Coming of Age - Prologue. Prologue

I grew up in the 50's and 60's so I know the truth in the author's words. For most of my life I have considered myself as totally straight. Now I wonder if some of that is because I couldn't dream of even thinking myself being queer or bisexual. And yes, the kiss of death. One of my high school mates who attended the same college as I, was murdered in the woods in the middle of winter in 1965. And he hadn't even come out as queer. Today, I consider one of my many sins, my earlier indifference of men who love men and women who love women. 

On 12/1/2022 at 6:19 PM, Dan South said:

If it’s 1981 I’m living the same high school awkwardness with Bruce. Looking forward to his story.

Same here. Perhaps 2 or 3 years later. But experiencing the same stuff. It feels like yesterday. 

The 80s was an uncomfortable time for a gay kid in South Africa. It was such a conservative place. It took me until I was 45 to admit I was gay, intrinsically so, and not just battling a sin that would be removed from me if I tried harder. 

8 hours ago, Doha said:

Same here. Perhaps 2 or 3 years later. But experiencing the same stuff. It feels like yesterday. 

Thanks for your comment. I hope my story brings back good memories.

On 1/15/2023 at 11:30 AM, gdaniel said:

I grew up in the 50's and 60's so I know the truth in the author's words. For most of my life I have considered myself as totally straight. Now I wonder if some of that is because I couldn't dream of even thinking myself being queer or bisexual. And yes, the kiss of death. One of my high school mates who attended the same college as I, was murdered in the woods in the middle of winter in 1965. And he hadn't even come out as queer. Today, I consider one of my many sins, my earlier indifference of men who love men and women who love women. 

The part of your comment I have modified with bold text moved me tremendously @gdaniel. Although you disagree with him on some of his core beliefs, this comment reminded me of one I read John Shelby Spong make. Perhaps the two of you have more in common than not. Dare I say dogma aside, a sense of compassion, decency and universal kindness, traits which for this mostly non-believer seem very worthy traits for a believer to hold.

On 12/3/2022 at 11:05 AM, drsawzall said:

Ah...1981...what a vintage year and all that it would portend...Remember...Ronald Regan the Moral Majority that was neither including Jerry Falwell, the soon to be advent of Newt Gingrich and the Contract on America???

Let's not forget the 80's saw the eventual death, or at least a long term slumber, of disco and the birth of rap music...I keep hoping it goes the way of disco....perhaps some day soon...

In order to free the hostages in Iran, the selling of arms to the Contras? And as part of those shenanigans the Sacramento Bee exposed, the introduction of crack cocaine?? Money from the sale of that and other  drugs paid for arms and weapons to the Contras and the Iranians...go figure...Uncle Sam was a pusher...

Then let's not forget the 'Gay Plague'! God's so called punishment towards homosexuals of all stripes, flavor, and colors! The tens of thousands that needlessly died as there wasn't a need or a rush to understand how Aids worked. Remember Ryan White the young hemophiliac, or how Elizabeth Taylor and Elton John helped raise awareness that Aids affected everyone???

Being gay in the early 80's wasn't any more terrifying than being gay on the 60's or 70's...

Like any other decade the 80's has its ups and downs...looking forward to more...

@Tim Hobson I always enjoy reading any comment(s) made by @drsawzall, and this one is no exception. My comments are in no way a comment upon @drsawzall, yourself or all Americans in general (except for those who loathe disco as a musical genre).

Disco never died in my homeland of Australia nor did it in Europe or much of South America. The 'Disco Demolition Night' at Old Comiskey Park, Chicago, which I have read about was seemingly largely orchestrated by disenfranchised white heterosexual males, fans of cringeworthy rock music, who felt threatened by disco because it exposed their two left feet, appallingly fashion sense, and their fear of gay men, African Americans, Hispanic Americans and the scariest and most hated of them all, women who were not charmed by their macho bullshit.

