Allow People To Be Who They Are

I had a friend in college that everyone else swore was gay.  He could have been, I don't know. He denied it, so the crew and I backed him on it.  When I say crew, we rolled about eight deep.  Seven girls and one very well dressed guy, we moved as a pack.

All of us ladies lived in one dorm and William lived in a dorm across the way. Our dorms were connected by a common area that included a dining room.  We were a lively bunch that held court for hours, especially during dinner.  Of course, we couldn't go to dinner until I had watched Jeopardy and William had done his latest dance routine in the hall, cheered on by anyone who happened to be around at the time.  Even though members of the opposite sex had to be escorted at all times, the women in our dorm were comfortable enough with William that they would often bring him up on the elevator and let him find his way to our door.

We were a happy crew, but occasionally one of us would run into some dude that said he couldn't hang with us because of "your boy."  We were young, we were innocent, we were clueless.  We embarked on a mission to drag him out of the closet.

We asked Rosie, the no nonsense straight shooter of our group, to just ask William if he was gay.  She refused.  We dropped hints while watching TV like, "It wouldn't even matter if one of our friends was gay, he would still be our friend."  All of this in hopes that William would open up and come on out of his walk in closet complete with racks of shoes.  At most he'd comment that the thought of some man touching him was just icky.

So for four years we hung tough as a crew.  We'd follow William around the mall for hours while he shopped for the right pair of socks to match a fleck of color in his tie.  Yes, while the rest of us were rocking last week's dirty sweatshirt turned inside out and a pair of sweats, William went to class in dress slacks, a long sleeved shirt and a tie every day.  He got manis and pedis on the regular while the rest of us were happy to just remember to splash a coat of polish on. 

We were no closer to an answer the day we graduated.  William was a year behind half of our crew.  The fall after I graduated I got a call from Rosie saying that William no longer hung with the rest of them.  He'd found a new crew, a crew of guys that everyone on campus thought was suspect.  Later in life a few of them came out, one got married (to a woman), and others we lost track of. 

So is William gay? Rosie runs into him occasionally and dropped by his house once.  She noticed that all of his pictures were of one man, including one on his night stand.  I've decided that it still doesn't matter.  Obviously there are some parts of his life that he's comfortable sharing with some people and other parts with other people.  He still does the percolator like no one else I've met!

I'll Take Diversity for $ 300, Alex

Our family reunion was this past weekend. The Kid, also known as the Princess of Snark or POS for short, falls into her own age group. She's too old to play with "those children" and not quite old enough to hang with any cousins. The closest cousin to her in age on the high end is 22. The closest in age on the low end is 12. You can see how this presents a problem for a soon to be 17 year old.

Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, our family is big on discussions. Imagine my delight, and her discomfort, when we ended up at a table with two of our uncles on Saturday. Barbecue hadn't even touched her lips before Uncle Michael started in with questions about what schools she was interested in, why she chose them, etc. Uncle Junior (okay, really his name is Jesse but according to my aunt, he only deserves his real name when he's 'acting right'. Never mind that he's 60something) chimes in. POS turns to me with "save me from these people" written across her face. After cackling on the inside, I try to help out by telling them about some of the schools and when we're planning to visit.

The mention of schools in Boston sends one of my uncles into a long story about the history of racism in Boston, with the other uncle voicing his sentiments five to ten minutes later like a delayed echo. The uncle that started the diatribe loves to hear his own voice and 20 minutes later his monologue is still going, but somewhere in there the topic of schools became about him and how he decided on where to attend undergrad, med school and his residencies. POS and I exchanged looks and continued eating while he continued talking, as we nodded appropriately.

Thinking back on their warnings about Boston, I remember that St. Louis is not the most forward thinking when it comes to race either, yet she's survived. This is a city clearly divided by what side of town you live on. The media often perpetuates the divide when reporting that something happened on the north side, which has become the code phrase for 'black people were involved," whereas something on the south side tends to involve white people.

POS has gone to very diverse schools since the third grade. I've often joked that her schools look like the United Nations in that there's a little bit of everything and everyone gets along well. I don't know that I picked her schools for this reason, but it's given her exposure to people of all races, religions, sexual orientations, etc. I don't know that she'll pick a school solely based on the diversity of the school, but I have a feeling that it will play a part.