M Y O B

The Life and Times of Bruce Bramson

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CALM BEFORE THE NEXT STORM

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July 5th, 2009 Mail to: [email protected] (if you’re so inclined).

FOURTH OF JULY

As anyone who has read this blog knows, I wanted to be a locomotive engineer when I was a youngster, but it never happened. So, I spend time around steam whenever I get the chance. This past weekend on the Niles Canyon Railway was terrific fun because there were two locomotives to be admired:

Double-Heading With Two 2-6-2T Locomotives

Except for getting my face rather sun-burned, it was a fine day and will keep me  satisfied for a while.

PREPARATIONS FOR VIETNAM

This photo was taken in the lab, of which I had just become the Director. It was 1966, just before the end of my brief affair with Cornell. I was 30 years old.

Bruce at 30

Within two years, having survived a year of therapy to get over Cornell and nearly a year of harangue from the IRS, I was ready to move on.

It turned out that all applications for employment with PA&E were sent to the Contract Management Office in Vietnam, where the decision was taken to hire me; paperwork was then returned to Lost Angeles for further processing. All this took several months, and I had forgotten I’d even applied. So, when the phone call came, “Do you still want to go to Vietnam”? I thought it over briefly and said “Yes”.

PA&E stood then (and I believe still does) for Pacific Architects and Engineers. They were neither Pacific, nor Architects, nor Engineers, but never mind: they had a contract to provide bodies (which they called personnel, of course) to go to VN “in support of the military”, which is to say, “do things the military did not want to bother with”.

A few days after agreeing to be a candidate for the job over there, I resigned my job, and began to “lighten up”. I ran an ad in the paper, “ECCENTRIC LEAVING THE COUNTRY: EVERYTHING GOES”, which drew more folks than I thought possible to pick over the few oddments I had accumulated up to this time. I sold enough stuff to put together the final payment to the IRS.

One of the items I sold

I really loved this beauty: it was in perfect condition. Also, hopelessly inefficient!

I also sold my beloved Packard 12, similar to this one

Except mine was a limousine: this is a standard sedan.

The Company sent me to a local physician for a physical exam. This consisted of the doctor looking at me as I stood before him fully clothed: “You look healthy,” was all he said, then, “I’ll be right back.” When he returned, he carried a small metal tray with a white cloth on it: on the tray were six hypodermic needles, a sugar-cube of polio vaccine and a small-pox scratcher, and in the next few minutes all eight items had been administered. Three shots in each arm, a small-pox inoculation on one, and a cube-full of polio vaccine on my tongue. It was about 3 in the afternoon.

Holy Jeezus! By evening I could scarcely move either arm. I remember going to Zim’s for a hamburger, and could barely lift it to my mouth. By the time I got home from that, I was running a fever. I called  a friend I knew and told him to being over a “gallon of red”, which he did, and together we got smashed.

A few days later, arms still barely functional, I tossed a few clothes and what little else I still possessed into my Dad’s former car, a nice ‘53 Chrysler, and headed South. I would stay a couple of days with my brother and then be off to Vietnam. It was late January, 1968.

However, thing took a slightly different turn. There were delays. More papers to be filled out. Eventually, my brother dropped me off at LAX early one morning where we were to have an “orientation session”, before departing for for Vietnam. There were about 15 of us at the meeting, where we got “filled in” on almost nothing of any real importance. About ten we walked out to a Pan Am plane and headed out across the Pacific Ocean.

Now, whenever I fly, I watch the waiting crowd and try to guess who my seat-mate will be.  It wouldn’t have mattered if there HAD been a handsome dude there: he would not have wound up seated next to me in any case. Instead, I picked out my seat-mate alright, and, typically, he was old and ugly—and the nicest fellow! He saved my life, in a sense, because he was going back to VN for his third tour with PA&E and his girlfriend there. He went by the name “CA”, had a slow texas drawl and a dry sense of humor. Most importantly, as it turned out, knowing the ropes as he did after three tours gave him an edge on the rest of us who were neophytes.

I saw my first tropical sunrise ever from the airport at Guam, our first stop (for re-fueling). One minute it was dark, and the next it was full sunshine! We had an hour or so on Guam, which was essentially an hour too many. It’s a god-forsaken place, and the passenger terminal was run down and messy. Not soon enough, we were airborne again; next stop Ton-son Nhut airport, Saigon.

Now, I knew there was a war going on and I knew it was going on in Vietnam: but exactly where Vietnam was, I would have been hard-pressed to say. “Somewhere in Indo-China,” if you had asked…

COMING UP:

I learned a whole lot in a short time over the next few weeks: some of what I experienced and what I learned will be in the next page of this blog.

Until next time!

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January 23rd, 2010 at 12:38 am

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STONED

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June 21, 2009

OK: The subject isn’t what you might think!

I’ve been told many times I “have a lot of gall”! Very soon, it will no longer be true.

Trouble Brewing

Earlier this month I began having some pains in my middle that did not go away. After suffering a week, I got to my doctor, who suspected gallstones (as did I): these were confirmed two days later by ultrasound, which revealed at least one stone an inch in diameter! So, Tuesday I enter the hospital to have my gall bladder removed. It should be routine, and I should be out the next morning.

Of course, if something goes very much wrong, this blog will go dead as well, so as soon as I can I will update so all my readers (are there any? I never get email!) waiting breathlessly will be relieved.

ON A COMPLETELY UNRELATED MATTER

After a three-year hiatus, I’ve published another story: it is in the nifty archive; look for Nature Boy. There will be a continuation of this story, assuming I don’t expire in the midst of the gall bladder removal.

email: [email protected]

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January 23rd, 2010 at 12:38 am

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COMING OUT TO FAMILY

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MILITARY SERVICE?

Through all the convolutions of my life to the point described so far, there was the threat of military service: the draft was in effect. While my frequent contacts with the Navy had all been great fun, I was quite certain I would not survive basic training or anything else. As a confirmed pacifist who hated guns in any form, to me the idea of operating one was hateful, and the notion of using one to kill was beyond the pale. So I was well pleased when, after the first physical exam, I was rejected—for 6 months! Back again after that period, I was again rejected—for a year!

I felt certain the third time would get me into the Army, so I tried out for the Coast Guard, and was accepted for Officer Training School. I knew a chap who had done this, and he said it was an OK kind of thing. However, before I could actually sign on the dotted line with the Guard, I was rejected—permanently—by the Army. Whoooopeeee! Four-Eff! Never was I so happy to be rejected! Without the threat of service hanging over me, I could get on with my life.

BY THE WAY:

I watched President Obama’s 100th-day news conference. I came away more glad than ever that we elected him. After eight years of the kind of inane blather that was all Dubya could muster, to watch and listen to someone who can organize his thoughts, express them cogently, with dignity, and occasionally with humor is wonderful! He can even pronounce NEW-KLEE-ARE!! Whoopee!

