It’s My Turn

Every time I hear this song on my iPod, I think about the decision I made to leave my husband of six and a half years to come out, to break the hearts of my husband, my Southern Baptist parents, and my in-laws. I walked out and refused to feel my own heart breaking, because after several suicide attempts, it really did have to be my turn or I was done.

I have a friend, the first woman I loved, who had a brief period where she fought her way free, but she didn’t stay there. I used to think she couldn’t do it, that she lacked courage. But years later I know she did what she should have done, and everything she did was courageous. It wasn’t a path I could chose – to go back to her husband, have another child and live in the marriage with her husband until his death two years ago.

I’ve judged her and her choices in the past, but see a little clearer now that just as I’ve chosen what was right for me, so she chose what was right for her. I remember how full of life she was and how she laughed, and it is difficult to hear the tired sadness in her voice these days. So I give her these words to help her find her way back to laughter and joy.

I can’t cover up my feelings
in the name of love
or play it safe.
For a while that was easy.

And if living for myself

Is what I’m guilty of

Go on and sentence me -
I’ll still be free.

It’s my turn
To see what I can see.
I hope you’ll understand
This time’s just for me.

Because it’s my turn
With no apologies.
I’ve given up the truth
To those I’ve tried to please.

But now it’s my turn.

If I don’t have all the answers
At least I know
I’ll take my share of chances.

Ain’t no use of holding on
When nothing stays the same.

So I’ll let it rain
‘Cause the rain ain’t gonna hurt me
And I’ll let you go
Though I know it won’t be easy.

It’s my turn
With no more room for lies.
For years I’ve seen my life
Through someone else’s eyes.

And now it’s my turn
To try and find my way
And if I should get lost,
At least I’ll own today.
….
Because it’s my turn
To turn and say goodbye.
I sure would like to know
That you’re still on my side.

….
It’s my turn
To start from number one
Trying to undo
Some damage that’s been done,

But now it’s my turn
To reach and touch the sky.
No one’s gonna say
At least I didn’t try.

It’s my turn,
Yes, it’s my turn.

By Michael Masser and Carole Bayer Sager
From soundtrack of “It’s My Turn” starring the wonderful Jill Clayburgh

©2011 jgschenck

My night with Fellini

While I was staying at the house in Pelham, I got a call from one of the women who I’d met at the first support group meeting. She  hadn’t staying in the group, but we’d run into each other several times at Lilith performances.

Nan was tall, thin, had black, black hair, and very intense eyes. I thought she was beautiful, but there was something about her that made me want to keep my distance. She asked if I wanted to go with her to her Italian film class at UMass. That night they were showing Fellini’s “Juliet of the Spirits,” beginning around 7:30. She came by a little before 7 in her VW bug and we drove off.

Life was one adventure after another. I didn’t really ask where I was going. I let myself go where events took me. Everything I did was new, and I had no rules. I lived a thousand miles from my family, and anyone I knew I had known for less than two years. I was exploring uncharted territories, both internally and externally. I could be anyone I wanted to be, do anything I wanted to do.

I had been brought up to be good, follow the rules, dress conservatively, date nice boys, get married, settle down, have children, visit my family for the holidays. When I did get married, I found that my husband’s family had its own blueprint for what I was expected to do, how I was expected to be. I’d whisked myself away, not considering my parents, my brother or sister, or even my husband, all of whom I loved. I wanted all of the voices to stop so I could listen to my own voice. How could I ever figure out who I was while my life was run by a Board of Directors?

When Nan pulled out a huge joint out of her jacket pocket, lit it and asked if I wanted some before the movie, I said yes. When she handed it to me, I saw that it wasn’t like any pot I’d ever smoked. The paper was stained yellow.

“It’s Maui Wowie,” Nan said. If that was supposed to explain anything, she was in for a surprise. Yes, I’d smoked a fair amount of marijuana, and I’d learned to roll my own. I had never seen a joint that big or one colored fluorescent yellow.

“Go on,” she said, and I did.

We parked in a student lot and walked up to the classroom building. The wooden desks were fairly uncomfortable, but when the lights dimmed I began to feel as if I were sitting on large, squishy marshmallows. I had trouble sitting upright.

Fellini’s psychedelic images pulled at one side of my brain while the other half tried to absorb the story of the loyal, betrayed housewife. I tried to process Juliet’s emotions and understand her, find something I could hold onto rationally, but I kept sliding away. I knew I looked like a deer in the headlights, watching the swirling colors and images in front of me – I even knew my mouth was hanging open. There wasn’t anything I could do about it. It felt as if my eyes were on fire and I could have been another image blazing across the screen.

In the darkness, I glanced over at Nan. She was bent over a stack of pages, writing furiously at odd angles, sometimes taking up a whole page with one word. She’s was in as bad shape as I was.

Then my neck lost its ability to hold up my head. I must have looked as if I was diving up and down over the desk, trying to keep my head up. A woman next to me suggested I get some water. I tried to stand up but my legs wouldn’t work. Eventually, I made it to the hallway and the water fountain. I splashed cold water on my face and tried to control my breathing. The woman had come out behind me to make sure I was all right.

“Jez,” she said. “Your eyes are bright red.” I went over to the stainless steel fire extinguisher and looked – my eyes were bright red. What had I done to myself?

Over the years, I smoked a lot of dope, but never before and never since have I ever felt like I did that night. I’ve since learned that dope, my old predictable buddy, can be laced with other substances. I suspect that joint was. Perhaps I should have been more careful, but I’d been careful all of my life.

I drank a lot of water before going back in, but even the short respite helped. My neck was a bit more stable. Nan was still writing, occasionally looking up at the screen before plunging back to her epistle.

