed so "natural" But it wasn't. It was normal.

What do such feelings of alienation serve? Who benefits? The person who is on the other side? Not really. How about me? In the long run the answer is no.

He was the catharsis for my better understanding the the state of being and my relation to them, my fears of them. He started me on the way; by asking my self a lot of questions concerning my attitudes i have begun the search for the roots of ageism and handicappism within, and in general.

process,

is not hard at any rate

b lin d ,

handicaps

a b ilitie s .

an ocean

the field to walk through like blind michael

I am not going to try and give you answers to these ques tions. I am not going to tell you how i think we should act and think around the subject of ageism and handicappism. These are analyses we all have to deal with ourselves. What i want to convey is the process i have gone through, 1n an attempt to analyze my own conditioning and feelings that have developed out of that conditioning.

old age

o ld ,

o ld age

younger. constantly bombarded with images of how to be young. a culture who worships yo u th , and shoves the old

We are We are into the closet while assuring them everything will be all right and we will visit at least once a month.

,>f

We are caught up on touching the r- : -> and trying to hold on forever, and at the same time to reject {or for get) the information that is accumulated through the ience of aging.

exper

We are all aging. Why do we try and deny something we are involved in, have no control over, and experience with every single other human life on this planet? Why do we consistently combine/ define youth with beauty and that ominous other state of agedness with knowledge and experience? It seems to be the same old black/white (with no greys) runaround. Why can't aging be beautiful and youth be respected for their exper iences? We tend to put ourselves into two-sided showdowns, without realizing the enemy within ourselves. We deny our selves, as well as the others. We blame it on the youth cultists, but is that youth itself, are they really in a position of power to perpetuate such attitudes?

SHIATSU Shi (fingers) atsu (pressure) means a method of treating illness with digital compression. The basis of this science is pure instinct developed over the past 40

o ld er ,

I was always taught by people, not younger, that the hip thing was to be young while they still maintained that age should be respected. I resented this as i was impatient to grow older, to have that respect that i couldn't have, being young. Something seems amiss here. The same questions i ask my self concerning handicappism are valid to ask about my ageism. Amongst faggots the general division based on aae is an important question for us all. At this point i am still very much in process. I am still gathering informa tion. I am still aging. At the same time i am still young, still growing. Hopefully my age doesn't discount my ef forts as it seems to in so many other areas. Hopefully i can resolve some of these questions in my lifetime. Afterword During layout of RFD #11 i started questioning my part in being an ageist. I started questioning how i relate to those who are older, as well as younger, than i. Handicap pism also came to question. I do not mean to imply that aging is a handicap (although society tends to treat it as such) in this article. That is not why i have dealt with both issues in one article. Rather, they were both issues that my relationship with Blind Michael raised. I had talked with some of the other RFD staff in february, we all watched Blind Michael, getting in touch with our personal blindnesses, the walls we bumped into. We dedi cated that issue to him. He had guided us through layout. I wanted to write something about him, and the questions he had started me asking myself. I aimed for the aging issue. Words didn't come, i procrastinated. And then Blind Michael disappeared. I knew i had to get something out, a memoriam...a morning talk with a friend was an incredible push to outline it, we talked about perceptions and atti tudes. A two-day separation from my lover gave me the space and need to put down words, so the first draft gushed out, as choppy as i was feeling. I started feeling better, and the article started to pull together with me. But it is still a first attempt for me to write about something i am still questioning. I am sure many others have thought about these things, i know that these are not new questions or problems. But i rarely hear anyone talk about it seriously, or try to find out where their attitudes come from, or try to analyze their perceptions. It is usually the symptoms and not the problem itself that we attack. I would like to see that change, thus a beginning of dialogue. I welcome criticism & response.