OK, ON WITH COMING OUT: MY FIRST HUSBAND

There came the fateful night when I went back to the john at the Crystal to let some of the beer run out. There I met Johnny, a handsome black boy a few years older than I. Word had gotten out that the Crystal in San Jose was more fun than any of the gay bars going in San Francisco, so we would get a few car-loads of guys down from the City on weekends. So it was that Johnny had joined some friends, telling them as they drove down he intended to find a boyfriend that very night. He found me. He introduced me to his friends, then we repaired to my apartment and got to know each other quickly.

But I was young and impressionable, and Johnny said all the right things, did all the right things and soon had me wrapped around his finger (when I wasn’t wrapped around his cock). He courted me in San Jose for several weeks, driving down after school: he was a teacher, so out of the classroom by 3:30 or so. I was working 5- 8s, so by the time I got home he was there waiting. It was wonderful: I was in love again.

He soon persuaded me to move in with him in San Francisco. He already had a room-mate, a rather strange fellow named Sid, who was soon jettisoned to make room for me. The honeymoon lasted some months, but clouds developed before long. I soon figured out Johnny was a lush—badly addicted to alcohol—which was a problem I had never dealt with. Worse, he was not a happy drunk: quite the opposite, he got belligerent and then morose as he drank. For the better part of two years I held on, hoping there would be some change, and eventually a change did take place: we pooled our resources and bought a small Victorian house to fix up. This worked for a while: Johnny stayed somewhat more sober than usual in order to be able to help with the renovation.

In 1963, with the house in pretty good shape, we spent a summer in Europe. In those days black guys were much less commonplace in Europe, so he was very much “in demand”. I, on the other hand, believed strongly in a monogamous relationship. Soon we were both “playing around”, separately, and the relationship took a back seat.

I did, however, notice how many old people from America were in Europe, being herded around like cattle. We made up our itinerary as we went along, seeing whatever we wanted to see, but the tourists saw what the tour-guides wanted them to see. I thought it would be  horrible to travel in old age, and made up my mind to see more of the world when I was young enough to enjoy it.

Once back in the USA, our relationship  took a rapid nose-dive. Johnny’s heavy drinking  resulted in his having badly flavored semen, so I was becoming less enthusiastic about sucking him off. This frustrated him, which led to more drinking. It became clear that he had a deep-seated resentment of being gay: though that was not my fault, he took it out on me, and there were many long arguments, recriminations and bitching at each other. Through it all, he remained almost perpetually inebriated, only managing to keep his job with some difficulty. We stopped sleeping together, and I spent a good deal of time in the tubs, often staying away from the house for several days at a time.

Then, in 1964, Johnny discovered drugs. While I was sucking dick in the tubs, he was up in the Haight-Ashbury doing drugs. When, after a knock-down drag-out argument one night he went after me with a kitchen knife, I knew it was time to split.

The divorce was messy! I signed a quit-claim deed on the house, and Johnny sold it within a few days: seems he had a buyer all lined up. I got nothing, except my freedom, but the price was worth it. Johnny went through the $40,000 in a couple of years, buying booze and drugs. I’ve never seen him again. I never got to thank him for destroying my love for him before we parted: otherwise, it would have been tough, but as it was, I was delighted to be footloose and fancy-free once again.

Coming soon: the family finds out about me.

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January 23rd, 2010 at 12:38 am

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MY PROCESS OF COMING OUT

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BEFORE I BEGIN…

… to describe the next events in my life’s record, I have a few words about the current scene. As I mentioned in my last page, I read a whole lot of blogs: these have displaced downloading freebies from commercial websites. Still, I find myself saving far fewer images than I used to pull down from Usenet. One reason is that the blogs seem to favor what I would call more “manly men”: well developed, if not overly so, and really not in the genre I prefer, which is toy-boys. Another reason is that more and more men these days are covering vast areas of their bodies in tattoos. It really puts me off, given that the unadorned male body is so beautiful in and of itself. At the same time, more and more men are sporting assorted metallic devices: piercing of the ears and other parts too fierce to mention, some approaching and occasionally passing the level of mutilation. These images, too, put me off, though I guess there are some who enjoy that sort of thing. Even with these caveats, I retain and sort on average 1500 images a week! The number of available images is staggering! In general, I do not put on my hard drive:

• Photos of  butts. For my taste, this is the least appealing portion of the male body.

• “Head-shots”, faces.  If they don’t show dick, I don’t save!

• Photos of guys screwing. For reasons that I hope to make clear, fucking has never been my forte!

• With few exceptions, photos of men over 25. I told you I was a retired chicken queen!

• Photos of violence, rape, bondage, torture and the like. Definitely turn me off!

• Photos of guys in leather drag. Likewise, not my thing.

• Photos of guys in female drag. I rate a guy with a dick dressed as a girl as bizarre!

OK: YMMV!

Even leaving out these categories, my collection of images swells ever larger, leading to ever-larger hard-drives for storage. While I have plans to eventually improve these images by de-logoing and so forth, I’ll probably croak before getting around to that. My executor has instructions to wipe and destroy all the drives when the time comes.

So, geting on with the story, here is the next installment of my life.

MAKING A LIVING

The job at the repair shop finally petered out: the owner simply mismanaged it so thoroughly that he lost his clients. So the first order of business once college was out of the way was to find a job. It was a long and arduous task. Silicon Valley was years in the future, and jobs for a fellow with a Chemistry minor were not easy to find.

But, I eventually landed a job in a small independent testing lab. The Director (and owner) was a nice fellow, willing to train me. I was chagrinned to find that I had actually learned very little of practical value in college, but Howard was patient and before long I was pretty much running the place. Money was sufficient for my needs. Life was good, though I felt it could be better in ways I found hard to discern.

I BEGIN TO COME OUT

Following college, I decided it was time to get a “place of my own”: the room I’d occupied for a year and a half close to SJS did not allow me to cook, and some sort of domesticity thing was developing. I moved to a wretched apartment in Santa Clara, near my work. It was cheaply built, and was placed on a huge ant-hill, apparently: I was plagued by ants the whole time I was there. But it did have a (small) kitchen, a living-room, a private bed-room and a bath with shower. It was all I needed, and I could bring tricks there without worry. My recollection now is, though, that I had very few visitors there.

My new job was actually quite fun, and the pay was decent and regular. I settled into a routine. Except, at about the time I moved out of San Jose, I discovered the one gay bar then in San Jose: the Crystal. It was owned by well known brothers who owned a couple of other bars and were reputed to be Mafia family members. It was only gay at night: by day it was a lunchroom and watering-hole for nearby office tenants. It was also right across the street from a Catholic retirement seminary.

I didn’t dress like this to go to the Crystal, but this IS me about that time. ——->

So, after work, I would take a nap, then get dressed for a “night out” and drive into San Jose to hang out in the Crystal. By 9 pm or so, it had switched to gay, the bar-tenders had switched as well, and the place got to be quite a lot of fun. Over time, I came to know some great guys more-or-less my age, but there were not many to whom I was particularly attracted. Still, it was comforting to discover, at last, that there were other guys with many of the same predilections as myself. [In my era, it was entirely possible to reach majority without ever hearing about “homos, queers, or fruits”. I don’t think this is the case today!]