Later that night she slept over, because she was too wasted to drive back to the dairy where she worked. I asked her what she’d written and she showed me. There were pages and pages of words written at bizarre angles, occasionally a phrase that made sense, but by and large just ravings. Nan laughed and threw it all away. Nan left before dawn since dairy work started at 5 a.m.

In truth, I don’t recall a lot of specifics from the “Juliet of the Spirits.” I do remember one line that resonated with me: “I don’t care about the clemency you offer me but the salvation of my soul.”

I still run into Nan occasionally. She is a nurse and does social service work now. She is still tall, lanky and has intense eyes. I don’t find them mysterious – they just scare me. I’ve never asked her if she remembers our going to see “Juliet” or of the havoc her joint wreaked upon us that night.

©2011 jgschenck

Christmas and New Year’s Eve 1975

One of my friends in the support group visited her family for Christmas and New Years. She offered me use of her house and her VW bus for two weeks. Since I lived in a one-room apartment and shared a bathroom on a hall, I was thrilled. A bathroom to myself!

I called Nancy and arranged to drive to Worcester to pick her up at Clark University, expecting a romantic weekend in the house, snuggled up in front of the big stone fireplace. When we got back to the house, I made a big fire and got a couple of beers for us, but Nancy kept pushing me away, both physically and emotionally. I didn’t understand why she was as thrilled with having time alone with me as I was having time alone with her. We were young; my libido was in full bloom – why weren’t we having wild sex?

Even the Bible says there’s a time for all things – a time for intellectualizing and a time for, well, sex. All Nancy did was talk. I am as chatty as the next person, but I did not go through everything I did to come out and live as a lesbian so I could talk more often. It was a frustrating weekend, and I was not sorry to take her back to college.

New Year’s Eve was more in line with how I wanted my life to go. My friend MV called the house and told me about a lesbian party, somewhere in Hatfield, MA. With only the sketchiest of directions in hand, she picked me up around 8pm. We stopped at the liquor store on Rte 9, Hadley, got a couple of six packs and began our search.

Hatfield may be a small town, but it’s honeycombed with little streets. I’m not sure we would have ever found the house if MV hadn’t spotted a car she recognized. We figured they were probably going to the same party, but when we got there we only saw a couple of other cars. Neither of us knew the women throwing the party and we hadn’t really been invited. We expected to get lost in the crowd, expecting to see women we knew eventually. So we sat in the car, with the heater running, and consumed a couple of beers each before the number of partygoers had reached a reasonable number in which we could get lost.

Taking our remaining beers in with us, we were both immediately swallowed up by the crowd. Other women from our support group were there, including Mo who was involved with a group starting a battered women’s shelter in nearby Franklin County. The rooms were pretty dark, beer was flowing freely, and the music was loud. More people came in. Then even more people came in. We were trying to dance, but there wasn’t much room.

Among the women Mo was working with on the battered women’s shelter were two straight women whom everyone knew were in love with each other. They said they were “best friends.” They way they held each other when they danced said something else. One of them was tall, had loads of hair and was a totally knockout. As midnight neared, she was standing in front of me. When I asked her to dance, she said okay. When people counted down to the New Year, she was in my arms, and we were kissing, really kissing.  Holy cow. She didn’t kiss like she was straight. In my mind, I tried to remember how much I’d had to drink.  Possibly I was misinterpreting our interaction. Finally, she pulled away, and I could breathe again. She leaned in, gave me a short hug and moved off through the crowd. I didn’t move until MV came over and asked me if I was okay.

Both of the women eventually married and had children. They were always “best friends,” and years later they came to a lesbian dance where, once again, they danced like lovers.  Fifteen years later I found myself working with that woman’s husband. When he told me who his wife was, I think I must have looked like a deer in the headlights.

The woman died of breast cancer three or four years ago. She was always beautiful, had two lovely daughters and a devoted husband, and was well known in western Mass. for her work on behalf of women’s issues. I respected her for all of that, but my breath still catches when I remember that long, passionate kiss in a dark house one New Year’s Even in Hatfield, MA, so many years ago.

©  2011 jgschenck

Thanksgiving 1975

Sometimes writing about events and memories serves as a way to release them. I hope this is such a time, because this is not a favorite memory.

In November 1975 I worked at the Amherst newspaper for minimum wage, lived in a one-room apartment over a restaurant with a shared a bathroom on the hall. On Sundays I taught five and six year olds at Grace Episcopal Church, half a block from my apartment. Wednesday nights I hitchhiked the nine miles to Northampton and went to Zelda’s back room to dance with other Pioneer Valley lesbians, and every third Thursday I met with my Lesbians Over 25 group. On the weekends, if Lilith was playing in the immediate area I’d find a way to go. Some weekends my girlfriend Nancy came to visit. And that was pretty much what my life was like.

Nancy and I talked 2-3 times a week (I’d use the pay phone in the restaurant) and wrote each other almost every day.  The weekends she didn’t visit were very lonely. I tried to find ways to fill the hours until something happened. I walked to the used book store on Saturday mornings. The owner knew I didn’t have any money, but loved books, so he always made me a cup of tea and let me sit in his big chair, read, and listen to Robert J. Lurtzema who hosted a public radio classical music show. I’m sure there was plenty to do in Amherst with its three colleges, but I hadn’t figured out how to find activities.

My parents, well, my father, wrote at least once a week, and I always wrote back. However, the strain between us was obvious and painful for both sides.

One day I got a letter from my brother inviting me to visit his family in Chicago for Thanksgiving. He invited Mother and Dad as well. I wasn’t sure about seeing them, but it had been a year and a half. My brother thought it would be good for us all to meet on neutral ground. Dad had asked me to come to Birmingham several times, but I was afraid he and Mother would try some kind of intervention or worse. They might have had me committed, for all I knew, or refused to let me leave.

