A nice place to grow up, grow old

 

   I guess I’m pretty unique these days.  Except for my years attending U.C Riverside and a couple years living in Italy and England, I have lived all my life here in Claremont after my parents moved here in 1962, when I was 2. This is quite different from what I hear from most people with their stories of relocating, sometimes from state to state and sometimes a number of times. 

   I was thinking about this in the last month or so, as another school year ended and there was another weekend of graduations at the colleges here.  I was thinking about I have grown up and now am growing older in Claremont, about seeing so many others do the same and about how Claremont is a special, unique place to grow up and to grow older and old. 

   This is what I intended to write about in my latest Claremont Courier column, published two Fridays ago and featured below.  I don’t know if I nailed this exactly, but it does reflect on my seeing life and its passages in this town. 

     GROWING UP, GROWING OLDER, IN AND ON STAGES, IN CLAREMONT

   “I hate high school.”

   We were driving into the parking lot of Claremont High School. What I really meant was that I hate the speed bumps in the high school’s parking lot, remembering the quote I once read in a senior wills – senior wills! How high school! – edition of the Wolfpacket:  “College is high school without the speed bumps.”

   Despite some mixed feelings about my days at C.H.S and despite feeling a bit weird about still going there and seeing all those awkwardly young, not-o-young kids where I was in a similar awkward state some 40 years ago, I was there to offer support and admire some good work being done. I was being dropped off one Friday evening last month to see the latest production at the school’s theater.

   I don’t attend the football games and other sports events at the school, but I do cheer on the “theater kids.” While this play, “Rumors of Polar Bears” by Brian Dorf about teenagers wandering in an environment decimated by climate change, wasn’t my cup of tea, I am more and more thankful for this program offering a safe and stimulating space for these kids who may not fit into the sports and pep scene.

   And it’s great to see that, after 60 years and, remarkably, just two directors, the work as director of this program is now being carried on, and capably so, by Mohammed Mangrio. He was a student of Krista Elhai at Hemet High School before she came to Claremont to start a 27-year run as the theater director, where she was beloved, demanding and tireless, taking the baton from the legendary Don Fruechte, who founded the high school’s theater program and for whom the renovated theater is named.

   On the way home that evening, going down College Avenue and noting how Pomona College was set up, decked out for commencement that weekend, I didn’t say I didn’t like the colleges’ graduation ceremonies, but I did find myself thinking of how they reminded me of something I didn’t like when I was doing theater work. 

   I didn’t take part in theater when I was in high school.  No, my work in the theater came much later, and I loved it. What I loved most about working in theater was rehearsing.  I loved creating a scene and working on it, working with others to make this happen, collaborating to bring a vision to life and making it better and better.  I loved this creating together, this collaboration. 

   When it came time for performances, I wouldn’t say they were a let-down, but I was always a bit sad, disappointed, yes, let down, that the creating together was over. 

   Driving home past the commencement stage set up at Pomona College that night, it occurred to me, perhaps because I had just seen the “theater kids” at the high school in a play, that the colleges’ commencements are a bit like what I remember performances were like.  Yes, they are something to cheer, something to be proud of, but, at least for us townees, all the fun, really good stuff is done.  All the talks, concerts, plays and other presentations that had made our lives in Claremont all the richer over the past eight months are over. 

   I dare say the students have the same bittersweet feeling.  They may not say so now, just glad to be done with all the hard work and that they’ve made it out alive and with a degree, but they will soon see how good, how rich, how, yes, fun all that hard work, all that learning and creating and collaborating with new friends and professors was. And they’ll miss it. 

  Summer isn’t as sleepy – or dead, as I used to think – as it used to be in Claremont.  (Or maybe those growing up now think that Claremont is dead in the summer?) But, still, decades later, summer is a quiet time, a down time, in Claremont.  It is an invitation to reflect on the activities and accomplishments in the past months, whether at the colleges, in our schools or in our lives, and to take a breather and prepare for what’s next.

Right on Target (or not?)

 

   They were so gay.  Not only that, they were completely cheesy. 

   Fuck it!  I bought them. 

   They were me.  (Once, years ago, some time before I came out, when I was again buying cheese at the market, my attendant told me I’m a “cheesy guy.” I didn’t argue.)

   The shortalls – shortalls! – were light blue, baby blue, with rainbow straps and rainbow patches showing through manufactured rips in the legs.  Not only that, there was no zipper in the fly.   

   Like I said, completely cheeseball.  And femme. 

