|
|
Out of the Orange Groves
A Native Californian Looks Back on His Gay Life
I was born in Los Angeles on August 29, 1952, the first-born child of a
manipulative, domineering mother and a Caspar Milquetoast WWII veteran
father, who was later in life diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Just
before my only sibling, John, (3½ years younger, heterosexual) was
born, we moved to a tract house in Buena Park, suburban Orange County,
where we lived until I was 16.
Never interested in sports or any activities that the other boys seemed
to like, I played "house," hopscotch and jacks with the girls. Because I
was overweight, uncomfortable in my body, and nerdy, I was teased
frequently. Each year I would develop a "crush" on a different
classmate. I envied him his artistic, or sportive, or social ability. I
didn't realize I was attracted to him, I thought I just wanted to be
like him. Mostly I escaped into a world of books and movies.
Like many men of my generation, I thought I was the only one who felt
this way. I understood that my feelings were different, a difference
that was shameful and to be kept secret. I was terrified of being
effeminate, and took great pains to disappear. What little I did hear
about homosexuality referred to leading a life of loneliness.
My family moved to the Pacific Northwest where, after finishing high
school, I attended Bellevue Community College and the University of
Washington, before I “stopped out.” I left my family in Bellevue and
moved almost by accident to the San Francisco Bay Area. I was attracted
by the availability of foreign films, good coffee, and a certain je ne
sais quoi. I was certainly not aware of San Francisco's reputation for
being Bohemian, or gay.
Because I had worked in his Bellevue Square store, I was hired by Lew
Langfeld, the owner of Hunter's Books and Books, Inc. to work in his
warehouse in San Mateo and he also invited me to live in an apartment
he maintained in Belmont. After I had lived there alone for a short
while, he informed me that two other men, a gay couple, would be moving
in. I liked Mike and Dale a lot, and soon allowed myself to be seduced
by one of them, falling in love with the other, and briefly involved in
a ménage à trois of sorts. My initial coming out and first sexual
experiences were remarkably easy. Now I understood why I'd felt
different. I kept waiting for the angst and anguish, but this seemed so
natural. I checked the mirror to see if my new identity showed on my
face. By now I was working at Books, Inc. in San Jose. One of the very
first books I remember reading was Dennis Altman's Homosexual:
Oppression and Liberation (1971). I “borrowed” the book from the
bookstore in an attempt to understand what was going on with myself. (I
eventually returned it.)
My living arrangement quickly got complicated and I moved to San Jose,
then to Los Gatos and finally to San Francisco. I remember trying to buy
The Advocate from a coin-operated street newspaper stand, I walked
nonchalantly past the machine, then dropped in the quarter, then walked
back by and yanked the handle. Of course it got stuck, frustrating my
futile effort to appear as if I weren't really buying a gay newspaper.
Marching in one of the first gay parades in San Francisco, I worried
that my parents would see me on the news.
I was hired by Scott Martin to work in his tony shop, Scott Martin Books
on Sutter Street, and immediately realized that all the employees were
gay. I met Lillian Hellman, Audrey Hepburn's mother, and other
celebrities. I was invited to smart parties, many of them given by Chuck
Williams and the employees of Williams-Sonoma with whom we were all
quite friendly. At a party where the entertainment was provided by Steve
Silver, Nancy Bleiweiss and members of the precursors to Beach Blanket
Babylon, I met Bob Bendorff with whom I became lovers. In some ways this
was the existence I had dreamed of, yet I soon tired of the incessant
drinking and superficiality of the relationships. I still could not
find my place.
I began attending Cal in the Spring of 1975, largely because it was
convenient and because of the ugliness of the alternative, San Francisco
State's campus. I continued living in San Francisco, commuting on the
"F" bus. I worked at the Fairmont Hotel in the Food and Beverage
Control Department, evenings from 7:00 p.m. to 3 a.m. Then I would take
the bus home sleep a few hours, get up, hurry to morning classes, and
then bus back to work. I felt very self-conscious, returning to school a
bit older, and now out as a gay man. I resented working full time,
while most of my classmates either held part time jobs or none at all.
I barely had any time to socialize, but would occasionally go with
friends to dance bars like Buzzby's on Polk Street.
I was interested in sociolinguistics, but there was no such program and
I quickly realized that the Sociology Department would afford me more
flexibility than the Linguistics Department. There were no courses which
advertised that they specifically dealt with homosexuality. In my first
quarter (Spring 1975) I learned about roles of women, becoming a
life-long feminist as a result of Sociology of Women taught by Anne
Swidler. There was some limited discussion of lesbians. I remember in
Arlie Hochshild's Sociology of the Family (Fall, 1975), we had a guest
presentation by a man and woman who talked about identifying as gay and
lesbian. To my knowledge none of my instructors identified as gay, nor
was there ever any discussion of transsexuality.