years . Strengthening the stomach: By taking 3 minutes each morning before you arise--to per form the following exercises, you can help discharge gases that cause discomfort and stimulate the flow of fresh blood into the area, thus improving metabolism. This treat ment can help prevent ulcers and even stomach cancer.* Lying on the floor--stretch your legs out and press index, middle and 4th fingers of both hands into pit of your stomach for 3 seconds--repeat 3 times. Moving fur ther down abdomen, press 3 times, and further down, 3 times again. Return to starting point and press 3 times on 2 points to the right and 3 times on 2 points to the left (over the spleen and over the liver). Finally placing the palm of the right hand over the gastric region and left hand on right, apply pressure for 30 seconds, then release. Relax and slowly work your way to standing___

* Japanese Finger-Pressure Therapy--Shiatsu, by Tokufiro Namikoshi

HOME REMEDIES Stomach tonic: good for entire digestive system. Taken 10 minutes before meals, tones up bowels and is good for ulcers... Make a tea using any combination for effect and flavor: Wormwood, ovassia chips, mugwort, hops, anise seed, orange peel, cardamom, gen tian root, wild yam root Also, blackberry leaves and raspberry leaves steeped for 5 minutes is a good tea for diarrhea and the runs caused by foreign bacteria in drinking water.

ita lic iz e

A final note: i chose to certain words in the text as i felt they needed ultimate emphasis. They are words that are used oppressively in Our great society, they are concepts that should change along with this op pressive system we live in. (The author recently celebrated his 24th birthday.) Jai Elliott, Magdalen Farm 41

BEAVER CREEK MOUNTAIN It was the mountain's palm: a shallow depression at its top of smooth grass and holly leaves turning red. We made our way up what seemed a steep climb for that time of morning, watching the ridge turn yellow as its lining of aspen prisoned the sun in tiny leaves. So much of the valley about was still black, an unopened eye to the morning, heavy with the night's dew wrung out from clouds and trees. Reaching the top, it almost seemed the sun's suggestion that I pull you down into the warm hollow and roll you with kisses. We stripped off our layers of clothes and laughingly, held firm in the mountain's hand, imitated volcanoes. David Chura 59 Church St. Greenwich, CT 06830

Am I getting Older? or just younger, toward the time when my body will disappear. i started a thousand years old, filled with original sin, expectations demands and rules, needing acceptance and approval. Finding it hard, to just sit up without those crutches, and that baggage, i keep carrying it around, off the trains, and on again. Now in the middle of the years, my body stronger-than ever before, my mind-a little less fragile, i start to shed, the layers fall away, and after a time of lying in the sun, they vanish. Bigs

DOWNHILL FROM OLYMPUS If Apollo had grown older, worn bifocals, used a cane, gone to sagging flesh and wrinkles, would young men still have worshipped him as Beauty, and remembered he was Love? Boland Wilson P.0. Box 1029 Hollywood, CA 90028

Changing Men a journal of revolutionary art & pol itics, produced by collective of 7 faggots, a forum in which to explore paths of revolutionary social change and culture, readers' donations.

monthly paper of the men's resource center, Portland, oregon. a forum of opinion about sexism and the ways to combat it. $5 per year. 3534 S.E. MAIN, PORTLAND 97214, ORE GON

P.0. BOX 402, EUGENE 97401, OREGON

liming due a decent men's journal, while the collective has decided to fold and no more issues will be published, there are back issues, including a conference report on faggots & class struggle ($1.25, vol. 2, issue 6). other back issues: vol. 1, #1-4 are 50c each; vol. 2, #1-5 are 65c each; and vol. 3, #1 is 65c. P.0. BOX 22228, SEATTLE 98122, WASH INGTON

G REVOLUTION the voice for decentralism, chock full of the latest in homesteading, land access, alternative energy, eco-1ifestyles, community, co-ops and more. $1 single copies, $8 per year.

MA1NELY GAY a monthly journal of news, opinion, and humor. $5 per year. P.0. BOX 4542, PORTLAND 04112, MAINE

a newsjournal of international anar chist and anti-authoritarian left activities, a revolutionary publica tion dedicated to social justice, human solidarity and freedom, read ers’ donations (4 issues per year).

