Around 2009 Charlie contracted a bout of sepsis. I don't know why people with brain debilitation seem to get this but they do. In the case that ended his life I think he lost the ability to swallow, we had a feeding tube installed, and at some point he inhaled food into his lungs and one thing led to another and he was gone.
In the 2009 event he was feeling real bad but was still able to walk. One day we were walking to his sister's place and he began to vomit into a bush, he proceeded on to her house and I got a car to take him home. Later we went to an evening appointment at Kaiser, a blood draw showed big infection, we went to the emergency room and after about a 5 hour wait he was admitted. They could not get his blood pressure up. He seemed to be dying. They elevated his feet to encourage blood to gather in his brain and vital chest organs.
They started trying to insert a stent (I think thats the expression) into his neck, they tried for about a half hour, trying real hard but real carefully, jabbing this thing into his neck. Finally they gave up and apologized, they said they'd be sending him up to the ICU and there the stent and other matters would be taken care of. I stroked his forehead, he said that felt nice. I brought him some comfort amid all that pain and fear.
He was in the ICU for four days and another three in the regular hospital. I knew he would come out of that episode OK because he was eating every molecule on his plate. And he did get out and did come home and did have a rather healthy existence until the brain disease as I said made it impossible for him to swallow.
On his last day in the regular hospital there was a horrible episode. His roommate got the welcome news that a biopsy showed he did not have cancer and he and his family were happy and coming as close to celebrating as its possible to do in a hospital room. And then…a nurse comes in and corrects the information, it was malignant. People just fell apart. As you might expect. It was one of the saddest most tragic things I have seen.
In San Diego a few recognizable buildings stick up. You can see Charlie's office building downtown. You can also see the UCSD med center in Hillcrest and I hate seeing it because it always brings back the memory of Charlie totally hooked up to tubes and machines and totally out of it and only a couple of days from passing. I hate it.
In a few minutes I leave for an appointment with my doctor. My second post radiation PSA was less than 0.1 which is as good as possible so I am very happy about that, but I am seeing her about an infection (at least I think its an infection) like one she took care of a few months ago with antibiotics, she said they could grow to sepsis. I am wondering if the radiation debilitated my immunity and if it will come back. No complaints, the cancer was horribly malignant, one doctor said without treatment it could have killed me in 2 years. Happy happy joy joy, right??
Tuesday, December 24, 2013
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
One more
And More
1 15 82 Dear Binqqui, Grr and bra. The tule fog is out here in force at 38 o. How about this nifty statue? Only $75,000. We'll maybe go to the Wine Country. Tomorrow its Glory to the party days. ILYVM, Luquums
5 15 01 Aloha Bob- Saw this card and realized how much I'm missing you. Am commiserating with BC by e mail. You ccan send me a message too from .... You would love Amsterdam. Love, Charlie
5 22 01 Bon jour mon chéri de Paris. Writing from the Eiffel Tower. Beautiful weather and grand views. Quelle villa! Avec la' amour, Charlie
9 2 76
We're on the way to climb to the highest spot in the US. Wow-Blorg would feel right at home. See you soon. C
10 23 87 Off & on sun & showers. Campus is beautiful with autumnal liquidambers. Many old grads, plus parents and fundraisers. No ducks yet! CLM
More Postcards from Charlie
Dec. 1996, Hana is beautiful as always. Good swimming at Hamoa & RedSand beaches. Waianapanapa was windy and cool. This house is right on the cliff overlooking Hana bay and Waikoloa peninsula. Palm trees and starry nights. Napenape malie. Aloha, Charlie.
Greetings from post meltdown Thulia. No sun yet (strike that) but the foot o Piedmont is elegant as always. S & P & Morgan & Slimbob say hi. ILYVM, CLM
6 28 83 Hot and steamy. Rode the Staten Island ferry to cool off. Mary Pat took the kids & me to Cent. Pk. for picnic. Andy & I went to see Torch Song Trilogy. Also saw Mayor Koch talking to Miss Piggy. Met a Russian-Vladimir- at the UN. Enjoyed the Salt Lake airport. Miss you. Love CLM 3
Monday, December 16, 2013
Post Cards from Charlie
Charlie took some trips that for various reasons I didn't go along, but he always sent cards. I had a really touching conversation with our friend Judy who said that while they were together in Paris he couldn't stop talking about me. Wow. A nice story about that trip for them was that when they visited Jim Morrison's grave there in Paris some Paris hip kids were also visiting and were sort of surprised Americans knew about Jim Morrison! I think Charlie might have seen them perform, Morrison and the Doors, he saw a lot of great, famous acts at Winterland in SF when he was in the Bay Area, either at Stanford or at Cal or working at the UC Med Center in SF. Anyway, here are three of the cards he sent:
The Lenin card dated July 4, 1983: Landed at Gori near Joe's cabin. Scored some Kinsmarauli. Ga. has vineyards, orchards, vegetables, like Salinas or Central Valleys but greener--scenic. Hot and steamy. Saw a train robbery trial in Moscow. Subways impressive. Food better in Tiblisi. Few cruisers evident. CAABA TPYDY, much love, CLM 3.
Seealpsee dated May 16, 1998: Dear Bob, saw this lake on today's hike. Relaxing after hiking on a Swiss mountain. You would love it. Weather warm to hot. Bruce was great as always. Germany very green with river valley beauty. Stanford in Germany brought back memories despite changing into a hotel. So far so good. Much love, Charlie
Ben Nevis Scoaland dated June 4, 1987: 10 pm and still light on the shores of Loch Ness. Much great scenery in Scotland, stimulating he ancestral DNA. We must come here and explore for a longer time. Islands, mountains, forests and glens are stunning. Tomorrow to Edinburgh and then home. This mountain (ref. to Ben Nevis) was poking thru the clouds, highest in Scotland, CLM
Saturday, December 7, 2013
Dream
I had a looking for Charlie dream last night. I have had a few of those. I guess my subconscious doesn't understand that he is gone so it keeps looking. Kinda sad. Reminds me how when J &BC had to have their dog put to sleep the dog's pal, the cat, kept looking around the house for her pal who never was there any more. And today, the 90th week he has been gone, 90 Saturdays ago at 10:15 am that magnificent strong heart I so loved listening to as we cuddled, stopped and he was gone. I'm going to cry.
Friday, December 6, 2013
Abalone
When I was a kid abalone were plentiful enough that there was a season when you could take them, abalone irons were regularly on sale in stores around town, and if you were under 16 which I was at the time you could take them without having a fishing license. Everybody in town went for them. Which is why they are basically extinct today. The population could hold on, expand, even, when just the local indigenous people were taking them, and even when the white people had moved into the area with a population of 4 or 5 thousand or so. But much beyond that, the taking exceeded the ability of the abalone to sustain.
I remember a time as a kid when my mom and I were walking along the cliffs in LJ, near Boomer Beach, and Glen Brown was cooking up some freshly taken abalone on a fire and invited us to join for breakfast, which we gladly did. Brown was one of those ultimate water guys, surfed, dived, swam, he was riding a bike into his 90's. In construction. He built his own house overlooking Windansea and it stood there from when it and Dicky Van Doren's and his place were the only ones in the neighborhood, until it was surrounded by giant condos 40 years later. The Browns had the neighborhood's first TV and all us kids would gather round the TV at 4 in the afternoon when channel 2 in LA signed on and we'd watch Captain Zoom. Last time I was in the neighborhood I saw that the Brown house had finally come down to be replaced with yet another giant condo. I guess the family wanted or needed the money.
