Remembering Uncle Norman

Uncle Norman and 16 year-old me, arguing on Xmas.

Many people have an Uncle Norman. He's the guy at the family gathering who shouts and sputters about right-wing politics. My Uncle Norman stuttered. He was alt-right half a century before the term was invented. He made family gatherings interesting, if verbal warfare is something you enjoy. He was my mother's brother. My father called him "Stormin' Norman."

He lived in Akron Ohio which was only about 30 miles away. Even so, we only got together once a year on December 25th.  My family was small and everyone was there. My father's mother Josie and Norman's parents, Ruth and Al. We celebrated in a secular, Jewish fashion which involves and lot of drinking, eating, yelling and animated talking.

Norman and I argued about politics: the Vietnam War, protests, feminism, the police and their powers, self-expression, women's fashion, you name it, we fought about it. At that time the big issue was the war in Vietnam which he considered a fight for freedom. He loved the police and would dwell on how powerless I would be as a young woman to defend myself against rape without them. In the Roy Cohn tradition, he loved capitalism and hated commies. I honed my debate skills in these sessions.

I wasn't totally out to myself as lesbian in those years, but I knew I was desperately different than my friends. When Norman would tell me that I would change after I got married, I responded that marriage wasn't in the cards for me. He said that I'd change my mind. When I replied that he never married and that I was like him, he turned red, stuttered and changed the subject. Same gender marriage was so far off the map in the sixties, no-one even speculated about that.

I have reason to believe that Norman never had an intimate sexual relationship. Of course, I don't know this for sure but I know that he never talked of female friends or acquaintances. He was socially unskilled. He worked as an engineer. I think he was part of a bowling league. When my father and mother first met, my father paid a prostitute to try to seduce him. She was unsuccessful. I'm almost positive he was gay and I'm also sure that it was something he never acted upon. Although he didn't believe in religion, he scorned gay people. It was not a group in which he desired to participate.

He was fully Jewish in a racial sense, and deeply ashamed of it as well. He was the only Jew I've ever heard state, seriously, that Hitler had a point. It astonished me the way he took self-hatred to new levels.

Stormin' Norman died September 22, 2017. I only know that because I got a legal, registered letter in the mail that I had to sign for. It said that if Norman had died without a will (intestate) my sister and I would be the ones to inherit his estate, but since that's not the case they legally had to let me know that we are not in his will in case we want to pursue legal action. The will becomes a public document in a few weeks. The lawyer says it will be online. It will be interesting to see if he died with money and what people or groups he left it to. It wouldn't surprise me if it has gone to organizations like the NRA or groups fighting to turn back same-sex marriage.

Oddly enough, now that he is no longer in this world, I miss him. 

Protective Masks

I am an impostor. From my family, I learned that appearances are everything. From the bullies in my neighborhood, who took every opportunity to attempt to pound me into the pavement, I learned that a huge helping of bravado mixed with bluster can be a life-saving strategy.

So, I perfected my impersonation of a tough girl. This ruse involved walking like an axe murderer and talking like a sailor. Not that I’d actually met axe murderers or sailors but an active imagination is the most essential trait of a successful impostor.

My rough and ready persona kept me safe in that deepest circle of hell, commonly known as high school. It came with its own rewards, especially after I expanded it to include the use of interesting drugs, cutting school and shoplifting.

In the mid-seventies I migrated to California to be out as a lesbian and away from Ohio, my father, and his new wife and life that he'd taken up after my mother’s death. These were hard times for me both financially and emotionally. The Mission neighborhood of San Francisco was crime-ridden and I didn’t own a car. Being young and into the bar scene, I was often on the streets late at night. My walk in combination with my leather bomber jacket served me well.

One night on my way back to my flat I ran into a sleazy looking dude who began with a slightly menacing, “Babe, what are you doing out on the street this time of night?”