Sftrr

H>tonetoaU

political jpurnal of prairie fire or ganizing committee, revolutionary anti-imperialists, pfoc is a young and growing communist organization. $1 single copies, $5 for six issues, send cash only. 406 14 STATION C, SAN FRANCISCO 94110 CALIFORNIA

for everyone opposed to the regimen tation of our bodies (in german), interviews, poetry, photos, essays, comics, history, news, reviews, stor ies, discussion. $6 per year (4 is sues, air mail), make checks payable to gerhard hoffmann psk 757 02-105

Body Politic

a critical journal of gay liberation. $4 (4 issues).

gay liberation journal. $10.50 (first class) or $7 (2nd class) for 10 is sues.

P.0. BOX 2051, WINNIPEG, MANITOBA, CANADA R3R 3R3

BOX 7289 STN A, TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA M5W 1X9

BOX 6135, STATION G, VANCOUVER, B.C. CANADA V6R 4G5

BREAKTHROUGH

Scnwwk^oe-A^jury

REDAKTI0NSK0LLEKTIV, POSTFACT 373, 1000 BERLIN 62

P.0. BOX 3233, YORK 17402, PENNSYL VANIA

OpenRoad

tine

JUMP CUT examining cinema in its social and political context, providing in-depth analyses of new films, developing a radical film criticism. $4 (six is sues). P.0. BOX 865, BERKELEY 94701 CALIF.

magnus a socialist journal of gay libera tion. $6 (4 issues), $10 (contribu tors), $25 (sustainers). P.0. BOX 40568, SAN FRANCISCO 94140, CALIFORNIA

Sari, organization*, buamasaa* pubfocato n tor gay woman and man in Canada and USA. PuWtohwd Nowantoar and May S5 third class. S6 find America $7. ifyour toca bookstore doesn't cany Gayeitow Pages, you can order ton. Renaissance House. Box 292RFD Vtiage Ssa New Mb*. N Y tOOU There la no charge tor a Gayeitow Pages entry. Write tor an application. Pad daplay advertising s also avaSabte Howard Snvti at (212) 744-2785 can gwe you rates and deia* As wen as being an ndrspensade guOe tor the gay traveler GayeBow Pages is the standard reference work for almost every gay referral service in North America. Can you afford to be without it?

fooA C ^Z

J/2 J T A T £ j r

M A D ISON Wt SJ703

MATUfyL 4 & O P £ 6f{A M B L £ PRODUCTS Tor

£ X C £ L L £ N T HAtRJ. S KIN C A R f Fh B ala nc c o J aam po o / Coh& tk& ucrj W //V B<A)r Br/o/Je BrooArS

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Sec et rep E ifc rt r,a /O' b

/MPofirerv Sens'} { Weevst bcre>3 Art Compse'e S o o n C /^ O't.A S k >\t}£5 f Looenno

specify: S M L XL lavender robin's egg blue rose send $4.50 (includes shipping) plus donation (for RFD)

spring green

a e

trl& sTu^e P a r so n s - Custom -secure o M asoA^e A iio o u crJ 4 B ook's f ■

________________ Spiffy T-shirt Co., Box 3057, W. Lafayette, IN

Mostp.'

V ISIT or W r(l T£ to r R /?££' C/IT/U.O C, open 10 00-600/ 9.00 mor> , thurj RHONE' OS? -tOSt

'KFP W B £ P S

ifovenp box 556, Sussex, n.j.

07461

for men who care.. ,.for each other

Now you can festoon your favorite garments with RFD patches. These multicolored embroi dered PANSY PATCHES cost RFO $1.05 each; any amount you send in greater than that will be donation to RFD. lavender cotton ^ground pastel pansy in shiny embroidery f^green shiny border \qreen lettering (also embroidered) \yel low edging For your patches, send donation and a selfaddressed stamped envelope (important!) to:

yo'uK m

Chuck Beckwith rfw ] hox TR4 ., 1 , blanchafdville WI 53516 45

t W D m-rriw^

47906

My name is Tony. I am a 26 year old Acquarian. I eat raw food, practice yoga, weave, spin, and look to life for peace with myself. I would like to meet a few people in the Northwest who are stable and would like to share and enjoy with another warm loving spirit. I am good in a garden and like a warm fire at night. I am honest and would appreciate honest corrmunication. I am really into living a healthy life and would like to hear from people with similar ideas. Box 870 Areata, CA

