RFD Issue 72 Winter 1992 by RFD Magazine Gay

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We are contemplating the Big Questions here on the farm as RFD heads into its 19th year of publication. Is it. indeed, a country journal?

B etween Until RFD came along in the autumn of 1974, gay media were preponderantly, if not exclusively, geared to the swelling gay liberation movement of the cities and the needs, realities, concerns, and aesthetics of urban gay people. But not all gay men were migrating to the urban meccas, and in fact a good many were actually staying rural or taking part in the back-to-the - land movement which hoped, in the cradle of nature, to begin the slow reconstruction of person and society from the ground up. And yet, being gay in the countryside entailed a good deal of isolation. RFD was born from the need for people to connect, the longing to end the isolation. In that first issue, the Iowa collective said this about their hopes for this fledgling project: 44 We hope to break down the feeling of isolation from things gay that many of us experience in rural settings, build some sense of community among rural gay people, and to provide the means of sharing with each other our thoughts, feelings, and ideas about our unique experience as gay country people. RFD is a reader-participatory venture. You write, sing, dance, and are RFD. We need your contributions of material, energy, and love to survive.M

Ih e And so we still do. RFD is a country journal when we all reach out to share, through its pages, our thoughts and hopes and creativity springing from our rural ways of life. We seek for RFD to be an affirmation, a celebraton of the integrity and meaningfulness of gay lives unfolding and blossoming in the countryside. And we do affirm and celebrate RFD itself as a wonderful, ever-evolving forum for issues of pertinence to rural gay folks and our brothers in the cities, and the blessed means by which we continue to find each other and connect. Toward that end, we are asking our readers to put pen to paper and share with us their stories; take camera and chronicle their land, their doings, their community; and send us your creativities in any form we can print up. We hope to begin a series of thematic issues with either the spring or summer issue, where we will print a group of writings and graphics on a specific topic. Homesteading, creating community and family, and politics are three possibilities. Please send us your ideas too. While we have been discussing the philosophies at RFD, a new tool has finally come our way this fall which ads another element to our jugglings. We have received a solar-powered computer, which expands our options in terms of aesthetics, and greatly facilitates the routine administrative tasks we do such as bookkeeping and subscription records. We are learning about juxtaposition as we type into the computer by the light of kerosense lamp.

In that spirit of joyful juxtaposition, we are planning to be in Washington, D.C., for the March in April celebrating our colorfulness and raw verve in this city of bureaucrats and bland policy. We hope to se you all there, too, always expanding and deepening our connections. In the meantime, stay warm this winter, have plenty of hot soup, and write to us with your feelings and ideas about RFD. We love hearing from you, old friends and new alike. In peace, The Short Mountain Collective 1

Ron Abravis ....................................47 Marsha Aguesro.............................. 34 Peter Baker .......................................17 Gene B arn es................................ 3 4 Plum B o y ................................. .. • 2 9 Don Blackmore.............................. 5 0 Plum B o y ..........................................29 D. Dimrock............................27 & 29 Stephen Doonan ..........................3 4 Dwight Emerich............................ 3 3 David Faas.................................... 2 9 Bob Feldhaus.................................3 5 Greg Glover ............................... 3 2 Goatboy........................................... 4 8 Michael Hathaway........................ 2 7 Manfred Ibel .............................. 3 4 Jim Jackson...........................30 & 31 Kansas City Group ............................ 8 Keith ..................................................... 1 George Koschei................................ 4 2 Jim Lane..............................................19 Jannathan Falling L o n g ................. 11 Scott Love et al...................................12 Richard L loyd................................ 2 6 Buddy May ......................................16

Grant Michael Menzies.............. 2 9 M ish........................................36 & 37 M. S. Montgomery....................... 2 9 Moonhawk .......................... ............14 Dandelion Morningstar................... 4 6 Jon Nalley........................................... 4 6 Robert V. Palmer, Jr.................... 2 9 David Pinner................................. 3 2 Ricky of Luna Parc..................... 3 2 Robin.......................................... 6&22 James Shearn........................ 20 & 21 Matthew Shumaker ....................3 5 Mark Skinner............. 33, 36 & 37 Leo Spruell.................................. 2 4 Spunk.............................................. 2 7 Starfire................................................4 4 Joe Steward................................... 2 8 S y lv a n ........................................... 2 2 Christopher T hom as................. 27 Lawence W. Thomas ............... 2 8 Johnny Townsend ........................ 3 8 Jeffrey M. Walker........................ 3 0 L. S. W elch..................................... 4 3 Phil Woodward . . . Inside Cover 2

I) E P A R I \1 I. N T E I) 1 T OKS BOOK R E V I E W S G a r l a n d T e r r y , OR B R O T H E R S B E H I N D BARS L e n R i c h a r d s o n , OR B B B P EN P A E G i l s o n R e d r i c k , GA FICTION J a n N a t h a n L o n g , TN GA RDEN I N G G r e e n g e n e s , TN KI TCHEN QUEEN B u d d y M a y . GA LUNAR CALENDAR M o o n h a w k , GA P O ET R Y S t e v e n R i e l , MA SPIRITUALITY Da n L e a t h e r m a n , I N Front and back cover graphic is by Stephen Noonan. Cover design is by Phil Woodward. Ommissions: Anthony Weir’s graphic was on T.O.C., issue #71.

RFD is a reader-written journal for gay men which focuses on country living and encourages alternative life-styles. Articles often explore the building of a sense of community, radical faerie consciousness, caring for the environment, as well as sharing gay m en’s experiences. Editorial responsibility is shared between the Department editors and the Managing Editors. The business and general production is centered at Short Mt. Sanctuary in rural middle Tennessee. Features are often prepared in various places by different groups. RFD (ISSN # 0149-709X) is published quarterly for SIS per year by Short Mt. Collective, Rt 1, Box 84A, Liberty, TN 37095. Second class postage is paid at Liberty, TN and additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to RFD, PO Box 68, Liberty, TN 37095. ISSN # 0149-709X USPS # 073-010-00 Non-profit tax exempt status under #23-7199134 as a function of Gay Community Social Services Seattle, Washington.

Member: CLMP (Council of Literary Magazines & Presses) IGLA (Int’l Gay & Lesbian Assoc.) INDEXED by AltemaUve Press Index PO Box 33109 Baltimore. MD 21218

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ANNOUNCEMENTS

ARTICLES Living On The Body Of The Mountain A Hot Soak For Your Buns A Country Journal Entry La Loma De Paz A View From The Bam Summer Sexual Magic

11 19 22 24 26 44

BOOK REVIEWS God's Country: A Case Against Theocracy Federico Garcia Lorca. A Life Men's Dreams, Men's Healing Gay Roots: Twenty Years of Gay Sunshine

Jannathan Falling Long Jim Lane Two country gay men som ew here Leo Spruell Richard Lloyd Starfire

46 Dandelion Momingstar 46 Jon Nalley 47 Ron Abraytis 47 Ron Abraytis

BROTHERS BEHIND BARS

CONTACT LETTERS

CUIJNARY Kitchen Queen Baker's Buns

16 17

Buddy May Peter Baker

FAERIE ARCHIVES

Goatboy

FAERIE GROUP CONTACTS

FICTION Chicken Soup Ronnie & Clyde A Small Sliver of Pain

30 Jeffrey Walker 38 Johhny Townsend 42 George Koschei

GARDENING

GATHERINGS

IN SEARCH OF ..

LETTERS TO THE El )ITOR

LUNAR CALENDAR

Moonhawk

NEWS BITES

Robin

PHOTOGRAPHY Down Home Erotica Queen Ann's Lace

32 assorted photographers 50 Don Blackmore

POETRY Behind Closed Doors 27 December Painting 27 untitled 27 Come Winter 27 Greenmount Cemetery 28 The Z oo 28 On The D eeeep Masculine 29 Snow 29 Crew 29 Plum Boy 29 REMEMBERING

VAGABONDING

Christopher 'Ihomas Michael Hathaway Spunk Michael Hathaway Joe Steward Laurence W Thomas MS. Montgomery Grant Michael Menzies Robert V. Palmer, Jr David Faas

My subscription has expired so I have no idea what you will do with this letter, but know as whole I think very highly of what you write and in March of ‘93 I will become a paid subscriber. Thanks for a great year.

Dear RFD Editors, I was very disappointed with the section “Brothers Behind Bars". Mainly because I am behind bars and my name was printed in this section of issue #71. The section was poorly printed and my ad had been edited so that all the important parts were gone. The worst thing, though, was the myopic disclaimer in this section. It made me ashamed to have my name printed in this section after reading your disclaimer and the things you say about prisoners. Not all prisoners are “experts on deception with lots of free time to conjure up ways of riping off the uncautious." Nor are all prisoners entertaining fantasies of finding lovers or requesting loans. Some are genuinely victims of circumstances who are lonely and just looking for a “friend”.... Because of my circumstances and the apathetic nature of my family, and those I thought to be my friends, I sit here with no one. No friends, no family, and worst of all, no one to care about me or have me care about them. Still, I blame no one and I harbor no ill feelings toward anyone. I do not want anyone's money, or their pity, and I resent RFD for insinuating otherwise by placing that disclaimer, and therfore categorizing me so blatantly. However, I can understand why they did so. Sometimes one bad apple can spoil the whole damn bunch. And so I do thank RFD for placing my ad and for providing me with a free subscription just the same. I write this letter for three reasons: 1.) to express my opinion, as I have done; 2.) to appeal for replies to my ad for a pen-pal; and 3.) to state for the record, that I am looking only for a friend. .. Someone to write and care about and maybe to care about me. Nothing more and nothing less.... In closing: The only reason I asked, in my initial letter, that prisoners not write me is because the Virginia Department of Corrections will not permit correspondence to or from inmates in other prisons. However, ALL letters that get to me will be answered, regardless. Where there’s a will there's a way. Again my sincere thanks to RFD and all concerned... I remain, Respectfully, John Timothy Levesque 164801 Greenville Corr. Center 901 Corrections Way, D-Unit Jarratt, VA 23870

Respectfully, Edward W. Love 39369 PO Box 22800 Lincoln, NE 68542

Hi folks, Dear Editor and friends, I would first like to thank you for the year of wonderful fun, enlightenment and growth as a gay man, I also appreciate your generosity in sharing all of this with me at no cost as I am in prison. Besides to say thank you, I do have one complaint, it concerns your warning to prisoners. You see I am a gay black man of mixed heritage, well educated, and a teacher of special education and art. Because my work has kept me in cities, four /ears ago I decided to pursue my dream of rural life in Nebraska. My second day here I encountered a pick up truck full of people (for lack of a better word) chasing and throwing bottles and finally cornering three obviously gay white males. I could have kept going or minded my own business, but I didn’t. I am a masculine man and Vietnam vet. While the three people being chased got away it cost me eight stitches and five years in prison because I broke one persons arm. It didn’t matter that the three people I assisted testified in court one telling how close a broken beer bottle was to his face when I interupted this party; or the fact that I had no arrest record at all. My point to all of this is I’ve read your beware warning concerning prisoners and where there are many con and scam artists, it’s unfair to be biased and leary of all because we all need help once in a while. I have no regrets or remorse for my actions and in fact would do the same again if needed to. But I do regret the loneliness of being in a place where I know no one, must be locked up 23 hours a day because I am gay while the straight society here roams free all day, and the fact that readers of RFD and other gay publications shun and deny us even simple friendship and communication. By the way you are wrong to think that you can’t find love through correspondence. 4

Enclosed is a check for renewal of my subscription. Thanks for the reminder. It’s hard to believe it’s almost been a year since I restarted the subscription (which coincided with our move down from Maine) We’ve both gotten a lot out of RFD and look forward to another year with y’all. Short Mountain seems to loom large from here; we barely meet anyone who hasn’t at least heard of y’all. Several folks are either former or regular participants there. It’s been really nice falling into a sort of web y’all cast. One of these days we’ll make it over there to stay for a while, although currently the long-distance car is a bit unhappy. The short-haul vehicle, I’m afraid, would leave us far to rattled to be very good company. Keep up the good work! Regards, John and Sean

Dear RFD thangs, Please dear y’alls, I humbly remit these potentially tainted urban-earned dollars to your stewardship. I would only make one critique about your editing of articles. Please drop the trashy “Out With the Hillbillys” drivel! While at first quaint and mildly interestng, it’s continuing presence in RFD is a derogatory testimony to blatant stereotyping and has become tedious and boring. Even a blank page would cause more thought; or perhaps I could write a spinoff about Aunt Jemima’s queer son Leroy and see how many misspelled words or dis and dats I could jam into one paragraph. There I said it! Let the chaos continue. Love, -Jinder Tang -

Dear RFD,

Hi,

Dear RFD,

Thanks a million for putting an image of a beautiful “fat” faery on the cover of #71. It’s time, past time, for the faeries to give up the fixation on “Advocate-looksas-commodity" that is so prevalent in urban gay male subcultures.

I received the new issue of RFD yesterday and was inspired by the Holy Ghost to write and say how much I enjoyed David Thorstad’s article on Holy Rolling.

I’m sorry to take up space in this fine magazine, the existence of which I'm grateful for (I’m unaware of any other gay publication of RFD's “circulatory scope” that provides FREE contact ads) with a minor and personal technical point, but Stephen Noonan’s letter in the last RFD (#71) reversed my “pen name” and real name.

Fat men are no more “thin men with perverse appetites” than gay men are ‘ strait men with perverse sexual appetites,” Wimmin have recognized this issue for years; some gay men are just beginning to “get it.” Carry on! Plumply and ripely, Marvelous Persimmon Seattle, WA

I’ve read a lot of How-l-came-out stories --e.g. in The New York Native and I find this one to be absolutely the best. It is beautifully written. It doesn’t have any of the smug self-satisfied quality that other authors get into their narratives. Mr. Thorstad has a wonderful sense of humor and manages to maintain a detached and amused tone throughout. He gets across his recollected puzzlement and his compassion, lightly touched upon, for the limitations of the adults around him.

Dear RFD, In your Fall ‘92 Issue you never mention voting . The issue was one of the most coherent and creative yet you failed to remind people to vote during the November election. If faeries and their friends are ever going to overcome the discrimination imposed by a polluting, corporate, hegemonious government, we must vote for faeries and their friends. Need I remind you of Joan Jett Blakk; and for the more closeted, Bill Clinton, were running as gay friendly candidates who deserved our support. I hope RFD has more political foresight in the future and offers local, state and international candidates, who support our faerie spitrit, a forum. And use some space for promoting the vote.

I grew up in the twenties and thirties and had the mistaken notion that by the fifties, no one was telling boys that “each ounce of semen is worth ten ounces of blood," or that masturbation would lead to insanity. I am sorry to say that my own coming out was full of sturm und drang, genuine anguish and feeling betrayed and abandoned by God for having given me this awful need for masturbation and for not giving me the will power or the grace to overcome it. To be called a “cocksucker" or a “fairy" on the streets of New York - actually the South Bronx -was the worst of put downs. But that’s a whole different story. What more can I say? Keep up the good work.

My (now rarely used) pen name is “Charles Donovan”. My real name is Stephen Charles Doonan. I rarely use my middle name, but I do initial my drawings “SCD” . I can understand that some confusion, because our first names are spelled identically and our last names differ only in their first letter, is probably inevitable, but I do regret that Stephen Noonan’s fine drawing in RFD #70, page 14, was attributed to me. Thank you, Stephen Doonan Portales, NM

RFD welcomes letters from our readers; we need to hear from you. We strive with each issue to create a magazine which is unique. If there is an article you particularly liked or disliked let us know, or better yet write something and submit it.

Fraternally, George

Thanks dears, Jazmyn’s House of Wild Abandon

IN SFAZCH OF

p *

Are you looking for someone you have lost contact with, a gay brother who may read RFD ? Send us the information in as few words as possible and we will print it in two consecutive issues. Please refer to due dates on the information page for submissions. * “Seeking Jeremv Roberts or Jim Harp. Contact: R.P. Jilek (Angie) 904/433-7949, 605 N. Spring St. , Pensacola, FL 32501. * “An address for a faerie group in Great Britain called GAME! Send c/o RFD. * “Harold Bloomquist. last seen in NYC in 1953. Ben Gardiner, PO Box 421528, San Francisco, CA 94142. Would like any information. “ “Charles F. Rowzowski. Contact me or him: Lee D.B. Castellano #C-15320, Box 5002 (D2-212), Calipatria, CA 92233.

[ v a g a b o n d - Webster’s: 1. wandering from place to place [without any settled home; nomadic. 2. an idle wanderer without [a permanent home or visible means of support; tramp; vagrant. [3. carefree, worthless, or irresponsible person. [o n a recent six week, 80 mph tour of the wild west, my partner Jim and I discovered many beautiful places off the beaten :rack. In our travels, we met many “homeless" folks on the road land realized there are a lot of people travelling. We were talking about this when the idea for an RFD travel section Icame up; we thought of the title Vagabonding. Have you [discovered places that are so unique and beautiful you would |like to share them with RFD readers? Please write and share [some of these-- be as specific as possible. Send any [information you would like to share, even places “in your own Iback yard", to Stv, here at RFD. 5

NEWS BITES An important and unique newspaper has come across our desk here at RFD. Dendron is a voice for survivors of psychiatric treatments such as shock therapy and heavyduty drug therapy, a voice opposed to forced psychiatric treatment which is carried out against prisoners, the elderly, and children, not to mention those living on the streets and those incarcerated against their will for behavioral variance. The center spread of the issue we received has a brilliant analysis of the government’s attitude toward “undesirables" as expressed through its intensifying use of drugs to control people. The News section of the Fall RFD dealt at some length with the surging pseudo-science of genetic engineering and the experiments being performed on children. Well, those same techniques are being targeted at inner-city youth who, researchers claim, will be shown to be genetically and biochemically predisposed to violence. Fred Goodwin, head of the federal government’s National Institute of Mental Health, has called for a massive program to identify these genetic unwanteds and round up these people, as young as four years old, and subject them to psychiatric drugging. Since this is to be done in the inner-cities, it is clear that its proponents are motivated by racism. White-collar criminals are not to be targeted. The African-American community has begun to fight back, claiming rightly that where there are social problems, social solutions must be found. Crime is a result of oppression, not “genetic predisposition.” The source of oppression, its institutions, patterns, and methods, must be addressed. Allowing corporate Amerika, along with the government, to forcibly drug children, is not the answer.

The importance of all this to gay people is clear, as was pointed out in our Fall issue. Scientists, believing that the ultimately indescribable and infinite complexity of human life can be reduce to genetic description, are eagerly looking for the biochemical and genetic causes of homosexuality. If they believe that such a cause is isolatable, they will, along with other institutional support, be only too glad to experiment on gay people and children. It could be the wave of the future if we do not speak out against it. Keep yourself informed! One way to do so is to subscribe to this excellent newspaper, Dendron. which advocates love and diversity rather than psychiatry and conformity. It is chock-full of fantastic information and upbeat accounts of victories in the struggle against the authorities in the prisons, laboratories, pediatricians’ offices, and government. Write to: Dendron P.O. Box 11284 Eugene, OR 97440 They will send you a free copy. It can not be recommended highly enough. 6

There continue to be victories for gay and lesbian people this year. On Thursday, September 23, the Supreme Court of the state of Kentucky struck down the state’s sodomy law. In a 4-3 decision, the court stated that people need not “sympathize, agree with, or even understand” non-heterosexual sexual orientation in order to recognize the right of equal treatment before the law. Then two days later, on September 25, California became the seventh state to protect lesbians and gay men from discrimination in both public and private employment when Governor Wilson signed AB2601. On September 30, Salt Lake county in Utah passed two new ordinances prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in county employment and services. While it is well noted that puritanical backlash forces are trying in many places to overturn civil rights legislation and, in the case of Regan, even recriminalize and demonize gay men and lesbians, it is good to take heart in the victories which we are winning here and there across the country. The forces of enlightenment are not slumbering. Some very exciting news along these lines is the increase, after November’s election, in the number of openly gay and lesbian people elected to public office in this country. Prior to November 3rd, there were 64 gay and lesbian office holders who were out of the closet, and now that number has reached 75. This growing infiltration of the halls of power by those once utterly scorned is helping to de-stigmatize people outside the pale of the heterosexual ruling ideology.

We want to encourage you to write letters of support to a couple of media organizations. The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation has sent out its autumn Bulletin detailing coverage and portrayal of gay people in the movies, television, radio, and newspapers. For those of you who either have a television or periodically watch television, you may have noticed the occasional and decent reporting on gays and lesbians on ABC's World News Tonight with Peter Jennings. GLAAD and RFD encourage you to write letters of praise and request for more lesbian and gay stories to: Paul Friedman,ExecutiveProducer World News Tonight, ABC News 47 W. 66th St., New York, NY 10023 Secondly, USA Today has, for a national newspaper, been bold in running major stories on gay and lesbian lives, including periodic columns by openly lesbian columnist Deb Price. Since this newspaper finds readership in even very conservative corners of the country, their willingness to say our lives out loud should be encouraged and praised. Please write to: Peter S. Pritchard, Editor USA Today 1000 Wilson Blvd. Arlington, VA 22229

Finally, we receive a good many press releases and alternative newspapers here, but are eager for news that affects you immediately in your neighborhood, that will be of interest to others. Please send us clippings from local newspapers, radical or otherwise alternative newspapers and journals, and we will try to piece them into our news section, or elsewhere in the magazine if it seems appropriate.

HOMING HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS

THE 1993 MARCH ON WASHINGTON

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Those wild arid crazy Northeast Faeries usually plan an indoor winter gathering, if you would like to find out more about it contact them 5ITENBUSH GATHERING

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NATIONAL MARCH ON W ASHINGTON DRACnet Hans are underway for the DRAGnet radical faerie weekend, hostessed by the Washington, DC faeries. First let us b e clear about something: gathering NOT! Repeat there is no gathering! We are, However, arranging the following: Friday, April 23, Party /perform ance space 8 p m to Midnite; Satyrday, April 24, Claiming the Mall ritual, m orning Grand Faene Circle, even in g Sunday, April 25, National March, noonish The Spring '93 issue of RFD will contain feature articles concerning the National March as well as a ''Faerie Guide to DC" which promises to be entertaining as well as informational. Included in the "Faerie Guide" will be faerie contact letters. If you want to make contact with other folks to coordinate an action, get a ride, call a circle, negotiate sex or whatever, send us your faerie contact letter and we will include it in the feature edition. A lso if you want to be involved in facilitating any of the above events, let us know that too, and w ell get you in v o lv ed . 8

Please contact us at: DRAGnet, 4710 Bethesda Avenue, Apt. 1312, Bethesda, MD 20814 or by telephone on 301 /907- ’ 6837. We can hardly wait to get our hands on you and your pants off of you com e April!!!

BRITISH COLUMBIA RADICAL FAPRIL GATHERING

he B C radical faeries are hosting reir first country gathering on 35 cres near Christina Lake (two hours ,orth of Spokane WA) for the Summer Solstice 1993, on the veekend of June 18 to )re welcome on the land tor the arevious and following week to creat and live in sacred space (i.e prep, clean m and R&R) Contact them under

(SPI)RITUAL GATHERINGS A small group of men and womyn in southern New Hampshire and Vermont are com ing together to plan and participate in ritual around the pagan holy days. Their next celebration is the Winter Solstice; contact Ron at 603/478-5437, or Tom at 603 / 673-0921, for m ore information.