As an example @drsawzall, 'Can't Stop The Music', the single, soundtrack and movie were massively successful in Australia in 1980. We did not care the Village People were "gay" and sang disco music, nor did we care the movie was dreadful. I must confess to the movie being one of life's guilty pleasures, I love it and Steve Guttenberg was so cute. Donna Summer continued to be popular, although her popularity did wane, particularly after Madonna appeared on the scene (she was massively popular from the moment the video for 'Holiday' appeared on our TV screens). Bananarama, Wham, Dead Or Alive, Pet Shop Boys and our very own pop princess, Kylie Minogue, were hugely popular during the 80's and for some beyond. In the 90's the Eurodisco of Snap, Culture Beat, Technotronic, 2 Unlimited, The Real McCoy and various one-hit wonders were enormously popular (unfortunately grunge was too). Disco, now known by the more acceptable label "dance music" continues to be popular to date in Australia, although much of it I consider vastly inferior to those heady days of the 70's when disco divas could actually sing ala Donna Summer, Gloria Gaynor, Vicki Sue Robinson, Cheryl Lynn, the various female singers who fronted Chic, the various female singers who fronted Change, the various goddesses who were The Ritchie Family, Liz Williams and Marcia Barrett from Boney M, Miss Patti  and Miss Ross when they did disco, Sarah Dash, Martha and Izora, those wonderful Weather Girls (and Two Tons of Fun) and of course, perhaps the "greatest diva" of them all, Sylvester

We were very fortunate in Australia in that we had a government in which the Minister for Health was very proactive in addressing AIDS as an illness affecting all the community, not just "the gays". There were still many who died, but I would like to think, perhaps naively so, that the attitudes in Australia, at least in the public arena, were by and large very different from those espoused by Reagan and his adminstration.

This is the first of your stories I have embarked upon reading @Tim Hobson, primarily because of some of the interesting comments you made on a couple of other stories I have read of late by @gdaniel and I think by @Libby Drew. You are off to a good start so I am looking forward to more of this story and its follow up book.

46 minutes ago, Summerabbacat said:

@Tim Hobson I always enjoy reading any comment(s) made by @drsawzall, and this one is no exception. My comments are in no way a comment upon @drsawzall, yourself or all Americans in general (except for those who loathe disco as a musical genre).

Disco never died in my homeland of Australia nor did it in Europe or much of South America. The 'Disco Demolition Night' at Old Comiskey Park, Chicago, which I have read about was seemingly largely orchestrated by disenfranchised white heterosexual males, fans of cringeworthy rock music, who felt threatened by disco because it exposed their two left feet, appallingly fashion sense, and their fear of gay men, African Americans, Hispanic Americans and the scariest and most hated of them all, women who were not charmed by their macho bullshit.

As an example @drsawzall, 'Can't Stop The Music', the single, soundtrack and movie were massively successful in Australia in 1980. We did not care the Village People were "gay" and sang disco music, nor did we care the movie was dreadful. I must confess to the movie being one of life's guilty pleasures, I love it and Steve Guttenberg was so cute. Donna Summer continued to be popular, although her popularity did wane, particularly after Madonna appeared on the scene (she was massively popular from the moment the video for 'Holiday' appeared on our TV screens). Bananarama, Wham, Dead Or Alive, Pet Shop Boys and our very own pop princess, Kylie Minogue, were hugely popular during the 80's and for some beyond. In the 90's the Eurodisco of Snap, Culture Beat, Technotronic, 2 Unlimited, The Real McCoy and various one-hit wonders were enormously popular (unfortunately grunge was too). Disco, now known by the more acceptable label "dance music" continues to be popular to date in Australia, although much of it I consider vastly inferior to those heady days of the 70's when disco divas could actually sing ala Donna Summer, Gloria Gaynor, Vicki Sue Robinson, Cheryl Lynn, the various female singers who fronted Chic, the various female singers who fronted Change, the various goddesses who were The Ritchie Family, Liz Williams and Marcia Barrett from Boney M, Miss Patti  and Miss Ross when they did disco, Sarah Dash, Martha and Izora, those wonderful Weather Girls (and Two Tons of Fun) and of course,  perhaps the "greatest diva" of them all, Sylvester.

We were very fortunate in Australia in that we had a government in which the Minister for Health was very proactive in addressing AIDS as an illness affecting all the community, not just "the gays". There were still many who died, but I would like to think, perhaps naively so, that the attitudes in Australia, at least in the public arena, were by and large very different from those espoused by Reagan and his adminstration.

This is the first of your stories I have embarked upon reading @Tim Hobson, primarily because of some of the interesting comments you made on a couple of other stories I have read of late by @gdaniel and I think by @Libby Drew. You are off to a good start so I am looking forward to more of this story and its follow up book.

 

Thank you for reading and commenting @Summerabbacat! I hope you'll continue to enjoy reading Bruce's autobiography. I'm just starting the third book in the series - Coming to Love.

BTW, and pardon the self-promotion, but my first series on GA is called Tales Along the Way . It starts out in Melbourne and has an Aussie character as one of the narrators. You might enjoy that one, too.