When I was a kid in the neighborhood the entire block between Playa del Sur and Playa del Norte was vacant, just a giant field except for the ruins of a restaurant on Neptune Place that had burned down in the '30's or '40's. And that is where we'd play. My mom never let me go in the water at Windansea, said to be too dangerous. So I never did. I saw Dicky van Doren's dad surfing there. How hard that must have been on big unmanuverable long boards. So you aren't allowed to hunt abalone in La Jolla any more and you can't have fires on the cliffs any more, either. The luaus went by the way long ago, they were huge drunken parties, I guess kind of like the Potlatch parties on the coast at U of Oregon, they went from being reasonable parties to giant out of control bashes, binges. Ugh.
I remember a time as a kid when my mom and I were walking along the cliffs in LJ, near Boomer Beach, and Glen Brown was cooking up some freshly taken abalone on a fire and invited us to join for breakfast, which we gladly did. Brown was one of those ultimate water guys, surfed, dived, swam, he was riding a bike into his 90's. In construction. He built his own house overlooking Windansea and it stood there from when it and Dicky Van Doren's and his place were the only ones in the neighborhood, until it was surrounded by giant condos 40 years later. The Browns had the neighborhood's first TV and all us kids would gather round the TV at 4 in the afternoon when channel 2 in LA signed on and we'd watch Captain Zoom. Last time I was in the neighborhood I saw that the Brown house had finally come down to be replaced with yet another giant condo. I guess the family wanted or needed the money.
When I was a kid in the neighborhood the entire block between Playa del Sur and Playa del Norte was vacant, just a giant field except for the ruins of a restaurant on Neptune Place that had burned down in the '30's or '40's. And that is where we'd play. My mom never let me go in the water at Windansea, said to be too dangerous. So I never did. I saw Dicky van Doren's dad surfing there. How hard that must have been on big unmanuverable long boards. So you aren't allowed to hunt abalone in La Jolla any more and you can't have fires on the cliffs any more, either. The luaus went by the way long ago, they were huge drunken parties, I guess kind of like the Potlatch parties on the coast at U of Oregon, they went from being reasonable parties to giant out of control bashes, binges. Ugh.
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
The World Series Month
I have found a lot of writings by Charlie from various times during his life. I like this poem he wrote for school April 24, 1958, age 11:
In October I watch the World Series,
It is a lot of fun.
I like to yell for my favorite team,
When they hit a good home run.
I like to see the other pitcher
Throw four balls for a walk,
And if it's for my favorite team,
I like to see him balk.
I like to see the pitcher throw,
And hear the bat go "wham."
And when I see the catcher look,
I know it's a big grand slam.
If my father keeps his promise,
When October rolls around,
We'll board a big airliner,
And be World Series bound.
Chuck, Charlie's dad, did keep that promise, he took Charlie to the series that year.
In October I watch the World Series,
It is a lot of fun.
I like to yell for my favorite team,
When they hit a good home run.
I like to see the other pitcher
Throw four balls for a walk,
And if it's for my favorite team,
I like to see him balk.
I like to see the pitcher throw,
And hear the bat go "wham."
And when I see the catcher look,
I know it's a big grand slam.
If my father keeps his promise,
When October rolls around,
We'll board a big airliner,
And be World Series bound.
Chuck, Charlie's dad, did keep that promise, he took Charlie to the series that year.
Friday, November 8, 2013
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
Gloria Johnson's service will be day after tomorrow, Thursday Nov. 7 at the Unitarian Church. It occurs to me how many people we have said goodbye to there: John Kohler, Nick Johnson, Brad Truax, Doug Scott, Albert Bell, David of the church, Charlie, and now Gloria.
It was very hard to sign back on to blogspot. I have another account and it kept routing me to & through that account, which has no blogs. It got exasperating. It used to be easy.
It was very hard to sign back on to blogspot. I have another account and it kept routing me to & through that account, which has no blogs. It got exasperating. It used to be easy.
Saturday, October 19, 2013
A friend has died
She fell down a flight of stairs and suffered fatal brain damage. Everyone who knew her is sad and misses her. For missing her I too am sad. Yet isn't what we are all looking for, hoping for, just such an exit? We know we will have to go, we all know and accept that, but we do not want to suffer, to deteriorate in hideous agony. So we all hope for a sudden and as painless as possible exit. So for that, for her, I am thankful. I would rather die suddenly this afternoon than go on another 20 years but finish the last 5 or 6 years in agony. Not unreasonable at all. Plus with health issues over the last 1 1/2 years I am not at all happy living in more or less constant fear, terror, worry. So now of our original friendship group S, N, Charlie, P are gone. So quickly! Seems like only yesterday we'd all collect on a beach and party and laugh it up. Time goes by so quickly. Truth is I don't know what my future holds though reports, tests, doctors have all been encouraging but I began with such horrible numbers. Oh well. Maybe I'll stumble down a flight of stairs and my worries will be over. And that would be a good thing, a blessing, something to be thankful for me for.
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Losses
We lost Gloria Johnson on Sept. 22, she had been ill since breaking her pelvis in a fall in June, had been in and out of hospitals, nursing homes, convalescent hospitals since then. She was such an ardent feminist, an early fighter for AIDS patients rights. She and Charlie often ran for Democratic Party positions together. We always had her up for Christmas or Thanksgiving. She led an amazingly constructive, positive, productive life. Maureen announced Gloria's passing at the end of the Democratic Club's awards banquet on the 22nd, the whole crowd gasped. She and I rode in the Pride Parade of 2012 honoring Charlie posthumously.
And on Oct 8 we lost Patty Plaster, only in her 50's, vivacious, healthy, happy, the whole world going for her, but she tumbled down a flight of stairs and suffered fatal brain damage. Incredible. I will always remember her smile, she never had a cruel or bitter word for or about anyone. She could express negativity about things without getting cruel or bitter. But her most outstanding feature was her wonderful personality, just a loving person. So our friendship group has now lost Patty and Charlie. Gloria was of course a friend, but of a different circle, the political circle. Wow.
And on Oct 8 we lost Patty Plaster, only in her 50's, vivacious, healthy, happy, the whole world going for her, but she tumbled down a flight of stairs and suffered fatal brain damage. Incredible. I will always remember her smile, she never had a cruel or bitter word for or about anyone. She could express negativity about things without getting cruel or bitter. But her most outstanding feature was her wonderful personality, just a loving person. So our friendship group has now lost Patty and Charlie. Gloria was of course a friend, but of a different circle, the political circle. Wow.
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
Losses
Quite a few losses over the past few years. Charlie, of course. Nancy M, Nancy S, Paul S, Skip K, and now GJ seems very imperiled. Seems like only yesterday we were all getting together for meetings or parties or leafleting or signing up voters at the county fair or the OB fair, or doing midnight door hangings, getting chased by dogs around unfamiliar neighborhoods.
It'll be 50 years this November since the assassination of Kennedy. 53 years since he was elected and Nancy & Nancy were young women then, eagerly walking precincts getting out the vote for him in 1960. I guess the Pt. Loma club still has some energy but amazingly enough it looks like the SDDC is foundering. The banquet has become an afternoon snack, I don't think the club has the clout it did when it was a king maker, when candidates thronged for endorsements. Maybe now, too, but not as much. No more mailer work parties, its on line now. More efficient of course but getting the membership together to physically do something for the cause, the stories, the socializing, the bonding, made a lot of difference, it kind of made the club. Now it isn't even named the SDDC any more, its SD Democrats for Equality. Fine. The idea was to bring in the younger voters. Has it? Seemingly not though I could be wrong.