COUNTRY DANCE SOCIETY The North East Gay and Lesbian (NEGAL) Country Dance So^ e^ presents its 4th annual tord erfree ,n Winter Dance Camp February' Becket, M A Featuring New F.ngla contra and square dancing Sco and English country dancing international folk dancing singing and silliness. Great live nujsic, ^ wonderful dance callers. All dances ^ taught and beginners are welcom more information please write:NEGAL, PO Box 14021 East P ru rien ce. RI 02914, or call toli-fr©

GAYA-Gay Consciousness and Spirituality Heidelberg Faerie Circle Blucherstrasse 1 W-6900 Heidelberg Germany 49/6221-860535 Arizona Radical Faeries Box 26673, Phoenix, AZ 85068 602/277-5745 Atlanta Faerie Circle 404/622-4112 Austin Area Faeries Casa de Estaban 12514-b Esplanade St. Austin, TX 78723 British Columbia Radical Faeries #602-375 Main St Vancouver BC CANADA V6A2S9 874-7470 Michael or Lar Chicago Faerie Circle PO Box 148369 Chicago IL 60614 312/561-8909 D.C. Faeries Peaches Moree 1613 Harvard St NW #413 Washington DC 20009 202/588-9117 or Luciana/ Jack Harvey 301/907-6837 “Feydish” Computer Bulletin Board 415/861-4221 Faerie Bear Share Joe & Mike Totten-Reid 1712 Calle Poniente Santa Barbara CA 93101 805/569-1615 Fey Dirt-News and Information Line in Portland OR area 503/235-0826 Ganowungo, Western NY Jay Stratton 121 Union St. Westfield NY 14787

Gulf Coast Mermen/Sea Faeries c/o Crazy Bear Pensacola FL 904/438-4963 Holy Faery Database (networking tool for faeries) c/o Harry Ugoi/Michael Dreyer 1434 Alemany Blvd S.F. CA 94112 415/469-0625 House of the Dawn 112W. Way POB 637 Yarnell AZ 85362 602/267-1203 Kawashaway Sanctuary 3612 Chicago Ave So Minneapolis MN 55407 612/823-6996 L’Affaire The Beau Monde POB 3036 Pineville LA 71361 Leather Faeries c/o Michael Dreyer 1434 Alemany Blvd S.F. CA 94112 415/469-0625 Men Nurturing Men c/o Midwest Men’s Center POB 2547 Chicago IL 60690 NYC Faerie Circle POB 1251 Canal St Sta NY NY 10013 Gay Switchboard 212/777-1800 Nomenus POB 312 Wolf Creek OR 97497 503/866-2678 414/626-4765 (San Francisco) Northeastern Faeries (including Blue Heron Farm) POB 1251 Canal St Sta NY NY 10013 9

Northwestern Faeries 1510 19th Ave Seattle WA 98122 Ontario Faeries/ Fifis du Quebec Amber Fox Box 65 McDonald’s Corners Ontario CANADA K0G 1M0 613/278-2744 Philadelphia Faeries c/o Earth 2221 Spring Garden St #3R Philadelphia PA 19130 215/864-9922 Rose of Sharon Sanctuary c/o Charles Thornton Michael Ogelsby 214 South Church Fayetteville AR 72701 501/521-7387 Sacred Faeries POB 252 Salt Lake City UT 84110 801/531-6846 San Francisco Tel-a-Fairy 415/626-3369 Events and message tape for the Bay Area faeries Santa Cruz Fairy Line 408/335-5861 Events and message tape for the Santa Cruz area Seattle Fairy Phone 206/783-2011 event tape for Seattle area Short Mountain Sanctuary Route 1 Box 84-A Liberty TN 37095 615/563-4397 (messages) Southern California Star Circle- Faerie Dish Rag POB 26807 Los Angeles CA 90026 Willow Hollow Ranch Route 1 Box 267 Purlear NC 28665 (SASE please)

5 F 3 L 1 S CONNECT---------There is now a dating service for HIV positive people and people living with AIDS; CONNECT is based in Los Angeles and is part of Being Alive, an organization in which HIV positive and AIDS clients support and help each other. To be listed in CONNECT and receive three monthly newsletters, all one has to do is fill out a form and pay ten dollars -- similar to a classified ad in a gay publication or daily newspaper. The advertiser can receive responses through his or her private mail, by telephone or by having their mail received at CONNECTS offices, 3626 Sunset Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90026.

INTERNATIONAL GAY PENPALS 'ITiere is a unique way to start international correspondence: fora hobby, a forthcoming vacation, practicing another language or establishing a friendship or romance, that is by listing your name in the International Gay Penpal newsletter Ibe latest one out has 350 listings from around the globe For more information contact the I.G.P., Ste. 320, Box 7304, North Hollywood, CA 91603, with a self addressed stamped envelope. I

IATI NO GAY MALES The Guarinox Project is currently accepting subm issions for "The Other Garden”, an anthology of writings by Latino gay men to be published in the spring of 1993. Poetry, fiction, essays under 5,000 words, and black and white art work are now being accepted Material submitted can be on any subject as long as it relates to the experience of being gay and Latino in the U.S. Deadline for subm issions is January 31, 1993. Only material accompanied by a self addressed envelope with adequate postage will be returned. Contact: The Guarinox FVoject, David A costa Posada, 5906 N. Lawrence St., Philadelphia, PA 19120

M REQUEST FOR SUBMISSION Authors on sibling relationships have noted that within the body of literature on AIDS almost nothing has been written from the vantage points of brothers and sisters. Because of this, neither the affects of AIDS nor the joys and sorrows of kindredness are being fully addressed. As a step to remedying this, I am pursuing a book projedct that will explore the ways in which brothers and sisters move through the epidemic together. The book, tentatively entitled Each Others Keeper: Brothers and Sisters Write About AID S, will consist of approximately two dozen essays by individuals who are (*or have been) on this journey. It will have two perspectives; that of people with AIDS and that of their siblings. Anyone interested in contributing is invited to do so. Essays should be typed or clearly printed, double spaced and no longer than 24 pages. All essays will be edited in consultation with the writer and chosen to strike an overall balance between sexual orientation, gender, color, religious and educational background, ethnicity and age. Requests for confidentiality will be wholly respected.

o A m nesty International M em bers for Lesbian and G ay C oncerns Join A m nesty International YES. 1 support Amnesty International's historic decision to protect the human nghts of gay men. lesbians, and bisexuals. Enclosed is my member ship donation of: ____$25 ____ $50 _____ $100____Other Nam e:_____________________________ _ _ Address: ______________________________ Phone: _______________________________ Mail to: Amnesty International USA 322 Eighth Avenue New York, NY 10001

It’s your Money...

All essays should be sent by February 16, 1993 to; James Kiely, c/o Boston AIDS Consortium, 665 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115. For further information, please call 617/432-0885.

You can’t take it with you, but you can decide who gets it.

Be a Hero! Remember the Community.

DON’T MISS

‘THIS ONE!

Prepare a Will today. A community service message from this publication and National Association of Black and White Men Together.

;

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Now several days later, I have just prepared loavesagain, to sit over night. I stay up with them for a little while. They sit on the wood stove in the common room, hopefully warm, and safe from the little furry creatures that always nibble on the comers of loaves that are left out on the table. Lantern light and a crackling fire.

Sometimes it feels that there is a lot of influence from those ot us living at Short Mountain Sanctuary, where RFD is produced, but not so much writing about the rural life we lead itself. Because of this, 1 started last issue to cull some thoughts from my journal to depict one perspective of life at the sanctuary. Here are some passages written during my first winter.

1.29.92 Past midnight. The mice take over the kitchen; one lands in the sink and is too small to leap out. I am not interested in killing them, like some folks in the community but I would feel too guilty if I actually help one escape. Instead I decide that I cannot interfere, so I grab a glass of water and leave the sound o f scuttling feet to their own demise. After midnight. Everyone is asleep and all else reveals itself the feeling is just like early morning, before anyone has Arisen.’ There is the chance to see the great m ystm es, if you are the soul person awake, if you are the sentry of the night It was the sentries, after all, that first saw the ghost of Hamlet s father.) When nights are overcast, when without a flashlight it appears pitch black, the outside darkness still has a vastness a K it that the inside darkness lacks. Walking onto he knoll and being under that darkness seems special, overwhelming. These are the shortest days, when more than halt of our hours offer no light at all for craving eyes. When you are resigned to knowing that that is simply the way things are— in most of the universe, darkness is a giv en -th en every spot o light, every moment of variation, fills the senses. And a field ot stars becomes overwhelming. That is the purpose o f these dar , dark nights: a backdrop to compare the spotted nights that surround them. And in these dark nights, even this lantern a emblem waving light onto this paper, is a spectacle, a wonder.

3 11.92 Night at the Mountain. My desk, which looks out onto rolling hills during daylight, now butts against eight panes o f black glass, dotted with the reflections of light from the lantern and candles. Soft light and cool air. A surprise attack of snow. And it dropped to zero degrees — a shock for central Tennessee — though this 150 year old cabin seems impervious to it. There is a sadness riding on the stillness o f the night: the anachronistic feeling of modem items (a tape player, a plastic cup, a roll of scotch tape) lit by flame light. A hint of kerosene fumes the air; I light some incense a friend has sent.

7.20.91 I drink cold passion fruit tea. This morning 1 played guitar with a man who has been here a week, visiting for the first time. We drank tea and talked for several hours in front o f the cabin. He told me how he has enjoyed the quiet of the sanctuary. He had been diagnosed with AIDS lor over a year and as we drank tea he showed me the dozen pills he had to take every morning, explaining the ones I didn t recognize. He seemed quite ill; he had had trouble even walking the short distance to a nearby cave the day before. Nonetheless, he was interested in coming to our fall gathering, almost five months away. In the back of my mind 1 wondered if he would be alive then. Living here at the mountain I am much closer to AIDS, sometimes living right beside it's presence. In college, though I worked with the health center on AIDS education, there was a sense of being removed. It was getting brochures distributed, it was securing budget allocations. No one on campus would have admitted to being HIV-positive.

12 29 91 These nights cold, these days sacred. The light of these candles hiding the hiding of the bulging sun. So hard will I dance in the light of these new days. It is a new year cornu g, screaming like a birthing child. So strongly I want to hear hat scream as being a scream of wonder, the scream of joy at being a new live That, rather than the scream of tortured pain, the scream of fearfully leaving safety and entering the grotesque. May we hold these babied days up to the light as translucent jewelry and not as carcasses on a pick. I will pray that the new year has come to rejoice the freedom a r t work of breathe, and not simply to cry at leaving the womb. We are tu of wonder and a sweet dance! Every cell vibrates, moves together, in agreement. It is like having a billion beings dance together in unison, all in our own bodies, all on this world, on this world.

7.21.92 I became frustrated with the terminably long family meeting, the vaguely inbred feeling that inevitably happens in such an isolated community. I take a walk in the woods and suddenly, it rushes back, all that is important, all the reasons 1 came to live here: There is intense respect for the mountain, tor the trees and little squirming, crawling, jumping life that lives on it. We may be stewards of the land, but it is these creatures that will outlive us. They have been here, and will be here, before and after human beings. They are taking care of us. 12-29.91 I am the night baker! I have taken the spirit of baking that a woman in Denmark taught me by making rye sourdough, and put that spirit into a starter of my own. I made loaves for Solstice; the season was moving, intimate. I sang these words as we passed brownies and a goblet of red wine:

J i

1 8 92 I pause, look out this gracious window; the trees sway with such nobility and grace! I am moved by'them. Day-eight U f this year and still the skies cry, weep for the destruction that has passed, weep to clean the world's eyes from particles of war. I have learned great things here at the sanctuary: every limb of tree whispers some secret, most too quiet still for me to hear. Rich, rich. These days.Such work, to live here.

Ask the old man where he comes from, Ask the cup that's full o f red, Ask the old grey standing stones Who show the sun it's way to bed. Question all as to their ways And learn the secrets that they hold. Walk the lines of nature’s palm, Crossed with silver and with gold. Ian Anderson

1.18.92 Strange to think that a twentieth of the year is already over. Days twist and resound like a pile of 45’s in a jukebox. And here I am, late at night again, deciding to bring the typewriter down into the still warm kitchen, the one room with electricity means a light bulb and a tape deck. To write here alone, undisturbed, and hopefully undisturbingly. I pause and smell the orange extract and sorghum still on my hands from when I made cookies. The water has been frozen for days, it is difficult to wash the scents of work from my skm. ▲

Later we ate dinner — stuffed shells with red sauce and the steaming bread was a part of the feast. 11

Suggestions and guidelines for responding to penpal ads. The purpose for the penpal listing is to offer the community at-large the opportunity to relieve the pain and loneliness that most inmates endure. When responding to ads , be especially wary of any requests for loans, and do not cash money orders (they are easy to alter). Readers should embark on a dialogue with an inmate with one expectation: giving uncompromising help to the inmate. Be cautious about entertaining the fantasy of finding a lover. RFD denies any assurance of truthfulness in the contents of such ads, and will not assume any responsibility for losses or damages. Readers are encouraged to respond to the ads, but at their own risk. Inmates can submit their 'ads’ as short as possible to RFD, PO Box 68, Liberty, TN 37095. The coordinator reserves the right to edit ads according to his judgement.

The collage designed by Scott Love, is composed of artwork by: P. Lamb, Canadian, Cayne, Bonju Mahelee Stonestar, Walden, Ben McDade, Kat, Stephen Noonan, Cameron.

Notes: Inmates are listed in Zip Code order within the same Zip Code, alphabetically by last name. All inmates are supposed to be gay unless specified otherwise. W=white, B=black, NA=native american, A=asian/ age in years/ height/ weight in pounds/ color of hair/ color of eyes: bd=blond, bk=black, br=brown, bu=blue, gn=green, hz=hazel, rd=red, gy=gray. MAURICE J MATHIE #90-T-1282\D-l-214\ FOB 700 Prison Rd\WalkilI NY 125890700: 24 5*7 165 bd/br. Looking for "Astrological Fen-pals” to corre spond with. I do Natal charts, and wish to share my knowledge for noprice other than friendship. Love the outdoors and nude living, writing, being crazy annd lovable. Enjoy "hot" sex and cold coffee with that special someone. GLENN R THOMAS 91-B-0330\C-l-03 CCF\ Helmuth NY 14079-0200: Seeking penpals.

DANIEL SUNDEL NATION\ BJ-2406(C)\SCI Dallas\ Drawer K\Dallas PA 186120286: B 40+ 5*11 180 Jewish-Buddhist -Facifist-Theosophist vegetarian Aries. Avid reader, write essays for outside publications. Lift weights, jog. calisthenics, yoga, meditation. Seeking someone who isn't stuck, or hooked, on petty means of communica tions. Photo available. JAMES WAITES 181462\POB 430 Bucc\ Dillwvn VA 23936: 37 5'9 165 bd/br very sexy. Swimming, camping, dinner dating. Out by late 93. Seeking steady correspondents 35+. Please enclose phone number. GRADY HOYLE QUEEN 111\ EF-18804\ GSP HCol\Reidsville GA 30453: 286'11 196 bd/bu. Muscular, handsome, charming ly romantic, physically endowed. Hunting, fishing, weightlifting and running, baseball. Solo nude photos welcome (sorry, cannot reciprocate). Will answer all sincere seekers of daddy's favorite! DONALD MANNING E7-137603\ FSP HCol\ Reidsville FA 30499-0001: B 29 5'9 athlete built. Sports, literature, music, more. Certified welder, at tending college for Business Mgmt. Expected release 3/27/93. Seeking lovable, intelligent gay corre spondents, age, race unimportant. ANTHONY TOMASSON 108544 Box Z-13\ UCI\P0B 221\Raiford FL 32083: 24 5'6 158 hz. Fun-loving with much love to offer. Very lonely, will answer all

LUTHER KING EVANS 395730\ FSP U-3-S14\P0B 747\Starke FL 32091: B 32 6'1 205. Seeking someone nice, under standing, caring. Will answer all regarless of age or color. DANNY HAMMOND 119491\ FSP\ POB 747\ Starke 32091: 21. Seeking sincere, open-minded, free-spirited GWM for friendship, possible relationship. Age not a problem. MICHAEL J LITTLES 047123\FSP\POB 747 \Starke FL 32091: B bi 35 5'8 150 bk /br. Very open, relate on any level to both male and female who wish to correspond. Please write! WILLIE MARSHALL 056855\ FSP 747-U-lN-9\Starke FL 32091: B 35 6'2 orange complexion, attractive, Pisces, many interests. SEAN ANDERSON 743096-138\ 2739 Gall Blvd\Zephyrhills FL 33541: 27 150 br/bu. Photo gets photo. Will answer all. MALLIE REYNOLDS 103095\KSP 5-3-D-12\ POB 128\Eddyville KY 42038-0128: 35 5'10 br/bu. Expect to be out in 93. Older men will not be diasppointed. RICHARD L FRAZIER A-224-964\ WCI\ POB 120\Lebanon OH 45036: 2l 5'9 165 bd/bu. In great need to contact the outside world; will answer all. BRUCE THURMAN 177-759\WCI 1-C-203L\ POB 120\ Lebanon OH 45036: 6' 175 youthfull classy, seeking 30-60 pro fessional who enjoys life, is sensitive, sincere, and adventure some; someone who wants to be in love and wants to be loved. FREDERICK PAUL LUCKETT 156-525\SOCF\ POB 45699\Lucasville OH 45699-0001: 5'8 176 of solid build long bk hair, lonely effeminate B. Ex-hairdresser and model. To be released Dec 93. No inmates, please.

PAUL R JOHNSON 870910 B-210\ IDC\ POB 41\ Michigan City IN 46360: Bi 39 5'8 150 br/bu. Non-smoker, drug and alcohol free. The country, theo sophy, occult, phenomena, meditation, environment, ecology, just about everything that may make this a better world. Paralegal experience, expanding legal knowledge; have been an electrician, plumber, carpenter, appliance repairman, and mechanic. PARNEL MAISONET 7847\ POB 41- 533S\ Michigan City IN 46360: African/ Puerto Rican 34 6' 165 long bk hair. An artist, like various kinds of music, books, and sports. Open and honest, seeking hot conversation and friendship with someone who isn't afraid of exploring something new. LEON COOK 884160\ POB 473\ Westville IN 46391: Since incarceration, have received ray G.E.D. and two vocation al certificates, but the human dimension is missing. That sense of warmth and kindness, the sharing of one's self with another person, just someone to give that extra vote of confidence and reassurance one needs from time to time. RODNEY IMBLER 161618 -2 -B-4\ FCC\1012 W Columbia St\Farmington MO 63640: 31 (looks 25) 5'11 178 br/br goodlooking. HIV-, sweet, honest, loving, caring, very faithful to the person I'm with. Lonely, no one on the out side. Seeking 40+ y.o. for good times. Out on 8/28/93 with no parole. I play no games! Will answer all. DONALD McBF.NGE 174690\ Camp Hawthorn \P0B 140\Kaiser MO 65047: 35 5 ’6 140 br/br. Scorpio. Please write! EDWARD BENTLEY 128756\ LaSP Camp C Jag 4-L-13\Angola LA 70712: 25 5'10 175 bk/br dark complexion, under standing, kind, and considerate. Basketball, chess, reading, more.

TIM MRUK\ Rl.30049\ POB 45699\Lucasville OH 45699-0001: 31, fitness buff, WICCA-pagan religion novice. Jazz-rock, poetry, reading. Photos exchanged with first letter. Serious correspondence welcome, no mind games. All answered.

CHRIS LEONARD 98621\CBA U/R ll\LaSP \Angola LA 70712: 32 6'4 190 br-rd/ gn, hairy chest, tanned, muscular. Release Jul93. Any race or age, but preferring feminine or TV. Sinceri ty a must.

RICHARD OSBORNE 184686\ ROB 45699\ Lucasville OH 45699-0001: 32 6'4 210 Scorpio. Artist, B.A.'s in Bus.Adm.& Mgrat and in Fine Arts. C&W music, collecting stamps, write poetry.

JAMES STOTZNER 92127\ Jaguar 3L-11\ LaSP\Angola LA 70712: 31 6'5 210 bd/bu. Masculine top seeking a fem bottom. Reading, jogging, chess, writing. Sincere, don't play games, looking for an honest friendship, possible long-term relationship.

LARRY THEBEAU \R#148-721\ POB 45699 \Lucasville OH 45699-0001: 22 150 5'9 br/bu very cute, looks younger from lack of facial or body hair. To be released Feb93, seeking a caring, loving heart, to grow with. Not into games. Age, race, not important, honesty a must. MOSES WALKER 211-912 Box 45699\ Lucasville OH 45699-0001: B 35. Candid, humorous, affectionate, seeking someone who is down to earth and real. CHARLES D STREET\ 854769\ POB 30\ Pendleton IN 46064: 25 6'1 175 br/ br. Art, music, boating, poetry, traveling, etc. Seeking those open and honest, lonely or in need of friendship: long term relationship possible. To be released soon. Will answer all . TIMOTHY LEWIS 913598\ IYC\ 727 Moon Rd\ Plainfield IN 46168-9400: only eight months to go. Seeking friend ship, correspondence, sincere person, will answer all. Age un important .

MARK ANTHONY WEST 133139\CBA L/R15\ \LaSP\Angola I A 70712: 27. Discharge 11/26/95. Seeking compatible compan ion . AL WALL 91424\Box 260 Hwy 39\Lexington OK 73051: 47 5'11 200 drug-free, vegie, non-smoker. Founder of "Eye Opener," a prisoner program. Blues, jazz, C&W, some rock. Hobbies: stained glass, glass seed and buglebeaded jewelry. Seeking 40+. Beauty is from within --not just the outside. DON YOUNG 562666\ Rt 4 Box 1100\ Rosharon TX 77583-8817: 42 6'b r . Honest, love sports and laugh of life’s adversities. Seeking 18-30 GWM. Photo greatly appreciated. Sorry, no inmates. BILL BUTLER 27255\ICI\Hosp Dr N #23 \0rofino ID 83544: 25 5'8 165 br/br. A man's man, prefer older men. Seeking a daddy who'll write to me, and I can go to when I get out In four years.

RON MACK 20080\ICI\Hospital Dr N #23 \0rofino ID 83544: 40 5'10 195 br/ bu. Art, pro wrestling, cooking for that special guy. Your photo gets mine. WILLIE HARRIS C80774\POB 5002\7018 Blair Rd\Calipatria CA 92233: B 29 6'1 195 attractive. To be released soon. Seeking 30-48 intelligent, compassionate, sincere. Photo, please. MICHAEL HAWKINS D-89781\POB 5002 D2204\Calipatria CA 92233: 29 5'9 150 bd/bu hung above average. Seeking gay/bi 18-25. LARRY McBRIDE D-82065\ CSP Bdg A-2142L\ POB 5002\Calipatria CA 922335002: brown complexion 29 6'1 200 semi-long hair/br well-built in all the right places. Tennis, basket ball, handball, more. Aries. Very spoiled, but easy to get along with. RUSSELL F, BERRY\ %Allen J Brown\ POB 1330\Bakersfield CA 93302: 47 5'11 185 br/hz. Snow+water skiing, scuba diving, golf, photography, computers, lots of fun! RONNIE MAYS E 11.905\ 4B-4A-U0-U\ POB 1902 -B\Tehachapi CA 9 5581: Bi 22 bd/bu. To be paroled 3/93, in draper at e need of a pi ace to 1 ivt>; will) tig to do whatever it takes to help out with chores and pay my way to stay out: prison. Please get to know me. CLIFFORD "The Little Prince" MICHAEL BINNING\ C-35704\ POB 409000 A5 208U \Ione CA 95640: Interested in writing to other sensitive males. Please send nude male photos whenever possi ble. NEMIAIl FRANKS C-12194\ POB 409000 A5-112\I one CA 95640: B 34 6'4. Music, reading, playing sports. Wishing to make sincere friends. PHIL PAPAS E-77938 A4-223U\ POB 409000\lone CA 95640: Seeking penpals. MERVIN DALE SHANNON D-64480\ POB 409000\lone CA 95640: B 2/ 5'8 160 bk/br. Christian, very good cook, love children, and much more. Very lonely, need friends. DAVID "The Flame" WAYNE VIERS E-80443 A5-230L\POB 409000\Ione CA 95640: Interests range from fashion to the arts. Need new gay contacts. ROBERT G MORROW /009785\ 2605 State St\Salem OR 97310-0505: 19 5'10 175 br/br Indian/Gerraan mix. Out of the closet but discrete and careful. Athletic (endurance running), love to cook, swim, mellow music. Seeking an honest, intimate relationship. No headgames. Will answer all. STANLEY MURPHY 2769347\3405 Deer Park Dr SE\Salem OR 97310: 46. Very much into NAMBLA, C&W music, swim ming. Wish to correspond with other NAMBLA members of any age. Photo appreciated. DANE WHEELER \Box 6314126\3405 Deer Park Dr SE\Salem OR 97310: 28 6'1 175 br/gn. Release 8'94. Handsome, straight acting, intelligent, career minded. Horses, country music, racquetball, and bicycling. Seek honest, sincere, supportive Asian men 18-30. Send photo. All answered.