Some of the books I read in an effort to understand myself were Best
Little Boy in the World by “John Reid” (1973), Patience and Sarah by
Isabel Miller(1973), Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown (1973) and the
excellent anthologies by Karla Jay and Allen Young: Out of the Closets:
Voices of Gay Liberation (1972), After You're Out (1975), and Lavender
Culture (1979).
I took a seminar with Bob Blauner who became my faculty advisor for my
senior thesis. In that class I met Avery Dean Pierce, a Social Welfare
graduate student several years my senior. We became lovers and he
eventually divorced his wife of seven years. As a result of his
encouragement I applied to the Masters program in Social Welfare.
I attended a couple of men's groups, and then went through a peer
counseling training at Pacific Center for Human Growth, the preeminent
East Bay gay/lesbian/bisexual social services agency. Was it my
imagination or was that Carole Migden (with straight hair) who was
running around the Telegraph Avenue offices? I soon found I didn't care
for the experience of “reflecting” back what the “counselee” had just
said. I wasn't very empathetic, and even the other
counselors-in-training got on my nerves. I quickly realized that I
wasn't cut out to be a counselor. When I failed to be accepted into
Cal's MSW program I was relieved. Later, in 1979, I was involved in
developing a traveling library exhibit under Pacific Center auspices.
Working with John David Dupree and others, “Out of the Closets” was
displayed in several Bay Area libraries, including Berkeley Public. I
wrote about the experience in “On Display: Presenting Gay Culture in a
Library Setting,” which appeared in a special issue of Catalyst: a
Socialist Journal of the Social Services (No. 12, 1981). While in
library school I did a field study, developing a plan to institute a
library at the Pacific Center. I don't know that any of it was ever
implemented.
I vaguely recall a Gay Students' Union with offices in Eshleman Hall,
and often a card table on Sproul Plaza. One Fall (Halloween?), my friend
Randy and I took the bus over from San Francisco, to attend a dance that
they were sponsoring at Strawberry Creek. Later these dances were held
at the more visible Bear's Lair. Initially I remember self-consciously
borrowing gay books from the Moffitt Undergraduate Library: I would
“sandwich” one gay book between two straight titles, hoping that my
choices would not be noticed by the clerk checking them out.
For a linguistics course (Fall 1976) I wrote a paper on the social
constructions of gay argot. I compiled an annotated bibliography on
homosexuality, and my honors thesis explored the dynamics of the
lifelong process of “coming out.” The next year Blauner invited me to
serve as reader (student assistant for grading papers and exams) in his
lecture version of Sociology of Men. I took responsibility for planning
and participating in a panel presentation on homosexuality. I graduated
with honors, majoring in Sociology in Winter 1977.
When Dean moved to Southern California to teach at Long Beach State
University, I accompanied him, and we lived together briefly. I moved
back to San Francisco and took a CETA job at the SF Art Institute. I
realized I was seriously depressed, and began seeing a therapist.
While working in the library at the Art Institute I decided to attend
graduate school at Cal, earning my Masters of Library and Information
Science in Winter 1981. I often fulfilled my assignments by developing
bibliographies on homosexuality. I used some of my annotations as
writing samples when I started reviewing for Library Journal. Before I
even completed my coursework, I was hired as a librarian by the San
Francisco Public Library.
Despite a host of fond memories, I don't remember my years at Cal as
being either happy or unhappy. I felt somewhat estranged from my
classmates perhaps because I worked full time, didn't live near campus,
and was gay. Academically, my education at Cal has stood me in good
stead; as an environment to develop social/emotional skills, it was
lacking. I only hope that the GLBT students who followed found a more
supportive atmosphere.
Postscript: Since 1991 I have been the librarian responsible for the
development of the James C. Hormel Gay & Lesbian Center, which opened as
part of the new main San Francisco Public Library in April 1996. At the
same time, Gay by the Bay : a History of Queer Culture in the San
Francisco Bay Area, which I co-authored with Susan Stryker, was
published by Chronicle Books, and was later nominated for a Lambda
Literary Award. I contributed chapters of gay information to Don and
Betty Martin's The Best of San Francisco (Chronicle Books, 1994) and
Gladys Hansen's San Francisco Almanac (Chronicle Books, 1995). My essay,
“A Queer Career” appeared in Liberating Minds : the Stories and
Professional Lives of Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Librarians and Their
Advocates edited by Norman G. Kester (Jefferson, N.C. : McFarland,
c1997). Essays have also appeared in Queer Arts Resource
(www.queer-arts.org), on KPFA, James White Review, Bay Area Reporter,
Cabaret Scenes, and a host of other publications. I am currently working
on a book about my grandmother, a French opera star in the 1930s.
Jim Van Buskirk, Program Manager
James C. Hormel Gay & Lesbian Center
San Francisco Public Library
|
|