Apparently, few at the Crystal were attracted to me: I worked as unofficial bar-maid for a while to keep from having to just stand around trying to look pretty, or at least not bored to death. I drank only beer, because I found soon enough that I could not drink enough of it to get really drunk before I was so filled up there was no room for more. However, I did drive back to Santa Clara many a night when I was probably DUI, but for some reason  never got caught.

There was one fellow, a regular at the Crystal, who was exceptionally attractive: a wispy blond with (as far as I could assess with him dressed) a nice bod and a beautiful face. Despite repeated tries, I could never get him to give me so much as the time of day. He was, in many respects, the first example of “eye candy” I had encountered. Needless to say, he was popular with most of the patrons, and I watched him trot off with various tricks, always wishing I could be one of them. His name was Hugh, better known as Jeff, derived from his last name. I certainly was not celibate by any means: impromptu parties were common on weekends, and I generally found myself going to one or another of them; since I had a car, kids without one could get a ride with me. I generally would up in bed with someone cute enough to turn me on and get me off. Week-nights I often went home alone. It was a time of wild abandon in some respects, though it left me unsatisfied for the most part.

There came the time when I did go home with a fellow I was not particularly attracted to, but I was lonely and didn’t want to go home alone yet again. We were both slightly drunk, he somewhat more than I, but the promise of a romp in the hay led me to go with him to his place. Once there, and with few preliminaries, we found ourselves in his bed and he wanted to fuck. What he didn’t know, and I failed to tell him, was that up to that time I had not been screwed. I suppose I wanted him to think I was more “out”—or more popular—or more experienced than I really was. Whatever: it turned out to be a night that may well have saved my life, for he fucked me brutally and my protestations of pain fell on deaf ears. It put me quite off the idea of getting fucked ever again, and while there have been a few occasions when I got fucked (and on fewer occasions enjoyed it), my relatively unspoiled bum may be one reason I never developed AIDS.

Then one fateful night, to my astonishment, my idol Jeff hit on me as the Crystal was closing for the night. We walked to his place, not far from the bar, and I got to see what he looked like desnudo. He was spectacular! Tight body, not overly muscular, utterly glabrous and very fair. He looked very British, though in truth he was born out of wedlock in a whorehouse (I was to discover, years later). Like myself, he was totally front-oriented, and we had a marvelous romp. Indeed, over the next week or so, we had numerous romps and sleep-overs. Within a week, I was in love. I fell for this guy in a way I had never suspected possible: I wanted to be near him every moment. I wanted to eat him every few hours. I wanted to wait on him hand and foot. I wanted to wash him everywhere every day. I wanted to move in with him, and I wanted to call him my lover.

It was not to be: Jeff thrived on conquest, and as soon as he conquered someone, he moved on. I’ve found over the years this is one of the greatest failings of gay guys in general: the conquest is everything, and the variety which results is their chief delight. Poor me! I had this stupid notion of settling down and living happily ever after in some sort of domestic bliss. It has been my pattern: I’ve tried it a few times since, but it has never worked, for one reason or another.

I did, however, move into the same building in San Jose occupied by Jeff, a set of four ancient flats at 79 Devine Street (we called it, “ten doors away from Heaven”). Once I got over Jeff’s rejection of me (it wasn’t really rejection: he just moved on to another trick. And another, and another…) I returned to my regular cruising at the Crystal. Jeff and I remained friends until we both moved to San Francisco and lost contact.

I remember one night well: I came into the place around 9 pm and noticed a stranger standing by  himself near the juke-box. He was pretty, hispanic and looked very young. As I went down the bar greeting the guys there, most of whom I knew as friends, I asked who pretty-boy was: no one knew. So, when I reached the end of the bar, I went over to the juke-box and dropped in a quarter.

“Anything you’d like to hear?” I asked the boy.

“No.”

“Would you like a blow-job?”

“Yes.”

“Follow me.”

We waltzed out of the Crystal. The fellow had a car, I directed him to 79 Devine, we repaired to my bedroom. I found out only that he was  enrolled in one of the several Catholic boys’ schools in the area, had gone “over the hill” and had to be back by ten o’clock. He was hot to trot! I sucked him off in a trice, and he departed, never to be seen again. I’d done my first piece of trade. I was back at the Crystal by ten, where my upstaged friends greeted me: “You brazen hussy! Cradle-robber! You whore!” They were all envious, none having had the balls to proposition the kid.

About this time, rapidly getting bored with the Crystal and having to live down my new-found reputation , I overheard someone talking about the “milk run”. Once I got the details, I realized it might be something I would enjoy. I had a car, I had an apartment near First Street, and I had my evenings free. Whoooieeee!

In the late 1950’s, Moffatt Field north of San Jose was an active air base. Guys on leave would come to San Jose to take in movies, drinks, or girls if they could find any. They often hitch-hiked back to the base, using First Street, which headed north to the Freeway  up to the base. I (and several other queens) would pick up guys and proposition them, very often getting them home and getting them off. We all knew that a guy hitch-hiking alone could be had: guys who did not want to fool around usually hiked in groups of two or three. There followed a period of a year or so when I rarely went back to the Crystal, opting instead to service as many “fly-boys” and “air-dales” as I could. I could get a thirteen-button fly open faster than you can say Jack-off Jack Robinson!

Several of the boys became regulars: they would drop in, change into civilian clothes and leave. They’d come back, often a trifle drunk, and I would sober them up with coffee and get them back into their uniforms after getting their load. One or two would occasionally reciprocate, not that I demanded it, but they evidently were comfortable enough with themselves to allow it. And several of the fellows introduced me to buddies they knew would appreciate my services. In time, I worried because there were so many sailors coming and going to my apartment, and I began to drop some of my clients. Then one night, my favorite of the bunch announced that he was shipping out in a few days. He cried, telling me this: he would be going to Korea. He took me to dinner. Back at my place I did him and he did me. Then I took him back to the base, and never saw him again. It seemed to be a sign: my clientele dropped to almost none, and I went back to the Crystal.

There, on a fateful night, I went to the john to take a leak, where I met Johnny. My life took a new turn!

My days “doing trade” turned up later in several of my stories, now all available on the Nifty Archive.

Through these years I spent little time with family. My brothers were all some distance away, and my folks were wrapped up in their own activities. As far as I was aware, none of them knew I was gay. Of course, I was dead wrong, but that’s a tale for the next page.

Coming up: Out for good!

[email protected]

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January 23rd, 2010 at 12:38 am

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COLLEGE

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February 22, 2009

MJC

First, I must tell you that my college days were nothing like the story I wrote years later called College Daze! That was written with the benefit of hind-sight, looking back on how it might have been If I had been “out”.