My brother didn’t laugh at me when I suggested these things, but he did assure me that I would be safe visiting his family. I’ve often wondered about his negotiations with my parents and how he convinced them to fly to Chicago. He sent me money for a plane ticket, and I made reservations. Grace Church had a craft fair on Saturday before Thanksgiving, and I splurged for a $10 handmade duffle bag for the trip since I didn’t have any luggage.

My brother met me at O’Hare Wednesday morning before Thanksgiving and took me back to his house in Skokie. I spent several hours with him, my sister-in-law, and five year old nephew, having a wonderful time and enjoying being with my family again.

When my parents’ flight came in late that afternoon, we were all there to meet them. My stomach was tied up in knots, unsure of what to say or what they would say. I saw Dad first, his mop of hair a bit unkempt as always, his smile a little forced. He moved to hug my brother first, so I looked for my mother. She didn’t even look at me and walked past as if I wasn’t there.

My sister-in-law, one of the best people I’ve ever known as well as one of the most sensitive, came over and gave me a hug. Dad came over and hugged me, holding me tighter and longer than usual, but then hurried to catch up with Mother, my nephew at his side. I began to cry. My brother and his wife, one on either side of me, put their arms around me as we walked to baggage claim. I doubt they will ever appreciate what they meant to me in that moment.

When we got back to my brother’s house, Mother and Dad went to their bedroom to unpack. I was sleeping on the sofa in the den, so there wasn’t anywhere for me to hide or go to cry. My sister-in-law was making some side dishes ahead of time for the next day, so I peeled potatoes and worked with her in the kitchen for a bit.

Finally, I wandered off to the living room and began going through their records – remember records? Dad came in for a couple of minutes and told me to give Mother time. I didn’t really have a choice.

I had just found my sister-in-law’s stash of Barry Manilow albums when my mother came in. I glanced at the clock. It had been four hours since she’d walked past me at the airport.

She asked me what I was doing. There was no reconciliation, no falling into each other’s arms.  No insights into our lives or thought processes. It was just killing time, but killing time with my mother that day was very, very sweet.

It’s been 35 years since that Thanksgiving. Mother was a tough nut to crack where my lesbianism was concerned. Eventually she found a way to live with me as I was and as I am. I never asked for her approval, but I did insist upon her acceptance.

Over time, we grew to be very close and talked at least twice a week after my father died. During one visit, she showed me her photo album from her childhood, and in those pictures I saw a different person than the thin-lipped, stern woman who marched past me that day in O’Hare. In my room, I have several photos of her from that album – as a ten year old girl, in shorts with her socks down around her ankles, as a teenager laughing from behind a bush, laughing at a church camp with a friend, sitting with her high school friends outside my grandfather’s house laughing.

My favorite photo is this one of her with my father when they were dating. They’re holding hands and looking at each other with so much love that I feel intrusive just looking at it. I’d never thought about my parents being young and in love. How did she get from that girl to the woman who would treat her own child the way she’d treated me.

I often asked her to tell me about her childhood and once asked her if anyone had ever told her to be more serious. Yes, she said. I guessed it must have been her father, but she said it was her mother. She told me her mother told her she was too flighty to marry a preacher. She had to be serious, because preachers were serious people. If she wanted my father to be a success, Grandmother told her, she had to stop being who she was and learn to be someone else. And she did.

I wasn’t willing to be anyone other than who I am. I had tried, but eventually had made the hard decision to be myself. I lost most of my friends from high school, but somehow I knew my decision would not cost me my family. As Mama Corleone tells Michael in Godfather II,  “You can never lose your family.”

©2010 jgschenck

Nancy, Lilith and “Moondance”

In my previous post, I talked about going to Zelda’s and meeting Nancy R there. We arranged for her to visit me in Amherst the following Saturday afternoon. She drove over from Clark University in Worcester where she was a student, and we drove up to Conway, MA.

I’d been there when I did a freelance story on a member of the famous DuPont family who’d redone an old barn into a gorgeous home. On the way, I saw an old cemetery and was interested in exploring it. I’d also seen the Conway covered bridge and thought it would be a nice outing for us.

We poked around the cemetery, reading the old gravestones, many of them dating back to the 1700’s, a couple even older still, and then drove over the bridge. Nancy was pretty subdued, but I was glad to have time to take a good look at the bridge. We sat on the bank and talked, mostly about old relationships, mine at the women’s retreat and hers with her friend Nat. eventually going back to my one-room apartment in the center of Amherst. Since I was working for minimum wage and she was a student, there was no fancy dinner at the Lord Jeff in our future. We had supper at the Gaslight II, downstairs from where I lived, before she left.

I didn’t have a phone, but used the pay phone in the Gaslight whenever I needed to call someone. It wasn’t bad for occasional calls to my family, and soon I was calling Nancy a couple of times a week to arrange weekend dates. In between we wrote each other. In a time of instant emails, texting and cell phones, it sounds archaic that we wrote to each other about what we were doing and who we saw where. After the first visit to Zelda’s, she didn’t come over mid-week again, and depending on her study requirements we often went two or three weeks between visits. Since I also didn’t have a car, the burden of traveling was on her.

The second time she visited, we walked around town, visiting Faces, a cool store in a building in back of the Mobil station in downtown Amherst – now located in Northampton, as all things cool are – as well as The General’s, a used clothing store, farther out toward the University. It was several years before I could buy new clothing.

That was the first time Nancy stayed overnight. Sex was a problem with her. I couldn’t understand why, because she’d had a previous relationship with a woman, and I’d been with several and hadn’t had any complaints. I didn’t mention that I was 28 years old and she was 21 years old. Needless to say, our life experiences were quite different, but I didn’t really think about that.

I was still going to my weekly group meetings, going to Zelda’s, and on weekends when I didn’t see Nancy going out with my new friends. There was so much lesbian culture in Amherst and Northampton at that time – numerous women’s bands, dances, and even occasional films.

