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 [...]

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. [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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. [...]

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 [...]