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Blessed Be, Well, we all made it thru another year. It really got bumpy sometimes, but now it's all behind us. The keyword for 1993 will be rela tionships. This doesn't just apply to our relationships with lovers, but covers all rela tionships including those with friends, rela tives, co-workers, jobs, the law, and the courts. This will be a year when we find out who our real and true friends are, and they may be the saving grace in our lives this year. Whether these experiences will be positive or negative will depend on what kind of balance you have in your spiritual bankbook. January starts off with the Earth being at perihelion on the 3rd. This is the Earth's closet point to the sun. We'll only be 91,400,005 miles from it. The next morning, on the 4th, if you're up early enough, you'll get to see the Quadrantid meteor shower. It will peak about 5:00 AM EST, and will be coming out of the north at a rate of 40-150 per hour. Since there will not be a moon to wash it out, it should be quite spectacular. It's also the only meteor shower this quarter. On the evening of the 7th, Mars will rise just after sunset with the almost full moon above it. It will be the evening star all night. The Earth will be at its closest point to Mars. We'll only be about 58 million miles away. If you have a telescope, this is an evening to use it. The next morning, on the 8th, the moon will conjunct Mars at 6:19 AM EST. Mars will be to the right of the moon. Since this is just a little over an hour before the moon reaches full, it will be very large and bright on the western horizon. It should be quite magnificent. On the morning of the 14th, the moon will conjunct Jupiter at 4:43 AM EST with the moon below Jupiter. The evening of the 23rd just after sundown, the faint crescent new moon will be just below and right of Saturn. Remember where Saturn is for the evening of February 1st. On the evening of the 26th, the moon will be just below and right

of Venus at sundown. A little later, at 8:18 PM EST, the moon will conjunct Venus. The evening of February 1st, at sunset, if you remember where Saturn is, find it. If condi tions are right, just below and to the left of Saturn, you'll see a small star, only it's not a star— it's Mercury. The morning of Candlemas, the 2nd, just before dawn you may want to get your telescope out and see Uranus and Neptune conjunct. On the east coast we'll see them just before they conjunct. Uranus will be slightly above and left of Neptune. The actual conjunc tion is at 8:01 AM EST. Those of you in the western half of the USA should have an excellent chance of seeing the exact conjunction, espe cially if you live the Mountain time zone. This is the first of 3 conjunctions between these two this year. This is a very heavy manifestation of energy we will have to deal with. The last time these two powers got together was at the time of the civil war. An interesting side note is that Candlemas was also called Brigantia for the Celtic female deity of light. With all the darkness that came out of this conjunction the last time, let us fervently hope that the true light will return this time. On the evening of the 3rd, the almost full moon will be above and left of Mars. As the evening progresses, it will move closer and closer to Mars until it conjuncts it the next morning, the 4th, at 4:02 AM EST. The morning of the 10th, the waning moon will conjunct Jupiter. It will be below and right of Jupiter. The evening of the 22nd, the faint crescent of the new moon will be below and slightly right of Mercury just after sunset. Two days later, on the 24th, the moon will be below and just to the left of Venus. On the evening of March 3rd, the moon will be below and left of Mars. The evening of the 9th, you'll see the moon just below and right of Jupiter at moonrise, around 8:00 PM EST. The morning of the 20th, the moon will be below and

continued on page 19

NUT LOAF WITH TOMATO SAUCE Greetings, LOAF: How are all of you doing? I hope you are doing well. It was such a beautiful fall with the leaves being such vibrant colors. Mother cer tainly outdid herself this year. The reason for these fantastic colors was all the rain we had back in the summer. All this rain gave us some bountiful harvests, also. The trees are loaded with apples, persimmons and nuts of all kindshickory, walnuts, and pecans. Nuts are very nutritious. They're loaded with minerals and amino acids. The only bad thing about them is the fact that they're high in fats, with pecans having the highest concentration of fat of all the nuts.

2 2 2 3 1

c. finely shredded cabbage c. finely diced celery c. finely diced green pepper T. vegetable oil t. asafetida *5 c. each: cashews, almonds, walnuts \ c. cooked brown rice 1 c. rolled oats \ t. salt h t. black pepper 1 t . thyme 1 t. basil 2 T. vegetable broth powder 2 t . sage 1^, c. tomato puree 2 c. grated cheese/^# soft tofu, crumbled

If you're looking for something different to do with your nuts this winter, maybe you'll give these two recipes a try. One is for a nut loaf with tomato sauce, and the other can be a des sert after this lovely dinner. It's a pecandate pie. I hope you'll give these a try and will be pleased with the results.

SAUCE: 2 1 \ 1 H h ii \ 1 1

Well, I guess I'll say so long for now. Take care of yourselves and be well. Blessings on you all and may you have a very happy and loving new year.

C. c. c. t. T. t. t. t. t. t.

fresh tomatoes, blended canned tomato puree water brown sugar vinegar salt asafetida black pepper coriander powder dried basil

LOAF: Saute cabbage, celery, and peppers in oil with asafetida until vegetables are soft. Grind nuts into a fine meal. In a large bowl, combine vegetables, nut meal, and remaining ingredients by hand. If mixture is wet, add more oats; if too dry, add more tomato puree. Bake in a greased 9/5 loaf pan at 350°F for 45 min., then let set 20 min. SAUCE: Cook blended tomatoes 10-15 min., till thickened to consistency of spaghetti sauce. Add remaining ingredients and simmer together for 10 min. Serve over nut loaf. Serves 6. 16

continued on page 18

Gluten is found only in the endosperm portion of the wheat berry, which comprises 70% of the weight of the berry. The remaining 30% is made up of the germ and the 7 bran layers. Since 30% of the berry carries no gluten-forming proteins, one can make lighter breads with white flour (which is only the endosperm), than with whole wheat flour. Do not use pastry or cake flour for bread as they do not contain sufficient protein. Use all-purpose or bread flour. If you like whole wheat flour, try to find out the percentage of protein. Above fourteen percent is desirable. Choose the finest grind available.

Hello again to all my baking buddies! I hope that you enjoyed my opening column on pie crusts in the last issue of RFD, that your pastry was flaky (at least,flakier) and won many ah's of satisfaction from awaiting palates. In a future column, I will talk about pie fillings, so stay tuned . . . . Before I delve into the subject of bread, which will span this issue and the next, allow me to welcome any questions, comments, and suggestions that you might have concerning baking in general or this column in particular. I will include your letters, and maybe edit a bit, as space permits. My address is: P.O.Box 554 N.Y.C., N.Y. ***

***

10025 ***

Yeast is a one celled plant that eats sugars and generates carbon dioxide as its major waste product. This gas gets trapped in the elastic gluten network and causes the bread to rise. The little 'cells' that you see in a slice of bread are actually these pockets of trapped gas. Yeast has other very important functions, not all of which are well understood. However, we do know that yeast secrete proteolytic enzymes that modify the proteins (there are others besides gluten) during rising or 'proofing', as bakers call it. These enzymes are, for a good measure, responsible for the flavor of bread. 1 will come back to this point later. Whether you use fresh or dried yeast, it's all the same. The outstanding difference being that you need only about half as much dried yeast as fresh. In other words, if the recipe calls for 2 parts of fresh yeast, use only one part of dry yeast. Prepare the dried yeast according to the given directions. Fresh yeast is simply crumbled into the liquid and stirred.

***

It is hard to think of any aroma more univerÂ sally more appealing than that of bread in the oven, especially on a snowy winter's day. It warms the soul. Although, chemically speaking, the redolence is quite complex, the pleasure is simple and basic. For many peoples , bread is indeed the 'staff of life' and a daily part of their diet. Flour, water, yeast, and salt. These four ingredients are the basis of bread as we know it. All other ingredients, including sugars, fats, eggs, dairy, flavorings, etc., are extras, though not necessarily undesirable. I do use a drop of honey in my breads, for instance. For now, let us take a brief look at the basic ingredients and the part they play in making good bread: Wheat flour contains two proteins, gliadin and glutenin [for those of you that have heard this story already,bear with me]. These two proteins exist only in combination in wheat flour. In the presence of water, or a water-bearing liquid, they combine to form a third, called gluten (gloo-tin), which is very important to bread making. Unlike pie crusts, you want to form gluten in bread. Gluten is an elastic and somewhat sticky protein. Its presence is 'developed' (baking term) or increased via mechanical action, notably, kneading or working the dough with a mixer.

Salt aside from enhancing the flavor (bread does taste flat without it), controls the growth of yeast so it does not go haywire. Its addition assures a more controlled proofing, which, unless you want a salt-free bread, is preferable for flavor development. Water does have an effect on bread and its flavor. However, unless you are making large quantities of bread. I wouldn't concern myself too much. If you do not like the flavor of your breads, try using bottled water. ExcesÂ sively hard water can impede the proofing of the dough. Having learned about ingredients and some of their important interactions, let's move on now to discuss some pointers for making good and tasty bread. I am assuming that my readers have a rudimentary knowledge of bread-making. This knowledge can be obtained from any decent bread book or an all-around cookbook such as Joy of Cooking. which, actually, has a lot of useful information above and beyond recipes. +++

Make sure you get good gluten development. This means a thorough kneading, which should take about 10 - 15 minutes. Whole wheat flour requires somewhat less kneading than white flour. This is because the particles of bran and germ cut the already-developed gluten. In any event, the dough, when you're done kneading, should have a smooth and satiny surface and spring back when lightly depressed with the fingers.

continued on page 1Sâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; 17

Kitchen Queen

Bakers Buns

PECAN-DATE PIE +++

CRUST: 1 c. rolled oats 1 c. unbleached white flour or whole-wheat pastry flour h t. salt H t. ground nutmeg \ t. ground cardamon % c. butter (softened) or canola oil Vs c. maple syrup h t. grated lemon zest 1 t. lemon juice 1 t. vanilla extract FILLING: 2 c. whole pecans 1 c. pitted dates h c. raisins or currants lh c. apple, orange or pear juice 2 T. frozen orange juice (optional) 2 t. vanilla extract pinch salt h t. each: ground allspice, nutmeg, ginger 1 T. lemon juice 3 eggs, beaten

The finished dough should be about 78 - 80 degrees, which, for us whose body temper ature is 20 degrees above that, feels COOL to the touch. This is contrary to the popular belief that the douah should be warm. The given temperatures provide the most optimum environ ment for the yeast to do their thing. However, the dough is best proofed in a warm place and surely should be covered with a damp, lint-free towel. In fact, after the dough has been made, it must always be covered lest the surface of the dough dry out -- fast. +++

The bread will taste better if you give the dough more than one rising. For the first one, the dough should double in bulk. If you insert your finger an inch or so into the dough and it begins to deflate, it is ready. You then 'punch' the dough down (literally), give it a turn or two, and set it to rise again. Do not let the dough rise so much that it collapses before you punch. This will adversely effect the bread. For subsequent proofings (up to three), 3/4 increase will do.

cardamon,

SEUS.T: Preheat oven to 350°F. Grind the rolled oats in a blender or food processor to a coarse flour. Place ground oats in a mixing bowl, *add flour, salt and spices. (If using a food pro cessor, add these ingredients to ground oats; crust c^n be made in the processor.) Add soft ened butter or oil and remaining crust ingredi ents. Mix until dry ingredients are well-coat ed. Reserve a 1-inch ball of dough for garnish. Place remaining dough between 2 pieces of waxed paper and roll out into an 11-inch circle. Chill for at least 2 hours. Oil a 9-inch pan. Place crust dough in the center of pan and press to cover bottom and sides of pan. Prick crust several times with a fork. Bake crust for 7 min.

Why do more proofings make the bread taste better? Remember those proteolytic enzymes I spoke of earlier? Simply, they have more time to work, to mellow the proteins, thus developing the flavor. Two more things here: For the above mentioned reason, it is better for the dough to take its time rising. Within reasonable limits,slow makes for more flavor. Secondly, it is better for the dough to rise up rather than spread out. +++

After you punch the dough for the last time and turn it out on the board, diving it into appropriately-sized pieces, round each piece, cover all of them, and allow the dough to rest for 10 minutes or so. After all that hard work rising, it needs a rest! This is called a bench proof. t-+

FILLING: Spread pecans on a large baking tray or cookie tray with sides. Roast in a 350°F oven for 7 min. or until pecans turn slightly darker and taste roasted. Remove from oven and set aside. Place dates and raisins or currants in a 2-qt. saucepan. Add juice, bring to a boil, cover, lower heat and simmer for 10-15 min., until dried fruit is very soft. Remove from heat and stir in frozen orange juice if desired, vanilla, salt, spices and lemon juice and stir. Puree mixture in blender or food processor until very smooth. Pour into shallow bowl to cool. When fruit has cooled to room temperature (about 30 min.), beat eggs for 30 seconds and add to date mixture. Stir to mix evenly. Add 1^ c. whole pecans to date mixture. Stir. Spoon date-pecan mixture into pie shell. Smooth the top. Garnish the top of pie with remaining pecans and decoratively cut pieces of extra dough (use a cookie cutter). Bake for 45 min., until the pie puffs slightly and looks set! Remove from oven and allow to cool before slic ing. Serves 8. A

Since only wheat flour has gluten-forming proteins, as the percentage of non-gluten flours (rye, cornmeal, oats, etc.) increases, so does the difficulty in making a lighter bread. I always use a little white flour in all my breads to get that extra gluten kick. A little lightness is a good thing, for my tastes. ■+

Breads made without fats (oils, lard, milk, eggs, etc.) will dry out faster than those made with fats. Personally, I prefer a heartier bread sans fat. Use of mashed potatoes and/or potato water in bread will increase its moistness and keeping qualities. +++

One more item: keep the dough draft-free until it is baked off.

Well, there you have what I hope is some useful information. In the next column. I will continue this discussion of bread, addressing bread faults, how to recognize and correct them. Happy baking,bubbalahs!

LUNAR

C A LEN D A R

CONTX NUED

A HOT SOAK FOR YOUR BONES left of Saturn which has now come out from behind the sun and is now our morning star along with Mercury, Uranus, and Neptune. The next morning, the 21st, the faint crescent of the old moon will be conjuncting Mercury. The moon will be below and left of it. The 30th of March, the Earth will be at its closest point to Jupiter. A few days before and after will be the best time to view it with your telescope. To end the month and this quarter, the moon will be conjuncting Mars for the second time this month on the 31st. The moon will be below and left of Mars almost directly overhead just after sunset.

by JIM L ANE

The best planting time for above-ground crops in January are 2, 3, 4, 7, 25, 26, 30, and 31. The best planting time for below-ground crops this month are 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 20, and 21.

During the cold winter months, I enjoy a deep hot soak. As I didn't have the space or money for a manufactured hot tub, I built my own. I started with

best days for above-ground crops in February 3, 4, 22, 23, 26, 27, and 28. The best days below-ground crops are 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, and 17.

The are for 16,

best days for above-ground crops in March 3, 4, 7, 25, 26, 30, and 31. The best days below-ground crops are 9, 10, ll, 12, 15, 17, 20, 21, and 22.

Well, I guess it's time to sign off for now. I want to wish each and every one of you the best and I hope it will be a truly happy new year for you. Take care of yourselves and may love be the wind beneath your wings. Blessings to all.

a five foot long stock watering tub, available for about $65 at your nearest farm store. I made a set of heater pipes out of standard one inch threaded

galvanized pipe fittings which sets on top of my nearby wood stove. A kiddie pool water filter connects to this with rubber tubing and hose clamps. This pumps water from the tub through the heater pipes and returns it to the tub. It takes about two hours to get heated up to 108Â°, at which muscular aches and joints get loosened up. After a week's worth of soaking, I use the water to wash and rinse clothes in my washing machine. In the weather when I'm not using the wood stove, I put a two burner propane hot plate under the coils and heat it that way. This simple apparatus has added a great deal of pleasure to my life in relaxing at the end of a cold winter day. You could try putting one together for yourself.

The are for 16,

ORNAMENTAL GRASSES by James W Sheam Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve had an interest in ornamental grasses for many years, but had not grown any of them until my partner Scott and I moved into a house in the country in 1987. We live in Central Indiana, approximately 40 miles from Indianapolis, which places us in Zone 5. At times we experience -20 degrees F. temperatures, but that allows us to grow a wide variety of ornamental grasses

The sixty or so species and varieties I grow are part of our cottage garden, and we also have two areas that are devoted entirely to grasses. Because of the range of sizes, colors, and textures of the grasses, they blend well with other perennials, shrubs and annuals. Miscanthus floridulus, the tallest grass i have, grows at the rear of one of the perennial gardens, and although rateed by experts to only Zone 6, has survived -23 degrees F. temperatures with no damage. It is called the giant miscanthus, and can also be used as a screen. I want to begin transplants from my original plant for just such a screen this spring. Since there aren't many bamboos hardy enough for this area, Miscanthus floridulus makes a good substitute. I suppose of all the genera of grasses, Miscanthus is a favorite, but there are so many good species and varieties, I couldn't choose one plant as a favorite. Miscanthus sinensis Gracillimus is probably the most used and for good reason. It is fine textured, vase-shaped and has a graceful, fountain-like form. It makes an impressive specimen in only five years or so, but a ten year plant is even more beautiful. If you like variegated plants, there is Miscanthus sinensis strictus, with yellow, yellow-green foliage, and Miscanthus sinensis (Morning Light), among others.

Why grow the ornamental grasses? They are easy to grow, they tolerate a wide range of conditions, soils from clay to sand, full sun to light shade, usually need no supplemental fertilizers, and most require no extra water. They're one of the few plants that lend a sense of movement to the garden. The slightest breeze creates a swaying of the leaves, a caressing of the ground, and sounds similar to the rustle of quaking aspen leaves. Beginning in mid-summer and earlier, when they start to flow er, their seed heads of white, buff, and other colors contrast well with the greens of companion plants, the autumn colors of tans, reds, and yellows compliment the colors of ample, ash and oaks. Even in winter, the foliage and seed heads retain their attractiveness and are beautiful against a background of snow. 20

Pampas Grass, as the name implies, originates in the grasslands of Argentina, and is commonly grown in the warmer parts of the country. It is hardy only to zone 8. We northerners have, more likely , seen its dried plumes offered for sale in flower or craft shops. The northern pampas grass is Eranthus ravennae or Ravenna grass which is from Europe and is hardy to Zone 5 and parts of Zone 4. While its plume is not as full as Cortsaderia, it is a stately plant suitable for the back of a border or as a specimen. The 12 foot tall inflorescence is particularly striking against a deep blue autumn sky, although the foliage is only 3-4 foot tall.

Scott enjoys creating dried flower arrangements, and the grasses are an important part of those arrangements. He uses -the flowers of the large grasses in combination in containers such as old milk cans and large pieces of pottery , and various sizes and designs of baskets. The smaller grasses are used in combination with perennials and annuals, including yarrow, statice, strawflowers, gomphrena, and baby’s breath, among others. There aren’t many books available on grasses, yet. As interest in them increases, I’m sure there’ll be more. I have three, my favorite being Ornamental Grasses: The Amber Wave, by Carole Ottesen, Ornamental Grasses Gardening by Reinhardt, and The New American Garden also by Ottesen. The last is not restricted to grasses but includes other easy to grow plants that , like grasses, do well with minimal maintenance. Grasses are available from several companies that sell perennials and also from specialist nurseries. Limerock Ornamental Grasses, R.D. 1 Box 111 -C, Port Matilda, PA 16870, has an extensive selection at reasonable prices. Kurt Bluemel Inc., 2740 Greene Lane, Baldwin, MD 21013, probably the oldest grass nursery in the country, has even a larger selection, but at higher prices. Seed is also available from various sources, usually listed in the back of the abovementioned books. I think once you try a few of the ornamental grasses, you will, like me, be hooked for life and you won’t be happy until you possess all of the varieties your garden will hold.

've not had a great deal of success growing the blue foliage grasses, although I keep trying. The many varieties of blue fescues do well for me in pots or other containers. They aren t tall grasses, only 6-8 foot tall and as wide but the gray/green foliage is accented well by sedums or sempervivums. I purchased my second Helichtotrichon sempervirens (blue oat grass) last year, and it seems to be languishing as the first one did which died in the middle of the summer. I think it may not like our hot, humid summers. One of the blue grasses that is very easy to grow is Elymus glaucus. Lyme grass is very blue but was too vigorous for our garden . I no longer have it, though I might try it again some day when I have more time and energy to control it. Aside from the fescues, I’ve mostly talked about the taller growing grasses. I also have many of the dwarf plants including some of the sedges, Carex morrowii aureo variegata, the variegated Japanese sedge, and Carex nigra, the black sedge. Mosquito grass (Bouteloua gracilis) is a native prairie grass whose strange flowers resemble mosquito larvae. They’re a standout in small dried arrangements.

SEED SWAP For me, the Autumn season is a time when I go around and gather seeds to save for next year’s planting; with the abundance of rainfall this year in the Southeast I have an abundance of them, I would like to share them with RFD readers. Do you have some seed that you would like to share with fellow readers? If so, please respond by January 31, sending all information to Stv c/o RFD.

A CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS Do you have a favorite gardening technique? Perhaps one that your daddy or grandmother shared with you. How about an especially tasty variety of vegetable, or a flower that would make any neighbor jealous. Write it down and send it to us here at RFD . Even a simple paragraph would be fine; you’d be surprised how much you know when you think about it. Let’s share the wealth!! 21