@Tim Hobson it is almost midnight here in Sydney, Australia, as I make my way through the first chapter (riveting reading thus far), but I keep stopping to look at the reactions of yourself and @drsawzall to my long-winded comment above (vain much). I don't think I will get to finish it tonight as my eyes are growing weary and my cats eager for me to go to bed so they can snuggle up.

I shall certainly given 'Tales Along The Way' a tryout. I have never lived in Melbourne, but it is a beautiful city architecturally, much more so than Sydney. It is often described as the Dowager Duchess and Sydney as the Painted Whore. There is long standing rivalry between the two cities, although mostly it is friendly rivalry. In Sydney we are lucky to have two things Melbourne does not, the harbour (breathtaking in its beauty) and the Opera House (perched so brazenly and so majestically on the harbour).

1 hour ago, Summerabbacat said:

@Tim Hobson it is almost midnight here in Sydney, Australia, as I make my way through the first chapter (riveting reading thus far), but I keep stopping to look at the reactions of yourself and @drsawzall to my long-winded comment above (vain much). I don't think I will get to finish it tonight as my eyes are growing weary and my cats eager for me to go to bed so they can snuggle up.

I shall certainly given 'Tales Along The Way' a tryout. I have never lived in Melbourne, but it is a beautiful city architecturally, much more so than Sydney. It is often described as the Dowager Duchess and Sydney as the Painted Whore. There is long standing rivalry between the two cities, although mostly it is friendly rivalry. In Sydney we are lucky to have two things Melbourne does not, the harbour (breathtaking in its beauty) and the Opera House (perched so brazenly and so majestically on the harbour).

Many years ago, I was a contractor at the Australian Tax Office in Canberra for three months. I managed to visit almost all of Eastern Australia on the weekends. I liked Melbourne, thought Sydney was overrated, except for the Opera House, and absolutely loved Brisbane. Canberra was just a place to work, although it did have a decent nightlife during the week.

17 hours ago, Summerabbacat said:

a sense of compassion, decency and universal kindness, traits which for this mostly non-believer seem very worthy traits for a believer to hold.

Are they not also traits for a non-believer to hold? As I understand it, Buddhism espouses much the same. And you strike me as a person who also lives "a sense of compassion, decency and universal kindness.

3 hours ago, gdaniel said:

Are they not also traits for a non-believer to hold? As I understand it, Buddhism espouses much the same. And you strike me as a person who also lives "a sense of compassion, decency and universal kindness.

They most certainly are @gdaniel. The point I was trying to make, perhaps not very clearly, was that both yourself and John Shelby Spong appear to me to share a sense of compassion, decency and universal kindness, despite your differences of opinion regarding some of the basic tenets and long held beliefs in Christianity. Of course he is now deceased, but from what I have read written by him and by others about him, I believe you are more alike than not.

Regarding my possession of these qualities, I have fooled you well. I am certainly compassionate and universally kind to non-human animals (except for fleas and mosquitoes, both of which I am happy to murder), but when it comes to the human animal my compassion is far more discriminating. I am not always kind to human animals, although this is usually more from withholding kindness rather than being deliberately unkind. To put it bluntly (and you know I am NEVER blunt, LOL) many human animals piss me off often, whereas for non-human animals that is a rarity (I get cross with my feline companions on occasion, but it is short-lived and inconsequential). 

18 hours ago, Tim Hobson said:

Many years ago, I was a contractor at the Australian Tax Office in Canberra for three months. I managed to visit almost all of Eastern Australia on the weekends. I liked Melbourne, thought Sydney was overrated, except for the Opera House, and absolutely loved Brisbane. Canberra was just a place to work, although it did have a decent nightlife during the week.

Bloody hell. I have just read my two comments above and am appalled at the name of spelling mistakes I made. It really was late at night and my eyesight is not great at the best of times (and I do wear glasses) and these are my excuses and I am sticking to them.

I will send you a DM regarding your comments above. I think you may be surprised and hopefully find them interesting at least.

Quick start, but Bruce is going to be an interesting character to follow.

7 hours ago, raven1 said:

Quick start, but Bruce is going to be an interesting character to follow.

He really is. I loved watching him grow up and mature through the years of these stories. 

58 minutes ago, Doha said:

He really is. I loved watching him grow up and mature through the years of these stories. 

I've read the one about his adult life, but just found out about this story when reading the anthology story Tim wrote.  I know I'm going to love finding out about his teen life.