But, I was not out. This, despite the Creative Writing teacher who certainly was! I enjoyed his class and learned much, but as a person he had a couple of drawbacks: he was “nellie”, and he was too old for my already developing taste for peers and younger.

I was befriended by two older girls, who did show up in the story: these were the first lesbians I encountered in my life, even though I heard the term “lesbian” much later. One of these gals was a sort of “plain Jane”, far from ugly and feminine in her own way. Her mate was one of the ugliest women I had ever met! She was the butch one. Still, it was clear they both adored each other, and I’ve often wondered what became of them. I thought vaguely that guys might have similar relationships, and given the chance I would have related in any way he chose with the pole-vaulter that year! But my on-going infatuation with Jim and (and his nice dick), his camera, (and his nice dick) and his old cars (and his nice dick) took care of my libido.

So, I sailed through two years at Junior College with fair grades despite almost no studying. I had a knack for figuring out what the teachers wanted, and I fed it back to them. All except the “instructor” for my American History course. The man was a fervent Republican which led to many diversions from the topic, and the class occurred directly after lunch. I slept through most of his dreary lectures, and flunked the course cold. This meant I did not graduate from JC (American History was a requirement, and I had to repeat—and pass—it several years later). No doubt my Dad was disappointed, but I didn’t really care.

In an off moment somewhere along the JC years I submitted a poem to a competition sponsored by a small private college in southern California. The work garnered an honorable mention, so I decided to leave home for the remaining two years of college. I was in for something of a shock!

UR

Set, in those days, among a few surviving orange groves, the University of Redlands was said to be the “best Methodist school the Baptists have”. I got in on decent grades, my honorably-mentioned poem, and not much else. (Dad’s money helped!) Rather unexpectedly, I gravitated to the Music Department because of the large pipe organ in the chapel: I had always loved pipe organ music, and so to my Dad’s dismay I jumped from Science to Music. I quickly deduced that I could no longer give the instructors “what they wanted”, because what the organ professor wanted was that I could read music and play the damn thing, which of course I could not do. I struggled along, but had no real musical performance talent.

The organ department then had about 30 students, the music school perhaps a hundred. Of the organ students, I was to learn, all were queer, and of the other musicians, many were. Unfortunately, I learned all this just as was leaving Redlands! Throughout the academic year I was there, when I needed “relief” I drove my battered old Nash out into the hills and flung my seed upon the ground, for want of any better place.

Most of those wank sessions were enlivened by fantasies about an absolutely gorgeous boy living in Cortner Hall one floor below.

However, not one soul ever approached me, tried to being me out, or even mentioned what was going on right under my own nose: wild parties (off campus) which I expect I would have enjoyed immensely.

I did learn one important lesson at Redlands. The catalogue said it was “alcohol free”, and having been raised by my tee-totaling parents, I thought I’d fit in well. Yet, within a week or two of arriving and settling into Cortner, someone suggested we have a party in my room one Saturday night. Vodka and orange juice materialized: vodka was thought to be undetectable by smell, so we would be “safe” having a simple party. Unfortunately, the group assigned ME the job of bar-tender, so I was making “screwdrivers” with a ratio of 4 to 1. That’s four parts vodka to 1 part OJ! Things went along OK for a while, but suddenly the other fellows in the group disappeared! About the same time, I realized I was drunk, never having been so before. We had all consumed far more than we should, and too rapidly: the others fertilized the bushes in the quad, but I managed to stagger to the terlet before becoming very, very sick. Repeatedly! It took me a week to recover, and I have never been anywhere near that drunk since. I reasoned that if that’s what alcohol does to you, I want no part of it!

About a week before departing Redlands for summer vacation,  one of the organ grad students who lived off-campus asked me to dine at his apartment, and suddenly, all was revealed. He told me about homosexuals (first time I’d heard the word), lesbians (ditto), and many, many other enlightening things about “being gay” et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. The revelation for me was that there were other people just like me, who preferred to look at and (hopefully) interact sexually with other boys. My informant regaled me with tales of his own activities, played old Ray Bourbon records, explained the rudiments of cruising and made it clear I could relax and begin to think in terms of being queer without worrying much about it. He did not “bring me out” in the sense of having sex with me: like most everyone I’ve ever met, he was not attracted to me. I had simply triggered his GayDar, and he assumed I was out!

I left the University of Redlands intending to return, even though I sensed it was not the right place for me. It was something of a “rich-kids” school, and it was costing my Dad a lot of money for me to be there. It was super-abundantly clear I would never be another Virgil Fox, even though I had at least one prerequisite: I was queer. I was, however, not yet willing to let other people know it.

I had gotten a summer job in Santa Clara, California, where my life took another turn.

To be continued:  I find the way to San Jose.

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January 23rd, 2010 at 12:38 am

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WE INTERRUPT THIS PROGRAM…

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February 6, 2009

I’m beginning to wonder if I’ll live long enough to finish this blog! In the narrative, I’m only out of high school, still confused about my role in relation to others, and not particularly sure what I might want to do in life. The narrative will continue, but on this page I want to discuss some contemporary items.

/rant mode on/

ADVERTISEMENTS ON THE TELLY

I watch a lot of TV. More properly, I sleep a lot in front of the TV. I have seen the first ten or fifteen minutes of hundreds of programs, but fall asleep during the first spate of commercials, largely because I turn off the sound, tune out  the subject, and nod off.

It amazes me to think there are thousands of people working in the advertising industry who sit around all day and come up this stuff! How can they live with themselves? What I see on cable (never watch regular TV) is so blatantly stupid and stultifying, its hard to imagine anyone can be so unimaginative as to think it up. Do they really think I am so stupid I would fall for any of their blandishments?

Here’s a few of the worst currently on cable:

• Nutrisystem, which spends five minutes trying to make me believe I can lose weight like the guys shown, while displaying a “results not typical” flag. So, if the results aren’t typical, why are they saying they ARE typical? “Three months of complete meals”, while noting that we have to “add-in grocery and produce items”? Then the meals are NOT complete. It is all a bunch of lies.

• L’Oreal “Regenerist” creme, $7.00 for an ounce bottle with ingredients worth a quarter at most (the bottle probably costs more than the contents). The comely lass in the ad is young and has a naturally flawless appearance for which she was selected. The inference is that using this crap will make someone look as nice as she does. Are there folks out there who fall for this? Can they be that stupid?

• Capital One Credit Cards.  Producing these ads, with dozens of actors, sets, stupid “plots” with the “What’s in your Wallet” punch-line must cost a fortune. They could afford to charge several percent less to the cardholders if they did not spend all this money on stupid ads like these. And, what’s in MY wallet is MY business! I can assure you there is no card from CapOne.

• Geico ads, with that stupid anthropomorphized gecko with a fake accent. I guess Warren Buffet can afford to saturate the radio and TV waves with this crap, but he could charge even less for the insurance if he’d spend less on these dumb ads. I even got a junk-mail offer from GEICO, which I sent back with a note: “Coming soon to an internet near you: Sick_of_GEICO_ads.com”. Somebody has to do it!