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HahiuiK Co/or>1 * Gr*nd<*n*. US.I,„7. \ y' ji‘ Si"'' »r5,\ Cru'‘ r S e r > F r a n M to 5 ?i„V .T u b u ta n ,j d C a n a rtra . 0 ,1 R ,‘ Balmorhea. AL/FORNIA t-1 ^ uT'1’ ' jjL u r . fr o s ty Toyahv«i*x% ? D«*«»nboou û|r .A-/,,..C.Z1X1* S e n U'.n,Jâgd a lt.n a * !0 'C h E .'< , ' " d */ ,t. ......... . . $4nftfffiir, CD ^*0*rtotoh T u 'C la r o . J b a n ta A n a a /> r r » o < ftO J •PhitêcttOi rn NORTE " T-bor,^. c^ .» JoTr,"ch*,“—\ Cucurpt.'CyTv<e».,»*Angvstn N aco ian I will be living and teaching in Mexico for a year Cu"'P*\ovA° and will be writing from time to time o f my experiences A*'upr USJ'Chmat,Prat ,Me here. 1 love this land and her country men. 1 feel \ A .B .*c*d,hu* - , *.■ / <L £O 1•Shatter /V° vcv Prandio Everything I ?y blessed to have this sojourn among them. ’♦dro ^. C^h'c° - b.Go\mV vi E lM u la to PARK.' \n > will write is written with a deep sense of admiration A H , U "A *Manuel Pe>k and affection. Even when I may seem to find fault or Mactewo0 -BarranitosBenavides Herrera poke fun, know that I find the Mexican culture far -soroS10 f> ^»i^v Altares U*nodtloi superior to our own in the U.S. in so, so many ways. l c .on.^ To“"*ch,c- vcJ;,•> CtbillojMestehos ^w,/ejS•J erudlim anes 1 fch«c' am here in this country by design and desire. There is * T "d*Sant.ago\ O c a m p o . n Morelos 1 L u y T S u t r i: *TanquedeCund© Morij• . .c,« /n-A/r-.tIt'inn* 'OrBe,„.r^n.Dom‘^ ,V*ciri||o as much we can learn from our brown brothers to the X,,, o^v | .ngu,^.s.u (Sir.Juanito t y c S yXla -Cru* *aruObrrifon l>uachtc. . ~yS LUno a r -ta R o v a '1 * Ro*ar«> / south. Viva!! Mexico!! Viva!! delGutje Cha/to* :sadera rX *r,c>,"' C\'s ntZ£,Tii,„ ^ ia * ic, ..o„a»u... urd acduC amo^ arq/.A o_ •ran,. Ou'-«°: •r.n U ilia •S a tn F a n c o B illa S n F lea.^ V*deCanchot Bo/SOO Nonoav, .1\ Za V aalle d _ _O_bregon^ _ îh-nipa* 1/ lad r g o z a * C O A 1 have traveled in Mexico for many years; this w ill x T.Bq«s.cu«.9»r*‘‘Ui. / . ?| ’^5- Valledef= iiuV ^ “° v E ,0 '°’ ' n9dr0‘be my first experience with living here. Mexico is my ^ ^ •Alamoi alCaerlo l jP P to.l/ —** V illa ener.lC V illa pej______ t_______ .. .I n ^'H u aAU bt e m p o 7 I ----G 7 ~vM *4/ ânB.r* ^lo ^^^w ob erO do ' •TiUm?n«.<l'*Lbbi;o C h otM .a lle t* J.\ O v . ' » C .r n llo Europe: I can’t afford to travel on the continent S»nFranciiodt . .p ' Esc.lor 1 ,1 S TeVrueUs.!^/-^’ . orilos.1,,'., S*,v M V.llAp,., '’bifid^4,. ‘ C°-Or,irfo cities all over Mexico 1 find the charms of France, Spain XXlf-rt,. •-■■-' ' . \0 V \C.b.Uos and Italy. In the mountain villages of Chihuahua I find "Z.t. ' •Ch,''ob*^!>o N \ \ v'**082E CanuSi-..*T t.llcr- '»«*"Wc»fci v Cordoba, * -VillaH.datgo Ci^puei. .Tl.SuiUoiJ. Zi the allure I once enjoyed in Santa Fe and Taos in the "C w .,,s.ne.. “** Vl=*»CA\**■*» f'Tuc. early 1970’s, before New Mexico became an adobe ^^^.dos inde V . I‘ n n tr im % G U ^ : r s^ ' ^ * a • *' V . u ,A°?z%:T&yZx theme park. For me Mexico is magical, filled with a Bu”o'c , .✓ ’•Sirb.v,It,» C o i i\r 1i"'M iUm-ooro iT S.bP,«jroP r°.riu ar‘?*l«!«£Torreon te eb w ‘•I. . -jCi M <xo'to .rtu***0 \G«rM^ro*t*m !G*l«ro*t.n4* ** S.IC.II, C £ dadNL *erd i»r«onf*^J •Mitimo dark, spiritual ambiance ,A,~ ««»«••»• 4ni-W S d « ICord« e«:>j — .. ' - V "'.X **- Pr.< "d°' L *sHcrroros Rodjo^yNu*/Py Mexico is also a place where 1 can ^ " ........ . and to the past here, P.OCO.. yy'l"-‘ iH.li, drelo .c\oriv ^^. *0ga0P\V” V..53O Uirt> . _M Cto oHitO Ui. ItUdrA:'mvi CoL \ •♦. ,.C StM .u f *eV do*fio l»‘ » u „, .C -V v_ Kchilt< I *ElPo»o'' form bonds with native peoples I feel fortunate to D 111 R' A - b ' - N C O .C u e n c 4 m * Guo>ie o< -• 4\V W - Juon .. hudf A tN *--<i^ !!pCu,iacin _.-""*,S u to r 7 ro s. _ SonV,MarUO -■U vIR* *P«o'onBlonco •G have many dear Indian friends and to have been .ft l' Igôcio -O Sonto ^ An ,\i'niifittHrIf'nhL t ^/W 1. Mv•'<‘.CosoioÔ*ft W V rsBro»o-CikiMkn ^Xlitnde welcomed into their lives. At a pure physical level 1 ,/r0 Etd orodc. ®*\ N .colo Mûol oro r,*( ... 1 \k. Fr.ro*<“' Arn.moUdtQjt.rdo '\ C ^'««\ft^C .« A’^r iE AldT or... no=• love Mexico because I’ve always had an attraction to ',rl" P \ DUranoX, /t brown men; here l am in heaven. Walking the streets iSn,0 *C1*T_,U. ^ \o'* \ .loCor-jtonoo .ElFufi •ElSolto a«0,o'% ;ElCo!obo*oI OimSi ^ ^ s»4‘ . an erotic pleasure. In this enchanted land, my dreams ‘.d^P. Ivc ::-P<vVo !*-«*£ .,£•. .Sombrtret. - - vancstc^csK----- L°dte;.. s become reality. S‘ guer0, NJievo r C^J *fq o,tA l A - , —. v, ElO, , rT0 Ce \\ • Pueblo "gu.iii 4s- ’veg M a i a t l a n V •to R o s o v.i».uo'«;! »JosedelCobo Tepic is the capital of the state of Nayarit, on r«i, E' I.itqunn d r l ( ** * d r G i r c i* b X X >\ \o » T • ----- ■ V i l p i r i i i o . S 'n*A * Mexico’s Pacific coast. It takes its name from the Cora ^ H vKjuqw ll* *i Alto. \ 9 ‘S V .™ !, ;s ..L u c ., T tp^ * - «■ Indian words “Nayar” (which is the name of the god of N .v Ilv 'O . * > \ r f ? M „ q u i t « . H u iW C ir. R ru .. - C u L - r l r . . . g M o n . E jco b e d c jADALUPt i war) ant^ “it" (which means “where”). So, Nayarit means Lnyuiui dr S i n t i M ir i * b. loiAivgilis. <9 .11? Hr,a a j , , .C o W lM the place where the god o f war is worshipped, which I I,At,,;, # J- .\»**P -r' 4o > v ^ "= \ , T a basco* / StnJotnito ^ S . n . i . 9 o ) f c « f ' ^ couldn’t be farther from reality, for this is truly an seli/ e l MinUtdtr UK k * n & ’» •* ^P 'C af V '., M*$d4rr.4_ X L enchanted land of peace and brotherhood. I’ve heard T.ui. NocFitlir. v-6 IJikocO I.p,,r„'^.vcoT—* .Vf n. Yiscl ,, m w b w . l Mtr.4CWii . Y Tepic described as the Fargo, North Dakota, of Mexico: • c . , ^ ..... jB** “A nowhere capital of a nowhere state.” It is not fa m o u s \21 N’ vm*,.,. ■yM * for anything, other than a few “also ran” Mexican BuAmrf/ Bitndrrus *'****'«* P u e r to V i l U n t i A m v c i* nnliticians and literary litf»rarv figures, fi« politicians and yet it is, by far, my Y.lipi* .TJpid.AII.na, ■— /J C ElTu«to* '•C hhiP iliA favorite Mexican city. This “nowhere” place is some- 5 5 e citb &tontl4 nocuii* %V^J> . U rC up Tfn A _*vJ Ju*cuhch »itlA UAn ( -c Aysm utli* <c0 ,SS*jKu*i> • where very special to me. li, P1 Jj TomAtUn-ô Un.o\nd«ElTuGrullo \c-, Sly u U . *«i-u ,.. la .. ..j o Pur»f<*c^n. ff?*Autlin-J** J. I* , p, U.i The people here are warm and friendly I feel Ew^<T"‘ *• ^.Fôr c: * " ^ c ^ r ^ comfortable; safe. My school is in El Centro (downtown). Bnh‘ad"r"“CO fV»o*. -I Coîtlin^c' -Pûono, + : C O L I. £ u ; - l walk the cobbled stone streets (too poor to take the Tecomin im A< / ' x IImT'** ûs’ even at ^ cents a ride) through my n e ig h b o rh o o d ^ Co*hu*y*n«-^C _«vcO*T V *.n-.£ 1 ^ * 5 ' P u n ts U n J u s n d t iu ns• o** * f9 “•^pifTT (Colonia Chapultepec) six or more times a day. The First V* Pomar*o^j couple of days I was here, in August, I was greeted Puota S#r TtPno with, “Hey, Gringo," or even worse, “Hey, you!" But I 81* t kept on walking. Finally, one day I taped a little sign on -fA/j“.'to <Jr m A ^w a/r» ^ h O tn u tp , I m s rm r'O '"'*’ — P o i^ i^ V ^ t .. sû,u \ HHUd rlUMiPryarfu ,)!K « ;I.W | <WtoSiiivw. V""‘‘iSkT -S, T ~ . ^ . U l . b . v t « l . • S ifilo Donwnyo ; “ b* P . v li. CayoidtAiboqutrqut Mirngu*; o ► X uT vn* .> *» l&v*ilCO V"hlttJ) v,»if b.v FHi *y. V- • •T ^ r» n « J ,-w- tS— S ^ 0 r _ _ f / ^ ' o „ b '^ l ., iEIBMfIsis ■V«tM Ô '®î, Dirumbi _

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by Leo Spruell Tepic, Nayarit October 3, 1992

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IV.,,,v^ frying, ,r ! >'* v>^4f,t»V , .L.f<4«U o n l< 3 O T n r r r “ \ " V / W'.’KS « J r * _____ 1 > '" '* ' U a r a h a ll • * ' * R“ ‘ ' ° " We visited, ate, and caught up on news of fr ie n d s (tpM my backpack that read, “Mi nombre es Leo no Gringo.” ,ep, I V (d.®**. V ., Now as I walk the city streets I am greeted with a ^ and family. They told me they’re going to have a baby chorus of, “Hola, mi amigo,” “Como esta, Leo?” and t? in March, just before we head into the Sierrasf o r ‘**$JI •£' “Buenos dias, maestro!” After having lived in a small *h* Semana Santa. Julio also told me he had a tio (uncle) do** northeast Texas town for fourteen years where the u’"1 who lives near Tepic who is a shaman, and said he’dl i k e &’«.*** people don’t speak to me and look away when 1 pass ^ to visit him for a treatment and asked if I’d like to g o ^ them on the streets, being here is a joyous treat. along. I did, and my life in Tepic will never be t h e ^("f*?oun3,« '--tfynpHar.. Pana,m.*8*0 a !«n sam e. Sd’rutigw* <p &. ■ ^ **• V, Co-"'?'0" I came to Tepic to teach English and at the same t c* ’e-"** Po* aV S .J O ..P time improve my Spanish. I also came here to be n e a r -St Martin' * „ , the Huichol Indians, who live in the Sierra Madres high j* We rode in a bus a htt,e way out ot lhe c,ty’ *n<J above Tepic. For many years now, I have visited among ^ wa*ked a rocky Path to tbe t0P 0 a corn covere 1 overlooking the valley of Tepic and the mountain, San ' these noble people, and am proud to count m any Juan, sacred to the local Catholics. There, in the center Huichols among my dearest friends and compadres. I of this priceless green view, I found the Huichol rancho am currently collecting Huichol stories and r e te llin g of Sitakua. My heart was happy, for I had found my .them in a book for children. The Huichols are a very quiet place, my center of calm. . special group of people; of all the indigenous tribes in Mexico, they are the least touched by “civilized” culture. I wish 1 could tell you that I’ve experienced many ‘They have a life rich in art, music, ceremony, oral exotic native rituals here (like my experiences in the literature, and harmony. Cora village of Jesus Maria, which I last wrote about in RFD ) but I have not. The village celebrates all of the The Huichols (or, as they call th e m s e lv e s , traditional feast days, such as Eloze (Green Corn) later in Wixarika) live a very traditional life, one centered October. I’ll be here for that and will share my around the seasonal changes o f the earth. Unlike most experiences. But for now my time in the village is spent ’ of the some 62 native groups in Mexico, they have been in establishing a bond: just being. There is a gentle joy ] almost untouched by Catholic, Christian mythology and that comes over me when l visit Agustin (my fn en d s theology. They live in close companionship with the shaman uncle). I am happy just sitting in the patio • gods and goddesses of the earth. Their chief dieties are (yard) of his small adobe hut, leaning against the stick i*the deer, the corn, and the peyote. This inseparable walls of the outdoor kitchen, everyone in my newly 'trinity represents a balance o f the life force: the found family quietly working on some small task: ! energies of male, female, and spirit. But even more cooking, washing clothes, sewing, doing bcadwork or loving and benevolent than this holy junta are the making yarn paintings; chickens andchildren playing at ^oldest of all the gods, Grandfather Fire (Tatewari) and our feet, the Fall breeze rustling in the cornfields th at \ Great Grandmother Growth (Nakawe). Grandfather Fire surround the house. At these moments I am engulfed has been here since before the beginnings. He is the in what the Navajo would call “beauty.” I used to think oldest and wisest of all the shamans (Mara’akames). It that everyone wasquiet because I was there, but I h a v e is he whom the Huichols circle around to hold come to realize that it is the silence that grows out of , ceremonies, to tell stories, to live life. contentment and harmony. _____

It was my thought, when I was planning my year here, that in Tepic I’d be near the Sierra for visiting as often as possible and taking part in the principal yearly ritual fiestas. But now that I’m here. I’ve been hit with the reality that as a teacher I have neither time nor money. The first couple of months, I thought that I would have to be happy with occasional visits from my Huichol friends or chance meetings of Huichols on the streets as they pass through Tepic on the way to sacred sites near the Nayarit towns of .San Bias and Santiago. But once again the magic of the Huichols has happened, and that has all changed for me.

Besides this sweet family, 1 have been touched by someone else very special in the village, my own Don Juan. Again, I'd like to say that he has led me on some ( supernatural journeys like Castanada’s Don Juan, but he has not. My time with Don Juan has been spent in the ^ ^ sharing of simple pleasures. Like me, Don Juan lives alone. When 1 visit him I carry fruit, pan dulce (s w e e t ^ bread), and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. We A , ItU ■■ “ talk; in his relaxed presence I can communicate in*'vlor1n1 i Ce»^ Spanish. I sit on the floor next to him as he creates yarn paintings (another traditional Huichol art form), n listening to him tell of their symbolic meanings. He 2ft «•*«««

plays his violin and my heart sings. One of the sweetest One weekend recently, two very dear Huichol pleasures of being in Don Juan’s casita is taking a nap. friends, Julio and Gregoria, came to visit me. They When I stretch out on his hard bed, smelling the smells Crt® ____ ______ brought with them a typical Huichol man’s o u tfit of him, hearing him puttering around in the house, they’ve been embroidering on for over a year. It was feeling the damp Nayarit breeze blow across me, I am c*.u*» my final fitting. Also among the treasures they brought Miidn beaded ucaucu Huichol man. (The Huichols are transported. In the little house of Don Juan I am in that was a<1 small 'amous for their art, one form of which is small carved g realm my Baptist preacher daddy used to talk about itatues which are covered in bee’s wax and thenwith a 7 from the Bible, in that place of Go speace w ic is ayer of colorful, symbolic designsin seed beads.) T h ey , /b eyon d human understanding." For an ail too brief^ tlso introduced me to the Huichol world of Tepic. m o m e n t^ know that peace. A r >

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Not all of us were were born in the country. Many arrived here to seek freedom from the constraints put on us by city life and to seek a simplicity that allows us to become more self- sufficient. For some it was easy; for others it was difficult and ended after a short struggle to the safety of a thermostatically controlled apartment.

A VI EW F R O M THE B A R N M ortim er

Goes

by Richard Lloyd

M arket

Ten years ago, Grant and I arrived on our twenty-five acres west of town at about the same time as two women friends of ours took up homesteading on the other side of the city. While this move has put us some 60 miles apart and separated by an abyss called a city. We do manage to get together once a year and share horror stories. More recently these have not been as much horror as they have been reflective, for which we have become very at ease w'ith in our daily lives. Everyone alighting on his first patch of ground outside o f the city must go through the sa m e transformation. You know, the one of trying to grow everything and be as self-sufficient as possible. Later the self-sufficient must give way to self-efficient if one is to survive. We can never get together with a group without telling about the first time Ann and Sue decided to raise their first hog. Sue had been raised in the country and this was not such a big deal, but for Ann, she gave it her all. Mortimer and Ann became great friends as he grew to market size. There was no doubt that Ann had become very fond of Mortimer and one could almost sense a mutual feeling in him. In an ever-ending effort to find a cheap food supply for Mortimer, Ann went to a local creamery and found that she could pick up free whey. The only requirement would be that she bring her own containers. In theback of the barn she found two dirty 55 gallon-drums that looked like just what she needed.After spending two days scrubbing and cleaning the drums, she set off for the creamery to get her first installment for Mortimer. She had carefully strapped the drums in the back of her 72 pickup and the guys at the creamery were more than helpful in filling them to capacity. Ann started home with her find, wanting to see how Mortimer would like her great gift. About that time Ann drove back from town after spending the day shopping for supplies. Rounding the corner to the dirt road to their farm, she noticed what seemed to be a white marker on the side of the road. Survey crews, she thought. Now they were going to get the road improvements they needed before winter set in. Turning into the driveway she noticed that the marker also turned and lead right to the rear end of their old pickup where Ann w as cussing a blue streak. The barrels were not all that watertight and most of the product had leaked out into the bed of the pickup and over the rear bumper to the ground below. When the time came for Mortimer to go off to be processed, Ann became visibly upset. They were to

pick him up the first thing in the morning, so Ann went out the evening before to say goodbye to Mortimer. She had a bottle of beer with her and sat down to talk to him. For old time’s sake she poured part of her beer in a pan and Mortimer took to it lik e it was his last. Ann, seeing his fondness for the product, returned a few minutes later with a six-pack. The two of them killed it and decided to tap into a half-gallon of wine stashed under the pantry for special occasions. By the time Sue arrived home she found Ann out at the fence with Mortimer. Ann was smashed and Mortimerwas not much better. He was leaning against the same fencepost as Ann, and both seemed as if they had just celebrated Super Bowl Sunday. Needless to say, when they came to pick up M ortim er the following morning, Ann was not around. She did not want to see the departure of her drinking buddy. Sue, being the efficient person she is known to be, later picked up Mortimer and brought him home in little white wrappers. Ann, not knowing of Mortimer’s arrival, opened the freezer door to find it full. Pulling out the first package, she found “Mortimer’s Liver” carefully written on the wrapper. Ann went flying into the living room crying, “How could you have done this?” Sue tells us that they have no further plans for raising their own pork and find it much easier to purchase what they need from a case at the meat m arket. Actually, Annhas recovered from her experience and is doing quite well. We ran into Ann and Sue at a fundraising event in their area. Ann was off in the corner talking to one of the old local farmers about hog prices. He said that the market had fallen out of the price, and she told him that she knew just how he felt, as she herself had cut back production this year.

There is something of the comfort of a steaming cup of cocoa in taking cock in hand and gently beating up a frothy bowl of cream In Just a few more strokes â&#x20AC;&#x201D; as all the cookbooks caution youâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; your knees will turn to butter.

BEHIND CLOSED DOORS All my skin dreams what the room dreams. I name the auras of your boyhood, the fluted years that carved you to a man. Your mouth settles around me, sucks the steady bump of blood to its perfect secret. You fill my hand, power moist at the lips. I'm something dizzy as leaves, night whining in the wild lights, the will roaming alone in them,

DECEMBER PAINTING 7:30 a.m./daylight the full moon was still apparent/God's orb pasted on dawn's face all around the bottom edge the sky was delicately tinged a timid springtime violet i was rushing to work trying to memorize those frightened colors

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H ath aw ay

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COME WINTER The sun is sulking And I Can sense the brooding Of the sky. The clouds are planning Up a scheme To wake the summer From its dream.

M ich ael H ath aw ay

C h risto p h e r T h o m a s

P. 27

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GREENMOUNT CEMETERY ST. PATRICK’S DAY, 1990 (This poem is dedicated to Joseph Horan, a person with AIDS with whom I "trudged the road of happy destiny" for awhile. He died sober the day after Christmas, -9 ?• In the mausoleum I say hello to you and it is strange— this is something I've never done before. I remember raking leaves for my father, as a child, sweating and smelling sweet ground and dying foliage and then the fire and smoke blowing down our hill and being treated with an ice cream cone but treated more by just having my father's approval. We share that, don't we, that search for a father’s love, I saw that in you when your dad arrived, who was then more helpless, he or you, and you did your best to thank him for making that visit and in your eyes there was such thanksgiving, happiness and pleasure and you could die then in peace knowing he loved you. I remember, walking the country road to a cutoft marked "deadend" "no treaspassing" "keep out" and following the dusty dirt mysterious forbidden path through woods for maybe a mile before it broke out above a cl.:f and it was a "lover's lane" filled with old beer cans, condoms, crushed cigarette packages and past the cliff was the river where I learned to swim and there with the used rubbers I wanted so much to be an adult not knowing how horrible that could be, not knowing anything about heartbreak or death and it started to get dark and again I broke into a sweat but this time out of fear since I had to make that mile back and I started to walk fast and then to run. You didn't talk much about being young. I remember finding you so attractive I wrote in my journal that T'd seen this man at a meeting and vowed I would get to know him and then a few weeks later there you were smiling from across another AA meeting, smiling at me, and I gave you a ride home and accepted your offer to come up for coffee. Nothing prepared me for the epidemic, nothing from school or church or community could, I guess, have prepared you or me. I had lost my father and as a teenager after that I tried taking my own life once, but to be in love with a dying man and to want him so badly even with the risk, no I was not ready for that and you were not ready for me, were you?

Joe S tew a rd

THE ZOO

L a u ren ce W . T h o m a s

The zoo was crowded that day and I hadn't shaved. Two seals lay looking like two old men in bed with which observation I was shocking my friend when our eyes met. I stared too long and frightened the glance away and the brown seal barked in anger at not being able to rest his head on the tan seal. I looked again and there it was But more shy, wary of eagerness And more interested in the spider monkeys. The bison smelled. The deer smelled. The hippopotamus smelled And lay half submerged in dirty water. Only one sad-eyed bird sat still and the bird house smelled and was crowded that day and I hadn't shaved.

ON THE DEEP MASCULINE If men no no longer no longer grenades,

PLUM BOY

longer ran this ravished world, tyrannized with hostile will, punched or tackled, built or hurled no longer killed or taught to kill;

could I then feel enraptured, if restraint replaced the power of his urgent force? adore instead a pliant, gentle saint, a caring equal in our intercourse? If man no longer ruled the human race, I still would have him sitting on my face.

M .S. M o n tg o m e r y

SNOW

G ra n t M ich a el M en zies

Last night the dark winds pulled a scarf of snow And wound it round the throats of darker trees. I knew it, for the wind had told me so; It told me many stories. One of these Presented one so very like myself That I could scarcely tell the two between; And this self waited till the stroke of twelve, Until the house was dark and shadows seen. Until a foot-tread creaked, the handle turning, In answer to a question asked in fear, And asked from all the drowning depths of yearning, As one had never ventured nor could dare. As came the snow, in silence of the night, So entered beauty, where none was before, Betrayed at dawn by hills of quiet white, And your soft steps outside my open door.

CREW

D avid F aas

Plum boy on the golden limb, He ripens to the songs of parrots, Free-throated, feathered green, Calling in the noon. He fears plucking Leads to bruising. You can look but not touch His dark, husky beauty. You can breathe but not taste His cool nectar.

if men gave up dominion over those who cherish chest hair; if they learned to sweep and vacuum, bake our bread and wash our clothes if men could speak their love or dare to weepâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;

R ob ert V. P a lm e r , Jr.

his milky muscles move as we come to a fetal position then thrust our bodies back again: legs flexed in front, feet strapped in place. his hair line lures with each methodic motion bringing chests down between knees. then thrust our bodies back again : all eight men frozen in a line of obtuse angles as the thin boat glides. i feel the ocean against my oar. his shoulders roll like pearls wrapped in silk.

Jeffrey

W alker

strange resistance as I tried to move him closer to the bed. I noticed it then. Dad's fingers were pretty well jammed up behind the hard black rubber wheel and the side of the seat frame. When I pulled his hand free with a couple of tugs he smiled and I kissed his forehead. Sal came home from work shortly after that. He asked me about the blood that had dripped dry along Dad's knuckles. It was especially thick along the exposed curvature of his cuticles. I told him I didn't know anything about it. "I don't know. Maybe he jammed them in the wheel of his chair." He didn't question it further. "You're such a fuckin' retard, Andrew." Sal opened the antique tobacco stand beside the chair that Mom used to sit in to sew. Inside, I could see the color of tangerine thread reflected off the walls of tin lining. Mom used to use it to sew everything. It's color had been so striking along the hem line of all her brown skirts. Each exactly the same, thin polyester cut from a large roll of Dad's favorite brown, her birthday present the summer she caught me laying on the kitchen floor sliding a carrot up ray ass. Even my black winter coat had one of its wooden buttons dotted four times by her tangerine thread. I guess it was her favorite color. Sal kept his pot tray there, right on top of the pin cushion and thread remnants still knotted in twos. Every day shortly after he got home, he took it out, and I would hear the sound of the small, metal tray scraping across the little, round pin heads. The sound always brought a wave of nausea through me, then an intense craving for meat. Something primal. Salty. Like the crispy soft ellipse of fat pustules darkening the edge of a thin cut pork chop. I could almost taste it, feel the greasy discharge running down the back of my throat. I'd mix a glass of diet seven-up with fruity Kool-Aid.