   And me. (Again, if someone says that I’m not completely cis or whatever, I don’t argue.) I dig wearing them and rocking them when I go out.  Especially without a shirt.

   Sure, I’m wearing cheesy, fag girl fucking shortalls.  What about it? 

   I sort of had the same reaction to the display of Pride items where I saw the shortalls a few years ago in the front of the Target store – exactly like the ones now being attacked by right-wingers and being sent to the corner, if not out of the store, literally, this Pride Month.  Yes, it was totally  cheeseball. I also didn't like that most of the items tended to be for women - the cis in me talking.  But more than that, it bugged me, creeped me, that, like at Pride Festivals, a big corporation was cashing in, making money off the queer community. 

   On the other hand, I thought it was cool, way cool that it was out there on full display.  I loved it that I was seen, I was reflected, loudly and proudly. 

   There was another time I was in Target that was even more powerful to me.  It was a few years earlier, and it may or may not have been during Pride month.  I was in the store, and a guy who worked there walked by, wearing the standard red shirt.  But instead of the small logo, it had a large target on the front of the shirt with a big, all-color rainbow curving over top. 

   I was thrilled.  I loved seeing this guy out there, saying publicly that he’s gay like me, that I wasn’t alone.  But I also loved the other message he was sending. 

   Yeah, I’m gay.  What about it?  AND Target, my employer, has my back. 

   Or, I now have to ask, does it? 

Shut down

 

   I got home the other night, and the power was out.  The house was pitch black.  Not only that, but the whole street was black except for a few solar lights glowing in some front yards.  There were also trucks with blinking orange lights going slowly up the street.  It was eerie.  Eerie…and wrong. 

   Something wasn’t right – to say the least. 

   My attendant and I got into the house using the light on her phone.  Hooray for her phone and that light, for one of my flashlights was out of batteries, and I couldn’t find the other one.  And a big hooray for my back-up battery that I got a few months ago.

   Otherwise, the mattress that I use was deflating.  And that was no good. 

   I led my attendant to my office, with the help of the light on her phone, and showed her the battery.  She fumbled around a bit and managed to plug in a lamp.  It worked! Hooray!  Then she push the battery (it’s on wheels) over to my bed and plugged in the mattress, which began to fill with air. Hooray!  This, along with the lamp, was a huge help. 

   After brushing my teeth and draining my urine bag in the half-light from the lamp in my bedroom, my attendant got me ready for the night in my bed.  I was upset that I couldn’t use my ceiling fan (it wasn’t warm, but I sleep better with a fan on, especially when it’s cloudy, as it was), and there were those weird orange lights and also what sounded like talking outside.  It was all upsetting and disorienting, but, surprisingly, I felt asleep before too, too long. 

   After a good night’s sleep – also surprising – I awoke to find that my ceiling fan was still off.  When I got up, my attendant – another attendant – confirmed that, yes, the power was still off and said that there were trucks down the street. Really?  That was a long time without power!

    After I was dressed and in my wheelchair, my attendant moved the battery back into my office and plugged in my computer.  It worked – yay! – but I couldn’t get online.  Perhaps it would work after breakfast? 

   Nope. It was a reminder that my internet depends on electricity – and that I should by the battery for it that I had decided not to buy. Or get a hot spot like my attendant had on her phone? 

   Suddenly, I was exhausted.  Suddenly, I had no power and was deflated like my mattress now was.  I felt defeated. 

   I couldn’t do what I had planned to do that morning, which depended on being online.  It was unusually cool and wet, so I couldn’t go out and enjoy the morning. 

   For a short time, I couldn’t pivot.  I couldn’t think of anything else to do.  My mind was blank, and I was suddenly a child, bored with nothing to do.

   I eventually decided to do some writing (working on this post, in fact). At least my computer was worked.  I then had plans to go out for a few hours in the afternoon.  When I returned, the power still wasn’t on - ! – and I decided, like a petulant child, to read on my Kindle on my speech device.  I was worried about the power not being on yet.  Remarkably, the back-up battery still had plenty of power, but I didn’t want to have another night dependent on it. 

   The power finally came back on a bit before 7, after nearly 23 hours. 23 hours.     

   Yes, I was fine, but I wasn’t happy.  More than that, I was rattled.  I often complain, half-jokingly and apparently in the abstract, about how my life is on my computer and about how much I rely – for my wheelchair, my mattress, not to mention the lights and all that – on electricity, but this wasn’t abstract, and it was no joke. 

   It was also a reminder to get lights with batteries and a battery for my internet!