Prime Timers By Bill Burleson
People say the gay community is all about youth. That if you’re not young and smooth, you’re tossed out with yesterday’s newspaper. I don’t think that’s true. Well, not entirely true, anyway. Sure youth will be served, and granted, your average porn star isn’t exactly getting the early-bird discount at Denny’s. But that’s true in the straight world, too. Meanwhile, who does People Magazine splash around as the world’s most sexy man? Some twenty-year-old? Or is it George Clooney, with those character lines around his eyes and his salt-and-pepper hair? Anyway, I’m 48, and that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Sure as hell being older doesn’t mean life is over, nor does it mean that our lives as gay and bi men are reduced to history. Case in point: PrimeTimers. PrimeTimers is a group for older gay and bi men and their admirers. At their regular Friday night at the Townhouse in St. Paul I count about 35 men in the back piano room, mostly in their fifties on up, and a few of the aforementioned admirers, too. This old bar has a good feeling for me, as I used to hang out here quite a bit back about 20 or 25 years ago (tip for the youngsters: that’s the kind of thing you get to say when you get older…I mean, more mature…no no, more experienced). “We do three coffeehouse nights a month, a lunch gathering, two breakfasts, a movie night, this bar night, and more,” says Denny, Chair of the Minneapolis/St. Paul chapter. “We try to give our members a number of things to do each month.” To be exact, in the PrimeTimers newsletter I counted 25 different events for this month alone. 25! And that’s just in town. “We have 60 groups all over the nation and internationally, too,” according to Denny. “When
members travel to other cities, they contact the local group and find out what’s going on for events.” Plus there are organized travel opportunities. For example, this fall there is a “Fall Color Cruise” from New York to Halifax, a 10 day cruise from Fort Lauderdale through the Panama Canal, and their annual convention in Reno. Clearly, many of these men may be retired from their jobs, but sure aren’t retired from life. Take Roger and Jim, whom I join around a table in a quiet corner of the bar. Roger’s been coming for three years, and says he needed “some quality friends. I know a lot of younger people, and I don’t have much in common.” He appreciates PrimeTimers. “There are more events than I can get to. I like to go to the Perkins breakfast.” “It’s huge!” Jim jumps in. “Like 30 guys go!” Community is what this group is all about. “This is a very nice, accepting, group. These are good people,” according to Jim. He’s been coming to PrimeTimers for about five years. “Anyone can come. It’s not a snobby group.” Roger agrees. It’s very relaxed. And if you’re new, someone will always come up and say hey.” And lest we forget, it’s a group for gay and bi men. That’s key for Jim. “I don’t have a group of gay friends. Most of my friends are straight.” I think if I were to talk to all 35 people in the room this night, there would be 35 different stories about how finding an accepting, welcoming community of gay and bi men has been so important. Some of the men aren’t out to anyone beyond this room, others here are now just coming out or have come out recently, and some have been out forever. Speaking for the latter group, “We met the fall of 1970, 37 years ago,” Roger (a different Roger) tells me after we are introduced. Roger and Mike have been partners for 35 years. “I
enjoy the group very much,” he says. What does he enjoy? “There are few pretenses. We are of an age we don’t put on airs anymore.” I came to the group this night expecting to find just that: a group. Sure, on the simplest level, it is just that, with a newsletter, officers, etc. And I know that a good group is usually a community, offering the connections our modern world so often denies us. PrimeTimers is certainly about community, but maybe for many of these guys it’s even more. Perhaps what we are talking about is family. According to Jim, “We care about each other. We know when someone’s sick. We send cards.” So many times I’ve talked with men who feared growing older; they thought it meant they would be unattractive, boring homebodies whose dating life is ancient history. Primetimers proves them wrong.
PrimeTimers is a membership organization, and can be reached at 952-200-6683 or on-line at primetimersww.org/ptmsp. Have a group that we should know about? Contact me at www.forwhomthebilltolls.org