I told Dad how whenever Sal was fucking me my head filled with sounds from tv. The music from Final Jeopardy, the clicking spin from the Wheel of Fortune or the teletype clacking in the channel seven news intro. I don't know why I suddenly told him. It'd been happening for almost five years. He just smiled, like he always did when I talked to him. I'm not sure if he understood me at all. The story was incomplete. I probably should have told him what happened the night before. The chicken. When Sal was fucking me I kept thinking about the chicken carcass I was boiling down for a soup. He was making so much noise I couldn't hear it bubbling against the filmy vision-ware. "Yeah. Take that cock. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah." I was afraid that all the water had steamed away. Sal was fucking me and I kept telling myself, "Don't forget to get up and turn off the stove when Sal's done." When I went downstairs to the kitchen, I realized I was mistaken. I opened the avocado side-by-side and pulled the six pound ovenroaster free from the ice. I placed it to thaw in the fridge beside the jars of Dad's baby food and his juice cup. Still, Dad smiled when I told him the story. Even without the chicken. Later on, he fell asleep in his wheel chair while I was rereading him the letter Mom had sent me a couple months before. He usually liked the paragraph about the weather in Florida being so "congenial." Sometimes I'd skip the part that had her recipe for meat and catsup pie. Either way, he'd always smile. I rolled his chair back away from the window and pushed it forward in a circular motion left. I didn't notice that his hand was dangling off the arm rest and his fingers were sort of wedged in the wheel spokes. I felt a 30

Sal would roll a joint sitting at the foot of Dad's bed. I'd spin the lettuce or stir-fry zucchini or pull the newspaper out of Sal's jacket and read my horoscope. Usually by the time Sal had smoked half a joint, I could tell he was really stoned. From the other room I would hear him going on and on to Dad. He loved to talk to Dad about Richter, especially when he was stoned. He'd talk and talk and slowly finish the joint. Richter worked with both Dad and Sal until they opened Dad's head to take out the tumor. He and Dad used to golf together too, but they never really liked each other. The first time Dad lost to Richter, it was like he lost everything - and he's never got it back. Driving home from the public course he had realized that Mom was at blame. She was the one who took my beatings. She was the one he screamed "faggot" at when he'd come home drunk. She was the one who went black and blue and brown while I just got pinker and pinker. She was the reason he lost his manhood to Richter. And she knew it. Sal on the other hand worshipped Richter. I could tell by the way he always talked about what an asshole Richter was. Richter this and Richter that. He was always talking about Richter: "Fuckin' Richter." He loved hating him so much, I started to feel really jealous. I felt left out. When dad got Sal the job at the appliance store I should have been happy. I knew Dad was trying to accept Sal, "the man who was fucking his fairy son." Richter was one of those straight men you were never really sure about even though you were. He didn't want Sal, but he definitely liked knowing Sal was checking out his ass when he bent over to display the s e l f -cleaning ovens. Sometimes I'd bring a big bag of lunch for the three of them. Salads, sandwich triangles, baggies of Cheez-its, and Little-Debbie snack cakes. "I've gotta take a ride. Man's work," Richter would say to me through gritted teeth. "Wanna come Sal?" he'd offer to him, right at me, as I was pulling out floral paper napkins rolled around knives and forks. "Sure." Sal always went. I'd be left alone with Dad until some old woman came in to ask questions about her dishwasher warranty. The last time I brought them lunch was the last time. Dad wasn't around, and as I walked through the door Richter was standing there with his dick hanging out of his fly and his hand wrapped around its thickness. "Sal already ate," he said. I looked at Sal. Sal stared at Richter. Richter laughed at me. I left. I didn't cry. The whole walk home I thought about Mom. I felt her walking beside me. Proud of me for wearing the bruises this time. I felt close to Mom, now that she was a thousand miles away. I took over her job when she left. Took the black and blue when she couldn't take any more. The everything. Almost invisible. Brown. The things I did, I was unnoticed unless I neglected to do them. When Dad's brain went, I gave him mine. My body too. That's when Sal moved in. Routine made more sense with the three of u s . I liked to wheel Dad around the neighborhood cul-de-sac. I did this every night after dinner. The neighbors had all been

complaining to the town about the condition of the road pavement. Winter plows had pretty much torn up the ends of every driveway. Dad liked the bumps and potholes. It seemed to be his greatest joy. When we'd leave the house along the ramp into the absurdly dark garage, I would already feel him smiling. I'd push the button. "Here we go Dadddy-o!" The electronic door would slowly raise, revealing the light of dusk beyond the driveway. Moving to the cusp of the driveway slope. "Weeee! Hold on!" I would push him toward the road's edge and shuffle my feet along the dark black sealant so it sounded like we were going real fast. "Oh. Oh no. Oh!" I would ease across the pitted surface at the driveway's end, pulling back on the beige handle grips enough to jostle Dad a bit across the vinyl seat. "Whoo. That was close." I 'd step around to look at Dad with my own mocking excitement. Usually there'd be a long thread of drool dangling from the center of his lower lip. Beneath his fluttering eyelids the brown would roll back to white. Then he'd fall asleep. I'd glance at the peeling facade of the house. I could always see Sal through the low picture window in the living room. His silhouette loosing focus beyond the dirty, white sheers Mom had hung years ago. The tv light flickering black and white Jeopardy against an edge of his shape. Chicken soup. Twice around the cul-de-sac. Like a dog spinning on an uncertainty, then resigning to rest. A

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by J o n n y T o w n s e n d °p. O N ~N I Fc A N D (> l<? T D "Okay, okay, so you got a black eye. I'm sorry. But this is different. And you know how much w e need that money." I sighed and pulled Ronald closer against m y chest. "All right," I said. "But I'm scared. I know p eople get away with this all the time, but this is us. I don't want to go to jail." "Maybe they'll put us in the sam e cell together. Think of the fantasies we could act out." The first burglary went well. The occupants w ere gone and had either taken their d og with them or didn't have one after all. We took the stereo, the VCR, the microwave, and a radio, leaving the tv. W e certainly didn't want to be m ean or anything. Just as we w ere leaving though, Ronald gasped. "What? What's wrong?" I whispered. "Look!" He pointed to a glass cabinet filled with china and crystal. "We can't sell that stuff, can we?" I asked doubtfully. "Oh, I don't want to? I want to keep it!" "Ronald! You know we're not doing this for us. I only agreed because we said all the m oney would go to charity." "Oh, all right." Ronald looked a m om ent longer at the case. "Yeah, you're right. I'm sorry." But still he looked. "Come on. Let's get out while w e can" "We couldn't take just one piece of crystal?" he asked. "Kind of as a commission?" We sold the appliances without any problem and immediately divided the m oney into three piles. W e sent the first of it off to North Carolina to fight Jesse Helms, the second pile to the ACT UP group in N ew York, and the last of the m oney to Greenpeace. We sent it anonymously, of course, not wanting to take credit for m oney that wasn't ours, and also not wanting yet to attract attention. My tips as a

"Hey, Clyde," said m y lover, looking up dreamily into my face after we m ade love, "you want to b e Friar Tuck or Maid Marion?" "I can't be Robin Hood?" I asked. "No. I'm Robin Hood," h e said. Ronald had always liked to ch oose his role first. If we went out for Mardi Gras as a Confederate couple, I'd be the soldier and he'd be the belle. His brown hair came down to his shoulders, so he was really the better choice, and he practiced how to sit so that his bloom ers wouldn't show. Sure, he had a moustache, but at least he didn't have a beard as I did. Every time we'd go out together in costume, his was always larger or fancier than mine, one that would get the most attention. As slavemaster and slave, he was the slave because he got to wear more accessories. He was the sheep (on two legs) and I was the shepherd. He'd be the dragon's head and I'd be the tail. It didn't matter if he could be recognized. H e just wanted to be seen. Even when we went as ourselves to a party or out shopping or whatever, he was the one who wore the T-shirts saying, "We are not just good friends" or "Nobody knows I'm gay."

We'd met while walking in opp osite directions on Royal Street in the French Quarter. We eyed each other, with Ronald weanng a National Coming Out Day T-shirt, and then he cam e up to me and said, "I have a family reunion this weekend and refuse to go alone. Would you go with me?" Ever since then, I saw him do whatever pop p ed into his head, especially if it was show y or bizarre in som e way. And now a new idea had just pop p ed in. "So, Robin," I said to Ronald, "when do w e start stealing from the rich?" "Next Friday," he said. "I overheard two wom en talking while I w as making groceries in Schwegmann's. One said she was leaving town next weekend I followed her to her house There's a sign that says 'Beware of Dog,' but she didn't buy any d og food, and I didn't hear any d og when she opened the door." "Just the same, you go in first." “Don't you trust me?" "Well, there's that time your brother cam e to town..." "That's not fair. How was I supposed to know you couldn't tell us apart in the dark?” "Maybe if you'd just rem em bered to tell m e he was com ing to visit-" 38

waiter at La Peniche were not that good, and certainly Louisiana was not the place to b e if Ronald wanted to earn very much m oney as an elem entary school teacher. Besides we were still saving up for Ronald to go to law school. He'd graduated with a 3.9 in English before getting his teaching certification and had b eco m e m ore interested in law over the 3 1 /2 years we'd been together. Something about knowing that just being married to each other could put us in prison for five years kept him continually thinking about the law! Our next three burglaries, every tw o weeks apart, were in different neighborhoods since we didn't want the police to start patrolling any one area to o heavily. W e again stuck to things w e could sell easily, and we divided the m oney up three ways each time, sending the m oney to different organizations for each burglary. The soup kitchen Uptown got som e m oney, as did Project Lazarus (the PWA hospice in town), A m nesty International, the Salvation Army, the NO/ AIDS Task Force, a national cancer research organization, a "foster parents" group helping children in Central America, the Helen Keller institute (which had recently begun showing touching com m ercials of helping remove cataracts from the eyes of the p oor in Third World countries), and ACT UP/ San Fransisco. W e also put aside eight dollars of our own m oney each week, but that didn't go very far toward our donations. I started really to believe we had to steal if we were ever going to help these groups. I remem bered when I w as seven, I had wanted to do something special for my Dad's birthday. I saved up for two whole months, picking up pennies and nickels I found on the street, watering the neighbors' flowers for a nickel, saving up my tooth fairy money, and anything else I could scrape up, and I bought m y Daddy the best collection of bubble gum and baseball cards available for 82 cents. I knew m y Daddy watched baseball all the time. He'd not only like the cards, but he'd see h ow much I loved him since I wasn't just letting Mom write m y nam e on her gift. When I saw the packages of cards in the trash the next day, unopened, I realized that p eop le lied when they said, It s the thought that counts." I knew my Daddy could never be satisfied with an eighty-two cent gift. It took real m oney to make people happy. I had learned a little m ore about giving in the years since then, but I'd seen little to change my mind. A few select people could be satisfied easily, but to give anything worthwhile for m ost really did take m oney - m oney I never had. Just once I wanted to give som ething meaningful.

"Where did you get that?" I snatched it up and looked closely at it. "I slipped it in my jacket pocket at the last house." He looked at m e pleadingly. "It was just to o pretty." I threw the goblet into the sink, where it crashed with a crackling roar in the 3:30 a m. stillness. "Why did you do that ?" Ronald shouted.. "No stealing for us!" I said, trying to keep m y voice low. "We won't steal for us!" Ronald shut his mouth firmly and headed for the bathroom. I heard a lock click as he closed the door. There was an "I'm sorry" card on m y pillow the next evening, and Ronald set aside an extra ten dollars that week of his own money. The next two houses w e burglarized let us contribute to research for autistic children, the Sierra Gub, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, multiple sclerosis, the Louisiana Gay Political Action Caucus, and Covenant House, (a group which helped teenage runaways). W e both com piled lists of possible organizations to donate to, and every day the list grew longer

"We'll be breaking into houses for another year just to give to each group o n c e " Ronald m oaned "Should we stop spreading out the m oney and focus on helping one group really achieve something?" 1 asked "But which one? D oes a child in Sri Unka deserve to eat, or does a blind woman in M orocco deserve to see? Does a child in Kentucky deserve to read, or do two consenting adults deserve to love each other? How do we make a decision like that?" So w e decided to keep splitting up the money. We almost decided to burglarize more hom es, but though we were getting better and faster at it, we realized we were still very much amateurs, and we continued getting more and more nervous at every siren we heard, even when we didn't have any stolen goods in our possession. I remembered another time I was a kid, and the son of a school board member used to steal my lunch m oney once a month. He said he was saving to buy a larger tank for his fish. One time, the guy was facing m e with his hand outstretched, and looking over his shoulder, I could see the teacher approaching. I stalled as long as possible so the teacher could catch the bully in the act, but another kid called to her at the last second, and the m oney was in the guy's pocket. He realized then what I'd been up to and punched m e in the stomach, but he never did get caught. His luck kept on throughout that long, miserable year Ronald and I had also been incredibly lucky, for a good while now. I knew it couldn't hold out much longer. But it did for seven more houses and twenty one more contributions. We doubted any of these groups would condone our methods; I began wondering myself if it was really fair for m e to force people to make these donations. In a free country, didn't people have the right not to be nice? Over three years Ronald and I had contributed $1,100 of our earnings to various groups and also donated time to mailings, protests, letter writing and a walkathon. We always tried to encourage others to get involved, but if they didn't, that was their right. Were they ob/igatecjas people,

Hopefully, w e wouldn't be caught for a while yet. A week after our last burglary, I w oke up in the middle of the night and found that Ronald was not in bed. I saw a 'â&#x2013; ght on in the kitchen and went to g o see if he was feeling okay. When I reached the kitchen door, I stopped and stared. "What is that?" I dem anded. Ronald was sitting at the able with his chin on his hands, leaning forward and staring at a crystal goblet. "Isn't it pretty?" he asked. 39

"They're preserving history," I said. "Isn't that important, too?” "Yes, but look at that bed — $10,000. Think of what we could d o with $10,000." "If I have to think of m oney another minute, I'll scream." We walked hom e through the Quarter and into the Marigny — crossing the street once when w e saw a suspicious looking guy — and then we watched tv until w e fell asleep. Another m onth went by during which I tried not to think at all and w as fairly successful. Before I knew it, our fourth anniversary w as approaching, and I had som ething to occupy m y mind. What should I give Ronald for our anniversary? A piece of crystal? A contribution m ade in his name? An agreement to start up with the burglaries again? What would he want, that I could live with as well? Most of our friends had stopped seeing us over the past few months. Since w e wouldn't allow ourselves luxuries like popcorn or m ovies or going out dancing we becam e rather boring to them, I suppose. Perhaps it was because we stopped being able to talk about tv shows or what Bob had said about Jerry last week, or what Ricky Graham did in his last skit at The Parade. Maybe it was because we were no longer planning new Mardi Gras costum es as they were. Or m aybe it was because we couldn't even talk about the weather anymore All w e could talk about was supporting causes. So w e didn’t have to worry about including friends in our anniversary celebration. About a week before our anniversary, as I was working at the restaurant, a group of six guys from the Gay Men's Chorus cam e in after rehearsal for a late dinner. They were laughing and joking and talking loudly, attracting the attention of the other patrons. As I set a dish down in front of a man sitting by himself against a wall, he smiled up at me and nodded toward the table of six men. "I love com ing here on Tuesday nights," he said. "Those guys always look so happy. It makes m e feel good." I nodded briefly in response and returned to the kitchen, but I couldn't get the com m ent out of my mind. My shift ended too late for m e to risk walking home, so I took a cab Ronald was already in bed, of course, and as I crawled in beside him, I whispered, "It is you, isn t it, Ronnie? You're not your brother, are you?" "No, but I'll give you a black eye anyway for waking me up." "Oh, I'll make it worth your while." I started rubbing his thigh. "It's too late Can't w e do this in the morning?" But I knew what to do and kept him up for another hour. He finally rested in my arms with a contented sigh. The next day I bought an "I love you" card for Ronald and left it on his pillow. "What’s that for?" he asked. "You could have just told me. You didn't have to ’ •

owning 15 m ovie videos, to help a 23 year old wom an enter to a drug rehabilitation program before she gave birth to another baby? People were going to be robbed anyway, I told myself. At least we were using the m oney for a good cause. One evening, w e went to the Pitt to see a movie, but I could hardly concentrate. On the way home, Ronald tried to talk about the movie, but I didn't respond. Finally, I said, "How can w e justify going to see a m ovie if w e are stealing

"Still." We were quiet the rest of the way home, but w e stopped going to dollar m ovies and stopped going to the bars once a week as w e had done to meet fnends. We raised our own donations by $5 a week, plus put a little more aside each week for law school. The sooner Ronald becam e an attorney, the sooner he'd have m oney to donate Two more burglanes and six charities later, even though we were only eating generic food by this time with no treats, were watching tv in the dark, (dunng the few hours each week we felt the program was good enough to warrant the electricity), and were not using the air conditioner despite the increasingly warm days of late Spnng I felt guiltier than ever about stealing from people. When another waiter at the restaurant told m e his house had been burglarized, I felt so angry I almost yelled at a customer who took too long to make up his mind. "Let's lay off for a while," I told Ronald when I went home, intending to stop com pletely but afraid he wouldn t go for the idea without a little weaning first. "We still have two whole pages of charities w e haven't gotten to yet." "They can wait." "But what if som eon e dies of leukemia becau se we waited? What if "They can wait. Let's lay off for awhile.” But I did wonder Whatjf we could help by giving just that last amount needed to make a breakthrough somewhere? Well, if it was that close, within a week other people would have m ade up for our small missing donation And yet, it wasn't fair for m e to put the burden on others and just wash my hands of it. 1 felt guilty no matter what 1 did I escaped my thoughts by reading two used paperbacks 1 indulgently bought at a garage sale for twenty-five cents each. I found a quarter on the sidewalk and felt I could splurge Three weeks went by without any burglaries (of our own, that is). On one of the nights when we w ould normally have broken into som eone's home, w e felt so restless that we had to get out, and w e took a walk through the Quarter, looking in the w indow s of antique shops on Royal Street "Look at that crystal," said Ronald, pointing. "Nice." We looked at the set of glasses on a dark w ooden table "And look at that oil painting." I pointed. "Ooh " We walked to another shop. And then to another And then to yet another "$2000 for that little table," said Ronald, pointing. "I see it." "How can p eop le pay that when others are starving?" 40

"What?" He stopped and stared at me. "I want to help, and I'm going to help, but isn't the key word Tielp? It isn't 'solve'. Weren't w e bom to live, not to give up our lives? Is it so wrong just to want to live?" "You're being selfish. It's natural to be selfish, but we've got to rise above that." "How many p eople have we helped?" "I don't know. N ot enough." "How m any have w e hurt?"

I said nothing, but the next day, I left another card on his pillow. "What are you doing?" he asked. I appreciate it, but you better not leave on e each day up until our anniversary. I'd rather you put the m oney in our fund." But I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t. I left a different card every day, and though Ronald looked disgusted at first, he didn't complain anymore, seem ing resigned. Trying to decide on a gift, I remembered the Christmas after my Dad had lost his job. He and Mom went to the Thrift Center to buy clothes for my brother and me. My Mom had a friend at church who worked for Hershey and got all the old candy, so w e each received a stocking full of Halloween candy. I didn't bother anymore getting gifts for my Dad, and I wrote a poem for my Mom. It was not the "magical" Christmas of poverty people claim is so wonderful and special, but it was okay. We took a long walk in the cool air to look at Christmas lights, and Mom told us stories about Christmas when she was a kid. When w e got hom e, w e found that som eon e had been in the house while w e were out. The tv was gone, along with my Dad's rifle and my Mom's costum e jewelry. Mom sat down and cried and Dad drove off som ewhere. My brother and I just looked at each other, and then I handed Mom one of m y candy bars. She looked at me, cried som e more, then took the candy bar and headed for the kitchen. We spent the next hour breaking up candy bars and making chocolate chip cookies. I couldn't figure out what that was su p p osed to tell m e in deciding on a gift for Ronald, so I finally gave up and just got a gift. On M onday even in g our anniversary, I suggested we stop in briefly at a couple of bars, just to say hi to people. "Okay," said Ronald, "but only for a few minutes. If we spend any m oney, I'll start looking for our next house to hit.â&#x20AC;? We stayed out for a half hour. As I looked around at everybody drinking and laughing, I noticed how different the scene looked from the way I remembered it. These people had smiles on their faces, but m any of them didn't really seem very happy, and being here in the bar didn't seem to be making them any happier, either. Maybe we'd m ade the right choice after all. We certainly weren't the happiest people in the world, but at least w e had a sense of purpose. That had to count for something. For m ore than sitting at a bar drinking because you didn't want to b e at home. "Come on, let's go," I said after a while, and Ronald agreed immediately. We walked past another bar on our way home, and there was a group of several guys laughing as they cam e out of the bar, a few still holding drinks. A single, grim looking man went in. "God, he looks pained," said Ronald as we walked on. Maybe he was, I thought. Maybe he really did need companionship this evening Maybe he even just needed sex, or simply to feel the life in the p eop le next to him, so he could realize that he was alive, too. Surely, there were other needs b esid es food and medicine? Didn't quality of life count for anything? But then, wasn't being able to read, or having cataracts rem oved exactly the kind of thing that brought quality of life to people, too? "I bet these people could have just as much fun organizing a protest rally together, or working at the Task Force," said Ronald. "They'd still be able to m eet people, and they'd be doing som ething useful, too." "Is it wrong to just relax?" I asked. "Is that really such a sin? Isn't that a legitimate need, too?" "How can we sit back and have a g o o d time when people are suffering and dying all around us?" I thought for a m om ent before answering. "Because maybe we'll die if w e don't."

Ronald's face grew hard and he started walking again. "We haven't hurt anyone." "How do you know? Maybe som eone we robbed was trying to fight cancer Maybe we crushed his spirits and instead of going into remission, his cancer kept progressing Maybe som eone was just on the edge between doing som ething good or som ething bad, and we pushed him over to the bad. Maybe "Maybe, maybe, maybe. Maybe we just took som e m oney from people w ho needed to be giving to charity instead of enjoying life all by them selves and ignonng other people's pain. Maybe they needed to feel a little pain of their own." "Maybe so," I said. "But why is it wrong for others to inflict pain but okay for us?" "Because we're helping m ore p eop le than we hurt." "So the end justifies the means?" "Yes!" "So in order to prevent the spreader of AIDS, w e should quarantine everyone who is HIV positive? 'ITiat's a good end, isn't it? Think of the millions of lives we could save." "That's different, and it isn't practical anyway." "And our ability to cure every disease and feed every hungry person is?" We walked the next several blocks in silence, neither of us still wanted to speak, even at home. Ronald went off to the bedroom and I opened the hall closet to get out his gift. I knew he wouldn't like it, that I'd m ade the wrong choice, and I wondered if this would be our last anniversary together Perhaps that was best. I did love him, and I admired his conviction, but I just didn't think 1 could live like this any longer. I wasn't strong enough, or good enough, or whatever it was that it took to d o it But was I just being selfish7 Was it good for m e to be with Ronald so I could learn to sacrifice more? Didn't people b ecom e great through sacrifice? What was I supposed to do? I sat a the kitchen table, staring at the wrapped box in front of me. Maybe I should put it back Maybe â&#x20AC;&#x201D; The bedroom door opened and Ronald cam e out with a plain box in his hands He set it on the table next to the other, but neither of us said a word. We must have sat there in silence about ten minutes before he slowly pulled his gift over to himself and halfheartedly pulled off the paper In the box were two crystal goblets. Ronald looked at them carefully for a moment, slowly put them in the cabinet, and then went back to the bedroom I sat for a few more minutes and then opened my package. Inside was a note signed the day before which said, "111 do anything you want m e to do." I looked toward the bedroom door That note was still 41

continued on page 43

a r r o w to th e e le v a t o r . He t h in k s o f th e y e llo w b r ic k ro a d le a d in g to Oz. H is s o n w o u ld l i k e th a t, b u t h e q u ic k ly p u ts it o u t o f h is m in d . In th e e le v a t o r h e r e c a lls a tim e d u r in g th e B ic e n te n n ia l. E dd ie in v it e d h im o v e r to h is a p a r tm e n t f o r d in n e r . T h e e v e n in g w a s a d is a s t e r . A y o u n g m a n w a s w it h E dd ie, h is r o o m m a te . A n d e v e n th o u g h h e d o e sn t r e m e m b e r th e b o y ’s n a m e, a ll h e th o u g h t w as: h e ’s to o p r e t ty , j u s t to o p r e t ty . He l e f t in th e m id d le o f th e m e a l w ith E dd ie y e llin g a t h im , "You d o n ’t w a n t to k n o w a b o u t me." F o r a f e w y e a r s t h e y d id n ’t s p e a k to e a c h o th e r . T h e y f i n a l ly s a w o n e a n o th e r a t th e fu n e r a l o f E d w a rd ’s fa t h e r . A f t e r th a t th e y e s t a b lis h e d a g u a r d e d c lo s e n e s s . T h e y m e t fo r lu n c h a t r e s p e c ta b le r e s ta u r a n ts , a n d e v e n g a v e e a c h o th e r r e s p e c ta b le h u g s. E ddie n e v e r in v it e d h im to h is h o m e , a n d o n ly to ld h im h o w b u s in e s s w a s w ith h is b o o k s to r e .

1 0 0 3 is g o in g to b e a good y ea r , E dw ard t h in k s to h im s e lf. His b u s in e s s is b oom in g, and th e R e p u b lic a n s a r e in th e W h it e H ouse, b u s in e s s m e n , l i k e h im s e lf , w h o g et th in g s d one. T he p e o p le r u n n in g th e c o u n tr y and th o s e g e ttin g a h e a d a r e c a n -d o m en. Mo room

E v e n t u a lly E d w a rd b u ilt E dd ie a b o o k c a s e f o r h is b o o k s t o r e . He k n e w E ddie w o u ld li k e it w h ic h h e did. E dd ie to ld h im h e h a d th e p e r f e c t p la c e in th e s t o r e f o r it.

f o r w im p s o r p e a n u t fa r m e r s . E v e r y th in g w o u ld b e p e r f e c t i f o n ly t h ir t y y e a r o ld so n , E ddie Jr., w e r e w e ll.

h is E dw ard lo o k e d u p on th e b o o k c a s e a s an o v e r tu r e , a s a w a y o f e n te r in g E d d ie’s lif e . D id n ’t E dd ie r e a liz e th a t. M ayb e, m a y b e n o t. S h o r tly t h e r e a f t e r , E ddie got s ic k .