“What are YOU doing out here, hon?” was my response. He kind of chuckled and we walked together for a bit, me trying to show him my take-no-prisoners pose. I suppose he was sort of intrigued by this odd woman with an antagonistic attitude and a butch stride.

Before we parted ways he asked, “Tell me, what do you really have in your pocket?” This question caught me off guard. On the street at night, I would always walk with my hands in my pockets. The fact that people might think I am carrying a weapon had never even occurred to me.

            “You don’t want to know!” was all I said as I moved on into the night.

It dawned on me that if I could make people give me a wide berth, perhaps I could also use my skill set to land a job I really wanted.

I had always dreamed of being a graphic artist, even took a course in it at City College. I decided that I would try to pass myself off as an experienced layout and paste-up person at my next job interview. It didn’t go all that well. I had to actually perform the task at the end of the interview. I was slow, clumsy and didn’t know a thing about the latest time-saving techniques, which they then showed me. Of course, I didn’t get that job.

But during my next interview, I really sounded like a pro and, it turned out that they didn’t even require a demonstration. I was hired.

When the graphic arts gig became a bit frenetic and boring, I wanted to move on. I succeeded in convincing a job training panel that my experience in design was perfectly suited for their program to learn drafting.

I then wormed my way into an Architectural firm and later branched out into Civil Engineering. When it came time to learn the new technology, CADD (computer-aided design drafting), I knew exactly what to do: Just claim that I know how to use the program until, in fact, I did.

When the entire field of drafting died with the advent of computers, It was time to go back to school and get some real training. I interviewed all my friends to see if they were doing anything I might find interesting. Since one of my primary pleasures was reading I decided to become a librarian.

I called professors in the Library accredidation program to find out what exactly they were looking for in a Master’s Degree candidate. After duly noting their emphasis on technology, I wrote two recommendation letters tailored to their needs, in different voices, of course. The third, my best friend penned for me. Then, wonder of wonders, I was accepted into the Library and Information Studies program at Berkeley and once armed with that degree, I became more able to make my way with safety and competence through the dark streets of life.  

I have been retired from my librarian job for over two years now. In my present incarnation, I blog and send out my epistles in the form of poems, articles and stories. I still have no weapon in my pocket, no magic up my sleeve. But when people ask me what I do, I just look them straight in the eye and state with utmost sincerity, “I’m a writer.”

Bradley Manning's Struggle

Bradley Manning, the Army private charged with leaking documents to Julian Assange for his web site Wiki Leaks, is in the process of pre-trial hearings to determine whether or not his case will proceed to court martial. If that happens the 24 year old could be sentenced to spend the rest of his life behind bars if those hearings determine he was a traitor releasing information that could compromise the US government.

But to many of us, both straight and gay, Manning along with Assange are heroes. They follow in the whistle-blower tradition of Daniel Ellsberg who has called Bradley Manning a patriot and Julian Assange a hero. 

The conditions under which Manning has been detained have been the subject of worldwide controversy. Extended solitary confinement, sleep deprivation, no access to exercise or any comfort items like pillows or sheets are just bullet points on the list of his inhumane, soul-destroying detention. In part, because of Manning, the world community is reconsidering defining solitary confinement as torture.

Now, Manning's future is on the line and one of the pillars of his defense involve his gay identity. This strategy is to paint him as an "emotionally troubled homosexual of the don't ask, don't tell era." Although much of the leftist media seems to be stumbling over this one, as an open lesbian, I don't find it at all contradictory or politically incorrect.

The truth of our lives as queer folk is that they are more difficult and challenging than the lives of heterosexuals from the gate. We face far greater obstacles when it comes to self-esteem, confidence and interaction in general, whether socially or at work. I am sure that for Manning to reconcile the fact of his otherness in an openly hostile environment like the military, was a soul-wrenching and complicated endeavor. Oppression damages everyone, but it is particularly corrosive to the folks on the receiving end. 

Best of luck Mr. Manning, the thoughts and good will of the many are with you.