In reading Charlie's journals I am struck by how active he was, and he wasn't the only one. I guess in a way the movement has achieved so many of its goals gay people might not see the necessity of being political now. As gay people we were continually under attack, held up as enemies of the state, of morality, of God, by Republican politicians, even some Democrats. Our rights were continually under attack, being eroded, being extinguished. As Charlie said it was a matter of survival to organize and fight back. And now that so many goals have been achieved I guess it just doesn't seem important to people any more. I wonder if they are right. I wonder if our position is secure or if it can all be swept away in some kind of Christian Republican Revival. For sure a Republican gov and or legislature could trip us up badly. But for now I guess people are just relaxing, enjoying the complacency.
I am old enough I realize I won't be here when the shit hits the fan. Not so much on gay rights as on say the country's economy, the building of barriers to class and economic mobility, the privatization & expensivization of higher education. The middle class has been cast into unmitigatable debt, the infrastructure, the whole system is being allowed to collapse just to cut taxes for the already super rich, the formula for national collapse. Too bad. We tried. Hard. Its too far gone now. Oh I suppose some radical congress & pres could just cancel all the student debt but thats not going to happen, congress is gerrymandered and the big money will forever control it. Thus, the collapse is inevitable. It is too bad. And I am not going to be around to see it, thankfully. Ultimately the responsibility is on the middle class for ever having voted against its own interests, against its own existence, by putting into office Nixon, Reagan, and the Bush boys. They should have known better. But Republican appeals to racism or to glamorous empty suits (Reagan) worked, it conned them. Oh well. Nothing lasts forever.
It'll be 50 years this November since the assassination of Kennedy. 53 years since he was elected and Nancy & Nancy were young women then, eagerly walking precincts getting out the vote for him in 1960. I guess the Pt. Loma club still has some energy but amazingly enough it looks like the SDDC is foundering. The banquet has become an afternoon snack, I don't think the club has the clout it did when it was a king maker, when candidates thronged for endorsements. Maybe now, too, but not as much. No more mailer work parties, its on line now. More efficient of course but getting the membership together to physically do something for the cause, the stories, the socializing, the bonding, made a lot of difference, it kind of made the club. Now it isn't even named the SDDC any more, its SD Democrats for Equality. Fine. The idea was to bring in the younger voters. Has it? Seemingly not though I could be wrong.
In reading Charlie's journals I am struck by how active he was, and he wasn't the only one. I guess in a way the movement has achieved so many of its goals gay people might not see the necessity of being political now. As gay people we were continually under attack, held up as enemies of the state, of morality, of God, by Republican politicians, even some Democrats. Our rights were continually under attack, being eroded, being extinguished. As Charlie said it was a matter of survival to organize and fight back. And now that so many goals have been achieved I guess it just doesn't seem important to people any more. I wonder if they are right. I wonder if our position is secure or if it can all be swept away in some kind of Christian Republican Revival. For sure a Republican gov and or legislature could trip us up badly. But for now I guess people are just relaxing, enjoying the complacency.
I am old enough I realize I won't be here when the shit hits the fan. Not so much on gay rights as on say the country's economy, the building of barriers to class and economic mobility, the privatization & expensivization of higher education. The middle class has been cast into unmitigatable debt, the infrastructure, the whole system is being allowed to collapse just to cut taxes for the already super rich, the formula for national collapse. Too bad. We tried. Hard. Its too far gone now. Oh I suppose some radical congress & pres could just cancel all the student debt but thats not going to happen, congress is gerrymandered and the big money will forever control it. Thus, the collapse is inevitable. It is too bad. And I am not going to be around to see it, thankfully. Ultimately the responsibility is on the middle class for ever having voted against its own interests, against its own existence, by putting into office Nixon, Reagan, and the Bush boys. They should have known better. But Republican appeals to racism or to glamorous empty suits (Reagan) worked, it conned them. Oh well. Nothing lasts forever.
Friday, August 30, 2013
From Charlie's Journal Sept. 1989
Thursday, August 29, 2013
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
The Lenin Sisters
Many years ago we were adopted by a cat we named Smoke. She was a light torty, a light tortoiseshell. She and Charlie really connected. She was his little pal and he was her adored human. Smoke got pregnant, very pregnant, when we lived over on Narragansett, behind BC's. One day, BC & Charlie's parents were returning from a trip to China, visiting with them up at BC's place upstairs. I was not, I was sick and didn't feel like spreading it around. But suddenly I noticed Smoke walking on the neighbor's wall and not pregnant at all. The blessed moment had come.
I went up to BC's lath house where we had built a kitty nest for Smoke to have her babies, and there they were, four tiny adorable kittens: a white one, a black one, a gray one, and a tortoiseshell. They grew as kittens do and rather than have them live on a shelf several feet above the bricks we decided to get a cardboard box for them to spend their kittenhoods in. (Its now OK to end sentences with prepositions, I have found!) So down to OB to find a nice cardboard box. And voila, there, in an alley behind Lownes Dept. Store, was one labeled "Lenins". They probably meant Linnens but misspelled it. So the girls became The Lenin Sisters. Only one of them was not a girl. The white one, the most feminine and dainty and shy of all turned out to be a boy. We found homes for the black one and the white one and kept the gray one and the tortoiseshell. They turned out to get named: The Gray One and Torts.
Great cats. Seriously great. The Gray One was my little baby, I'd carry her upside down everywhere and she basked in it, she loved it. Torts was always a bit weird. Tortoiseshells are. I asked a friend who's a biologist about why cat personalities so often relate with their fur, he said that in the womb the brain and the fur cleave off from the same stem cell mass. Interesting.
I went up to BC's lath house where we had built a kitty nest for Smoke to have her babies, and there they were, four tiny adorable kittens: a white one, a black one, a gray one, and a tortoiseshell. They grew as kittens do and rather than have them live on a shelf several feet above the bricks we decided to get a cardboard box for them to spend their kittenhoods in. (Its now OK to end sentences with prepositions, I have found!) So down to OB to find a nice cardboard box. And voila, there, in an alley behind Lownes Dept. Store, was one labeled "Lenins". They probably meant Linnens but misspelled it. So the girls became The Lenin Sisters. Only one of them was not a girl. The white one, the most feminine and dainty and shy of all turned out to be a boy. We found homes for the black one and the white one and kept the gray one and the tortoiseshell. They turned out to get named: The Gray One and Torts.
Great cats. Seriously great. The Gray One was my little baby, I'd carry her upside down everywhere and she basked in it, she loved it. Torts was always a bit weird. Tortoiseshells are. I asked a friend who's a biologist about why cat personalities so often relate with their fur, he said that in the womb the brain and the fur cleave off from the same stem cell mass. Interesting.
Some nicknames
Charles
Charlie
Lucky
college friends at Stanford in Germany called him Tunie
Lukka
Luckums; Luquums
Chuppie
Chuplie
Chuppers
one person who became an ex friend rather fast called him Chumpley
Our new age names were Beauty and Glory but we could never remember who was who
Lucky McKain, Lucky McKain
shriek it out loudly again and again
He'll rent you a tacky little box
they all look just the same
thats why they call him Lucky
Lucky McKain
He had a gentle, sweet sense of humor, he accepted this nonsense, laughed about it.
I said it before, one of the best memories, from my step sister sleeping over here one night, awoke to us coming home singing and laughing. That pretty much says it all.