E d w ard s e e m s to c a tc h e v e r y re d lig h t a s h e d r iv e s to th e h o s p ita l. W ith th e s e s o r t s o f d e la y s , h e w ill n ot be a b le to sp e n d a s m u ch tim e a t th e h o s p ita l. He h a s a n im p o r ta n t s a le s m e e tin g h e m u st a tte n d la te r in th e

E ven th o u g h h e is in a h u r r y , h e s l o w l y w a lk s d o w n th e h a ll to h is s o n ’s ro o m . He d e la y s f o r a m o m e n t b e fo r e p u sh in g o p e n th e door.

a fte r n o o n . T h is is th e f i r s t tim e E d w ard h a s b e e n to s e e E ddie f o r th is h o s p ita liz a tio n . B u s in e s s h a s good an d h e ’s b een to o b u sy . He k n o w s E ddie w o u ld u n d e r sta n d . B e fo r e h e g o t s ic k E ddie ow n ed a s m a ll but su cce ssfu l b o o k s to r e . W o u ld n ’t ta k e a n y m o n e y fr o m h is old m an. T h at m a k e s E d w ard p rou d .

E ddie Jr. l i e s in th e b ed a sle e p . H is s o n ’s f a c e lo o k s s u n k e n , a lm o s t a s th o u g h it is c o lla p s in g in o n i t s e l f . T h e r e is a p a tc h y g r o w th o f b e a r d o n it. F o r a m o m e n t E d w ard t h in k s h e c o u ld s h a v e h im . B u t n o, h e c o u ld h u r t h im . H ire a p r o f e s s io n a l to do th is.

E dw ard w o n d e r s h o w lo n g E ddie h a s b e e n in th e h o s p ita l th is tim e . T w o w e e k s , th re e? Or h a s it b een a m o n th ? He c a n ’t r e m e m b e r .

If h e c o u ld c a tc h h is s o n ’s d o cto r . B ut th e d o c to r m a k e s th e r o u n d s in th e m o rn in g . T h a t’s w h e n E d w a rd ’s e x - w i f e v i s i t s , a n d h e d o e sn ’t w a n t to s e e h e r . O f c o u r s e h e co u ld a s k o n e o f th e n u r s e s , b u t th e d o c to r is th e o n e h e s h o u ld t a lk to. M a y b e n e x t w e e k h e ’ll

He w a lk s to th e r e c e p tio n a r e a o f th e h o s p ita l a n d g iv e s th e r e c e p tio n is t h is s o n s n a m e. S h e t e lls h im to f o llo w th e y e llo w 42

ca teh h is s o n ’s d o c to r . F in d o u t e x a c t ly w h a t’s w r o n g w it h h im , a n d i n s i s t th e d o c to r m a k e h im b e tt e r . T h is i s th e t w e n t ie t h c e n t u r y a f t e r all. E dw ard s t a r e s a t h is s o n ’s f a c e f o r th e b o y he o n c e k n e w . He r e m e m b e r s th e lo o k o f g le e on E d d ie’s f a c e w h e n E dd ie b e a t h im a t p in g pong. E d d ie’s y o u th fu l e n th u s ia s m e m b a r r a s s e d h im th e n . He w a s a m a z e d th a t a b oy c o u ld h u r t h is f e e lin g s . L a ter in th e d ay , th e j o y tu r n e d to s a d n e s s. He to ld h is so n h e le t h im w in . He s e a r c h e s th e f a c e f o r th a t boy, e it h e r h a p p y o r sad , h e o n c e k n e w . He fin d s n e ith e r . E dw ard lo o k s a t h is w a tc h , th in k in g h e sh o u ld le a v e . He g r a b s a n e n v e lo p e r e s tin g next to a c la y pot w ith g e r a n iu m s in th em on th e ta b le n e x t to E d ie’s bed. He d o e s n ’t w an t to d is t u r b E dd ie’s s le e p s o h e ’ll le a v e a n o te on th e e n v e lo p e . In p ic k in g u p th e e n v elo p e, a l e t t e r f a l l s o u t. He g o e s to put th e le tte r b a c k in th e e n v e lo p e , but it o p e n s up. Don’t rea d y o u r s o n ’s m a il. R esp ect h is p riv a cy . B ut th e r e it is to read . He c a n ’t h e lp h im s e lf.

saying "the end justifies the means." He was just changing what "the end" was. Maybe therapy was what we needed to get over the past several months. I'd ask him tom orrow if he'd go with me. Ronald was already in bed, facing away from me. I turned off the light and slipped in beside him, but w e didn't touch. I lay awake, unable to sleep, and a few minutes later, Ronald asked, "Should we pay them back? I still remember all the addresses, you know."

"Do you realize how much m oney that is?" "I.aw school can wait another year " "Do you think this is what we should do?" "1 knew from the start it would com e to this. I've known you for a long time, C lyd e" "Are you mad at me?" "I love you." "Maybe if w e get more involved with Ia/a ru s House or the soup kitchen or with Am nesty International's letter writing campaign, we won't have time to worry about burglarizing." "I already signed us up." I smiled in darkness. "Go to sleep, Mother Theresa." He turned over toward m e "Not for another hour yet. This is our anniversary." I felt his toes brush against mine. "Hey, mister," I said, "Thanks for four good years ” He said nothing but reached for m e in the dark ▲

"Dear Eddie. ~ it r e a d s. 7 n ever believed in God, b at 1 fin d m y se lf p ray in g fo r yon constantly Rem em ber diet can m ake a difference. Ju s t don t giv e np. I f not fo r yon, then fo r me. I m iss yo u terrib ly. Five m inutes to b ear yon dish tb e d irt—Ed cat o ff m y righ t arm o r giv e you m y red slip p ers. Praying fo r yon. Love, A very. " He c r u m p le s th e l e t t e r in h is f i s t . He s e e s h is son ’s e y e s h a v e o p en ed . S u d d e n ly h e f e e l s lik e a c h ild g e t tin g ca u g h t d o in g s o m e th in g he s h o u ld n ’t. He lo o k s d o w n a t h is so n a n d s a y s , "I’m s u r e A v e r y is a s w e e t girl." "Oh Daddy," h is so n w h is p e r s . The f a t h e r s t a n d s b e f o r e h is s o n ’s bed, th e ir fin g e r s b a r e ly to u c h in g . T h e d is t a n c e is a sm a ll s liv e r o f p ain , a s im p e n e tr a b le a s a diam ond. 43

fit LUolf Creek this July, Harry Hay and John Burnside gathered with 20 men to explore sex magic. The expressed intent was to join sexual energies to prouide healing touch to our brothers infected with RIDS. In this weekâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s workshop, we discouered our healing goals would be a learning process that had to be slowly created and intimately approached. Rs we started our exploration of sexuality, personal sharing began with permissions to be touched, to touch others, and to be open in receiuing pleasures. Easy task, I thought, we all enjoy and appreciate men. Rs men who loue men, each of us knows a hand on our cocks can create sexual energy, bringing feelings of genital arousal. Rs radical faeries desiring contact and seeking pleasure, we gathered in heart circles, beginning to create a safe space. Rs gay men we all haue experienced woundings, sexual injuries from heterosexuals and homosexuals that left pains that remain deeply hidden in our hearts. I asked myself, could I giue permission to feel uulnerable and open to the groupâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s desires to generate sexual energies? I felt a lot of unspoken emotions, a push-pull feeling about intimacy. My words expressed permission, yet my heart was unsure. I had chosen to join a sexual healing circle, yet I felt apprehension that we would be sharing sexual touch with relatiue strangers. The feeling I hoped to gain in this intimate union was pleasure, still uoices inside reminded me that life, loue, and sex are not always a bed of roses. 44

Into the third day the sexual tensions mere thicker than an altar of erect cocks. Some wanted to leap forward into ecstasy, while others expressed concerns about such closeness. As the day proyressed, a major confrontation between two participants indicated we all had a uaried sexual past, spiced with sweet and sour experiences. The anyer and pain expressed by the two battling men upset the group, as the shadowy sides of sexuality began to emerge, nil felt shaken, some felt resentment, while others indicated other’s personal problems were not the group’s concern. Uarious members consistently stated they wanted to get on with the feelings of louing men, and desires of sexual connectedness, yet what was not being addressed was the darker histories of our sexual memories. Most wanted pleasure but no one wanted to go near the pains that haue touched us all.

B oyd

In relating fully to another, all aspects of ourselues, the beautiful and ugly parts, come into full play. UJe bring to our loue making/sexual sharing all the magic that is held inside our psyche. So as we make loue to another man we touch more than his body, we encounter his physical, emotional, social, and spiritual being. If we only auail ourselues to one part, such as a cock connection, we neuer taste all the other richnesses that each indiuidual can offer. I feel it is time to acknowledge and embrace the wholeness that life presents. I belieue as faeries, healers of men, we haue a responsibility t o encourage and honor intimacy in our relating. To seek getting off, achieuing sexual satisfaction, without contacting the heart of another, constitutes a uiolation to our core humanity. The illusions of brief satisfaction, while discounting one’s self or one’s brother, maintain a feeling of emptiness, a sad sense of isolation. Hs a community we must begin to explore options, new behauiors that nourish and support true healing connections. I want to thank my brothers who expressed the anger and pain we haue all experienced. They brought to the surface issues that are deeper then the indiuidual self. They permitted a place where we as a collectiue can begin to know the magic of all we hold inside. I am grateful to see new doors open, with acknowledgement of our light and dark aspects, fls we open to uur humanness, the potential for deep connection is possible and then true sexual sharing and sexual healing shall be accelerated. From my heart to your heart, Starfire 45

FEDERICO GARCIA LORCA : A Life. By Ian Gibson. Pantheon Books, 201 E 50th St., New York, NY 10022. $15.95 soft, $29.95 hard.

GOD'S COUNTRY: A Case Against Theocracy. By Sandy Rapp. Harrington Press. 139 pgs. $14.95 soft. Reviewed by Dandelion Morningstar Sandy Rapp’s book God’s Country is concise, persuasive, and wellwritten. Rapp efficiently fits a wide range of information into a small volume. Unfortunately, some depth and detail are lost in the process. I would have preferred a longer book with more thorough coverage of some topics. However, this one does have an excellent bibliography and a well referenced index, making it at least a starting point for further study. The book begins with two chapters on “A Gay Male Experience” and "A Lesbian Perspective” that describe the pain and suffering inflicted upon gays and lesbians by a patriarchal society dominated by judeo-christian value systems. These are followed by a chapter on psychology that traces homophobia and its motives from Freud, through the Kinsey Report, to the eventual changes in official policy in the mid-seventies, w'ith commentary on how this fear has been used as a weapon against women and the homosexual community by patriarchal society and, lately, the religious right. The chapter “Politics” covers a wide range of public policies and interest groups, including Jerry Falwell and the pro-family movement, televangelism, creationism, book burning and censors, Bowers v. Hardwick, equal rights legislation, bias crimes identification, AIDS, military service, and domestic partner benefits. Rapp then shifts gears to address the other major point of conflict, the pro choice/right to-life debate. Following this is a short overview of the scholarship that invalidates the conservative interpretation of the bible, both catholic and fundamentalist, and points out several questionable tenets of the Christian faith in general. In the chapter “Metaphysics” Rapp discusses New Age philosophy, cross-gendered shamanism, and the teachings of non-carnate channelled beings, with several quotes from an interview she conducted with Whitefeather, a Native American “entity.” Rapp makes a point that whether you choose to believe in this type of thing or not, it is no less valid than traditional beliefs which are also impossible to prove and must be taken on faith. The last chapter is a short call to arms, encouraging readers to get involved in fighting the threat that the religious right is posing to our struggle for freedom and equality. As 1 have said, the book is well written and easy to read. Those who are somehow unaware of the actions of Ronald Reagan, Jesse Helms, Jerry Falwell, et al. during the last ten years should find the book provocative and enlightening. Rapp includes many anecdotes demonstrating the depth of ignorance, bigotry, and absolute gross stupidity one can find among so many right-wingers fundies. These add nothing to the strength of her argument, but they are funny. Unfortunately, if you have been paying attention during the past decade you will find little here that you haven’t heard before. However, those who enjoy spleen venting and rehashing old conflicts will probably be well entertained by Rapp’s crisp and often pithy style.

C& Reviewed by Jon Nalley The liberating effect of the 1898 “Disaster”— in which the twentieth century’s new power force, the United States, eclipsed the imperialism of Spain in its seizure of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines—proved a key to the intellectual and economic renewal of a Spain that could, at last, attend to its own inner needs and put its house in order. In his biography of one of Spanish (the language as opposed to the nation) literature’s greatest figures (and bellwether of Spain’s cultural and political events during his lifetime)— Federico Garcia Lorca— Ian Gibson has captured the brilliant elan of this period, and the tragedy that befell Spain when the promise of change was violently deferred by the fascist defeat of the Republic by Franco in 1939. For Lorca, appalled by militarism and coming on the heels of this cataclysm, Spain’s former empire proved an indirect, yet powerful impact on him in two ways. When young Lorca—during his formative period— was moving from music to prose, Nicaraguan poet Ruben Dario proved his greatest literary influence. (On the whole, Dario’s revolution of Modernismo— which incorporated French fin-de-siecle themes and innovations, refined eroticism, musicality, exoticism, and the influence of Paul Verlaine—challenged the stiflingly trite and academic quality of Spanish poetry at that time.) In particular, Lorca admired Dario’s disregard for conventional notions of public decorum. Secondly, the period brought forth a general perspective among Spanish intellectuals that saw their country as desperately in need of moral and intellectual revolution— proving a prophetic and powerful ancillary for the progressive forces of the abortive Spanish Republic. Corollary, in its influence on Spanish culture (particularly on the Republic decades later) and the life of Lorca was the Rinconcillo (“little corner”) salon, a sometimes unlikely combination of artists, writers, musicians—many involved in various aspects of the Spanish left and many of whom were openly gay (a brave statement in a Roman Catholicdominated culture in which this was anathema). Named for its place of convening at the Cafe Alameda in Grenada, and located in Lorca’s native Andalusia, the Rinconcillo existed from 1915 to 1922. The group disintegrated as its many members moved on to Madrid and future greatness. Lorca was still in Grenada in 1918, upon the release of his first book, Impressions and Landscapes. In it he looked at the twin themes of lost love and achieving future amorous fulfillment at a time when he was torn between the forces of his queer nature and those repressive ones emanating from Roman Catholicism. Arriving in Madrid in 1919—and impatiently awaited by Riconcillo members already ensconced there— Lorca was introduced to the avantgarde movement ultraismo. Deriving from artistic innovations then taking place in Europe such as Dada and Cubism, this current of iconoclasts championed the primacy of the poetic image and detested conservatism and romantic sentimentality. Though not especially involved in ultraismo, Lorca’s poetry was influenced by it—being shed of its long-winded exuberance and excessive subjectivity. Among his noted works in this period were El maleficio de la mariposa and Libra de poemas. Furthermore, Lorca came to share that movement’s enthusiasm for the North American poet Walt Whitman, lionized by ultraistas during that period. (Walt Whitman, whose homosexuality was intertwined with his assertions of personal freedom, was a looming figure to Lorca.) In his noted Ode to Walt Whitman—published in a limited noncommercial edition of 50 copies which he distributed only to his closest friends— Lorca exposed his internalized homophobia in the use of marica, an epithet, while capturing strong homoerotic images. Lorca went on from there to create his famous works, including Songs, and Romancero gitano (Gypsy Ballads), The Public (said to be the first Spanish dramatic work to explore the theme of homosexual love), Poem of Came Jondo, and the dramatic masterpiece Don Perlimplin. Not only does this biography give valuable background and insight behind these and Lorca’s other great works, but its treatment of the poet’s personal associations and collaborations is fascinating—particularly those with film director Luis Bufiuel, Chilean and future Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda, Luis Cemudo (whose 1936 Reality and Desire “gave poetic form to his predicament as a homosexual in an intolerant society” and whose work, in contrast to Lorca’s, erupted with bitter resentment against society and the family), Galician journalist Eduardo Blanco-Amor, and renowned artist Salvador Dali (the latter of whom became the crux of a bitter love triangle between Bunuel and Lorca). Treatment of Lorca’s travels to Argentina, Cuba, and the United States in the late 1920s and early 1930s proves insightful as well.

The Spanish right began to attack Lorca in 1932, when the ultra-right satirical magazine Gracia y Juslieia queerbaited him in response to a performance of Life Is a Dream. Reading his provocative “Ballad of the Spanish Civil Guards” from Gypsy Ballads to a mass meeting of the Madrid Worker’s Club, his activities with the Association of Friends of South America (which combatted the dictatorships of Gomez in Cuba and Vargas in Brazil), and Friends of Portugal (which informed the Spanish public about the fascist regime of Oliveira Salazar) in the next years did little to mitigate the seething hatred of the right for him. Though never a member of either the Spanish Socialist or Communist parties, his 1936 May Day message to the workers of Spain—published in a communist magazine—confirmed their viewpoint of Lorca as a repellent red with a disgusting private life who attacked the Catholic middle class—and helped seal his fate. In August 1936, at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, Falangists assassinated Lorca during a reign of terror in Grenada. Their typed threepage accusation against the 3.8-year-old poet cited his homosexuality, his relationship to the hated (by the Falange) socialist intellectual Fernando de los Rios, and “contact with the Russians.” For the next 20 years, Lorca’s name was taboo in Franco’s Spain and his work banned. While a thaw began in 1953 when Franco authorized an expensive, censored volume of Obras completas, it was not until the Caudillo’ s death in 1975 that the poet’s disappearance could be openly talked about. To his strong credit, the author brought forth the many colorful patchworks of Lorca’s life. Especially moving in his account of events around the great love of Lorca’s life—Rafael Rodriguez Rapun, deeply involved with the United Socialist and Communist front. According to those close to him, Rapun, quiet and serious— and a lieutenant in the Republican forces— seemed to lose the will to live after his lover’s death at the hands of the fascists. In August 1937, Rapun was killed during an air attack by Franco’s forces; unlike the others, he did not throw himself to the ground but remained sitting on a parapet.

MEN’S DREAMS, MEN’S HEALING. By Robert H. Hopcke. Shambala Publications. 220 pgs. $13 soft. <=& Reviewed by Ron Abraytis A man dreams that he is awakened by a strange tickling sensation on his chest. He opens his eyes to see thousands of ants and spiders crawling over him. He watches in wonder. They are marching in a single column which enters at his front door, proceeds through the living room, over his chest and out the window. He is not afraid. The same young man has a series of erotic dreams about a dark, muscular, young man. Sometimes the man is an old high school friend who confesses he is gay and in love with the dreamer. At other times he is a total stranger. In his book, Men’s Dreams, Men’s Healing, Robert H. Hopcke analyzes these and a dozen or so other dreams of two of his male clients, one gay and one straight. The book is a fascinating introduction to Jungian dreamwork. At under 2(X) pages of text, it’s perfect for a dilettante like myself who just wants a taste of dream analysis without making a lot of effort.

Hopcke has a refreshing first step in his analysis of dreams: he asks the dreamer for his own interpretation. This is not the sort of book where you can look up “flying” or “walking down the street nude” and find out what it means. These dreams are all intensely personal, and the key is to be found with the dreamer, not the analyst. Yet, Hopcke also draws on a vast body of myth, archetype, and Jungian literature to bring out layer upon layer of symbolism. He uses Jung’s principles to connect the individual dreamers to the collective unconscious.Even though he’s a devotee of Jung, Hopcke makes no excuses for Jung’s sexism. Hopcke believes that Jung was a victim of the paternalistic attitudes that his work tried to overcome. The book gets technical when Hopcke elaborates on the “anima,” and how Jung’s conception of it was tainted by his own devaluation of women. Hopcke’s arguments were a bit too dry for me to follow (see dilettante," above), but I have to admire a man who gets so passionate in attacking his own mentor. There is a relentless honesty to this book. Hopcke’s goal is to forge a new concept of masculinity which transcends the “Logos” (Jung’s principle of knowledge, usually associated with masculinity) and the “Eros” (Jung’s principle of relatedness, commonly ascribed to femininity). Hopcke draws heavily on feminist concepts and ‘mages.

Hopcke s male clients inevitably ask how to “fix the problem,” unaware that therapy is different than car repair and that they are more than thinking machines. Men tend to be oblivious to the true nature of their emotions, having been imbued with what Hopcke calls “the anesthesia of male socialization.” In one of the saddest commentaries I’ve ever read on being a man, Hopcke says that it takes most men in therapy the greater part of the first year just to acquire a workable awareness of their own feelings. It makes we wonder what we’re all so afraid of. GAY ROOTS: Twenty Years of Gay Sunshine. Edited by Winston Leyland. Gay Sunshine Press. 703 pgs. $22.95 soft. Reviewed by Ron Abraytis Dante should have reserved the lowest circle of the inferno, not for Judas, Brutus, or Cassius, but for anyone who attempts to destroy words. Book burners—whether they be reactionary fundamentalists banning Catcher In the Rye, or radical feminists shredding Playboy— attack the foundation of thought by attempting to limit access to ideas.If I have a particular contempt for censors, I also have a special reverence for publishers and authors who seek to preserve words. And no one has done more to nurture, promote, and disseminate literature than Winston Leyland, publisher of Gay Sunshine Press. I think I first became aware of Gay Sunshine through the periodical's well-known in-depth “Gay Sunshine Interviews” of noted gay artists, politicians, and intellectuals, which led off each issue. Gay Sunshine was a periodical for many years before becoming a small publisher of trade paperbacks. Over the last two decades, Leyland has published hundreds of gay writers—often taking risks by doing so. He has presented many writings about gay culture in the past and in other cultures of the world.Now he has put together a hefty anthology of some of that writing. There are so many important works in this collection that it deserves a series of reviews, and I just may write them. The table of contents lists five categories: Gay History, Gay Sex and Politics, Gay Biography and Literary Essays, Gay Fiction, and Gay Poetry.Some of the pieces made me proud to be gay. Proud to be human. Some essays humbled me with their grace and insight. The tract about Yukio Mishima caused caused me to reflect on his bizarre life and his melancholy “Forbidden Colors." The persecution of Oscar Wilde co-exists with the unbridled antics of a charismatic San Francisco hustler named Brian and it astonished me to think that both lives were acted out on the same planet. The repeated theme of draconian oppression seems light years away from an evening on Chicago’s Halsted strip. Next time I’m sipping beer at Sidetrack, I’ll be silently toasting the pioneers who made gay life a little more livable. By no means am I saying that I agree with all the ideas in this book. I was appalled by the story of a 16-year old boy who enjoyed being gangbanged in prison. I disdain the glorification of promiscuity. Some of the ideas presented are offensive, dangerous, disgusting, insane. And that’s just how it should be. Show me a book that offends no one, and I’ll show you a book that says nothing I may not have liked all the authors, but I respect each one for speaking out as gay men and women. Their words are good and bad, innocuous and dangerous, flamboyant and closeted. This is a book to linger over, enjoy, talk about, celebrate, share with friends, savor with a bottle of Chardonnay. Gay Roots is a volume of words. I can give a book no higher praise. Book reviews are implored from our readers. Include your direct impressions, concrete quotes and examples, and the relevance to faeries, natureboys, shamen, and cogniscenti; the publisher, date, and address; the pages and price; and your address to receive a free RFD.

One day, a cowboy came loping along riding at easy pace through the Pecos River country on a nice little black pony. He saw Bill running around, buck naked through the sage brush and cactus. So he called to the boy, "Who be you, little feller?" Bill peeked out from the sage brush an' an swered, "I'm a coyote!"

by Goatboy

Most versions of "Pecos Bill" stories I've seen, date post WWII. These versions, includ ing Disney's animated short, end with him hitchin' up with some cowgirl and disapearing into the obsurity of wedded bliss on the moon or the abysmal "Happy ever after" syndrome. This version from the mid 1930s ends in a much more appropiate fashion, and loaded with subtle homo-erotisism, at least I think so. ....Goatboy For the sake of time and space, I am omiting his early babyhood. We pick up where his family of 16 are headed west from Texas in a much overpacked covered wagon. They went along without mishap till they came to the Pecos River. There the horses plunged into the wat er, splashing, spattering, and dripping. They were going up the other bank when the end of the wagon gave way. That wagon was just too plum full of household goods and children burstin’ out this way an' that, it couldn't stand the strain forever. The endboard got pushed out and Baby Bill, who was sitin' on the very edge of the wagon, fell kerplunk on the ground. His Ma an' Pa never noticed that he was gone. They had so many children that they never stop ped to count noses more than once in four weeks, and they didn't miss Bill the next nose count ing came, three weeks from the following Tues day, and then they had gone so far they couldn't turn back again. Well, Baby Bill looked around and found him self all alone in the big world of sagebrush an' cactus. He was lost in the Pecos country and, ever after that he was called Pecos Bill. Tod dling along up the bank he was getin' mighty hungry when he met a nice-looking, motherly, hard working She-Coyote,one of those big prair ie wolves roam around in the west. Mrs. Coyote looked Bill over and took a likin’ to him; so she told him to jump on her back and she car ried him home to her burrow, where she lived with her lively pups. Pretty soon Bill was playin' with those pups as they were his bro thers and sisters. They were a mischievous lot nad plenty of pranks they played on the longsuffering Mrs. Coyote. Bill learned to talk their language, and he lived exactly as they did. Soon he was running with the pack, hunting deer and jack rabbits, chasing over the plains, yipping and yapping and yelling. He'd sit on a hill in the nighttime, howling to the big round moon for all the world like a coyote, In fact, he thought he was a coyote and no doubt at all about it. He lived as one of the pack till he was ten years old.

