After thoughts of Idaho
It's no secret. I haven't been writing as much since I returned from Idaho. I've been asking myself why. I think that returning to Idaho was a bigger shock to me than I realized. I've written on this site about things that happened during my early years in Idaho. I believe that we have to make the best out of life and move on. We all have things that happen to us that are unfortunate. We have to move on and look for what is important if we wish to build a good life for ourselves.
I believe all of that. I do. And the thing is, I thought that I had done that. But being back in my home town where some of worst things in my life happened, it made me realize some things.
I realize first of all that those events that happened so many years ago did happen. They are real, and I realize that I'm very angry about it. The anger is fresh now and I have to find some place to put that away.
Secondly, the person that I was is gone. He was the one that should have had resolution to these events. It is not possible now. What do I do with that?
Thirdly, the people there are in a time warp. I realized this when I talked with John, a man that I went to school with. We were good friends in high school. He started talking immediately about old memories and what it was like "back then". He had nothing new to share other than, "the place has changed a lot, but you can see that". Is this time warp they are in their own version of Hell? Do they have any idea that their lives are so small and they've done nothing with their lives? One could argue that my life is also small. I have not taken my career path in music in order to stay with my partner. But, I have traveled, lived in many very different places, and I do try to be involved in the world and to be active in trying to make the world a better place to live, for all of us.
John (my friend from Emmett), told me that he was married and had grown kids now, and he proceeded to ask if I were married. I said no. I told him I wasn't because the office was full of people who I knew wouldn't understand, and I didn't want to embarrass him. But after I got back home, I wrote John a letter explaining my life a bit.
Hi John.
This is Bill Cannon. It was good to see you again a couple of weeks ago. I have to apologize for just dropping in on you like that. I try to stay in touch with my friends from the past as well as my present friends. As I told you, I now live in Connecticut. I've been talking to a few people over the years online to try to stay in touch.
I was told by one of them that you now work for (name omitted) in Emmett. He sent me a link to the website for (name omitted). That was like six months ago. At any rate, I remembered the logo. I was driving through Emmett, and toured around a bit, seeing all the changes. On our way out of town, I spotted the (name omitted) sign on the left and had to stop to see if you were in. I didn't plan it, it just happened.
It was good to see you again. You haven't changed much but you seem to be more outgoing now than when you were a kid. I think I am also.
A few years ago I called you. I don't know if you remember that or not. You told me about your life and about being married to Teena. I had heard that you married a long time ago to Teena. You told me about your kids. And, you asked me if I was married. I said "no", but that's not really true. It bothered me at the time but I said nothing because I didn't feel you would understand.
Then, when we talked in Emmett a couple of weeks ago, you asked again if I was married. I said, "I have a partner". I quickly changed the subject.
I know how people in Idaho can be. I value your friendship John, and I want to be honest with you, even though I know that that honesty may cause you to not want to talk to me again. I am with someone. We've been together for 30 years now, this year. This is the hard thing to tell you John. The fact is, I'm gay. I always have been. My partner's name is Kent, and we have a home together in Connecticut.
Now that you know, I hope we can still be friends. I'm still the same old Bill that I always was. Nothing has changed. I've lost so many friends because of this and it's caused me to be very selective who my friends are. I no longer make friends easily. I choose them very carefully.
Anyway, I wanted you to know the truth. Friendship demands the truth. I didn't come to the class reunion because I didn't want everyone wondering why I wasn't married. I thought that would be torture. I don't know how you feel about gays. I hope at least for one gay, you can understand why it was hard for me to tell you.
I hope that you will understand and still be my friend.
Bill
That was sent on August 21, 2004. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that I haven't heard from him, and I think I should conclude that he no longer wants me as a friend. I suppose not a great surprise.
I left that place to find a new place for myself. I ended up in a place where I made new and dear friends, only to see them die of AIDS. When it was over, I wanted to leave San Francisco because it had become an ugly dark place, polluted by death. I said to myself, "I came here to start a new life, and for what? FOR WHAT?"
We moved to Connecticut to basically start over. But returning to Emmett, Idaho a few weeks ago has made me realize after all these years that it was all for a reason. Gaining my friends, and loosing my friends did not equal out to zero. What I ended up with was a profound knowledge of life itself and so many secrets of the human spirit that so many people will never understand or know. I also realized that I am no wuss! I am resilient and brave. And that took me close to forty years to realize.
God I am so lucky to have experienced that. Many of the people I lost spent their last breath with me. I remember Richard. I was called to his apartment. It was time. I walked in and others said, "He wants to say something to you." He could hardly talk because he was so weak. He couldn't get out of bed, so I laid down next to him. I put his arms around me, and I put my arms around him. That was what he was waiting for. With one breath he whispered to me in my ear, "I love you." His breath was gone. He voice was gone. He was quiet. And I whispered back, "Forever." That is the most profound definition of friendship. How can I say that it was for nothing? I laid there holding him and crying, with his dead warm body in my arms.