I surfed. He loved basketball. Played on as many as four leagues a week. Always stressed defense. Played on the San Diego gay team at the Sydney gay olympics in 2002. I was watching him play one night at the muni, a pass came right to him and bounced off his chest, one of the first signs that something was wrong. In the on line gay basketball newsletter one writer wrote that Charlie was basically responsible for his team's loss, how very much that hurt him. He was going down and didn't recognize it. One night he came home from the Coronado league totally shaken, a player had died right on the court, a 35 year old in splendid shape, good looking, healthy, and wham, he was gone. Charlie & I partied with his basketball buddies, I have seldom been around so many tall people in my life, quite a few of them major jocks. The rap that gays are pussy boys is BS, these guys could camp it up then charge down the court & slam dunk. And I was an above average surfer, a solid B+, maybe even an A.
Charlie
Lucky
college friends at Stanford in Germany called him Tunie
Lukka
Luckums; Luquums
Chuppie
Chuplie
Chuppers
one person who became an ex friend rather fast called him Chumpley
Our new age names were Beauty and Glory but we could never remember who was who
Lucky McKain, Lucky McKain
shriek it out loudly again and again
He'll rent you a tacky little box
they all look just the same
thats why they call him Lucky
Lucky McKain
He had a gentle, sweet sense of humor, he accepted this nonsense, laughed about it.
I said it before, one of the best memories, from my step sister sleeping over here one night, awoke to us coming home singing and laughing. That pretty much says it all.
I surfed. He loved basketball. Played on as many as four leagues a week. Always stressed defense. Played on the San Diego gay team at the Sydney gay olympics in 2002. I was watching him play one night at the muni, a pass came right to him and bounced off his chest, one of the first signs that something was wrong. In the on line gay basketball newsletter one writer wrote that Charlie was basically responsible for his team's loss, how very much that hurt him. He was going down and didn't recognize it. One night he came home from the Coronado league totally shaken, a player had died right on the court, a 35 year old in splendid shape, good looking, healthy, and wham, he was gone. Charlie & I partied with his basketball buddies, I have seldom been around so many tall people in my life, quite a few of them major jocks. The rap that gays are pussy boys is BS, these guys could camp it up then charge down the court & slam dunk. And I was an above average surfer, a solid B+, maybe even an A.
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
We Met...
We met at a party thrown by one of Charlie's best friends from Hoover High, who was a former boyfriend of mine. We were so taken with each other we talked all night. The rest of the boys headed out to the bars, we just hung there chatting about anything and everything. I gave him refreshments. Next day we Got Together in the apt. I shared with Sally G. at 5054 Niagara, went to the beach at Pescadero...there was a beach there then, before the sea wall got built and all the sand washed away the first winter.
We walked a precinct (this one) for Larry Kapiloff, our first date. It was the '70's: a door would open and billows of smoke would er billow out, or there'd be some chopped material on a table, or a woman sheets to the wind would greet you at 10 am.
I had met Thom at The Barbary Coast, we hit it off. He was living with Sally G. in a tiny apartment upstairs from a garage on Adams Ave. The three of us basically lived there for several months, many good times. Thom was figuring out if he was gay or not, ultimately he went back to his wife and kids, deciding "not", but in the mean time we had fun times including some trips to San Francisco, to Tim & Kathy's on Belvedere, in the Haight, where oddly enough Charlie had had a job at the UC Med Center doing his conscientious objector work in a rat lab. He lived in Oakland, commuted over the Bay Bridge in a large white Chev van with no side windows, only a rear window and side mirrors for view and no clutch but was able to park the thing, parallel, even on those steep SF hills, while I would kill it 30 times on flat land.
Sally had been a nun in Seattle, but fell away from the calling, she moved to San Diego, became a liberated woman, a teacher, and came to be Thom's GF, then my roommate on Niagara. She had tried marriage and her former husband showed up at the Hole one day, getting in touch with his gay side. Quite a Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman tale. Sally returned to Washington State where she ran a fabric store, then into a traditional Catholic marriage.
Charlie and I just hung out with each other, we liked each other, I finally noticed I was spending almost all my nights with him at his apartment on Pescadero, half a block from the beach, and at some point just officially moved in. Politics was always real important, we agreed about 95 % of the time, Charlie was always a committed activist, much more than me, but I joined him in precinct walks, the Demo Club, and various Demo organizations and meetings.
We walked a precinct (this one) for Larry Kapiloff, our first date. It was the '70's: a door would open and billows of smoke would er billow out, or there'd be some chopped material on a table, or a woman sheets to the wind would greet you at 10 am.
I had met Thom at The Barbary Coast, we hit it off. He was living with Sally G. in a tiny apartment upstairs from a garage on Adams Ave. The three of us basically lived there for several months, many good times. Thom was figuring out if he was gay or not, ultimately he went back to his wife and kids, deciding "not", but in the mean time we had fun times including some trips to San Francisco, to Tim & Kathy's on Belvedere, in the Haight, where oddly enough Charlie had had a job at the UC Med Center doing his conscientious objector work in a rat lab. He lived in Oakland, commuted over the Bay Bridge in a large white Chev van with no side windows, only a rear window and side mirrors for view and no clutch but was able to park the thing, parallel, even on those steep SF hills, while I would kill it 30 times on flat land.
Sally had been a nun in Seattle, but fell away from the calling, she moved to San Diego, became a liberated woman, a teacher, and came to be Thom's GF, then my roommate on Niagara. She had tried marriage and her former husband showed up at the Hole one day, getting in touch with his gay side. Quite a Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman tale. Sally returned to Washington State where she ran a fabric store, then into a traditional Catholic marriage.
Charlie and I just hung out with each other, we liked each other, I finally noticed I was spending almost all my nights with him at his apartment on Pescadero, half a block from the beach, and at some point just officially moved in. Politics was always real important, we agreed about 95 % of the time, Charlie was always a committed activist, much more than me, but I joined him in precinct walks, the Demo Club, and various Demo organizations and meetings.
Friday, April 5, 2013
Illness
Around 1981 I noticed a weird looking mole on Charlie's leg. He had it checked out and it turned out to be melanoma. It was extremely frightening and depressing. He said when the doctor called he was expecting good news but the bad news obviously upset him, and me, quite a bit. At a follow up appointment a doctor gave him only a 50-50 chance of survival, it had been deep. It was a dark, gloomy day, depressing. He went in for surgery on a nearby lymph node to see if the cancer had spread, it hadn't, the doctor raised Charlie's chances to 95 %. While he recovered from the operation he wore special stockings designed to ease swelling. We raised the leg when he slept, he called it "scrunchums". We always had our own language.
During the recovery we'd do fun things to ease his spirits. We'd go out to the national monument on Pt. Loma. Once we went to a fishing pier on Shelter Island in San Diego Bay. While we were looking out over the bay a whale surfaced, I shouted, "Look! A whale!" but by the time any of the fisher people looked it had disappeared beneath the water without a ripple. I guess they thought I was crazy. His mom was great, totally supportive. She often had trouble showing love but during Charlie's recovery she was there 100 %. She was a remarkable woman, from the South, from near Warm Springs, Ga., she frequently saw Franklin Roosevelt driving his specially equipped car with controls on the steering wheel. She was given a portrait of President Roosevelt by a family member, it hung in our house for decades. She deserves a whole chapter, truly a remarkable woman.
The illness seemed like an oppressive black cloud, boundless fear and depression, it seemed to go on forever. And yet...our first visit with anybody during Charlie's recovery was with Brad Truax, president of the San Diego Democratic Club. He told us to keep Charlie's immune system strong by not introducing new germs by staying monogamous. So we did. Just in time to miss AIDS. In later years it seemed absolutely amazingly ironic that that melanoma saved us from AIDS, we had had an open relationship before Brad's advice. AIDS cut a huge, horrible swath among our friends, I think Charlie and I could each name about 100 people we lost to the disease. It seems so ancient now. It seemed so absolutely hopeless at the time. We would lose as many as three in a single week. It was overpowering. And yet...around 1997 the medicines started being perfected and deaths declined. The last person we knew who passed away from it passed over 10 years ago. Some people virtually cleared the virus from their bodies and don't take any medicines any more. Oh yes, and Hawai'i Richard, close to death and a virtual walking skeleton in the 1990's, has staged a comeback and looks as healthy as he ever did. Truly, remarkable.