But the cowboy said, "Coyote, Nothin'! You jest can't be a coyote." "Don't I go naked?" asked Bill, coming up a little closer. "that's what coyotes do, so you see- I must be a coyote." "Injuns go naked," said the cowboy. "And Injuns are men, they're not coyotes!" "Well, then, I howl!" cried Bill. "You see I MUST be a coyote!" "But men howl, too," said the cowboy. "Most pertickaler MEN IN TEXAS!!" "Anyhow, I'm a coyote!" Bill started to run away. "Now see here, Little feller," the cowboy called him back. "If you were a coyote, you would have a tail. All coyotes have tails. Have you got a tail? I ask you!" "I never thought of that," said bill as he looked over his shoulder. Sure enough, he did n't have any tail. "Then I'm not a coyote. What in the world can I be?"

"Your a man-child, thats what!" said the cow boy. "Better stop runnin' with the coyotes an' come with me back to where MEN are MEN!" So that's how Pecos Bill went back to the cov.towns and camps of the cattle country. He learned to ride any horse, not the wild est broncho could throw him. He learned how to sling his rope to lasso whole herds at a time. Bill could fight rattlesnakes too. Once when he took off his boots and lay down to sleep under a forty foot cactus, two enormous rattlers crawled into his boots and hid. When he woke up again and went to put them on, those snakes began to rattle. They stuck out their fangs to strike. But Bill grabbed one in each hand and shook the daylights out of them. Then he tied their tails together and slung 'em over a tree where he let 'em stay for awhile, thinkin' over their sins till they said they were ready to be good snakes. Then he took them down and untied them. He put one around his neck in place of the bright red handkerchief most of the cow boys wear and he used the other for a quirt to whip up his bucking broncho. There wasn't an ugly steer or bad-acting horse who get away with anything if Bill was on the job. He wrestled with grizzly bears and he fought all the horse thieves and robbers. He went after bad men so hard that he had them just scared to death. He then made up his mind to be the boss of the toughest outfit ofhard riding, straight shooting, roaring cowboys that ever came skallyhooting into a dusty cowtown and to wage a war to the finish with the badmen of the land. So he saddled up his horse and started out for New Mexico. Along the way he met a trapper who said just the kind of outfit Bill wanted, was camping on up the trail beyond the rocky canyon. Bill was hurrying toward the camp when his horse stubbed his toe, fell, and broke is neck. That was a blow, I'm telling you. Bill loved that horse like a pal. Often at night when those two were all alone on the range or trail, he'd be talkin' to him and plum treatin' 'im like he was human. There was n't a thing to do as far as the horse was concerned. He'd gone to horse heaven. So bill made the best of matters. He took off the saddle, slung it over his shoulder and walked along the trail. Suddenly, he heard a noise. Looking up, he saw two big round eyes staring from the underbrush growing on a rock above. Quick as lightening, something sprang out, whizzing along through the air. It pounced right down on top of him. A big mountain lion u was, the terror of all the district. Bill set to wrestling at once. He gave that mountain lion the licking of his young life. Then he put a the saddle on the critter and rode him, ■'•'looping and yelling, down through the rocky canyon, swinging his rattlesnake quirt, and making the big cat leap a hundred feet at a 1ump. Soon he saw a chuckwagon witha bunch of cowiioys nearby around their campfire eating. Split ting the air with his whoops, his lion screeching and spitting, his rattlesnakes singing their ratles, he rode up to the fire, grabbed his lion by ear, drew him back on his haunches, steped off uim, and looked at the outfit. The cowboys just ^ with their mouths open, saying nothing at • Spying a big pot of beans cooking over the lre, B i n reached in his hands, took out two izziing handfuls and swallowed 'em down red hot. ‘n^n he seized a kettle of coffee and drank it

down, still boiling. After that he said: "Who's the boss 'round here?" A big fellow eight feet tall with seven guns and nine bowie knives bristling in his belt, stood up and took off his hat. He seemed kinda stunned as he spoke. "Who's the boss around here? Stranger, I WAS but you B E !" The big man bowed his head and all the other cowboys acknowlaged Bill as their boss. SO thats how Bill got he outfit that worked under him in New Mexico, rounding up millions of cattle, riding the ranqes an dealing out death to badmen. His good friends were Alkali Ike; Cheyenne Charley; the Arizona Kid; Bullfrog Doyle, the dancer; and Pretty PeteRogers, the best dressed man at rodeos and dances. You should have seen Pretty Pete! With his silver-ornamented bridle, and saddle, his grizzly-bear chaps, big Stetson hat, high-heeled boots, and slver spurs, Pretty Pete was somethin' to look at. But the best pal Bill had in the world was a man named Curley Joe, a curley-headed fellow with legs bowed out like a wishbone from ridding so much on horseback. How Bill did love Curley Joe! The two had sworn to stay pals till that fierce old Indian Chief, Sitting Bull, should stand up! And that in cowboy langguage, meant forever and ever. Bill and his pals rode the plains for many years, rounding up cattle, sleepin' under the stars, dashing into the cowtowns, and terror ising the bad men of the land. But one day on the range, he was driving his little dogiesas cowboys call their cattle- and singin' at the top of his voice: "Whoopee ti-yi-yo, git along little dogies." All of a sudden he saw a little dude from the East with great big pair of specticles, limping along up the road becaucse he was sore from riding. He was leading a rat-tailed old plug with his ribs stickin' out like bedslats. Bill could see at a glance that this dude couldnot ride anything wilder than a wheelchair or baby carrage; but his face was half-hidden from sight under a big Statson hat, and he was wear ing chaps and cowboys cloths bought from a mail order store. When he heard Bill singing, he stopped politely and said: "I heard that song back Last, but 1 wish you’d tell me, sir, where do you keep your doggies. I haven't seen a single dog except for prairie dogs, since I came out West!" Well, when Bill heard that, he laughed. The man thought doqies were doggies! He looked at that poor little dude lost in his store bought get-up and he laughed again. He laughed and he laughed, and he laughed, till he laughed him self to death. And that was a proper end for a man like Pecos Bill. A

Queen Anneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Lace

Don Blackmore

Our

F r i e n d s

and

Claude William Ruble Branque was bom on February 12,1953 in Radford, Va. He attended Emory and Henry College in Emory Va. and graduated with a degree in Philosophy. Subsequently he was a seminary student at Princeton University. In Seattle his faith's journey was affirmed by being ordained into the United Methodist Church while serving as A ssociate Pastor of Haller Lake United Methodist Church in 1976. After making a hom e in the Seattle area, Claude declared openly the integration of his sexuality and his spirituality and cam e out as a gay man to his congregation Claude continued to feel his ministerial call as deeply as he ever had and sought ways to work within the Methodist community and in ecumenical outreach even after his rejection as a pastor by the church hierarchy. In 1984 when the United Methodist General Conference re affirmed its anti-gay stance, Claude felt he had to leave all connections with that denomination so he could live a life of integrity. He solidified his relationship with the Religious Society of Fnends which b ecam e his faith community, hom e and family. He becam e a mem ber of University Friends Meeting in 1987. Qaude's search for a broader expression of his faith and calling led him to work with preschool children and the elderly. He also began a private practice in w'hich he

Loved

Ones

integrated pastoral counseling and body work, utilizing both his training as a Licensed Massage Therapist and his ministerial experience. Claude lived with AIDS for over eleven years and it becam e the matrix that defined much of his life. He provided m assage at no cost for PWA's and offered individual support and ministerial counseling for their transition to death. He participated in scientific research studies testing new drugs for the treatment of AIDS, and was an AIDS activist in attempting to make these drugs more readily available. In addition to availing himself on the very best that Western medicine had to offer, Claude sought and tried alternative therapies from other cultures and healing traditions Underpinning all these outside interventions w as C laude's abiding faith in the divine His spintual discipline upheld him throughout his struggle with AIDS. Claude was a many faceted man wnth an amazing network of friends. Som e knew him through First Day School at University Friends Meeting and others met him at Friends General Conference and Friends for Lesbian and Gay Concerns gatherings Others encountered him when he volunteered his time to lead workshops and speak to classroom s of elementary through medical school students about living with AIDS. Still others knew him for his fine cooking and fabulous desserts. He had one of the m ost colorful wardrobes, full of sum ptuous hand knit sweaters, unique necklaces, an array of scarves, and brightly colored footwear. Young and old alike were stimulated to be creative and flamboyant in their attire by Claude's stun stunning example! A few years ago, Claude took up beading and the making of ntual objects When he made necklaces for fnends, he tned to capture som ething of their spint in the colors, stones, and sym bols that he incorporated. In 1988, a Care Committee, com posed of University Friends Meeting members chosen by Claude, was fonned to offer support, both when his health was good and when it w'as not so good Hie com m ittee coordinated visits, spiritual support, financial support, transportation, shopping and meals, and assistance with his legal affairs When it was , the Care Committee provided help making medical decisions and acted as advocates. Claude was generally happy with his quality of life and health until early in 1992. When he developed more advanced sym ptom s related to AIDS, he made the difficult decision to leave his hom e and becom e one of the first residents in Bailey- Boushay House, the country's first residential nursing facility for people dying of AIDS He spent the last five weeks of his life there in a room filled with art and light and love Members of his Care Committee and a few others sat with Claude as he approached his death. He died August 14, 1992 secure in the love that surrounded him He is survived by his chosen family, including mem bers of his Care Committee, a host of grieving friends, and his birth family. A Meeting for Worship to celebrate Claude's life was held at University Friends Meeting on September 13,1992 51

Arthur H. Platt of Butterworth Road, Royalston, Mass., died Monday in his hom e of AIDS related intestinal disease He was 45. He was a member of the Board of Directors of AIDS Project W orcester He was the founder and former owner of Countryside Realty and Quabbin Management in Athol and Orange He was widely recognized for his accomplishments in promoting econom ic revitalization in the North Quabbin Region He helped revive a regional Chamber of Commerce in 1982, becom ing its president, and was honored as the chamber's Citizen of the Year in 1985. On that occasion, U S. Rep. Silvio Conte described Platt as "a real dynamo, a great asset to this community." In 1985, Platt was named by Gov Michael Dukakis to the board of directors of the Massachusetts Thrift Fund In May of this year, Platt was awarded the North Quabbin Chamber of Commerce's first econom ic developm ent award, to be named for him in the future On accepting the award, presented by U S. Rep John Olver, Platt informed the gathering that he had AIDS and he urged the ( hamber to undertake a serious program of education and outreach to combat the spread of AIDS. He was born in Philadelphia, the son of Irvin Platt and the late Charlotte Platt. He attended Philadelphia public schools and received a bachelor's degree from Temple University. He was a student activist in the late 1960s at Temple 1le was a key figure in the establishment and operation of two alternative newspapers, the Temple Free Press and the Philadelphia Plain Dealer, which op p osed U S. policy in Vietnam and sought to prom ote racial equality. He lived in 1970 71 in San Francisco, where he lived in a gay com m une and organized gay liberation dances. He relocated to W estwood, Mass, then m oved to Royalston in 1975 as a founder of Butterworth Farm, an intentional com m unity. I

Soon after arriving in Royalston, Platt becam e interested in preserving the rural character of the community and protecting the historic town common. He served as chairman of the town's planning board and helped author the zoning by-laws and the historic district by-laws. He was active in the Democratic Party in Massachusetts. His work as a community activist and businessm an was summarized in several newspaper features: "From Rebellion to Real Estate," in the Boston Globe, Nov. 26,1978: "When You're Completely Down, There's N o Place to Go But Up," in the Central Massachusetts Business Digest, January 1985; and "Arthur Platt is the Catalyst for Making Things Happen," in the Worcester Gazette, Feb. 9, 1985. Platt's long time companion, John C. Burton, died in 1991. Survivors include his father, Irvin Platt of Philadelphia; his sister, Sandra Platt of Lynwood, N.J.; two nieces, Carol Fantazzi of Lynwood and Tracy Harrison of Philadelphia; and a nephew, Michael Hamson, of Greenfield, Mass. There was a memorial service at Temple Israel, Athol. Family and friends have suggested that memorial contributions be made to AIDS Project Worcester, 305 Shrewsbury St, W orcester MA 01604.

I le started Countryside Realty in 1977 in Orange in a one room rented office at Our Daily Bread Food Cooperative, oi which llatt was a m ember Countryside grew to becom e the largest real estate enterpnse in the area, with a large sales force and annual sales of several million dollars in the mid 1980s. Housing rehabilitation and management, utilizing state, federal and pnvate funding, w ere important aspects of llatt's business. He helped spearhead the rehabilitation of the historic Pequoig Hotel in Athol 52

KKD prints contact letters free of charge. We also provide a free forwarding service for readers who prefer not to publish their address. Donations, however, are greatly appreciated. We ask that your letters be brief (under 200 words) and positive^ in stating your preferences. Saying no to a particular trait or characteristic may unnecessarily offend a brother. We reserve the right to correct spelling and to edit as we see fit. Feel free to include a black and white photo for printing with your letter, and we will try to include it. RFD assumes no responsibility for claims made in letters, and we urge all respondents to exercise caution, especially with any financial dealings. lU M M f

Want to escape to the country? / am looking for a responsible per son or couple to rent an apartment attached to my country house in southern New Hampshire (approx. 18 mi. from Manchester, nh , 30 mi. from Portsmouth, nh , and 55 mi. from Boston, mai within reach o f mountains, lakes-, and ocean beach es. 17x 1a lr, 10x14 br, 8x14 walk-in closet, k&b. Enormous picture windows overlooking back lawns, gardens, and woods. Above ground pool. Short walk to state park. Privacy. Dog/cat welcome, ideal fo r artist, writer, retired per son, etc. 5225/mo. plus electricity (electric heat-there is also a wood stove) plus helping me with the maintenance o f the grounds, no one lives in the main house but / often work in my studio on the grounds, lam a poet, novelist, and painter, if interested please write to Ralph P.O. BOX 899 Astor Station Boston, MA 02123

/am seeking a comrade, not a pen \ pal. / am a self-happy work-at- \ home seeking the same: someone I who derives backbone and satisfac- 1 tion from his work; who is free or S freeing himself from controlling substances; who appreciates (or\ would) a relaxed, pleasant non television intruding rural life style, and the chores associated with gardening, woodstoves, cooking, etc.-someone who loves to love, and be loved, i am contentedly settled in a situation large enough ^ fo r two, but this is only an advan- S tage, not a limitation, /like silence classical instrumental, vocal instrumental-especiaily opera, and jazz, and good conversation. Having said all o f this, you can read that i am not a boy, just a masculine dude who is enjoying life. / am prepared to respond to anyone who responds to me, and please don't be put o ff or intimidated by my prejudices. Things are not al ways so absolute in reality, i am more open, more playful, more non-judgmentai than / have per haps implied. And more sexual too. rm not that independent Please write to: The Painter Maine 04008-0182

Physically, rm five feet eleven inch- •$< es tali, dark drown hair and mons■Wy cache tturning grey), one hundred ninety five weigntwise, in great health and condition since i work out several times a week at the health spa, fairly wen educated and in my late fifties nave been tested and rm Hiv negative but i have deep compassion fo r those whoWSA are positive, October finds m e y^L involved in a gay homesteading project that rm wltizi ; * " " convinced 1. work to great advantages for those *£■ involved if /can only contact or yX j ...... . . 'rWh reach enough guys who appreciate yriw mv dream aimnnnr-, my dream, although i ve been at it y - l for several months and have corresponded with many people, agen■ cies and publications, there has wf. i Deen lots o f interest but little com: mitm ent After giving it a lot of Thought, rve begun to understand $22 that others will not risk their assets on my dream unless /lead the way so i guess rve arranged my future X f. goaf up until March 1? 1993 ill jgig keep my plans open to any and all 2?“ proposals but if 1 cannot unite or $ receive commitments from five to e ten men by that date, i ll just p ro -' ceed to purchase and settle on a place o f my own with anyone who cares to join me and can afford to pay their own way. it s imperative to me to get out o f the northeast where outrageous taxes, rotting cities. soaring fuel prices and crime are out o f control. From the re search rve done to this point, New Mexico seems to offer the most z promising returns to anyone who ' is willing to invest their time, ener gy, physical and mental assets to establish their own little castle u iiv iih

wayne a nardt PO. BOS 367 New Haven, c r 06502

u u

iiiiz

Hello Fellow gay men and fellow $ travelers,

/am a 44 year old, Italian-German, masculine, easy-going kind o f guy. i have dark hair with a touch o f | grey, a reasonably thick mustache, hairy body, and a goodly sized\ tool. I'm 58', 175. i don t smoke] or do drugs, and drink very little, and rm hiv -, although your medical j status or personal vices aren t im portant to me. / am passionate\ and affectionate in love-making, and appreciate the same in others, rm a former disc jockey who now j works in a factory My hobbies are [ music, sports, gardening, and sex, [ not necessarily in that order, as a £& former dj, i have a huge collection i o f 45,000 records, spanning 1950 thru 1980. My own tastes run to ward 50s r & b and r & r, and cur rent country, but /like almost any thing except metal, rap, and wacko-type Jazz, rm a news-hound, and enjoy watching CNN and the weather channel n really love wild thunderstorms/, i am interested in meeting friends for good times, both sexual and otherwise. Al though i do enjoy instant gratifica tion, i like to see people more than % once or twice. Most gay encoun ters dorrt explore anything but ^ Quickie sex. Sex is fine, but there s\ so much more. Anyway, since ev eryone has their preferences, let I me list mine: i really like lean to I average build, hairy bodies with I facial hair (hippie-type, or rugged J macho men are particular turn ons/, but rm open to anyone who s \ easy going and masculine rm free J to travel.and would like to m eet ; anyone from Boston to Washing ton. and welcome pen pals from\ elsewhere if you'd like goodphys- j ical times, good conversation, I good music, a golf, tennis hiking,! swimming partner, etc i d like to\ hear from you. Also, if you re m tol the music of the 50s and 60s, may-} be i can help you find that long-i lost recording you haven t heard in\ 20 years in any case, please write.1 , Although a photo is appreciated ut\ will be returned, if desired), a gooc description, and an honest, open$ letter will do just fine Charlie hoIz

P 0. BOX 450 Cookstown, NJ 08511

/ search fo r a gay/bisexual man who is attuned to the femininity within himself, one who feels free to wants to feel free to express his feminine Qualities, in my view, men need to liberate themselves from macho Qualities that oppress others and that place a higher val ue on men than women A man who is secure and courageous enough to externally express the female within him is particularly) appealing to me Longhair, match ing, dangiy earrings, and painted \ nails are my favorite expressions. What are yours7 Call or write to ■ _ me and let s begin to explore how *2% to break down the societaiiy im -1 posed, artificial boundaries that • divide men and women Barry Moore 65 N. Fullerton Ave. >22 Montclair, nj 07042 (201) 746-6196

Dear rfd. Hello, rm a 55 yr. old cwm . i am wishing to correspond with other males 18-25 who will be patient and help bring me outside, i am gentle and caring, employed and seeking a real friend i am not experienced but am willing to learn. Please write soon, would enjoy sexy letters, photos tnudeOK) and a phone number. Looking fo r the right guy to make me happy. Pat

C/O RFD/72

i have written to you before about m mm the idea o f a gay retirement home, v*’1 i have been talking about this fo r a \ very long time now and so many[ o f you have said to me that would $ be a good idea. However, it bas'ZLnot happened and it can n o t hap-ybg pen unless there is an incorpora-T tion o f this idea. This means thatl there have to be officers and a ; bank account and a treasurer andt annual meetings, etc. All this takes] more than just one person to do. it must be some sort o f group ef-\ fort. i have not had input from • persons who would have such skills \ to put this together in a legal way. i /have written up articles o f in co r-ffi poration and i did send a copy to Sj! RFD. it was returned to me with yy/ypj} the explanation that they did not know what it was to be used for. i had assumed that■they i m ight want to publish it or feature eature an article vzjtfJr about it. is there some one out '& ffiZ there who understands what /am talking about? Personally, I am y£ taken care o f and yes i am fre- ^ Quently lonely and i expect that /jg will get more so as i age /w ould ; love to have a life mate even at i this late date, i am an artist doing \ rent out a room and also one other ‘z&tss house, i am well traveled and love the outdoors. / like music and dance. All of my 56' and brown hair and blue eyes, and my glasses call out to you. And my 60 f jn years o f knowledge come with me. if you're intrigued, please let me know. My 150 lbs. can even absorb some negative remarks, i also love to travel and really need a travel companion fo r 1995. kan j. voik 45 Whittier Blvd. Poughkeepsie, NY 12605

Dear Artist Naturalist, rm a 40 year old physician living j alone in a 100 acre rural paradise in central New York, rm well trav eled. fit and adventurous. I do etching and painting, and enjoy \ hiking, bicycling, hunting mush-' rooms and Oriental cooking, i am learning cross-country skiing as well as Japanese. Molding the land scape and growing fruits, vegeta bles and exotics adds form, c o lo r ! and fragrance to life. Life like love is a creative act that is best shared. Long woodland walks, nights on the hill with shooting stars, waking up in a snow-covered cabin on the pond, a cup o f coffee together... / seek that special person to share life s creative adventure and simple pleasures. Please write to: L.R. C/0 RFD/72

COUNTRY ROAD TAKE ME HOME... This country road will take you \ hom e-to country life, farm, family, love, companionship, quiet country! sounds, starry nights, harvest\ moons and blazing sunsets. Come | home to rapture in the beauty, peace and love o f country living... come share a country home and\ farm with someone special. This /s an invitation to anyone seeking [ new beginnings, new directions or | a new start to life, new family and { new friends. Age, race and person al circumstances are not impor- i tant. This country road leads to\ forth acres o f working farml (worked by others) while i tend to\ several acres o f rolling grass, sever al gardens, a pond and a big old\ Victorian house. /seek a compan ion. friend, soul mate and country\ brother who loves farm and coun try living. The farm is situated in\ the rolling farm lands o f south-\ central Pennsylvania, i live alone\ w ith m y tru sty black iab,\ Nicodemus and my barn yard cat, I Butch, i am an early fifty, hand some, masculine, healthy (h iv +\ asymptomatic) man, 511", 180/, I brown hair, moustache and blue\ eyes, i am into new age philoso-l phy, holistic beliefs and shamanic\ truths. /love country western and\ classical music, gardening, quiet“ evenings, country sounds, sunsets moonscapes, good friends, good\ food and good times. Anyone who\ wants to take this country road write home. All will be answered. John C/O RFD/72

WELCOMES Somewhat short but plenty warm, I'm a northwest Texas cwm , 31, 5 6", 145 lbs., and enjoy being with lanky men o f height and warmth, sharing interests and simple plea sures with. i enjoy bicycling, read ing, movies, music, nature and all o f the simple interests folks enjoy ] in the small city including the play ful times and intimate moments o f \ touching, ddiing, hugging and massage. eatthy, safe, non pro miscuous and atone are a few words to describe me. Alone, but not lonely (well...maybe on occa sion) in a small city o f 21,000 near \ Amarillo, it is beautiful out here, and the sunsets, oh... i invite you to w rite-w hether from the area, visiting the area, or as tall as a tree, we can begin sharing the warmth! p.s. you d be surprised how interesting a town o f 21,000 can be! Leon 1112 Sierra Drive Pampa, tx 79065

CWM seeks warm and sincere words from the blue collar, the white collar, and the collarless. Young and a b it older; everyone is special in the gay world, interests: afternoons at the beach eating oysters on the haIf shell, basketball, good t.v., dramatics, money, sex, home life, gourmet cooking, dining in my lanterns, traveling, quiet music, creative writing. Now what more do you need? John 5116 N.w. 51 Terrace Coconut creek, fl 33073

RFD Friendsi am CWM, 34, 5'11", 210 lb.. Br/Br. Looking fo r friends in nc, SC, va \ and wv. i travel daily for my job and would like to meet people in j the states where i travel, i checki my mail once a month but promised to respond to ail letters, i like blue I jeans, vegetarian cuisine, cartoons, [ Northern Exposure, casual atti-l tudes, and quiet conversation, i j am looking fo r friends and hoping fo r that special person Also look- j ing fo r an old friend from college, if you know Susan Eddy who went\ to Radford College ask her to drop i me a line. Thanks. Mark wheeler P.O. BOX 180 ivy VA 22945

Hi! I'm a 23 yr. old long-haired Metalhead (drk-bd/bu) 145 lb., 57". i also have a long thin goatee i love groups such as Testament, Metallica, Black sabbath, Dio, iron Maid en, Ozzy and groups like the Cali fornia based band Shark-Bait, i am "educated," have my ba in English, and am presently going fo r an ma in Sociology fo r cay Studies. I love being Cay /praise the Great Moth er everyday fo r Her g ift Besides Metal, my interests include, rock \ painting (i.e. painting on stones, rolling or otherwise), wood-carving, wax-working, herbalism, philoso phy lit., folk-lore, i am also a prac ticing witch, i hate conformity, and dread the thought o f being caught in the "9-to-Five-crind" with all its petty fascisms. I am seeking a similar long-haired dude, be tween 18 to 30 years old, thin to "well-built." Someone to be a com panion, to go to concerts, dinner, hiking, to shoot pool, share philo sophical interests/magickai prac tice, and perhaps be my Life-Mate? Maybe, won t know unless we try. Perhaps this is you? if so, don t be afraid to answer, i won t b ite -u n less you really want me to! haiu Chris Bilardi Bldg. 10, Apt. 113 Saucon village Bethlehem, pa 18015

Dear Brothers, is there anyone out there who wants a long-term relationship with someone who is fun, witty, well-educated and good conversa tionalist? Do you tike to take long walks, sun on a deserted beach, travel all over, visit historic sites, watch old movies and still have j time fo r romantic evenings? i j know i do. My vital statistics are 50 ] years young, brown-grey hair, glasses and weigh lbs. if you are | interested, contact Occupant, Box j 104, Harrisonburg, va 22801. Please include a photo and phone \ and address, come along with me, the best is yet to be!