Will people in my home town who reminisce about what happened thirty years ago have a clue to that. No, they won't. They will always be simple, and they will never know the difference.
The very notion that these were American citizens getting sick and dieing and America not giving a damn or caring about it will not be understood by them other than the usual conservative diatribe that comes out of southern Idaho; they were queer, they deserved it, or kill a fag for Jesus, or AIDS is God's answer to homosexuality. I could go on and on, but the point has been made. And John has made the point once again by his lack of response to my letter.
So I say, let them have their ignorance. The loss is truly theirs. Perhaps this is what makes us equal. Perhaps I should consider this my revenge. They have the quandary of why people who have half a life don't come back to their high school reunions. You can share with them what your life is now, but only if it fits into their very narrow view of the world and what you should be.
I have enlightenment and I have PRIDE. Through it all, I still have hope that some day America will be able to see beyond our differences and care about us too. Some day.
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Thank you for sharing your story with others. That was a very powerful blog entry. Bravo on your bravery and self understanding of your own life events. So many peple simply have no clue.
I'm not scared of death. I used to be before AIDS came along. At some point, when my friends were dying, it seemed that my life became less important, that there was a higher calling than fear. It was almost as though I didn't care anymore. That allows you to do a lot of things.
The environment was different then. I lived in the Castro neighborhood at that time. Most everyone I knew was sick and dying. There was so much hate in the air and people were saying terrible things about us. We honestly felt that all we had was each other. It was like a war zone there, but our enemy couldn't be seen.
Tour buses would come down to the Castro to watch all the queers from the safety of their buses, but they would never get out and see what our neighborhood was all about.
There were bashers who would frequently come into our neighborhood with bats to bash us and in some instances, kill some of us. We formed patrols that would walk our neighborhood looking for these hoodlums because the police would not answer our calls. There were occasions where I found myself running back to the populated areas of the Castro after being chased by thugs who were shouting at me, "Hey! Are you a faggot?" I'll never forget that. I can still hear the words.
My family stopped talking to me. They had no idea what it was like. They never will know. I don't think society will ever know, or want to know. And, most of the people who could have told them are now dead.
I was in a choir. It was a gay mans choir. There were 98 of us in the choir at the time. Today, 2 of us are left.
So, when I talk about staying with my friends, where else could I go? We had each other and we had one thing binding us all together, the certainty that all we had left was each other.
When I left the Castro, straight young couples were moving into the Castro. The property prices were lowering. They were able to get the apartments of people who had died. It sounds morbid I suppose, but that's the way it was. I thought, "My God. It's not enough that they say horrible things about us. Now they are going to take our homes away."
I left San Francisco with a lot of anger and depression. I've been able over time to make a new life for myself in Connecticut, and I truly am the happiest I've ever been in my life. And all the tragedy of the past has been turned into strength and self reliance. My friends are still with me. Their spirit and the essence of what they were lives in me.
It's not a fault to put extreme value in friendship. I admire your sticktuitiveness. Friendship is as valuable as air.
It's amazing how you were able to separate the disease from the human being afflicted. Too many people are incapable and intoxicated by fear to think clearly enough to do the right most humane thing, what we would hope one would do for us in a similar situation. Hopefully you taught many people during that time through your example that their is more than one instinctual answer to horror.
Whether you believe in spiritual living or not your soul will certainly feed off the goodness you have given, in short you will reap what you sew.
This personal reflection also explains some of the passion I see on your web site to change the world.
Keep up the great writing.
Gary,
Thank you for all of your comments. They were very thoughtful and I appreciate them very much.
When I started my blog, I decided to be extremely honest about how I see the world. I've never stopped doing that, even though that honesty has caused me some problems in my personal life. I've been critical of family and friends, but I've been no harder on them than I have been on myself. If I can't be honest and reflect how I truly feel in my heart, than this blog is not worth my time or effort.
Without knowing me, you have figured out the one paradox I have with life. Friendship is a personal and timeless thing to me. When I give someone my friendship, I do so without condition. I will always be there for that person, and I never give up on them.
When my friends became sick, they found their friends leaving them because they didn't want to deal with the suffering and the gradual decline of that person's life. That isn't what life is about. I'm reminded of Ryan, a friend of mine who has been gone for many years now. He developed Kaposi's sarcoma, an opportunistic skin cancer that sometimes occurs in people with AIDS. The disease leaves lesions that are purplish splotches on the skin, and usually very noticeable. He was ashamed to leave his apartment because of what others would think of him. He would stay in his apartment for weeks without leaving. I would shop for him, do his laundry, and clean his house and try to make sure he was eating well, Then one day he asked me, "Why do you stay? Don't you find me disgusting?" I was taken back by his remark. I didn't know what to say. Without thinking, I said what was in my heart. I said, "I think you are beautiful. You are Ryan. Nothing has changed."