By far my favorite band was Lilith. If they played Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights, my friends and I were there every night. In Amherst, Lilith played downstairs at the Steakout, now a Chinese restaurant at the bottom of the hill going into Amherst on Rte 9. You paid a cover charge, drank the cheapest beer they had, and danced until closing time. The bathrooms were always thick with marijuana smoke, another plus. Everyone was doing it, and I would have also – just didn’t have the money for it. The Steakout had an awning over its entrance, and I developed the habit of jumping up whenever I left and grabbing the crossbar for a swing. I don’t know why, but I did. The Steakout was a great place to see any band. I remember seeing Liberty Standing there, also.

One night when Lilith played, I was at the Steakout by myself. The floor was jammed with dancers, mostly lesbians, but also some straight couples. I sat off to one side watching the women dance and feeling so exuberant about being a lesbian. There were two women who were obviously in love who danced with their hands behind their backs, leaning into each other with just their faces touching. I’ll never forget watching them or how it made me feel.

One Saturday night, several women from the weekly group went to the Rusty Nail, a great bar in nearby Sunderland, where Lilith was playing. Nancy had come for an overnight visit and joined us. By far my favorite Lilith song was their rendition of Van Morrison’s “Moondance.” Their lead singer had a smooth voice that was perfect for their slow, sexy interpretation of the song. I always danced when they played “Moondance.”

When they began playing it that night, I grabbed Nancy’s hand and said, “Let’s go. I want to dance to this one,” but she wouldn’t get up. No one else was dancing and it was a huge dance floor. I tried to harass some of my friends into getting up also, but no one would. I told Nancy if we went out there, other people were bound to follow. We did. They didn’t.

It seemed to take twice as long for the song to end, and I wouldn’t sit down until it was over. I don’t think Nancy ever forgave me. The Rusty Nail was a place that always had a preponderance of straight couples, and that night they just sat and watched us the whole time. All 15 hours of the song. Well, it felt like 15 hours. When we sat down, my friend MV said, “Wow. I couldn’t have done that.” That didn’t help with Nancy’s mood.

We had been seeing each other for several months when Nancy finally told me that she and “her old girlfriend Nat” had never been involved. I was stunned. Why did she tell me they had been involved? She said I’d been so adamant about not being another woman’s first lesbian experience that she decided not to tell me. In fact, she told me they had been lovers. Our disconnect on sexuality made a lot more sense after that.

©2010 jgschenck

The Lazy River, Deadly Nightshade, and Zelda’s

At my first meeting at EveryWoman’s Center I asked people where I could go to meet other lesbians. The universal response was “Zelda’s.” Every Wednesday night, the owner of Zelda’s Restaurant & Bar in Northampton turned the back room over to lesbians from 9pm until closing, 1am, and we could buy beer and listen to dance music.

Prior to my first visit to Zelda’s, however, the college professor’s wife who worked in the Amerhst Record production department with me, Edith, invited me to go hear Deadly Nightshade, a 3-woman band, that was playing at the Lazy River bar in Northampton. I said I would go, but made it clear I didn’t consider it a date. We were friends going to hear a band together. Period. Edith said okay and arranged to pick me up Saturday night.

I didn’t appreciate that I was going to hear one of the country’s first all women/feminist rock bands. Everything happening to me was a new experience. I imagine it must be what kids feel like when they go away to college, except I had waited an extra 10 years and I wasn’t afraid of anything. Take a look at this clip from a 1975 appearance the band made on Sesame Street, the same year I first saw them.

The Lazy River, alas, is no more, but my vivid memories of it will keep it alive, at least in conversation, for years. It was down Pleasant Street, Rte 5, in Northampton, had a low ceiling, filthy bathroom, and cheap beer. I can’t imagine the sound system was very good, but we didn’t care. Edith & I sat about 3 tables back from the band, off to the left side. I loved everything they played and was having a rocking good time. I did not want to dance with Edith, but I wanted to dance so when I saw a young woman sitting alone at a table to my right, I asked her to dance. She was very reluctant and put me off for several songs. After about ten minutes, I was directing all of my jibes and jokes to her, mostly because she laughed at them and she was cute. Of course, she eventually danced with me. I guess I wore her down with my charm.

She had spent the first part of the week-end camping with her old girlfriend, but they’d had a fight and gone separate ways. Her name, she said, was Nancy, and she thought her girlfriend Nat might show up. I have to admit I ignored Edith and was extremely rude in my behavior, but I didn’t really care, shallow creature that I was.

Nancy was a student at Clark University in Worcester, about an hour away, but nothing lost, nothing gained. I told her about Zelda’s – which I’d never been to, but planned on visiting the following Wednesday – as if I was a long-time resident of the Pioneer Valley and knew all about local lesbian haunts. I told her she should make a point of coming, and said I’d keep an eye out for her.

On the ride home, Edith lit into me about ignoring her, and I got a lecture on friendships between women. I just took it, because I figured I deserved it, but I didn’t feel badly at all. Meeting women was turning out to easier than I expected.

I lived in Amherst, a mere 8 miles away from Northampton (and Zelda’s), but I didn’t have a car. However, it was the 70’s and things were a little safer. We were young and thought we were invincible, I suppose. At any rate, around 8:15 every Wednesday night, I dressed in my best dyke clothes and walked across the two blocks of Amherst’s common to Rte 9 to hitchhike to Northampton. Everyone hitched between the two college towns and some still do. In fact, where cars used to pull precariously to one side of the busy street, the town has now put in an area to allow cars to stop for hitchers.

It took about two years before I had an experience that made me think I should be careful about whose car I got into. In 1975, I didn’t think twice about it. The car stopped near the center of town, and I asked a couple of people where Zelda’s was. Zelda’s name was set into the bar’s door in shiny gold, and I think my smile must have been about a foot wide as I opened the door.