• Auto Insurance ads in general, now all promising to “save XX percent by switching to Bumfuck Insurance Company.” So, with a half-dozen switches, I could get my insurance down to zero? Not bloody likely!

• All Ads for women’s hair products. My stomach turns every time I see these, not because I am queer and could care less about most women or their hair, but because I know there are millions of women in the world who are lucky if they have even a scrap of soap with which to wash their hair, most likely in sewage. Imagine how much good the enormous sums spent on useless hair preparations in “developed” countries could do if spent in less developed countries.

• Automobile ads, especially the “cash-back” come-on. Do people really let themselves get hooked on that gimmick? It’s a loan added to the price of the car! The interest rate is exorbitant!  Or, the “zero interest” lie. Read the fine print: “$1.66 per hundred dollars financed” is 1.66 percent, which is NOT zero!

• ALL ads, with the “fine print” buried at the bottom of the screen, in non-contrasting lettering, and there for so short a time NO ONE can possibly read it!

/rant mode off/

I could go on like this, but you get the idea: advertisements are utterly wasted on me, and I suspect they are wasted on almost everyone. Time, effort and money down the drain!

ITS A LOT OF

Still, there have been a few adverts I like: the FedEx ad (below) with the cavemen was funny, but ran for only  a short time. [On the other hand, the cavemen GEICO ads are beyond stupid!] The home warehouse ad was entertaining as well.  There are lots of ads from over-seas that show europeans to be more discerning and clever at writing ads, and willing to be a bit risque at times. (My favorite is this Hyundai ad.  We see these on award programs for “best ads”, but we never see the ads themselves on OUR TeeVees.

There was ONE ad that induced me to buy a product. Very clever, but again it ran only a short while. The ad itself was perhaps 20 seconds in duration, but really packed a punch. The scene was a typical kitchen, with an empty table in the foreground. John Houseman walked on camera with a bottle of something clutched his hand: he plopped the bottle down vigorously on the table, looked into the camera with his wonderful scowl, and said “Use Puritan Oil!!!”  I was so intimidated I actually did buy a bottle: it was around for years, since I rarely cook with oil. But I loved that ad. Only three words—imagine that! [A much longer ad for Puritan Oil with Houseman in his inimitable style can be seen here.]

THE FINANCIAL CRISIS

More appalling than anything else, for me, is this: NONE of the perpetrators who have gotten us into this mess has yet gone to JAIL: my sense is that none will.

A friend of mine is fond of an old aphorism (I’ve no idea where it originated): “A fish rots from the head”. With George the titular head of our government, things went to pieces right down through government and the private sector as well. Dubya was never held accountable for anything he did, and everyone took that as their cue to do whatever they liked—no one would care. For the most part no one did! Now it comes to light that the SEC had been warned about Bernie Madoff ten years ago. Nothing was done. Many people foresaw the business downturn, especially those watching the sub-prime mortgage fiasco. Nothing was done. Many people warned Detroit to build better cars. Nothing was done. There was NO ACCOUNTABILITY.

Now, with nearly every system in the country breaking down and falling apart the Republicans still WANT TO DO NOTHING! There are even “conservative Democrats” who WANT TO DO NOTHING!

I’m beginning to wonder of anyone can ever set things right! President Obama has the right ideas for the most part, but obstructionists used to the old way of doing things in Washington are unwilling to work with him.

The current issue of The Nation (America’s oldest news magazine) has a fine article by Jonathan Schell (not his usual one-page piece, but a full-blown article) describing in detail how all the forces came together to get us into this fix. I have not finished the piece yet, so don’t know if he has a prescription for putting “Humpty-Dumpty back together again”.

TROMPE – L’ŒIL

Judging by my perusal of numerous gay blogs, the current “ideal man” seems to be a twenty-something (where something = ±2) fellow with six-pak abs. Now I read that many of these “chiseled abdominals” are painted on! Ain’ nuthin’ sacred?

Coming soon: I go to College. Stay tuned…

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January 23rd, 2010 at 12:38 am

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HIGH SCHOOL CONTINUES

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AROUND THE COUNTRY

To get our minds off Mom’s demise Dad took us on a trip around the country: basically, we went to Quebec by way of New Orleans. This was the summer of 1951: “Jim Crow” was in full swing, and Dad hated everything about the South, but felt we boys ought to see it. I’m glad he lived long enough to see much of the discrimination reduced.

We traveled in our 1948 Chrysler Windsor, pulling a Higgins trailer. Ours was blue, like the one in the photo, and as far as I know, they all were.

1948 Chrysler Windsor, pulling a Higgins trailer

These were popular in the late forties and early 50s, and our family, now of four, fit inside just fine. We saved a lot of money not staying in motels. The two halves of the trailer lid opened out on hinges and a canvas tent popped up on metal stays. Sleeping-bags went on the  two opened flaps, and there was room for two more on the floor of the thing. Here’s a view inside: I slept right up there, and my older brother slept on the one opposite.

The two halves of the trailer lid opened out on hinges and a canvas tent popped up on metal stays.

Dad and my oldest brother flopped on the floor. We had cooking equipment and carried our own food, so we  slept and ate nearly all of our meals in and around this contraption for the  whole summer.

My biggest problem under this regime was to find times when I could exercise my new ability to jack off. I expect my brothers had the same problem, but none of us ever thought of taking matters in hand together. So the summer was spent whacking off in gas-station rest-rooms, behind trees at camp-grounds, and at other places that presented the opportunity.

On the way home, Dad remained in Denver for some conferences, so my brothers and I continued on our own by way of Grand Tetons and Yellowstone. I often jerked off in the back seat of the car, believing my bothers did not notice. I expect they did, though, but chose not to say anything about it. I recall wandering off alone in Yellowstone one day (a fascinating place for a budding chemist): watching a small geyser erupt, I could not help myself. I pulled my pud and erupted right along with it! Far as I know no one was watching, but who knows? Maybe I gave a voyeur something to remember.

GROWING UP

With hormones now ruling my life, I grew up another foot, and out by an inch or two where it really counts. Better yet, I began to find some hair here and there where there had been none. So, when I entered my sophomore year at MHS, I was catching up to my peers in ways that made me feel a little better about myself. Nevertheless, there were residual effects from the hazing I got for being so immature: I became completely pee-shy, unable to piss in the presence of another person (unless I sat in a stall).

This pretty well put an end to my cruising for dick in the boys’ rooms, and in fact led to a permanent aversion to “tea-room” sex.

SOPHOMORE YEAR

The science course in my second year was Biology. We dissected frogs and did all the usual icky stuff. We also got some rudimentary sex “education”, in a class separated by sex. The girls, who probably would have benefited from some insight into how boys work, saw films about girls. The boys, who might have found useful some insight into how girls work, saw films about boys! If what the girls saw was as unenlightening as what we did, the whole exercise was futile. How  can you spend a half hour discussing sex with a bunch of horny teen-aged boys and NOT EVEN MENTION masturbation? Sheeesh! However, the episode did give me an inkling that I might not be so different from my peers as I had come to think.