95521

I would like to hear from people from Sacto. to Reno and also from anyone within the realms of realistic means and mind to begin an enduring Love Relationship. Later On, Gary Madison Rm. 68, National Hotel Nevada City, CA 95959 I am interested in finding and joining a FREESCH00L COMMUNE in Northern California or Oregon on a permanent basis. A place where I can help kids and, at the same time pursue my artwork (PORTRAITS). Thank you for any suggestions. Your prompt reply will be appreciated. Cordially, Bill Knox James ("Uncle" Bill) McCalls' Ranch Camp Box 197 Hyampom, CA 96046

Young bumptuous Canadian male wishes to meet other young gent. Object: to share in love & living experience. How about it?! all you lonely guys! Sincerely, Pierre Mehlitz RR #2 Harvey Station New Brunswick, Can. EOH 1H0

^vV;-ti'I;

Hey, how about a page or half page "contact list" of rural gay farms and people that invite visitors all the time. A listing in each issue, other than the contact let ters. As the readership expands there are new people that might want to visit rural gays that had letters in previ ous issues, and vice versa. In other words just a contin uous listing of gay rural people that invites others to visit. And of course we'd be interested in being on the list. And maybe if you do it, besides names, addresses, etc., list closest town or city, since many small villages aren't shown on many maps. Half of the people that have written us in the past couldn't find our P.0, town on a map. Also you keep wasting space and energy about Mother Earth News and their refusal to print the RFD ad, etc. etc. ad nauseum. Why don't you or someone, if you get a copy, check the ads for gay listings and send the gay peo ple a copy of RFD or a letter telling them about M.E.N.'s bullshitting. Someone gave us the #45 and I answered 2 ads and told them of RFD, one in S.F., one in Buffalo. Peace, Steve Ginsburg/Jim Clarke Star Route-Omo Ranch Rd. Somerset, CA 95684 (Near Placerville, CA) [How about it? Are there folks out there who would like to publish open invitations to visitors? Please let us know.]

Hi RFD Folks We are 2 gay men and 3*s year old son looking to join a farming collective or working with others toward making one happen. We are mainly into the Pacific Northwest but are open to other possibilities. We'd especially like situations where other children are part of the collective or are very close; therefore we are open to living with gay and non-gay/women & men. At present we are living/working in rural N.W. Wash ington. The specifics of our personalities and daily life styles are best described in a personal letter: (written or visual; graphic or tape). Hope to hear from you soon! Kirk Bell/Chuck Callagan/Kayo P.0. Box 434 Shaw Island, WA 98286

I grew up acting straight (with an'RFD address) in Massachusetts and have been moving south, west, and gay since then. Home is now in Australia, in a little place less than a mile from the centre of Adelaide. My rural spirit is succoured by a productive back yard garden, making jams and jellies, and thoughts of a country home somtime-hopefully with others. December and January should find me visiting with old friends and family back in the USA. I'd like very much to visit too with new friends, to see the ways that RFDers are working, living, and loving together. Please write if I could stop by and see you; I can't transport koalas or kookaburras but will be travel ling with warmth in my heart and perhaps a bit of southern hemisphere summer sunshine in my pack. Much love, Carl Cepurneek 26 Clyde St. Parkside, S.A. 5063 Australia Planning a journey south and west this winter scouting for a new home. If you know a gay household, collective or community looking for a new friend-or if you'd be so kind as to put me up on my journey-please let me know by end-October or thereabouts. I'm 32, been a college prof., psychotherapist, studied w. Ram Dass, travel'd alot, have a physical handicap, look ing for a loving, growing place where I can write and be part of collective work. Michael Fernandes RD 2, Box A4C W. Brattleboro, VT 05301 I resently bought a cabin and five acres in the beau tiful Catskil1 mountains, N.Y. and live with a straight but open friend. I'm 29, mellow, long hair and beard, and enjoy living a lifestyle that is more harmonious with nature. I'm into life, music, photography, alternate energy resources, and generally looking into a beyond the roots'of my percep tion. I have limited use of my right arm due to an accident five years ago but am not serverly limited. I would like to meet another guy who would be inter ested in sharrng some life, friendship, love, and a home. Visitors are also welcome. Have a loving day, Larry Hunsicker HHSR Margaretville, NY 12455