We hiked to Kalaupapa on Moloka'i, the former leper colony. It was awesomely inspiring. Especially at a time when AIDS was so hopeless. There had been this horrible disease, horrible, cruel, cursing the human race for thousands of years. And yet medicines had come along to treat it, and now the patients who stayed at Kalaupapa did so only because it was where all of their friends were, and Kalaupapa is undeniably beautiful. Hard to believe such a beautiful place witnessed so much horrible human suffering. And now AIDS seems to have joined leprosy as a former scourge. Thank God for science, for dedicated men and women researchers who find the answers to such horrible problems. We do owe them our lives. Also inspiring, the story of Father Damien at the leper mission. A man who brought Christian decency and mercy to the sick and dying. We hear so much in our upbringing about Christian kindness yet seeing it actually practiced seems to be very rare. But that was Father Damien, 100 %. Our guide, our host, was Richard Marks, a leper, the "sheriff of Kalawao County", a very positive and inspiring man, a devout Catholic, his prized possession was a photo of himself and the Pope. I have no problem at all with people who live the life of service and kindness and mercy that Jesus taught, it has always been a beautiful ideal and is wonderful to see it being practiced.
Charlie popped up with 2 other melanomas over the years. They were all caught early, they were never a problem for him. He was on personally friendly terms with his dermatologist. In his first checkups I'd accompany him. I'd wait in the waiting room while he was being examined, I will always remember him emerging with a big smile on his face, giving a happy thumbs up. I wish you could see the expression on his face. Well, at least I can remember it. I love him. I miss him.
During the recovery we'd do fun things to ease his spirits. We'd go out to the national monument on Pt. Loma. Once we went to a fishing pier on Shelter Island in San Diego Bay. While we were looking out over the bay a whale surfaced, I shouted, "Look! A whale!" but by the time any of the fisher people looked it had disappeared beneath the water without a ripple. I guess they thought I was crazy. His mom was great, totally supportive. She often had trouble showing love but during Charlie's recovery she was there 100 %. She was a remarkable woman, from the South, from near Warm Springs, Ga., she frequently saw Franklin Roosevelt driving his specially equipped car with controls on the steering wheel. She was given a portrait of President Roosevelt by a family member, it hung in our house for decades. She deserves a whole chapter, truly a remarkable woman.
The illness seemed like an oppressive black cloud, boundless fear and depression, it seemed to go on forever. And yet...our first visit with anybody during Charlie's recovery was with Brad Truax, president of the San Diego Democratic Club. He told us to keep Charlie's immune system strong by not introducing new germs by staying monogamous. So we did. Just in time to miss AIDS. In later years it seemed absolutely amazingly ironic that that melanoma saved us from AIDS, we had had an open relationship before Brad's advice. AIDS cut a huge, horrible swath among our friends, I think Charlie and I could each name about 100 people we lost to the disease. It seems so ancient now. It seemed so absolutely hopeless at the time. We would lose as many as three in a single week. It was overpowering. And yet...around 1997 the medicines started being perfected and deaths declined. The last person we knew who passed away from it passed over 10 years ago. Some people virtually cleared the virus from their bodies and don't take any medicines any more. Oh yes, and Hawai'i Richard, close to death and a virtual walking skeleton in the 1990's, has staged a comeback and looks as healthy as he ever did. Truly, remarkable.
We hiked to Kalaupapa on Moloka'i, the former leper colony. It was awesomely inspiring. Especially at a time when AIDS was so hopeless. There had been this horrible disease, horrible, cruel, cursing the human race for thousands of years. And yet medicines had come along to treat it, and now the patients who stayed at Kalaupapa did so only because it was where all of their friends were, and Kalaupapa is undeniably beautiful. Hard to believe such a beautiful place witnessed so much horrible human suffering. And now AIDS seems to have joined leprosy as a former scourge. Thank God for science, for dedicated men and women researchers who find the answers to such horrible problems. We do owe them our lives. Also inspiring, the story of Father Damien at the leper mission. A man who brought Christian decency and mercy to the sick and dying. We hear so much in our upbringing about Christian kindness yet seeing it actually practiced seems to be very rare. But that was Father Damien, 100 %. Our guide, our host, was Richard Marks, a leper, the "sheriff of Kalawao County", a very positive and inspiring man, a devout Catholic, his prized possession was a photo of himself and the Pope. I have no problem at all with people who live the life of service and kindness and mercy that Jesus taught, it has always been a beautiful ideal and is wonderful to see it being practiced.
Charlie popped up with 2 other melanomas over the years. They were all caught early, they were never a problem for him. He was on personally friendly terms with his dermatologist. In his first checkups I'd accompany him. I'd wait in the waiting room while he was being examined, I will always remember him emerging with a big smile on his face, giving a happy thumbs up. I wish you could see the expression on his face. Well, at least I can remember it. I love him. I miss him.
Saturday, March 30, 2013
54th Week
A Charlie story...his first job out of law school was working for a firm downtown, there was some case they wanted him to go into court and lie under oath for their client. He wouldn't do it. They canned him. Years later the firm ran into difficulties (gee, never saw that coming) and the whole lot got disbarred. Charlie was the most truthful person I ever met, astoundingly honest. He would not have lied anyway, especially not under oath, and especially not after just having finished law school and been admitted to the bar.
The same firm had a practice that all their male attorneys needed female company at company gatherings. They set him up with a nice young lady. Being gay and having no interest in the company of women, and being as considerate and kind as he was, he perfected the tactic of not being offensive to the young lady, but of boring her. He talked about cottage cheese with her. For hours. Wow. I bet she was glad when that gathering was over. He never heard from her again. And I bet word got passed among her friends & contacts that Charlie was off scale boring. But it does illustrate his kindness and consideration and his ability to work a situation satisfactorily.
The same firm had a practice that all their male attorneys needed female company at company gatherings. They set him up with a nice young lady. Being gay and having no interest in the company of women, and being as considerate and kind as he was, he perfected the tactic of not being offensive to the young lady, but of boring her. He talked about cottage cheese with her. For hours. Wow. I bet she was glad when that gathering was over. He never heard from her again. And I bet word got passed among her friends & contacts that Charlie was off scale boring. But it does illustrate his kindness and consideration and his ability to work a situation satisfactorily.
Sunday, March 24, 2013
A Country Store
Thanks, Ann
On the phone with sister Ann the other day, she brought up a memory that kind of sums up the Charlie Bob relationship.
She was sleeping over at the house here once. We came home from some place at night, singing. Some silly fun song. We were laughing and singing. We did have fun. She thought it was funny, remembered it all these years. I don't remember the incident, but I can sure picture it, we did have our songs.
Little Makena on Maui, a paradise beach. We were there for sunset one evening. A Salvador Dali sunset, awesome patterns. Whales playing just off shore. A "OK, where do I sign?" moment.
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Hawai'i
We won the first trip to Hawai'i in a raffle in 1981. It provided air fare and four days at a Waikiki hotel. Nice. Very nice, in fact. Waikiki is a great beach and the area is a great show. But Charlie said why not pony up some more money and take in Maui and the Big Island, too. Thank God he did!