Inside I found the exuberance, laughter and smells of a busy bar. Since the crowd was mixed, I kept pushing my way through the crowd, eventually finding myself in the famous Zelda’s back room. I’d gotten there early and it was very busy, but I soon found the women I’d met at the group the previous Thursday. Since I didn’t have a lot of money, I got a draft beer and nursed it for as long as I could. The dance floor was packed, so it didn’t matter if you were dancing alone or with anyone so I danced every song.

All of a sudden I heard my name. Nancy, the woman I’d met at the Deadly Nightshade concert, had actually shown up. I introduced her to my new friends, but it was so loud we couldn’t talk. Fortunately, Zelda’s had a side door into the back room, so we went out for a chat. I couldn’t believe she’d shown up.

I was working on an article for a special edition of the Amherst Record – hoping they’d be dazzled by my writing prowess and would hire me as a reporter (they didn’t) – and invited Nancy to come back Saturday afternoon for a drive up to Conway, MA. I had interviewed one of the younger members of Delaware’s DuPont family who’d converted a big barn into a home, and in the process had stumbled across Conway’s covered bridge. Nancy said she’d try to make it and would call me, but I explained I didn’t have a phone. I told her I’d wait until 2pm and if she didn’t show up I’d go do something else. We said goodbye and I went back inside.

Since Zelda’s was open until 1am and I stayed until the end, I wasn’t sure how I would get back to Amherst. I didn’t really think about it until 12:45am. People were beginning to leave, so I asked my friend MV if she knew anyone going to Amherst. Thus began my friendship with Ann C. She didn’t have a car, but everyone knew Ann C. – I think she was a student at UMass – and someone always gave her a ride. Thereafter, she always included me in her ride planning, for which I was and remain grateful.

In the months and years that followed, my rides back to Amherst became some of my most memorable times. We often rode with LW who owned a white van and her girlfriend at the time JP. We piled into the back, somewhat happy from alcohol consumed at Zelda’s – it didn’t take long for people to realize I didn’t have money, and I was often the recipient of gifted drafts – but the rides always included smoking a great deal of dope. There were times I didn’t get home until well after 2am, although it was only a 15-20 min. ride to Northampton, and I was driven places I couldn’t begin to name.

One of my goals was to do enough crazy things that when I got old I would still smile at the memories. And I do.

©2010 jschenck

How to meet women in Amherst

When I first moved to Amherst, I didn’t have friends and wasn’t sure how I’d get them. Amherst, MA, being home to two colleges, Amherst and Hampshire, and the state university, better known as UMass – emphasis on the U, please – had a great many activities going on. The street lights and building sides were plastered with one sheet announcements, once the students returned in September 1975.

Walking around town, I spotted part of the word “lesbian” poking out from under three or four other flyers and made a beeline for it. If there were lesbians around, and my senses told me there were, I wanted to meet them. By this time, I’d realized Elizabeth was not going to be part of this effort. I was on my own for sure.

What I found was a doorway to Lesbian Land. The flyer said a lesbian-only group was forming for lesbians over 25. I think the age limit was designed to weed out undergraduates, confused by feminism, having their requisite lesbian flings. The first meeting was less than a week away and would be held at The Everywoman Center at UMass.

Everywoman Center? I liked the sound of that and imagined a building with lines stretching across the campus and into the next town. Well, every woman? It could be a lot of women. UMass had a free bus system running around town and to the colleges, over to Smith College in Northampton and down to Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley. God bless the five colleges! Free transportation was just the ticket. I was making minimum wage, $100/wk, which meant I took home about $80/wk.Unsure of the bus schedules, I jumped on a bus a hour early and found Everywoman Center 45 minutes before the meeting was to start.

I’d looked at what I saw students wearing around town and dressed in what I hoped would be appropriate. Jeans? Always. Bra? Never. T-shirt? Of course. Denim button shirt on top of that. Work boots, the only pair of shoes I owned.

Everywoman Center was in beautiful Goodell Hall, that had housed the university’s library, before someone convinced the trustees to build a 27 story brick building that towered over campus and was not well made at all – there was a fence around the building because bricks kept falling out. Yep. Bricks.

I had an enormous amount of nervous energy that evening. I’d gone to the women’s retreat to meet women, well, to meet lesbians, and I had met them. While that had not been a completely positive experience, I had accomplished the goal of coming out. Now, I’d come down out of the Adirondack Mountains was ready to be a lesbian every single day. Of course, I hoped I wouldn’t be the ONLY lesbian I’d ever know. I was in luck.

It was a very informal group – everyone wore jeans and several had work boots similar to mine. Good choice, I told myself. The moderator was a husky voiced woman with dark hair streaked with the beginnings of grey, probably in her mid to late 40’s. Her name was Carol, she said, and she would be serving as moderator for that night only. The group would have to come up with a leader, figure out how to rotate leadership, or share leadership among its members.

Carol asked each of us to give our names and tell the group something about ourselves. I came to know some of the women so well over the new couple of years that it’s hard to remember what each of us said that night. There were three women, however, who stand out vividly.

The third woman who introduced herself that night questioned there being a lesbian-only group. She said she was bi-sexual, but identified herself as a woman-loving-woman. A tall woman with short dark hair and more anger than I’d ever encountered in my life lit into her. She didn’t want to be in a group with bi-sexuals. She’d made enough sacrifices to be a lesbian that she didn’t feel it was fair for women who could choose to partake of heterosexual privilege to … Honestly, I stopped listening. All I heard was her anger, and I’m not a big fan of anger. I was always afraid it would get out of hand.

Carol stepped in, verbally, and calmed the two women down – by this time they were yelling at each other. She told the woman that the flyer was very specific, lesbians only. The woman started in on Carol, saying no one knew what they would become over the course of their lifetime. Could anyone state categorically, without hesitation, that they would never, ever under any circumstance become involved with a man again? Carol’s hand shot up. “Never?” the woman asked. “Never,” Carol said.