I endured PE, this time with the help of a lanky fellow named Bill who enjoyed playing hand-ball as much as I did. We actually got pretty good at it, kept score, and once in a while induced another guy to attempt it with one or the other of us. I got a passing grade in PE for the first time in my life!

Still, I remained very much a “loner”. I had only a few friends, one of them a devout and proper Catholic boy who I liked a lot intellectually, though I was not attracted to him physically. He was a bit pudgy; my aversion to adipose tissue was already evident. But at the end of that school year, Gary went off to Bellarmine Prep School, determined to be a priest, so he went out of my life. The tall and lanky basket-ball players remained my favorites and fantasy-fodder for innumerable jack-off sessions—by myself, as usual—and while I often contemplated broaching the subject of mutual JO to other boys, I never did so. I generally got my rocks off twice a day: once after getting home from school, and once before going to sleep. On week-ends, with many hours spent alone in my little “laboratory”, I might scatter my seed on the floor several times. My last act of every day was to whack off in bed, where I just rolled on my side and shot my wad on the wall. I’d be asleep in minutes: masturbation is nothing if not a good soporific!

I was beginning to form some fixations that have lasted to this day. One was a fascination with arms (and legs) which I have already mentioned. Another was a fascination with boys’ adams-apples, since my own did not yet show.

But my primary fixation was on the phallus: furtive glances in the gym were not what I had in mind! It would be a while before I got my hands on one other than my own!

ANOTHER MOVE

As that school year drew to a close, Dad moved us to a rebuilt house on the outskirts, nearer to his job and nearer to the railroad.

The move resulted in one of the most embarrassing moments of my youth. When the bed in my room was removed by the moving crew, the wall beside it (which had once been all white) was found festooned with yellowing cum-stains! Their location on the wall made it abundantly clear that little Bruciebabe had been spraying his load repeatedly on that wall! It’s twoo, it’s twoo!  I’d been shooting off every night for a year or more; the incrustation was not only obvious, it shouted out to anyone who looked: that little kid’s been spankin’ the monkey! I was mortified, but not a soul mentioned it. Whoever bought the house musta painted that little bedroom quickly.

Ironically, we had a half acre of almond trees again, but never harvested them ourselves: Dad sold the crop to the neighbor who also had almonds. The impetus for a new house was his remarriage, too soon after Mom’s passing as it turned out. His new wife was a real bitch, and she had a bratty kid from a former marriage who was too young to be of much interest to me.

However, our move put me closer to a fellow I admired named Jim. He and I shared many interests in mechanical things and, above all, CARS! Jim had several, and through his influence I was able to find a beat-up 1926 Dodge sedan that cost me all of fifty bucks. The windows (except windshield) were missing, and the upholstery was in tatters, but it ran well and I loved it. That car was the first of a bunch of them, all unusual in some way. I had a lot of fun with a 1933 Oldsmobile straight-8 sedan: the engine was so worn out it got only 18 miles to the quart of oil. A few trips the length of the town’s main drag on a hot summer night would lay down a formidable smoke-screen of blue haze. It did not look anything like this restored one, except for the shape: mine was black and ready for the junkyard. (Oh, wait: that’s where I got it)!

Restored 1933 Oldsmobile Straight-8 Sedan

Jim and I bummed around a lot the summer following my sophomore year. Dad and his new shrew wife were off on what I later learned was anything but a honeymoon, so we had plenty of time to go places and do things. One night we were tinkering in his work-room when he asked me a question I certainly had not expected: “Have you ever jacked-off a dog?” Holy cow! It was the first time he’d mentioned anything even remotely about sex! I had to answer truthfully, (see my story Animal Crackers at Nifty), “Yes, why do you ask?”

In the end, we went behind his garage and I showed him how to JO his mutt, at the conclusion of which it was obvious Jim had a hard-on, just as I did. We went inside the garage, sat side-by-side with our backs to the wall, opened our pants and fondled ourselves for a few minutes. Then it happened: Jim reached over and grabbed my prick! I thought I’d died and gone to heaven: it felt absolutely incredible, and utterly unlike how it felt when I held myself. Within seconds, I had his dick in my fist and … well, you know what happened.

Absolutely Wonderful

Though it felt absolutely wonderful to jack each other, we completed the “off” part individually, much as we would have done if alone. In fact, that remained the pattern whenever we got together, which was often. I discovered Jim got horny when driving, just as I did (and, I think, many men do), so most of our jaunts into the Sierra foothills on back roads resulted in one or more JO sessions together. It was a fun and busy summer: the wall in my new bedroom remained clean since Jim and I got off together often, and because when I pounded one out at home, I used an old towel I kept under the bed.

JUNIOR YEAR

At the end of summer my Dad and his new bride shrew returned and life should have returned to normal. Several events occurred to render the school year different. It quickly became apparent  that Dad’s love-life did not exist, and his marriage was headed for divorce. Lillian, a fiery red-head, might have been a hot number once, but towards my Dad she was utterly frigid. When it came some months on, the divorce was based on the fact their marriage had never been consummated! Now that I was learning the importance of getting off, I had a new appreciation for Dad’s dilemma: his needs were obviously not being fulfilled by this witch. Can you spell  G-O-L-D   D-I-G-G-E-R ?

More importantly, now that Jim and I were on intimate terms, I learned he had been using his expensive polaroid camera to photograph as many hard-ons as he could find! Mine joined his rogues’ gallery soon enough, but the erection that fascinated me most was attached to a fellow nick-named Butch—I forget his real name now. Imagine my surprise, then, when I learned Butch was only a seventh-grader, and a classmate of my (for the moment) step-brother! For some reason, Jim had lost interest in Butch, but I was fascinated by the photo of his toad-stabber, and through the agency of little Dougie was able to make Butch’s acquaintance. He lived only a couple of blocks away, had a car, and loved to let me play with his salami! Despite his being younger than I, Butch was taller, far more precocious, and well ahead of me physically. I coulda cared less: he was willing to let me play with his prick, which was enough for me (it was enough for two, to tell the truth, but I kept him for myself)! [Jim and his photos, and Butch, found their way into my story, Piece on Earth: read it at Nifty].

Dad was busy most nights and his “wife” would take her kid and go somewhere (I didn’t care where, as long as they were away!) so I had the house to myself. I’d call Butch, he’d drive over, and we’d play for several hours. Don’t ask me why: we never tried sucking or fucking! We just played with each other’s hard-on and felt each other up elsewhere (remember, I already loved legs and arms, and Butch had some fine examples). He seemed to get a kick out of my lack of precocity, just as I was fascinated by his abundance of it. When he got tired of playing, he’d announce a “race” to see who could cum first: I always won. It seemed with all that length to deal with (I did measure, and he was fully 8½ when hard) it took him a long time to reach nirvana. Perhaps watching me shoot helped, for soon after I shot my wad on to the wooden floor he would blast his likewise. That signaled the end of  our tryst: he’d hike up his jeans and drive home. I was so wound up, I’d often whack off again, then wipe up the mess before going to bed.