I was in love with Hawai'i from landing at the Honolulu airport. Beautiful plants, nice air warm and humid with gentle winds, beautiful craggy volcanic peaks clothed in the most vivid green and of course it only got better from there. We stayed at an Outrigger hotel a few blocks from the beach, visited BC's friend Annie & hubby from a large friendly Chinese family, shared Sunday dinner with them. First night they took us to a Hawaiian music show, Kaanikapila. I remember a hula from Niihau, topic being the capture of a Japanese aviator during WW2, and even though there is a vast vast vast amount about hula I do not understand, I could understand that one, the motions, the movements conveyed everything quite clearly. Then on to Watertown for another Hawaiian music show. We loved it. At one point a huge huge Hawaiian playing a uke saw out of the corner of his eye an enormous cockroach cruising down a grass mat behind the band, he casually hula'd over, knocked it to the floor with his elbow, and mashed it with his foot, without missing a beat. We dove at Hanauma Bay, such wonderful colorful fish. I am a California boy. I love California. I thought nothing could seriously top California. Even in terms of fish. I dove all through my childhood and loved looking at the fish at Casa Beach or the Cove, but the spectacular colors on the fish at Hanauma Bay seriously knocked me out. Then just cruising around the island...the landscapes, the craggy volcanic peaks and valleys, the green. The colors in Hawai'i are very vivid and I have my theory on why: I think its because closer to the equator the sunlight comes in at a more vertical angle, less atmosphere cutting the strength of the sunlight, so it picks up and transmits the colors better, but they are definitely more vivid in Hawai'i. Greener green, bluer blue in the ocean and the sky, pure white spume over the waves and in the clouds, majestic black lava, vivid red in volcanic soils. Its quite striking.
From Oahu to Maui, to a condo at Kahana. It was fine. Maui was fantastic. We discovered the nude beach at Makena and loved it. We drove over to Hana, the road was very scenic, we were relaxing by Hana Bay and somehow met a haole local, Mark from New Jersey who was very taken with BC. He showed us around. Took us up to Waianapanapa, showed us about the cabins, showed us Red Sand Beach, also a nude beach. It was so beautiful, so perfect. "We don't have to leave. Ever!", I said. We would make ample use of the cabins in the coming years. The Hana side is lush jungle, little streams and waterfalls, huge cliffs and outcroppings over the sea, huge valleys. Population of Hana is about 600. You make a reservation for the cabins with the state parks department, and buy food for your stay at Pay 'n Save (or whatever the name is now) in Kahului. Its a gorgeous park. You can swim at Waianapanapa. Also Hamoa and Kaihalulu Beaches in Hana. We drove to the top of Haleakala (10,025 ft) for sunrise one morning, following BEP and BAU. It was seriously cold up there, but well worth it watching such a spectacular sunrise.
From Maui to the Big Island. Landed at the Kona Airport which is out in the lava fields. Bleak. I was despondent that we had left the garden paradise of Maui for he bleak desolate lava fields of the Big Island. But of course I fell in love with the Big Island, how can you not? We had a room at the Kona Surf, a luxury hotel which had fallen on hard times and was offering bargain rates. In the parking lot we met a friendly local lad, Bill, of Hawaiian and Filippino ancestry. Later we met him again at Drysdale's bar in Kona and put cards on the table so to speak. While Charles drove back to the hotel I sat in his car and he assured me I could do anything I wanted, adding, "I really mean that". What welcome words. We all had a wonderful time. He invited us to his sister's birthday party that night. Because we were friends with Bill we were friends with his whole family, it was like we'd known them forever. The mom was pleasantly drunk and kept asking me, "Well, how you like Hawai'i?". We saw Bill again a few years later in Honolulu. Majorly cute. Nice guy too. Purple speedo. We drove over to Hilo via the Volcano Highway. We hiked the Kilauea Iki trail. Incredible. Down down down through a fern forest, you emerge on a lava crater, figure 8 shaped, maybe 1 1/2 or 2 miles across, giant blocks of lava, the throat from which the giant 1959 eruption emerged, then back up through the fern forest. On to Hilo. Some friend had advised to bypass Hilo, called it a dump. Wow. How could you not love Hilo. When I think of Hawai'i, of the Hawaiian reality, the Hawaiian experience, I think of Hilo. It is a wonderful town, it is real, it is like the largest Hawaiian town. Street names are all Hawaiian: Kilauea, Haili, Komohana, Halai, Waianuenue. We met John S working at Lauilima, a health food store, he became a friend until business intruded and we had an outfalling.
Mauna Kea overlooking Hilo on the Big Island
First Kalalau hike we stayed at the Reef Motel and were kept awake all night by a professional lady entertaining her male client. Both drunk and very loud. But the hike went off fine. The Reef added a new section where we stayed a few years later. We stayed at the Hilo Hotel in Hilo in 1991. I recorded quite a few Hawaiian songs from KAHU. KAHU has been out of business for many years now. Too bad, they did great Hawaiian music. Also recorded KMVI on Maui, but it has changed to all sports. Too bad. You can get sports anywhere. Hawaiian music, not that easy. Also recorded KCCN in Honolulu, it, too, is a sports station now, but you can get Hawaiian on KAPA in Hilo and KINE and KKNE in Honolulu. I started trying to learn the Hawaiian language so I could understand the pretty songs we love so much. Funny. You can understand speech better than singing. I can pick up words in a song but stringing them into meaning is not that easy, maybe song is more esoteric. A fellow in Japan helped me immensely learning Hawaiian, what a godsend, a professional language teacher (teaching English & French to Japanese students) and he wanted to teach me Hawaiian over the computer to help himself learn, we were on the computer for hours for years, me at 6 am or so here, he at whatever the Japan time would be. He was a superb teacher, I was very lucky to have him for a kumu. He seems to have gone on to learn more languages, it is a natural ability for him. I do Kaonamakekai from time to time. Obviously the decline and death of Charlie cut that out.
Our last trip was to the Big Island in 2010 for the Merrie Monarch Hula Festival. Charlie had hit that phase of the disease where things irritated him a lot, but we still had a good time. We stayed at a condo of a friend of a friend, 6th story overlooking Hilo Bay. You could walk to the store, across the Singing Bridge. We saw whales playing out by the breakwater. Charlie swam at Hapuna, his last time in the ocean. Hilo is a beautiful town. It rains a lot. Thus you have museum quality orchids and other exotic blooms growing out of cracks in the sidewalks. You have an entire section of wild orchids growing east of town. Out Keaukaha way you get beautiful little pocket beaches among the jungle and black lava rocks with fantastic views across the bay to Hilo with Mauna Kea looming so beautifully above. Mauna Loa. Is it possible to have a favorite mountain? Mauna Loa is mine. It is magnificent. It is huge, absolutely huge. By volume it has more rock than all the Sierras combined. A base of 250 miles across on the sea floor, 19000 ft. below. The slope is sooooo gentle!
Monday, March 18, 2013
A Year
There has been a little shrine for Charlie in the house since he passed away. Its still so hard to believe he's gone. He was so full of life, so healthy, so intelligent and active.
Charlyne & Jim had Mary and me over for dinner last night, it was a very pleasant gathering. We raised a toast to Charlie, all thankful for having him in our lives and for all the goodness he brought into our lives. A few people have called or e mailed, I just haven't been in the mood to answer.
Friday, March 15, 2013
A Year Ago
A year ago today Charlie was in a hospital bed at UCSD Med Center in Hillcrest, hooked up to tubes and breathing machines. He was drugged, medicated, the breathing tube irritates patients' throats so they have to be sedated. I don't know if he was aware of what was going on. He was so far out of it. I am real broken up, I have cried a lot, all those horrible memories coming back. He was such a good, good, good guy, he never deserved any of it. I loved him. We all loved him. He only had a couple of days left to live.