Everyone from my previous life thought maybe I was going through a phase, and I couldn’t tell them any differently. I didn’t know. I was learning about myself. I didn’t think I would be ever be involved with a man again, I couldn’t imagine it. I’d given up too much and hurt too many people to be a lesbian. Would I ever go back? Could I? This is what my brain was doing when Carol’s hand shot up. Wow. I thought. She really does know herself. I put my hand up, too. I didn’t know everything, but I felt I could commit to this. Yes, I was a lesbian. And I was over 25 by 3 years. This was my group.

The bi-sexual woman eventually left the group that night. The tall woman with the amazingly dominant personality, Nancy, stayed, but, not surprising, left two weeks later. She got into yet another argument with someone else in the group. I have to admit she scared me, but I still run into her from time to time. We had some interesting times together that first year – she’s pretty much a separate blog entry, I think.

Another woman I met that night was Beth, and she was a new breed of lesbian to me, someone extremely political. It wasn’t a good group for Beth, and she left the next week. I don’t know why she liked me, but she did, and four months later on my birthday Beth gave me a handwritten booklet of her favorite lesbian poems, each poem on a different page of construction paper. I still have it, though the colors have faded over the past 35 years. Every time I think of throwing it out, I remember how touched I was when she gave it to me.

Becoming part of that group changed my life. One of the women became my best friend and was for ten years. We lost touch for many years, but I found her again a couple of years ago. Mo is bi-polar and has many, many issues I don’t fully understand. I tried to be there for her, but the way I care for people sometimes pushes them away. I can be too much, I know. I tried to stay in touch through last winter, setting up dinners and visits that never happened. Reluctantly, I let her push me away, knowing that she may not even remember that I care for her and that she doesn’t have to be alone.

Another member of the group, MV, is still around. She was kind enough to give me rides in those days when I didn’t have a car, and she was a party buddy extraordinaire. MV is happily married to a wonderful woman, a local celebrity author who appreciates MV’s unique qualities and her heart as big as the outdoors. The rest of the women have slipped away. Many moved to California when it was what people did. Joanie, one of those, had a horse, and what I remember is that she paid a small fortune to fly her horse to California so it wouldn’t have to face the long ride across country.

For two years, the group met, rotating our meeting sites to various members’ homes. One of them lived in Pelham, down the road a few miles from where I lived in the center of town, in a wonderful wooden house with an open loft and a huge fireplace. That’s my favorite memory because the group often went to visit F even on non-meeting nights. We got stoned – someone always had dope in those days – drank beer, sang, laughed, and criticized old girlfriends. They were all awful people, and we were the best things that ever happened to them – they just didn’t realize it yet.

It was great being part of a group that thought I was right, and everyone who had rejected me, especially old girlfriends, were wrong.  I accept now that the group’s viewpoint may have been skewed based on the information I gave them, but I liked being the hero of my own story.

©2010 jgschenck

More football memories

I love football. Maybe it was growing up and listening to my father talk about Johnny Mack Brown or the Alabama team that went to the Rose Bowl in the 1920′s and won. I still have the newspaper clipping of the crowd meting the team’s train on its return to Tuscaloosa, Dad’s hometown, where he circled himself and his two brothers. I love college football and professional football, because those were my weekends. Saturday and Sunday afternoons I was sitting in front of the television with my father. Saturdays are college days, but Sundays belong to the pros.

Dad’s favorite professional player was Bart Starr, without a doubt. Not only was Starr born in Montgomery, AL, but also went to the Univ. of Alabama, but as a young man he made his profession of faith – if you’re a Baptist, you know what that means – to my father. After Starr opened a Mercury dealership in Birmingham, it was the only place Dad would buy a car. So we were Packer fans.

However, even when the Pack wasn’t on television, we watched the games. One of my favorite memories with Dad was watching Johnny Unitas take the ball on the first play of a game and throw a bomb to Ray Berry. But for my father there was no one who could touch Bart Starr. Golden boy Paul Hornung, Jim Taylor, Ray Nitschke, Herb Adderley, and the rest were merely co-stars to my dad.

Those memories are richer and more colorful, perhaps, than the reality, but time does that, and I’m okay with it. The memories are still mine, however, and I treasure them because they were times I spent with Dad. We watched Y. A. Tittle, Fran Tarkenton, Lenny, Moore, Charlie Conerly, Kyle Rote, Norm Van Brocklin, Sonny Jurgenson, Jim Brown, and Otto Graham. Dad like Joe Namath when he was a UA, but didn’t like him when he went pro. Dad didn’t like showy people.

It took a lot for him to admit that he liked anyone from Auburn. When I became an Auburn fan in 1964, he took it as a personal attack on him. I couldn’t talk about All American Tucker Frederickson or even Pat Sullivan, when he won the Heisman Trophy.

Bo Jackson changed all that. Dad was preacher at McCalla Baptist Church, even while he was still teaching at Samford University. Every Sunday he and Mother drove out through Shannon Flats to McCalla and spent the afternoons in a trailer the church bought for them. After they both retired from Samford, they often stayed in the trailer. Every morning Dad went for a long walk before breakfast, something he started when we moved to Birmingham, and he was diagnosed with emphysema.

Dad is the only person I ever met who beat emphysema. I remember his coughing spells and how I couldn’t bear listening to him struggle for breath. I’d go outside and walk around waiting for it pass. Mother came to get me when he was quieter. He tried smoking mullein, known down South as rabbit tobacco, but it didn’t help. Then he began walking the hills of our neighborhood, struggling for every breath, but pushing himself anyway. One day he took an old wooden driver from his collection of golf clubs and drilled out the center of the head. He melted lead and poured it into the hole. As Dad walked, he swung that club in front of him, making his lungs work as he worked the club back and forth.