Am 52 yrs young and have lived with a gay platonic pardner who is now 72 still enjoying the good life. (17 yrs.,i Into Art, Yoga, cooking, gardening, herbs, stamp col lecting, reading, music and you name it. Life can be beau tiful thru sharing our endeavors. The gay life can be stable and satisfy-ing depending on our hanging in there and work ing together. We use to own a farm in the Ozarks but sold it much to our sorrow. Back to nature for us where reality exists and the superficial is non-existant in relating to' the land in the life that counts the most. Have lived'in many large cities of America but life in general is such a hassle in the concrete jungle. Am interested in gay com munes much knowledge and experience to offer plus "solid work. Those who pull together stay together. Age is not important but sincerity of purpose is’ Would enjoy hearing from those like minded. Your gay brother, Peter H. LaFrance Sunny Dell 1001 Blasingame Corinth, MS 38834 I'm another one of those city dwellers who was born and grew up in a rural environment. Now I'm becoming fed up with the dirt, crime, noise and the high cost of living that partly describes the worst side of New York City. There is a great longing to get out where the air is clean, where I can hear the sounds of birds and insects, see the stars again and in summer evenings enjoy what we in Ohio called the fireflies: "lightning bugs". I would like to hear roosters crowing and frogs croaking and perhaps have a small garden with space for lots of flowers. Do you suppose there is some other city dweller with similar longings who might want to explore with me in looking for a house in the country or in a small rural town? Someone who is mature, educated, cultured, who possibly en joys classical music, books, quiet times, and a sharing of the total personality? If so, let me hear from you and I shall be most happy to reply. Sincerely, Gordon Harvey 4049 Forley St. Elmhurst, NY 11373

I'm selling my share in an all-straight W. Va. farm and want to find 6-10 other gay folks who are interested in buying a mountain farm together. My thoughts are of a support community with people having the option to live alone, with someone or someones. I want to be around folks who are upfront, changing and can deal with each other's craziness. Either this trip comes together or I'll end up joining a community somewhere that's already formed. Write if you're interested and have money saved, some way of producing monthly income or if you're a good car penter. And I'd like to hear your ideas and expectations about being in a support community. With love, Brad Poston Rt. 2, Box 13 Dyke, VA 22935 P.S. Yes, there is a Dyke, Virginia and, I'm sure to Anita's horror, a Gay, West Virginia. Rains falling this morning on the meadows and iris. On the oaks and fir trees. It's making the whole pond jump and dance in circles. Rereading my Spring issue I wanted to send my love to all who make RFD possible. If anyone out there wants to come visit-share-maybe stay-I've land in Trinity County. It's real farmable land and I just got here two days ago. Plans for work-enough for a hundred years. If anyone is interested!!! Well, a walk in the rain later to meet the neighbors. All ranchers in the area for three generations. Wish me luck. Love, Terry Beck ley Star Route-Zenia Alderpoint, CA 95411 I need photos of gay couples, or groups appropriate to paint from. I will do two pictures. One for me and one for you. Send any ideas for desired interpretation Photos returned. Thanks, Gary Madison Rm. 68, National Hotel Nevada City, CA 95959