Sunday, March 10, 2013
Basketball
Charlie loved basketball. My sport was always surfing, his was basketball. He played in as many as four leagues a week. He played at the Jewish Community Center a couple of years. He said the team roster was like an IQ test: which name doesn't fit? Goldstein, Epstein, Ginzburg, McKain...
He played in the Coronado league on the beautiful and prosperous island of Coronado. He observed that the school district there spent lavishly on athletic facilities with a tendency to let everything else slide. Coronado was always the town with the highest percentage of registered Republicans in the country, a lot of retired military and active military there. One night he came home greatly shaken from a league game, one of the players had died. Only about age 35, had a seizure and before paramedics could arrive he was gone.
He played in a league way up in Scripps Ranch, he'd fight afternoon/evening commuter traffic up I 15 to get to his games. He played in the gay league. He played on the San Diego gay team in the Sydney Gay Games (you can't call them the Gay Olympics) in 2002, and had a great time including a tour of Australia. One of his best, funniest stories was from the gay league. One year the league played at a gym in Balboa Park. A friend of ours, a tall Black man, a seriously good basketball player, showed up at the gym one night to shoot a few hoops, saw Charlie and they talked and hung out. He has a strong resemblance for a famous pro basketball player. So the rumor got started that he WAS that famous basketball player and Charlie was his boyfriend.
We were visiting our friends in the Haight once, and the brother of the guy was visiting from some not too liberal town in the central US. He was not overtly hostile to gays but had some attitude. He, too, was a basketball player and he and Charlie went down to the gym to shoot some hoops. Charlie said the guy was blown out, kind of miffed, that a gay guy could shut him down and out shoot him. Charlie always said defense was the most important part of the game. I saw Charlie play, he was good. I saw him shoot the winning basket for his team. One of the first things I noticed that made me think things were not quite right with Charlie was when someone threw him a pass and it bounced off his chest, it was an easy pass and he could not handle it, almost didn't react to it. There were a lot of other signs that things weren't right. Charlie was always so stable, so healthy, so sensible, so right on things that even while he was going down hill I tended to doubt my own impression that something was wrong: its Charlie, he must be OK. He was very healthy. His labs always came back perfect. Kaiser sends you results with a range, to be healthy you want your results within that range, and his were always perfect, right in the center. And yet that magnificent brain was deteriorating.
I took him surfing. He did very well for a beginner. All this seems like just yesterday. It always seemed so remarkable, when I was a little kid, being with my grandfather, that he could flash his memory back 50 or 60 years, and now I can do that, too. I can easily remember incidents from my childhood. I remember the day Sputnik went up, the day Russia invaded Hungary, the 1960 election, the day Kennedy was shot, that is coming up on 50 years this November 22. Wow. And it does seem like yesterday. It seems like only yesterday Charlie and I met at that party in North Park, only yesterday we did all that precinct walking, all those CDC and Democratic Club meetings, all those precinct walks, those conventions, the great trips together.
He played in the Coronado league on the beautiful and prosperous island of Coronado. He observed that the school district there spent lavishly on athletic facilities with a tendency to let everything else slide. Coronado was always the town with the highest percentage of registered Republicans in the country, a lot of retired military and active military there. One night he came home greatly shaken from a league game, one of the players had died. Only about age 35, had a seizure and before paramedics could arrive he was gone.
He played in a league way up in Scripps Ranch, he'd fight afternoon/evening commuter traffic up I 15 to get to his games. He played in the gay league. He played on the San Diego gay team in the Sydney Gay Games (you can't call them the Gay Olympics) in 2002, and had a great time including a tour of Australia. One of his best, funniest stories was from the gay league. One year the league played at a gym in Balboa Park. A friend of ours, a tall Black man, a seriously good basketball player, showed up at the gym one night to shoot a few hoops, saw Charlie and they talked and hung out. He has a strong resemblance for a famous pro basketball player. So the rumor got started that he WAS that famous basketball player and Charlie was his boyfriend.
We were visiting our friends in the Haight once, and the brother of the guy was visiting from some not too liberal town in the central US. He was not overtly hostile to gays but had some attitude. He, too, was a basketball player and he and Charlie went down to the gym to shoot some hoops. Charlie said the guy was blown out, kind of miffed, that a gay guy could shut him down and out shoot him. Charlie always said defense was the most important part of the game. I saw Charlie play, he was good. I saw him shoot the winning basket for his team. One of the first things I noticed that made me think things were not quite right with Charlie was when someone threw him a pass and it bounced off his chest, it was an easy pass and he could not handle it, almost didn't react to it. There were a lot of other signs that things weren't right. Charlie was always so stable, so healthy, so sensible, so right on things that even while he was going down hill I tended to doubt my own impression that something was wrong: its Charlie, he must be OK. He was very healthy. His labs always came back perfect. Kaiser sends you results with a range, to be healthy you want your results within that range, and his were always perfect, right in the center. And yet that magnificent brain was deteriorating.
I took him surfing. He did very well for a beginner. All this seems like just yesterday. It always seemed so remarkable, when I was a little kid, being with my grandfather, that he could flash his memory back 50 or 60 years, and now I can do that, too. I can easily remember incidents from my childhood. I remember the day Sputnik went up, the day Russia invaded Hungary, the 1960 election, the day Kennedy was shot, that is coming up on 50 years this November 22. Wow. And it does seem like yesterday. It seems like only yesterday Charlie and I met at that party in North Park, only yesterday we did all that precinct walking, all those CDC and Democratic Club meetings, all those precinct walks, those conventions, the great trips together.
Monday, March 4, 2013
Anniversary
On that topic, I remember a time when we were at a friend's house and I had had a bit too much to drink so didn't want to drive, I asked him to and it was a wild ride. At one intersection when he got his green light he went into the wrong lane and got honked at, it was a serious mistake, then on the freeway he would alternate between way too fast and way too slow, and on an onramp he was speeding scarily. It broke his heart and infuriated him when the DMV took away his license but thank God they did, seeing how badly he drove that time coming home from the friend's house was alarming, he had been driving all over town, using the freeways, going to & from meetings so I am glad he never got into an accident.
So anyway, it would have been 37 years tomorrow. We met at a party thrown by a friend of his from high school, who had been a partner of mine for several months. We did not fall in love right away. It took a while. We just hung out, got comfortable with each other, he had a great sense of humor, really a dry sophisticated wit, ironic, I appreciated that very much. I also appreciated his politics. We did not disagree on much and when we did I had to admit he was usually right. He once turned down a date offered by a rich Republican who had offered to fly him off to a vacation in Tahiti or some wonderful exotic place like that but Charlie would never have anything to do with Republicans. And I had been a Republican as a kid. My family were Eisenhower Republicans, the party wasn't always crazy, there were some good Republicans back then. But Nixon made a Democrat of me and I have never regretted the change, the Republicans are just too crazy now, denying climate change, wanton obstructionism, etc. Charlie would have LOVED this last election season, the total comedy of the Republican primary season followed by what really was the best election I have ever seen, Democrats winning big top to bottom and so much of it because the Republicans were just being such total a. holes, showing themselves for what they really are. Politics were always important to us. We walked precincts together, that was our first date, in fact. Charlie was always much more political than I. Neither of us could ever understand how mixed party couples could exist, its such a huge philosophical divide.