By the time he retired, Dad didn’t need the club anymore, but he still walked a couple of miles up and down the hills of our neighborhood every morning. When he stayed in McCalla, he went to McAdory High School to use their track. As he walked, he noticed the young man who ran every morning. Since Dad talked to everyone, it wasn’t long before he and the high school student were friendly, talking regularly.

The student was Bo Jackson who became a standout at Auburn and turned pro, playing football (the Raiders) and baseball (Royals and White Sox), the first person ever to be named an All Star in two professional sports. Like Bart Starr, Jackson had one fan who followed his every move, cheering him on whatever he did. I’ll always appreciate him, because he was drafted by the Yankees in 1982, but chose to go to Auburn instead. Gotta love a guy who annoys the Yankees.

© 2010 jgschenck

Settling into my Amherst life

When Betty moved from Cincinnati to Northampton, she not only brought all of her belongings; she brought her boyfriend. It was a hard pill to swallow, but I had to move on. Of course, I didn’t give up on our relationship. She came over for dinner one evening, but was very distant and totally unaffectionate. Things didn’t look promising on that front.

I had a job and a place to live, but I didn’t really have a life. Piece by piece I began putting things together. First I had to get to know Amherst personally. Downtown was two blocks away from my basement apartment, and it had everything I could possibly want.

Louis Foods was a small supermarket but I found everything I needed. First National Bank, ½ block farther on, was a perfect little bank. Made of brick with ivy growing outside, its people were very generous. One man, Pearly Keyes (that’s right), really took me under his wing. He was in his 60’s, bald, but with a smile that lit up the room. No question I asked was too stupid for him to take time answering. He told me where I could find good used furniture, the library, a used bookstore, cheap food, and used clothing. I needed it all.

The people at Grace Church were also very welcoming and kind. My first Sunday in the apartment, I dressed in my best jeans and shirt, pulled on my work boots and went to church. Everyone was in fancy dresses and suits & ties, but they all welcomed me. I met a wonderful woman named Martha who asked me if I would consider teaching church school to 5 & 6 year olds. Sure, I said. She gave me the date and time for the organization meeting the following week. I told her I didn’t have any better clothes and wondered if my appearance would be a problem for her. Not at all, she said.

That afternoon it began raining. I went to work the next day walking the 3 blocks with no umbrella or raincoat, just a hat I’d brought from the retreat. When I walked home at lunch, I discovered the basement flooded, ruining the records I’d brought, some of my books, much of my clothing. I called the realtor and told her I wanted my money back and wanted a new apartment immediately. Fortunately, this was in June, and Amherst empties out in June.

She referred me to another realtor who had a one room apartment across from Town Hall and the Police Station, half a block from the Amherst Record where I was working. It was $100/month including utilities, included a small refrigerator and a tiny electric stove, but I had to share a bathroom on the hall with people from two other small apartments. The apartment was up a flight of stairs (up sounded good, following my basement experience), the big back windows looking out over one of Amherst’s downtown parking lots and the backs of most of the stores and bars.

I loved it. The refrigerator was an antique. There was a round motor on top, and it sat on claw legs. It didn’t hold a lot – the freezer was mostly taken up by two ice cube trays, one of which I removed. There were no cabinets, no furniture, but my most pressing need was for curtains.

Betty came over that weekend and took me to North Amherst where Mr. Keyes said I could find used furniture. He was right. The good news was that having treated me like crap, Betty (who always seemed to have money, whereas I always seemed without it) loaned me enough money to buy an old tall four drawer bureau, a new single mattress and pillow, a used gooseneck lamp, a wooden cable spindle and a lot of sheets. It was a good start. I used three of the sheets as curtains, draping them over the little white curtain rods. As long as I turned off the lights and stood near the window to dress or undress, I would be fine.

A telephone was out of the question, but the restaurant downstairs had a pay phone. I called my parents to give them my address and explained about the lack of a phone. They weren’t happy, but were ecstatic that I had left the women’s retreat. Ah, at last. Something we agreed on.

The Amherst Record was a funny little paper. It was published on Tuesdays and Fridays, and was owned by a man who was somewhat tyrannical, but called his staff “a family.” Dysfunctional, at best, I thought. My job was to take the articles the reporters had typed up and re-type them on a machine that turned the stories into 1” wide yellow paper with letters converted to punched out dots. These were then fed into another machine that turned that into 10”x 3” or 4” negative strips. The strips were photographed and blown up, proofed, corrected, then fed through a waxer and literally placed on large sheets that were the size of the final product. These were photographed and rushed to Southbridge, MA, about 45 minutes to an hour away, since Amherst Record didn’t have its own press.

The head of production was a crusty red-hair guy named Rusty. He was funny and always seemed to run on adrenalin. My co-typist was a dismal woman named Barbara who hated her life and everyone who tried to be less dismal than she was or thought that life was not horrible. Barb and I churned out all of the articles, as well as all of the type for the advertisements. Our least favorite ads were for Hadley Garden Center and Louis Foods. Both were made up on tiny, tiny typefaces and loads of text.

Martha, the woman who pasted up the ads, was Rusty’s favorite target. He hid her equipment, printed out photos with her head stuck on different bodies, and made endless jokes at her expense. She gave it right back, but fought a losing battle. She had a German Shepherd Dog that she kept in her car out front of the building on Main Street. Martha took him out of the car mid-morning and mid-afternoon and went home for lunch. He wasn’t a friendly dog, obviously – his life sucked – and the story was told that he had bitten the publisher. I hoped it was true.