Dear rfd BrothersThe great gay god dess is made up j o f ail our naked seives-hairy and hairless, fat and thin , old anal young <18 + ), horse-hung and mouse-hung pale and dark and every color of the earth and sky. This longhaired 450 lb chubby j bear wishes to construct a physical ‘ representation of the goddess made up of bare ass photos o f an who wish to take part-send your sweetest sky-dad photo to Paul Cod-dess Builder, p.o. Box 38032 Greensboro, NC 27439. Adult brothers only, please.

w m a

Dear Brothers, Hello from the depths o f the Bible Belt, i just moved from the Rich mond, va, area to the GreenvilleSpartanburg, sc. area and would really like to meet any o f you close by. i am a 39 year old WM with brown eyes and hair i am sort of a bear o f a guy as i am 5'11" tall and quite hairy My weight fluctu ates with the season and my com mitm ent to the rigors of the gym. i have been to a Body Electric weekend and would absolutely love to share the warm oil massage techniques that i teamed there S with any o f you that care to stop J by Also if any o f you are massage j therapist (or enthusiasts) please write! I look forward to hearing from any of you RFDers. i promise to reply to all letters. Bill Huckeba P.O. BOX 541 Roebuck, SC 29376

Only a few weeks ago (as o f thisi writing), for the first time i sought j out the company of gay men (at] the local chapter o f Dignity, event though rm not catholic) and ac-i knowiedged the fact that rm gay. | My age is 46, so you can see that\ rye spent many years in the dark ness. Many o f those years were j also spent in the Navy, i would like\ very much to correspond w ith * other gay men who have been in j the military, so that we can share ? experiences, doth different and~ similar. Any gay men on active duty who see this are also welcome to write to me, hut i hope you have a safe (i.e., off-hase) address to which mail can he sent. This contact letter is not really intend ed to initiate a search fo r a Signifi cant Other (hut i won t rule out the possibility that one could be found this way), so age, etc., isn't impor tant. Hoping to hear from you. write to

Dear Brothers,

Dear rfd Brothers,

i find myself temporarily stranded here-back home in Kentucky after having been away in the world in larger cities fo r 20 years. And though i love the quiet easy pace o f a small town, i get lonely fo r the companionship and the touch o f a brother who understands, i am 6", 190/, bm/brn, good looking, mas culine and have many interests. I would really like to hear from some o f you guys and also hope maybe we can meet.

i am a cw m / bottom, 6"1", 180/, b/b, 33 yrs. old, h iv + (but very healthy). My interests include birds, gardening, music (new age), | cooking, Thai Chi (still a beginner) I and am interested in learning Chi- [ nese martial arts strictly in passive: form fo r mental, physical and spiri- j tual development. My only form [ o f worship is o f the male organ. My devotion corresponds to the \ greatness o f the particular god. Am interested in meeting brothers \ in the Mississippi Delta region, ei ther sngls, cpls or more, who a re ! trim and healthy, 30-60 yrs, and j can help me to become acquainted \ with country life byway o f garden- j ing, canoeing, camping, and allow ing me to commune with nature. I am happy to offer my self fo r j labor intensive assistance in ex change fo r your teachings, com panionship, friendship, and the worship o f my gods, sincerely

Phillip C/O RFD/72*I

Dear Brothers.

"Olongapo Ed" Lawrence P.O. BOX 293128 Dayton, OH 45429

ygm k At 48, still "cute. H/v-h, healthy, 150 lbs., in shape, moustache and \ needing the touch of another per- \ son-seeking a domestic relation -! ship. Age unimportant but a mind j and toned body are Live on a \ small farm in SE lowa with Fluff. Coyote, deer, turkey, hawks, her ons, etc visit frequently Can trav- SS el. Lets discover each other, write w/photo. A rt 1, Box 83 Mt. Pleasant, ia 52641 rr

Hey Guys, Romantic realist seeks bigger, bold& er, and braver brother country-1' vfK man wants to come home, unplugging from day-to-daydum in spring, can join a homestead or j start one Psychologically/spiritu ally tough, physically tame, emotionaiiy/sexuaiiy tender. 5 9 ". 160. Br/Br, 30, wiry, w itty and windy. Nature, writing, hiking and cooking are favorites. Simple, direct and \ honest man gets my attention. hiv * welcome Your photo/bio gets mine Rustics please reply! Thanks.

■Today i thank all living things fo ri their sharing, hah, ya ho!" Eagle I calls... i am calling to ail men who j walk the good real road as i do. ‘ This handsome, sincere, warm i hearted CWM is looking fo r a \ soulmate (and close friends) to travel down the journey o f life with, will we walk this path to gether? i believe all life has spirit. I believe in the pipe, the sweat lodge, and the dance of harmony, o f creation, rm a sturdy 6'2", 175 lbs., Br hair and eyes, age 31. I've been described as having bedroom eyes! Let them smoulder into your soul. I love painting, hiking thru creation, acting, drumming, sing ing, gardening, and most o f all massage-both giving and receiving d m very good at it), rm looking fo r a man who is passionate about life and spirit, someone who would smile and say /understand," when i told him /was an appren tice to a medicine woman, rm looking fo r a being who is playful and a child at heart as i am-and yet can be a true warrior, too. Long, dark hair is a plus! (but not necessary-a true heart is). This is a tall order b u t-o h beloved warrior! i know you re out there.../ wait for us to be together, drum, sing and play together... and perhaps some day live out in the wild where we may have a gathering place of kindred spirits. Raven calls... coy ote listens... write me on the wind that blows... i wait and listen. Sacred brothers am Tahnodinjohn Lorenzen 3862 E. van Norman Cudahy, w i 53110

KG 7022 Meadow Lane Dallas, TX 75214

Mark C/O RFD/72

Greetings, rm a rather talented, warm and bright, developing artist, writer and jazz-pianist currently en sconced in the marginal wilds o f a quaint small town in southeastern Wisconsin. Having since 1989 freed myself up from a marriage, alcohol (ft and other mind-altering con fee- U tions, stubborn lifelong denial re garding my gay identity and a 2 pack a day cigarette habit, this j phoenix is committed to personal j integrity, artistic growth and to I contributing creatively to th e ; world. Still exploring as-far-back-as-, I-can-recall mystical leanings-m ost! o f this past year has been devoted I to work on a book on gay spiritual/'- L ty. Born during (but thankfully n o t' at) the Rose Bowl Game on New' Years Day, i960, rm 32, trim, healthy masculine, blond/hazel, 510, 140 lbs. and love, among oth er things, swimming, Gothic archi- j tecture, hiking, cuddling, photogra phy, Ella Fitzgerald, ErrolI Garner, cooking, books, gardening, classical' music, the ocean, affection, si- j lence, touch. I have some wonder ful and important friendships, but \ still seek a simpatico, attractive, intelligent, healthy man with a great smile and spirit with whom \ to share my life. Essays, letters I welcome,photo certainly appreci- \ ated. Good energyTim P.O. Box 546 Oconomowoc, Wi 53066

56!

i M

Howdy, vail. (Ancient Texan greet ings.) Clad you stopped here. I've been on this page before myself. to friends I've met: Keep 'em com ing. to the friends i haven't met: rm Taylor-just recently notched another year (born October 3, 1955). I'm 511 -1/ 2 “ (really) and ft around 250 Ibs.-broad built, good peasant stock-long brown hair, ** beard, hazel eyes, i live in North ern California now, but I'm looking at a mid-93 move to Austin, Texas. (Ann Richards or pete wiisonw hod you pick?) My values jumped from the Sixties/Seventies to the Nineties, totally bypassing the Eighties. (Aw, damn!) My likes { include: good friends, The Sand man. house coffee in a cafe, wait whitman, an occasional smoke, Anne Rice, sci-fi movies on tv, and Aaron Tippin (mostly with the vol ume down). My vices are too en dearing to mention. I'm an urban pagan who possesses a healthy dose o f skepticism, if you're mis taken fo r Mike Mentzer or Richard Locke, i d love to hear from you. df you are Mike Mentzer or Richard Locke, i d love to meet you!) Drop me a line, too, if you're from the Austin area-it'llhelp my psycholog-' ical re-entry, if you’re none o f the above—just a guy with a clean heart and a dirty m ind-you re invited to make my postal investment worthwhile. Drop me a line; send your iUhvi left-over Christmas cards; exchange recipes, as usual, filthy letters and nude photos will be answered first. Blessed be and sweet dreams. Taylor cage P .O .

BO X

151

Boyes Hot Springs, CA 95416-0151

Hey, guys,

ip r

we are a gay white male couple 30 and 32. Both Hiv-neg and we are looking to meet guys in rural Maine or Mass, as we plan to relocate to the area in approx. 2 yrs. no, we re not perfect 10 s (who really is) or philosophers, prophets, deep thinkers, or even good shit stingers, but we are loyal, loving, down to Earth guys who have been together for 6 yrs. who just hap pen to be looking fo r a 3rd person to keep the middle o f the bed warm and who likes somewhat sane and only safe sex. Maybe a person who likes to build, as we would like to construct a stone home dose enough to the city to be able to work but far enough in the country to be le ft alone, we are also the proud parents o f a beautiful 16 yr. old daughter and a pair o f high strung wolf hybrids. Does this sound a little like Noah's ark? if any o f this makes any sense at all to you, write us a letter and we ll answer all! Thanks

tU m m *

Dear Friend,

i am presently working on an or ganic farm in California, but planr on returning home to Michigan% sometime this coming spring, i have a small house on 4 acres o f land in northern Michigan, about a mile from Lake Superior, i hope to get some much-needed work done on the house and do as much gar dening as possible this coming summer. The reason fo r this letter is i would like to meet other gay men in the northern Great Lakes region-Michigan, Wisconsin, Minne sota, and Ontario. Meeting some one and developing a close rela tionship would be wonderful, but that seems like something more likely to grow out o f being among a circle of friends. Though there will be much work fo r me at home, there will also be time to travel around and meet new folks living in the region. Among my interests are living simple, growing vegeta bles, flowers, herbs rock garden ing, maybe a small nursery, also1 walking, backpacking, birdwatching, cooking and lowbudget travel to Mexico and cen tral America, its a beautiful part o f this Earth and it would be nice to share it with some friends i would enjoy hearing from you, and will answer your letter Sincerely,

There is trouble in Paradise and i want out. while i don't hate straights, I am tired o f being forced to assimilate into their cul ture while my cay spirit is dis missed as not relevant or signifi cant. After selling my home here in Monterey, /am looking for, lite r ally, greener pastures. This can be either in the u.S. or elsewhere. My plan is to hit the road with truck Wt and camper visiting areas until i find "home." while not wanting to { live communally i would enjoy | being neighbors, i am concerned about locations of toxic dumps, “ landfills, power generators (nuclear and traditional). Consideration is I also given to what is both up wind i and river. My needs are workable ’ earth (for a wholesale nursery) unlimited and dependable pure water supply, rural privacy, mini mum of redneck bigot influence, maximum enlightened neighbors, tolerable climate, medium to long growing seasons. Land may be undeveloped or gently modified j for human habitat. OK. Brothers and Sisters, got any ideas? Sugges tio n s , please. Yours in Brotherhood, Cura Lashlee 832 Lobos street Monterey, CA 93940

Calvin Dodd Bill Moscardelli 1006 Santa Anita Drive Belen, NM 87002-2930

David wilamowski 2535 westernesse Davis, CA 95616

m m

Travelers c/o RFD/72

t •jit*'-'*'/*.

Time has come to change, to \ meet new people, to try new ad ventures. Time, to use it as best j we can - to explore, we are two j cwm , together for 10 years, mid- \ 30 s & mid-40 s, one, a graphic de- \ signer/artist, the other a piano j player/composer, both soon to be \ traveling around the u. S. and Cana-! da. Tired o f chasing whatever it is ] people chase, we are heading out £ fo r an undetermined period o f j" time to see whats out there, while we are blessed in not need ing your money, the right work situation might be o f interest we would like to share-ouiet times, a gentle heart-space, skinny-dippln', a glass of wine, a good laugh-w/th those we may meet along the way. we are traveling in a van with a small trailer so we don t need lodg ing, just a puiet place to park for a day or two and be together, we are not heavy-duty party people, but are not purists either so, if you would like some friendly com pany, perhaps a song or two. please get in touch we hope to be on the road when you see this (an our mail will be forwarded) so a phone number might help us reach you. Though not necessary, your j photo gets ours.

n o t o f tnis world

oergman said, in cries and whis pers. "it is nothing hut a tissue o f lies, a monumental tissue o f lies." i see all o f human society, from the most personal to the global in this way. which makes anything but wnat we have had fo r the past three thousand years impossibie-to the extent that most peo ple manage, for example, to mis take blatant egotism for humility, ra m p a n t s e lf- in te r e s t a nd power-lust (a la gandhil fo r spiritu ality, and i do not want to be a part o f it. i want to live a com monly shared inner vision o f life, perhaps as blanche might have had she not betrayed her young hus band (and herself), in the spirit of say, emily dickenson, creating a paradise garden, guilelessly devot ed to one another and the passion ate pursuit of truth and beautyundefended from one s self and each other-expressing power not from dominance/submission (in the guest for the illusion o f security-the pecking order serving the biological imperative to survive at any cost) but through creative productiveness,accepting neither easy conventional nor equally easy; and false new age solutions (delu sions!) to complex and frightening n problems, opting for love rather *£ than longevity if a choice between77' the two be needed, embracing the truth-and by truth, i mean here not merely not lying, but not fall ing into the trap o f self -deception, which makes any kind of love impossible-allowing the truth to determine life's path rather than imposing upon life arbitrarily as human society does in order to assure the survival o f the species *** /don e think that much o f my spe-'M cies that i would go out o f my way'! to help keep it going (the inmates A finally retreating back into the}U insane asylum near the end o f 'they,! king o f hearts ) and as fo r my own'd# personal survival, / only want to 9$% keep going so long ass it is (by m y$?,(?!*■/( own values and standards) a worth maintaining i want an in - w tense intimacy, living as much as WL possible in the moment, fo r love. " without stopping the process be-t$ji cause o f fear and to relate honestly™ and openly to that fear when it inevitably occurs; to need to see % what is no matter the consequenc ) ' es. but also to paraphrase blanche " again “to tell the truth as it ought m to be " (and perhaps thus make it so) and to try to respond to it all with great generosity interdepen dence and interresponsibility (ailfjft else is illusion, anyway), to accept the challenge to live this different way, to NEED to. michaei ackerman 1045 monroe eugene, or 97402

DearRFDers,

Hi guys,

Somewhere out there hopefully there is a young guy in his 20 s or 30‘s who would like to live in a beautiful rural area with a relation ship oriented older guy. rm a voung 55, attractive, 5 9", 165 lbs. rm masculine, supportive, consid erate and affectionate. /have a home on eleven wooded acres in the northern California wine and redwood country 1-1/4 hours drive north o f San Francisco. 1 enjoy most all outdoor activities, nature, animals, and also like the city. Looking fo r an honest, funloving guy. no prisoners please. Please respond with photo/phone to: Jay P.O. B O X 1061 Windsor, CA 95492

greetings.' i am an adventurous spirit from humbolt county, ca. who is inter ested in corresponding with gay men we could even meet some day. im 31 years o f age, healthy, 510“ 150/ dark brown hair and beard, bright green eyes, and a nice smile, i enjoy gardening, mak ing and admiring beadwork, play ing guitar, singing, reading, writing poetry, graphic arts crystal mining. textile arts, spending time with my family and of course my UMj/, old dog wagner. i live m the serene mountains o f California and lead a fairly simple life, it s what i like to can modern-primitive ."my location limits the opportunities o f meeting other men with like ideals and ideas so i decided to reach out with this letter if you wouldfyi like to hear more, please write as)*, all replies will be received with joy!! sincerely, billy p o. box 74 bridgevilie, ca 95526

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Gentleman—seeking a place to set tle - Prefer areas around Alaska- \ Minnesota-or Wisconsin. 1 am n o ' hippy or longhair, well phrased ; in pleasing. Like rural, country-or \ ranch scenery—don t mind any type o f work. 1 cook (bake)-garden-, yard-nothing wild or way o u t-n o i drunks-orbums. keep clean house' -a n d surrounding know how t o , cure meats-hunt small game (if' necessary)-make own breads- j noodles—etc. Have own personal belonging- 1 am 40 single^ try to ' stay in good health-like fishing. Hiking-among other activities. 1] try to ptease-prefer a man or men j over or near 40-no younger ones. Thank you. Ron Peacock 1734 ne Halsey Portland, OR 97232

"MATRYOSHKA" is n ot the only sou venir and pleasure you can find on the ruins o f the ex-soviet union. The country does not exist any longer but people are still here... a hs young man, 32 yr., 190 cm., 87 kg., with university education, a normally built body, green eyes and very short hair, a VIRGO, could become your pen-pal, friend, guide and lover (if you come to visit me), rm willing to develop a long-lasting relationship with anyone from all over the world. 1 consider myself to be a harmonic person, down to earth, quite nice and masculine, gentle, affectionate, devoted and a little b it sentimental and suscep tible, shy in life but active in bed. rm a man o f various interests and , a good sense o f humour (i hope!) ] being able to joke about myself. / like people who are not affectedl but try to be genuine and openminded. 1 believe rm this way myself and rm always happy to meet such people on my life way. rm fond of traveling and the let ter-writing is just my “cup o f tea." /like music, both classical and mod ern, ballet, theatre in general; rm interested in arts, architecture, various nationalities" customs and traditions, and nature, i like to read and enjoy seeing a good mov ie. in one word, if to put it all to gether, you 'll get a typical picture o f an ordinary gays interests. 1 used to have a lover boy o f my age who was married, rm sorry to say, and we were together" fo r more than two years. But life is life and ours was not a rose garden... if you think you have something in common with me and my interests and that our ages are not too much different, and if you want to have a reliable friend, please, don't hesitate and let me hear from you. Let s take a chance to get to know each other in this rough and trou blesome world, and if you are tired o f being alone, maybe you could rest in my arms one day at last... Please write to Alexander o f Estonia C/O RFD/72

Dear Brothers, Ever find yourself in a romantic place and yours were the only lips around? 32 year-old italian-American looking fo r something hard to hold. 1 have a good sense o f hu mor, like to wrestle outdoors, and can last fo r hours with the right guy. Get in touch fo r some fooling around, or just to meet, if you 're coming to Spain. Roberto Francesco Caile Provenqa, 103 5- - 1Barcelona, 08029 Spain

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-- Tb* WioCKQ-PagBQ P w m AasOCUlthCC I« nothing profane? W hat do you say w hen you fir s t m eet a w itch?

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P.O. Box 68 Liberty, TN 3 7 0 9 5

EARTH RELIGION, EARTHLY CONCERNS!

Read »nd subscribe to the quarterly M errym ount M essen ger, and receive aJso its free activist -oriented supplement the B roadsw ord B u lletin (S2.50/samp!e, SlO/ycar. checks and m .o.s to Thomas Morton Alliance) Send SASE for info to: TMA-West Box 458 1016 E. El Camino Red Sunnyvale CA 94087

^ E nchant& The Jo u rn a l fo r the U rbane Pagan

Meet the Brown Bomber — a fear less superhero with a bedsheet pinned to his shoulders — and his best friend, Diva Touche Flambe, as they take on Jesse Helms, the right wing, and badmindedness in general.

JO S sam p te / $18/y«er Please make checks payable to: John Yohalem/t'K-VznW 30 Charlton Sc, Bo* 6F O J New Yori. NY 10014 ± *

“E xhanU t» tie pagan Line that aJwvys manages to surprise me It combines serous discussion of pagan issues wit* utter tcnguc-m-choek tumor ” —Mike Oundertoy, F aazhm tF n*

_____B.B. and the Diva____

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comics by Rupert Kinnard

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Includes the current issues of T h e U nicorn, T he L ittlest U nicorn & R T News publications; P L U S : description o f study in the Mystery School which trains Priests & Pnestssses in’, the Tradition of Lothlorien, Church-member resource! (Annual Gathering, 1500 volume I ubrary). We have Members coast to coasL Solitaries k aQ Traditions welcome. Founded in 1977.

RFDl information Mail all correspondence (advertising, subscriptions, business, subm issions or letters) to RFD, P.O. Box 68, Liberty, TN 3 7 0 9 5 . Contributors and editors can be reached through this address also. We welcome advertising - especially from gay-owned enterprises. Please write for our ad rate card. Sample copies of the most recent issues are $5.00(postpaid). Back issues are $4.00 if less than one year old. Back issues older than one year are‘$2.00 each. (We are out of issu es #1-4, 6-8, 24, 30. 32. 36. 53). Please add postage of $1.00 for four issues and for each additional four thereof. »> (V

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RFD itself is not copyrighted. However, each accredited contribution (written material, photo, artwork) remains the property of those contributors, and nothing of theirs may be republished in any form without their permission. All non-credited material may be republished freely. Mention of the source would be appreciated. Due dates for subm issions to receive full consideration are: SPRING *93 SUMMER'93 AUTUMN 93 WINTER 93

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Issue #73 Issue #74 Issue # 75 Issue # 76

January 15 April 15 July 15 October 15

1993 1993 1993 1993

RFD is published quarterly and is delivered around the Solstice and the Equinox. Second class mail may take up to three to four weeks. If you don't receive your copy within a month of the publishing date, please check with us. The number of your last issue is on the mailing label. Second class mail will not be forwarded, so you must let us know if you move. We print the names of all contributors, but not their addresses (except for contact letters). Contributors can be reached through RFD. We do not give out the addresses of subscribers, however, RFD will forward mail to them. WRITTEN - Please share your knowledge and vision through RFD. This is a reader w ritten journal, so it is y o u r forum. If possible, send in your contribution typed and double-spaced. RFD prefers to wield the editorial pencil lightly, so please send your subm ission to us as close to the way you would have it appear. We do correct (hopefully) spelling and punctuation, unless you note otherwise. ARTWORK - We always need more graphics and photos than we have. If you are an artist or a photographer (You don’t have to be a professional,just talented). Send us a portfolio. Xeroxes when the quality is good rather than original art is advisable. PHOTOS - If you have a choice, black and whites reproduce better than color. However, if you have a gem of a color photo, send it to us. If you would like special treatment of your work or want it returned, please be specific. No negatives, please. DRAWINGS - It is difficult for us to get good quality reproducUons from color drawings and light pencil drawings. Light blue is invisible to the camera and red photographs as black. (Try using red color pencil instead of graphite sometime.) Again, if you want special handling, be specific. We will report to you as soon as possible if your subm ission is selected for publication, but we sometimes hold material over for future issues, and it may be some time before actual publication. Please bear with us. A self-addressed, self-stamped envelope will insure the return of your originals. RFD will send contributors one (1) copy of the issu e in which their work appears as payment. Second copy upon request.

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