Those grand romps came to an abrupt halt: some gal got him up one night and stuck that lovely thing in her snatch, and it was all over: little Bruciebabe couldn’t hold a candle to the “real thing”.  Damn!

As a Junior, I was taking Chemistry as my science subject. However, since I’d already done all the experiments and knew the subject well, the instructor appointed me as “lab assistant”, so while he was lecturing I was prepping his “show and tell”.  Perhaps the association of chemistry in my little home lab with the number of times I whacked off there was the cause: whatever, I jacked off in the school lab frequently while the lecture in the adjoining room was in progress.

I was also on television that year, on a program called “Science in Action”. This is described in some detail in my story, Central Valley High: read it on Nifty.

FRUSTRATION!

The divorce was finalized mid-year and Lillian & Doug were gone. For good! My sex-life consisted of an occasional wank with Jim and non-stop wanks at home. One day in Latin class a fellow I liked a lot stuck his leg out into the aisle, which caused his jeans to ride up, revealing some leg above his socks. I was fascinated by the hairiness there, since my own ankles were as yet glabrous and skinny. I wanted desperately to see more of that leg—and him, so set about developing a plan. It eventuated that he accompanied my Dad and myself when I drove Dad to a conference in the Bay Area. Ed and I were alone in the car on the way home, and as night fell I managed to get our discussion worked around to sex. I got hornier and hornier, and so did he, so we finally agreed to jack off together (or so I thought). I drove off the highway to a spot I knew where we would not be bothered, hoping to slide across the seat and extricate his meat in preparation for some funzies, but before I could move he was out the door and into the back seat! Damn! It was dark, so I couldn’t even see what he was whacking at back there. We shot our respective wads into paper towels (I was prepared), he returned to the front seat and we drove home, our desultory conversation turned to less interesting things. I never made another attempt on him, and think maybe my aversion to body-hair may have originated from the frustration of not having had a good time with him. He was the only fellow in high school I even tried to lure into my clutches.

To be continued …

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January 23rd, 2010 at 12:38 am

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A FEW WORDS FROM OUR SPONSOR, ME!

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MISCELLANEOUS

• I read a lot of blogs, including some by youngsters dealing with finding themselves gay. Of course, every situation is different, so there’s no universal advice to be given. Except to say, “hang in: as my own blog will eventually relate, I figured things out to my own satisfaction and had a full and interesting life. It does take time…

• While I empathize with these kids, I envy their ability to put together blog pages and web sites that are absolutely smashing! The process has pretty much defeated me so far. Maybe some cute young thing who likes old men (yeah, right!) will come along and give me a hand. With the blog, I mean…

• As it is developing, my format seems to be a chronological exposé of my life:  So far, I’m not even out of high school! But, the pace will pick up as I got out into the world. A buddy (well, he started out as a lover but things quickly degenerated) and I went to Europe the summer of 1963. This was my first glimpse into other life-styles. Later, I spent time in Vietnam, rode a motorcycle from Phnom-Penh to Singapore, worked in Australia, Philippines, Egypt, Ecuador and elsewhere, so there is much to tell. Here are a few photos to give you some idea of what’s in store:

Ready to depart Saigon, September, 1968, on a Honda CB-160

I have two saddle-bags and a cheap suitcase strapped on the luggage rack. The bike is a Honda CB-160 bought used from a compatriot leaving the country. The national assembly building in the background had been hit by a rocket a week earlier: note the canvas roof, top right.

All wood Siemens Train, Athens 1979

These beautifully maintained all-wood Siemens train-sets were still in use in Athens in 1978. I loved riding them. I hope some have been preserved.

Guayaquil & Quito Railroad, Ecuador, 1979

Perched on the tender of Engine Number 11 of the Guayaquil & Quito railroad, Ecuador, 1979. I had a fabulous time riding almost everything they had working at the time. I went back in 1994 to find very little of it running, and now there seems to be almost nothing left.

• Throughout it all I was queer—not flaming, but not really hiding it either. I had my share of “interactions”, and have no regrets, now that things are winding down.

• The chronology will be interrupted from time to time by observations on the current scene, political or other sorts of rants, and whatever else occurs that I think worthy of note.

To be continued …

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January 23rd, 2010 at 12:07 am

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MY FIRST TRIP IN CAMBODIA: KEP

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09.September.68

Mon Chers~

I recall dashing off a short note at the bottom of my last letter that may have left you suspended a bit. To recount: last Saturday AM I returned to the Australian Embassy, where they prepared for me a letter to the Pochentong (airport) Customs authorities. I’m not sure what the letter said, but in any event it was the magic touch necessary, and after a whole lot of filling in of forms, books, etc., the Chef explained that I was free to depart “avec moto”, and to proceed to tour Cambodia entirely as I pleased. He gave me a warm “Welcome to Cambodia” (even If 2 days late) and hoped I would enjoy my stay.

So, having gotten beforehand a bottle of petrol (the bike had to be flown “dry”), and having on-the-spot re-attached the silencers, I got under way. Now, since having had the engine re-built in the Honda [before leaving Saigon], I’d never really gotten it broken in, & never had the chance to take a “shake-down” run. I’d intended to go to Vung Tao, but by the time I had time for that, the VC were making trouble out that way again. Just driving around Saigon, I had experienced an assortment of minor ills & had (I hoped) corrected them all. Re-attaching the silencers (besides making the machine quiet) seemed to improve its performance.

I visited the Palais Royale the same morning. It is lovely. Curiously, amid the splendor of the various buildings (most of them built around 1915) is a small 2-story building “a la style francaise”, a building built by Napoleon much earlier. But there it sits, all ginger-bread and bric-a-brac; it looks so out of place! After lunch I went through the National Museé (much of it currently being reconstructed). As Todd said, they have a large collection of statues of various Khmer Kings—but not a great deal else.

Saturday night I was poking around the city & stopped for a Pepsi at a small restaurant. The owner—to my surprise—spoke flawless english and welcomed me so warmly it was almost overwhelming. It turned out this man is an expatriate Vietnamese, and he was eager for news: I wish I could have been more encouraging. Of course, this episode lasted through several Pepsis, a large dish of Cambodian-style beef-steak (rather like Korean bool-goggie, but not cooked at the table [and served over water-cress] and so forth: it was after 1 am before I got back to the hotel for sleep! And by prearrangement Mr. Thang-Ny showed up promptly at 8:30 to take me sight-seeing. After petit-dejeunez, where we were joined by another friend, we took the bike in for a battery-charge (too much stop & go driving) and while that was in progress we walked to the phnom for relaxation and photos. It was a gorgeous day. Following completion of the battery charge, all 3 of us drove out [Highway 2] into the country-side (to and somewhat beyond Takhmau), had refreshments, then returned to to PPenh. I lolligagged most of the rest of the day, having not gotten enough sleep the nite before. Did some souvenir shopping—and am happy to say found local items. A good dinner, an evening walking tour, and then to bed to rest up for the trip to Kep.