So when a friend of mine throws something as precious away as friendship, it's the worse thing that I experience. It's more fowl to me than what AIDS has done to me in the past. As you know, I am a gay man. I make no secret about that today. It is a small aspect of my life and certainly does not define me. I view it as being no more important an aspect of me than the fact that I'm right handed. Yet, it has been the one thing that has caused me to lose friendships such as John's friendship to me. And the clincher is, it's not really his fault. I never told John that I was gay, mostly because I hated myself for being gay. I didn't want to admit it myself. So he may feel that I betrayed his trust by not being truthful with him years ago, but I simply couldn't risk the rejection and the consequences of people finding out at that time. He doesn't understand that I am the person that used to be his friend in high school. When I wrote my letter to him, I was honest with him because I feel that true friendship cannot exist on a foundation built on lies. It simply wasn't in John's ability to have a friend who happens to be homosexual, probably for many reasons, not the least of which is all the stereotypes that he probably believes about gay people, such as me trying to get into his pants the first chance that I get. I do understand that, and you are right, I shouldn't be judgmental about that. It's honestly not his fault. It is the world we live in. I've let his friendship slip into the place it belongs; the past. I wish him only the best in life and that he be happy.
I do realize that it is a flaw in myself that I put such a value on friendship. The flaw is that other people don't put the same value on friendship as I do. I get disappointed when friendships fail, but I have learned to accept it. It seems to be the way most people are. It's a dilemma for me and a paradox. Intellectually, I know the kind of person I am inside; one that would always be loyal to a friend and would never give that friendship up.
Jeff,
Thank you for your kind comments. I want to assure you that, short of a not so small miracle, I don't see it in my future to sleep with your wife. Or... anyone else's wife, for that matter. ;-)
I wish more people in the world were like you.
It amazes me that in this day and age people still treat gays as if they were lepers. How can a friend who has known you as the person you are completely reject your friendship just because they find out some aspect of your life that has nothing to do with them or your relationship with them?
I have a friend I first met in junior high school. Even though he was trying to hide it, I knew he was gay the first week I knew him. Up until we went our separate ways after high school I never confronted him with it because it was his business, and he chose to keep it to himself, and act as if he were straight. It made no difference to me because he was, and still is, a kind and talented soul.
That person is now open about his sexuality, and I respect him for it, but it still is not a major issue with me. It has nothing to do with me as a person it has nothing to do with our friendship. He is Fritz, and I am Jeff, and we are still friends with common interests.
I am a straight, married man of 43. I have never met you face to face, but you are a friend to me, Bill, and I couldn’t care less who you sleep with as long as it isn’t my wife. :)
First of all that was a very touching entry. It baffles me sometimes how open and honest you are in your blog but at the same time how sensitive you can be to the way others think of you. Probably 99.9% of people unfortunately care more about what others think of themselves than their own lost and unchallenged goals in life, which they take to their death bed, alone, I might add. I guess what I am trying to say is your entry touched me, especially the story of Richard, unimaginable in my mind.
Believe it or not however I do think most men and women understand being ostracized from a person or group sometimes without a reason at all which can be more frustrating that knowing what it is they dislike about you. You meet someone really cool and either lose touch or even at the time of acquaintance they decide they just don't want to be your friend. You get blown off, no returned phone calls... you can tell they would rather be loosely or not associated to you at all.
How that stings as our desire and attraction to the person often times doesn’t leave just because they reject us. Then their is the lingering doubt which you speak of in your entry. What was it about me, why me? In truth, we all have probably unknowingly rejected a person or maybe many people. Think about people you have briefly met throughout your life or those that in your opinion wronged you in some way causing a basic denial of friendship. I am not trying to be an asshole here but if you “click” with someone, it’s like meeting your true love, instead of becoming your lover however they become a true friend. Every journey in life is different and yours has been an enlightenment for sure, but the lens of experiences we view other people through are no better or worse unless of course they cause maliciousness. Judgment belongs to no one except yourself at the end of your life looking back at the decisions that brought you down one path or another.
Don’t be bitter about this guy not jumping on the phone to call or write you. He has his own personal quarrels to contend with that are honestly unfathomable for you to understand, no matter how simple you ‘think’ his walking shoes might be. Let it be, as the song goes. Of course it’s okay to wonder, but do so without judgment. This will cause fewer kidney stones and generally a happier outlook on life.
Of course what the hell do I know? We are all imperfect and this was just my first reaction to the tone of your blog without knowing you or any of the parties involved. Take it all for what it’s worth and I look forward to reading more.