Martha had an assistant named Edith who was slow and felt she was too good for the work she was doing. She was. Edith was married to an Assoc. Professor of Legal Studies at the University of Mass., about a mile down the road. I have no idea why she wanted to work. She was coarse and unattractive, and she wanted to be my friend. But Edith was also quite generous. I’d worked there about two weeks when she heard me say I needed to go back to the retreat to get the rest of my belongings, but didn’t have a way to get there. Without hesitating, she offered to loan me her large station wagon for the weekend. I couldn’t believe it – nor could her husband.

They lived behind the university, so Saturday morning I was able to take the free UMass bus to within two blocks of the house. Her husband Ron was, like Edith, an old hippie. He had bushy black hair and a big beard, and he wasn’t happy about my taking the car. I assured him I would be extremely careful.

©2010 jgschenck

I move to Amherst

When I moved to Amherst, MA in June 1975, I knew one person. Well, I thought I knew her. We’d been involved for a couple of months, I’d met her family and been to her hometown. Truthfully, we gave each other a reason to leave the places we were, emotionally and physically.

She got me out of the women’s retreat, and I got her out of Cincinnati. I no longer had to watch the woman I loved being with other women, and she got away from a man she’d been involved with for a couple of years.  She’d left me her tan VW bug and flown back to Cincinnati to pack up her belongings. I knew I didn’t have her anymore, however, I did have a plan.

My plan was to live in Amherst for a year or two and save money so I could go to Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge and become an Episcopal priest. One of the first things I did was go to Grace Episcopal Church and talk with Rev. James Clark. I walked into his office and on the wall I saw a large white sign, the kind marchers carry, and on it were four words: I AM A MAN.

Without even introducing myself, I said, “You were with Dr. King in Memphis,” nodding at the sign. He blinked and said yes, he’d been there protesting with the sanitation workers. He’d never met anyone who recognized the sign.

I explained to him what I wanted to do, and was very honest with him about who I was and where I’d been living. He wasn’t surprised. Okay, I looked like a lesbian and wasn’t trying to fool anyone. He asked where I was staying, and I gave him the name of an inn in South Hadley, but I told him I using a borrowed car and needed a place in town.

It turned out he was chaplain at Amherst College which meant he had a connection to the college. He called the manager of the Lord Jeffrey Inn, which the college owned, and asked them to arrange for me to have a room there. Then he called the assistant publisher of the Amherst Record and asked him to find me a job on the paper. He said he’d try.

I thanked him and went to get my pack – who had a suitcase? When I checked into the Lord Jeff, I discovered Jim had gotten me a room for $10/night, which included a continental breakfast. That was good, because I left the women’s retreat almost flat broke. I had about $100 in cash and a charge card. The room was tiny and didn’t have a television, but I had a place to sleep and breakfast. I would figure out the rest as I had to. Despite my planned occupation, I wasn’t overwhelmed by a belief that God would provide. I believed I would be taken care of; somehow it would work out.

At lunch, I went to the Lord Jeffrey dining room and ordered a sandwich plate, filling up on everything I could. The waitresses must have heard about the destitute woman staying there, because they kept bringing me crackers and bread. When I was full, I took the rest of the crackers and charged the meal to my room.

I walked around town to familiarize myself with my new home. It was like Chapel Hill, NC, where I’d lived with my husband, but different. Amherst, unlike Chapel Hill, is home to three institutions of higher learning – University of Massachusetts, Amherst College, and relatively new Hampshire College. Only Amherst College is directly adjacent to the town. The University is about a mile out of town, but Hampshire College is even further.

It didn’t take long to find a convenience store near the Lord Jeff, as the inn is known. I bought a jar of peanut butter and a big bottle of Coke and took them to my room. The Lord Jeff is right on the Amherst Common, two blocks in the middle of town covered with grass and trees and nothing else. At that time Amherst College had fraternity houses around the common as well, big brick mansions empty of their young men in the summer. With UMass in summer session, Amherst seemed like a really small town. Little did I know these were the quiet months when you could actually go to a bar or eat in a restaurant – all of which changed in September with the return of students.

I found an connivence store around the corner and bought a jar of peanut butter so I had some protein at night along with the crackers. With no television set, I wandered to the lobby and found a reading room loaded with books from the 1930′s, 40′s and 50′s – a treasure trove for an avid reader bored to tears. Every evening, I spent an hour or two in the reading room, then walked around the town. Eventually, loneliness got the best of me, and I went in a bar on Main Street looking for someone to talk with. The bartender was friendly, the draft beers were cheap, and the regulars soon took me in. With limited funds, I nursed a beer every night for as long as I could. When the beer was gone, so was I.

I’d been at the Lord Jeff about a week when the desk person handed me a note saying the minister at Grace Church wanted to see me the next day. When I stopped in the next morning, Jim told me he’d heard from the newspaper guy and they might have a job for me in the production department, pasting up copy and ads. Since the paper was published twice a week, the job was for four days a week and paid minimum wage. After a quick interview, I was hired.

Jim had also found an apartment near downtown Amherst that included utilities and was only $110/month. I took a look the apartment, in the basement of a big yellow house four blocks from the newspaper. Everything smelled musty, but I signed a one year lease. I had a home and a job. Whew.

That night I was extremely happy when I went to the bar. I’d quickly become one of the regulars and was greeted cheerfully when I came in. Years later I remembered how that felt, coming in and not knowing anyone, then having everyone shout out my name. I could relate to Norm entering the bar on “Cheers.” It was good to go somewhere where everyone knew my name.

Unfortunately, one guy in the bar was a little too friendly and became physically aggressive. Even the bartender Ted couldn’t get him to leave me alone. He grabbed my wrist and tried to pull me toward him, but I twisted my arm until it was free, and ran out the door. The guy followed me, and I ran all the way back to the Lord Jeffrey Inn, sprinting across one of the common’s blocks. Once inside, I saw him pull up a couple of hundred yards away and head back towards the bar. I never went back.