There were expressions flowing from my days when I was young. The restaurant table next to us was having so much fun with the waiter. Why does it have to matter at all then or today if I jump in and have fun with them. I just took the liberty with one of the men who was also having fun, we spoke a language I know. I stepped into my past and cut loose. I became a young adult woman playing with men who liked men.
This type of man was around when I was 19 years old; they loved my openness. They styled me with form in a way which allowed me to become who I can become today and then. I wasn’t allowed such freedom in the 1960's. It was hidden and taunted my spirit. Memories of stepping back into my father’s rifle range running around at 3, maybe 4, years old looking for attention might have manifested them. However, it doesn’t always work for me. I accept the label of my age to hide behind last night as protection for eccentricity. Too much fun with these men today and the men of my youth. Should I be allowed to do this kind of playing with all men at my age?
When I was young, I worked in the department store being as fashionable as I knew how to be. I played and talked with the window dressers much like the fun I had with one of the men at the restaurant last night. In those days I was called a fag hag or fruit fly. I chose to ignore the taunting. I loved attention of any kind.
This was where I began selling department store finery. Every morning the guys who were window dressers would walk in and tell me of the fun they had the night before. They went dancing at a place called Martha’s, a small bar hidden on a back street in downtown Rochester, N.Y. In those days being Gay was out of the question for freedom of being oneself. You had to hide at all costs. However, we were part of a liberating generation and I was about to cross the threshold in my own style of coming out in self expression. Loving and living life. I asked if I could come dancing with them. It was going to be wonderful. I knew freedom with them from the beginning. They knew in some instinctive way I was exploring life after the confines of my mother’s hand and home. They said they had to take me to lunch first.
The store was just off one of the first indoor malls and it had a food court. We sat with me in my openness as I asked what’s up? They wanted to tell me they were Gay before I could go out with them dancing. I looked at them and said “Oh I’m Gay too”. Their eyes looked at me in marvel from my openly ignorant response, but being thoughtful to lead me on. I was clueless to what they meant, “Being Gay.” So many variations on that theme in the years ahead, rowing from that moment into going to my first Gay bar and the experiences to follow.