BACKSTORY: Mr. Ny had introduced himself to me in the hotel lobby: he spoke passable english, and was eager to try it out. I was eager to try him out, so we had a nice afternoon romp right there in the Mondial, and arranged to meet the next morning for sight-seeing. His friend wasn’t bad, either!

Temples Like this One Near Takhmau) are Everywhere!

I got on the road about 8:30 am. Another beautiful day, perfect for touring. First stop was Takeo [via Highways 3 and 25] where I had breakfast of sorts about 10:15. Traffic is, indeed, light, but autos and busses (especially) go like mad and one has to give them a wide berth! Had a pleasant chat with the elder Takeo police Chief, who introduced himself warmly. I understood about half of what he said (in French), and hope he understood as much of my rejoinders (in fractured French).

New Police Meeting Hall

The Chief of Police in Takeo proudly showed off their new meeting-hall, recently completed. Not an automobile in sight!

Once the initial shock of seeing an American wears off, the people respond with warm & spontaneous affection that is both heart-warming and encouraging. But I am a rarity here, so that I get lots of unabashed stares, especially in the countryside. But a smile & a wave (a choumreap sour is pretty hard to execute with one hand on the throttle) brings instant response in kind.

It began to rain very lightly as I approached Kampot, so I stopped there for a bowl of “Soup Chinois” and sat out a typical tropical rain for about an hour. (Chinese soup—besides being very good, is one of the safest foods here; there’s likely to be anything & everything in it, but it is kept at a boil all day long.) After the rain stopped I shopped in the central market for Kampot Pepper, and bought a hand of “ananas” to eat later on. The little boy who sold them to me was so taken aback by it all—I’m sure it’s been a while since he sold his fruit to an american—but his charming smile would win any heart. 4 riels (about 8¢) for the bananas.

BACKSTORY: There was a group of stalls all selling bananas, but I chose the one being tended-to by the youngster, chicken-queen that I am. (His mother had gone on an errand). I guessed his age at ten, but you never know. He was all smiles and all business as he interpreted my proffered hand to mean I wanted a hand of bananas, and he held up four fingers to tell me it would cost 4 riels. I was tempted to swoop him up, put him behind me on the bike, and ride off into the sunset. But I didn’t: and now he’s over 50 years old, if he survived the K-R massacre. I wonder if he remembers that tall american with the big motorcycle.

As I proceeded to Kep [Highways 3 and 16], I was on the heels of a storm, so from time to time stopped under a tree for refuge—and bananas! And about 2:30 I came around a corner and there was the seashore, a lovely beach, lovely sunshine, and no more than half-a-dozen people to be seen!

Banana Break Near Kep

I stopped under this tree for a ciggie and banana: that yellow spot on the right side of the bike is the hand of bananas I bought earlier.Just over that rise is a spectacular view of the Gulf of Tonkin and Kep.

Happily, the machine is preforming flawlessly. The valve-gear in a Honda sounds like a thrashing machine, but they do run well, & as mine is still “running in”, I’ve taken it fairly easy. Tomorrow! A day on the beach. Have lotion, so I hope to avoid further burn (my face & arms burned slightly this morning before I realized it). As usual, will close this but add more anon~

Luv~
Bruce


A Rural Road, Somewhere Near Phnom Penh

The next day: Bokor and Sihanoukville. Stay tuned!

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January 22nd, 2010 at 6:03 am

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LAST YEAR IN HIGH SCHOOL

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Finally, I got to call myself a Senior! (Funny what a thrill that was then, but now that I’m a senior again, the appellation has lost its luster!) I pretty well had a lock on graduation, having managed to get passing grades in everything, even PE.

Secondary sexual characteristics were finally making their appearance, so with my body more nearly resembling my peers, and with them growing up and realizing the folly of beating up on a defenseless kid,  I was able to enjoy my final year in high school. My old Dodge made it into the yearbook,

My Final Year in High School

though stuffed with people was a rare sight: my classmates for the most part thought I was really peculiar to have eschewed the popular Fords and Chevies they drove.

Though my “career” as a writer would come much later, I did do a lot of writing in  high school and college. I still have a large binder with my oeuvre from that time collected in it: looking over it now, I realize how clear it must have been to adult readers (teachers, councilors, and so forth) that I was queer: my regret is that it wasn’t equally clear to my classmates, who probably would have rewarded me with a lot of rampant cock, if only they had known! How I would have loved it, if only I had known.

My English Lit teacher was amused by several of my poems. The most famous one, submitted to (and rejected by) numerous contests was this quatrain:

The day was cold

The food was old:

Soon it was covered

With ugly mold.

Only slightly more serious, if a trifle  longer, was a parody (1951) on a famous poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay:

DIRT WITHOUT MUSIC

I am not resigned to the dumping of dirty dishes into the hot water.

So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been for time out of mind:

Into the water they go, the dirty, the greasy.

Crowned With bones and scrapings they go:

but I am not resigned.

Scraps and bones, into the garbage with you,

Be one with the gravy, the indescribable mess.

A fragment of what we ate, of what we chew,

A  tidbit, a morsel remains, but the best is eaten.

The celery crisp and green, the stewed tomatoes,the onions, the beets

They are gone. They are gone to feed the dogs.

Elegant and curled Is the broccoli. Fragrant is the broccoli.I know.

But I do not approve

More precious was the taste of that lamb than all the Four Roses of the world.

Down, down, down, into the suds of the dishwater

Gently they go, the greasy, the gummy, the gooey;

Quietly they go, the handle-less, the broken, the chipped

I know, but I do not approve, and I am not resigned.

So that year my mischievous nature asserted itself: I pulled off numerous pranks, harmless kid-stuff, which nevertheless greatly vexed the Dean of Boys, in whose office I found myself quite regularly. The man was a pompous fart who harangued me about such things as morality, living an upstanding life, and so forth (remember, he was convinced I was queer and active, but unaware that I was not even out to myself). He reported to my father regularly, and may have been surprised when Dad refused to chastise me for any of it: he knew I was just “feeling my oats” and testing the system, something quite normal for a late-blooming teenager. As for the Dean, he  became a role model (years later) for Newt Gingrich. The day after his wife announced she had cancer, he filed for divorce and took up with a young bimbo half his age. This was too much for red-neck Modesto: he was fired and run out of town. I went on to graduate, a gangly nerd with a lot of very strange habits, totally out of synch with my classmates.

This is me in rented drag for High School Graduation.

To be continued …

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January 22nd, 2010 at 6:03 am

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