"The Naked Civil Servant" is a film biography of the flamboyant and self-proclaimed British gay, Quentin Crisp. Mr. Crisp, who at 66 is alive and well and living in Chel sea, made a decision in his early 20's to live his life ac cording to his own nature and to make that a statement. The 90 minute, 16mm color film which dramatizes the life and times of Crisp over five decades is now available for rent al. Further information can be obtained by writing or call ing Arthur Cantor, Inc., 234 W. 44th St., New York, NY 10036 (212) 391-0450. THE JOY OF CONTACT My lover and I have, for the last several years, be moaned our lack of gay friends, specifically couples to socialize with. This situation was brought about in part by the closing of the gay center in Sacramento and the wholesale exodus of our gay friends to gayer pastures (San Francisco). Finally this year we took action by putting our name on the current contact list, by contacting others on the list and finally by putting a contact letter in the last issue of RFD. Our efforts have paid off. If anyone is trying to de cide whether to write, or respond to, a contact letter, my advice is go ahead and do it. We've made over ten contacts so far, a damn good return on a very minimal investment. I'm not saying all the contacts are resulting in great friendships but a few are and that's quite enough^

Well, I got me and my chickens, guineas, turkeys and peacocks over this side of the mountains and I love it. Found a big house on a 147 acre horse ranch where you can't see neighbors, for $100 a month. This country is incredibly beautiful. If anyone would like to visit, that would be great--drop me a line as to when you're cornin'. Tf you can help me connect with any other faggots in the area that would be much appreciated. That last issue (fl2) was fan tastic; the mystery artist is Ezra Jack Keats, the il lustrations are from a beautiful book of Haiku called "In a Spring Garden" assembled by Richard Lewis, illustrated by above and published by Dial Press. May the earth be good to all of you and visa versa. Hope to see some of you soon.

In love, Stephen Brown Star Route Box 31B Oroville, WA 98844 P.S. Enclosed guinea feathers--figured you could include them in some ritual drag; if you would like more let me know.

Greg and Dean Sacramento, CA

INFO

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ADVERTISING: we welcome advertising, particularly from gay owned and orientated businesses and groups, rates: $5 per column inch (1" high by 3"). camera ready, black and white copy. SUBMISSIONS: please share your visions and knowledge thru RFD. we especially need good fiction, all published contributors get a free sub to the mag plus 2 copies of the issue in which your work appears, graphics: black and white only, photos should be high contrast, written: features and how-to's (triple-spaced, typed if possible), poems, we edit unless requested not to. please enclose a self-addressed/stamped envelope for return. VISITORS: please write ahead if you want to arrange a visit to wolf creek. ADDRESS CHANGE: save us 25<t and tell us your new address, the post office usually does not for ward RFD. they destroy it. we can't afford to send you a new one. send us both your new and old addresses and zip codes. BACK ISSUES: help us clean out our barn, issues #3-11 available for $1.25 each, 5 or more: $1 each. BOOKSTORES: bookstores pay $1.20 per copy (32% discount), distributors pay 90<t (48% discount), full credit for complete copies returned. NAMES/ADDRESSES: we publish all names and address unless you ask us not to. PRINTER: could we use your press to print RFO? could we have your old press to print RFD and small books? COMPUTER: we need a computer programmer who will put our magnetic tape into a computer to make address labels for the mag. if someone could donate their labor it would save us lots of hours of dismal typing. MEN: mother earth news still refuses to print an ad for us. they didn't even respond to our last two letters, their toll-free number is 800/438-7265.

future themes & deadlines

VISUAL

, Winter issue, #14 (deadline November 1) This issue will be images: pictures, photographs, drawings, VISUALS of 'RFD faggot' experiences and fantasies. There will be regular features, with the rest of the magazine filled with YOUR visual impressions. SO hurry and send any of your graphic series or projects you would like to see on the pages of RFD. SMALL TOWNS, Spring issue, #15 (deadline February 1)

The middle ground between urban and rural--villages, towns, suburbs. How do we survive in them? Coming out in the pro vinces. Escaping to the cities. Going home. Hickism. Change and growth in the hin terland. Needed: articles, graphics, photos personal experiences, poetry.

WOMEN,

We're thinking of doing an issue on the various relationships we have with women as gay men (that would be for the Summer #16 issue). It would be nice to get some feed back from our readers on this focus, as well as other ideas for future issues.

4525L o w e r W

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