What do I miss most about him. Just the company. Just talking with him. Our afternoon walks. For decades we took walks usually down to the pier and back, sometimes out to Sunset Cliffs, just talking, often about politics, how horrible the Republicans were or of course gay topics as you'd expect. I miss cuddling, wrapping him up between my thighs and in my arms, putting my head on that beautiful chest (best chest ever, even when he was ill) and listening to his heart beating. Just simple things, watching TV together. Those interminable drives up to and back from Oakland to visit Steve & Pat. It seems like just yesterday that we met. All the other guys at the party split to go to the gay bar, we stayed around and chatted. Next day after walking the precinct for Kapiloff we went to the beach, I remember it as a hot and sunny day, we were at Pescadero St. beach, there was sand on it then, that all washed away after a storm in 1982 and never came back. 1982 Charlie had a melanoma diagnosed on the back of his leg, a level 4, his first doctor gave him only a 50-50 chance of surviving, how scary that was. But they did biopsy on lymph nodes that showed no spread so the doctor raised Charlie's chances to 95%, he had two other melanomas but they were caught extremely early and posed no danger. Our friend Sandy had melanoma also in 1982, we all resolved to celebrate with a trip to Hawai'i if the 5 year safety period was reached, it was, and we did, and then with Sandy we met up in Montreal and partied big time there and down the coast of Maine on another trip.
I love you Charlie. I hope I get to see you on the other side, whenever that comes. Love, Bob
Sunday, March 3, 2013
A Whale Story
As I said before Charlie loved Stanford. Seems like everybody who attended there has wonderful memories of it. Stanford does a great job of keeping their alumni involved, I said that, too. One of the events they had a few years ago was a trip on a whale watching boat and Charlie attended. Unfortunately it was cold and a bit rough at sea. Charlie got seasick. Knowing that the best way to overcome seasickness was to stay on deck, that was where Charlie spent the cruise, out on the deck in the cold wind. He came back majorly chilled. He got in the bathtub to warm up. Amazingly enough the hot water heater was between cycles, there was virtually no hot water in it. Bummed? Oh yes. So I filled pot after pot with water and heated them on the stove and unloaded them in the tub. He finally warmed up. Charles also expected to get sea sick on the ferry from the South Island to the North Island during our trip to New Zealand in 1985. Its said to be a reliably rough crossing. So he took anti seasick medicine, I guess he overdosed on it, he slept through the crossing and was groggy for the day. It was a smooth crossing.
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Saturday, February 23, 2013
Some Stories
Charlie and I met at a party. Next day we get together for a date, we walk a precinct. Actually it was this precinct, it was for Larry Kapiloff. I recall talking to voters on this very street, I liked it even then, its a wide, concrete street with lots of palms, kind of reminds me of how LA looks in old movies. Of course in the '70's you never knew what would happen when someone answered the door. Billows of smoke at some places, a door opens to reveal a tabletop covered with white powder, a drunken lady (at 10 in the morning) answers another. That was the '70's. Its still a really nice street. This house was not on the list for that precinct walk, but I was friends with a lad who was the boyfriend of the guy who owned the house. A few years later they had us over for a visit. Its a great house. In passing I said "If you ever want to put the house on the market let us know". A few months later, the only time I ever ran into the lad on one of my morning walks he tells me the house is going on the market that very day, so I tell Charlie, he makes an offer, its accepted, and we moved in in 1983, on my birthday. 30 years. Charlie almost made it the 30 years, 29 actually. I can't even count how many parties and fundraisers for Democratic candidates we've had here, and they always worked out great. The house is an original, its got great views, great decks, its got a vibe somehow. Parties, gatherings, take a few minutes to click in and then they just roll, everybody has a good time. Of course, no gatherings since Charlie passed away. I think the parties are over.
Charlie had some interesting and fun stories. He told me that the day he started law school, at UCLA, he took a law book down to the beach at Santa Monica to study and a sea gull crapped on it, he looked at that as a commentary by nature on law. For a time he had a rental upstairs from an artificial limb retail store. For a time, if I remember correctly, he lived in a house on the street where the Sharon Tate murders had taken place. UCLA offered a quarter away program in the TTPI, Trust Territories of the Pacific Islands. In the interview the interviewer asked Charlie if he could stand being away from LA for 3 months. No problem! LA drove Charlie crazy. While working with the TTPI he wrote a lot of their fishing laws and a good portion of their Constitution. He and other workers lived in a concrete hurricane proof house with no windows, it was always at least 100 degrees inside, they shared it with a shrew. He toured a lot of the islands in the area. Sorry I forget the name of the island, maybe it was Truk, but it was famous because thousands of Japanese jumped from the cliffs to their deaths rather than to be captured by Americans. He told about the locals smoking refreshments the thickness of a finger then going boating, and not knowing that you needed to have gas in the tank for the motor to run. He told about one pair of guys whose boat got lost at sea for weeks, but it was found with only one guy in it, surprisingly ( ! ) well fed.
In college, Stanford, he spent a semester at the school's campus in German. He was an accomplished linguist, he got an 800 on the GRE in German. Whenever we'd go to Stanford reunions the group that had gone to the German campus always had their own mini-reunions and Charlie was well remembered, well loved. He was a genius. Seriously. He got into Stanford at age 16 on a full ride scholarship. Also a scholarship to UCLA Law School. Brilliant. But he never lorded it over anybody. In law he was not competitive, he helped people. That was his natural instinct. His love was basketball. He played in as many as four leagues a week, he played on the San Diego team in the gay games (can't call it the gay Olympics) in Sydney in 2002. Anyway back to Germany. One of his stories had it that as WW2 was ending Germans knew they were losing, knew they would be taken captive, and one particular family he met knew they would be taken either by the Russians or the Americans. Naturally they feared being taken by the Russians. They told him that when a Black soldier knocked on their door they fell on their floor in tears of joy because obviously the Black soldier had to be an American; their fate was secure. Those mini-reunions were always fun. It was amazing talking to perfectly middle class, ordinary looking people who had for example hitched steamers across the Mediterranean, who had hitched through Eastern Europe and through the Soviet Union. Charlie also had fun stories about he and his family traveling through East Germany to Berlin; there were so few cars on the road they knew if you'd been speeding because your progress was marked from checkpoint to checkpoint. And there were a LOT of checkpoints. Dad, Chuck, asked one too many times for papers at such a checkpoint responded "How do you think we got this far without papers??" I guess the guard didn't understand English well enough to understand. Charlie's photos of East Berlin were remarkable, remarkable there could ever be so much gray, relieved only by red Party banners for Walter Ulbrecht. He and other Americans visiting Berlin walked down to the Wall to see it from the Communist side and were held at gunpoint by guards until it was established that they were not East Germans trying to escape.
Stanford...what a beautiful school. What nice people. Charlie always loved Stanford, always cherished memories of his years there, always enjoyed visiting. And other Stanford grads I have met all felt the same way, a deep love of their university. The alumni association takes very good care of the alums, keeping them involved. One of the nice things is visiting alums can attend lectures by professors to catch up on work in their fields. You could select anything. We went to physics, geology, economics, art, and music presentations. Very interesting, and it does keep the alums involved. Although a U of Oregon grad myself I kind of consider myself part of that Stanford family, kind of a legacy from Charlie. I root for both the Ducks and the Cardinal. Oh. They used to be the "Indians" but that name became politically unacceptable. There was a poll to search for a new name. Charlie said quite a few people supported "Robber Barons". I loved his sense of humor! However the Stanfords made their money, they did a magnificent thing in creating that University, what a wonderful legacy not just to California, not just to all the people who have graduated from it, but to America and the world. The entire computer revolution, the entire electronics revolution, began because of basic research carried on at Stanford.
Charlie got a CO status during the Vietnam War, after graduating from Stanford. He worked at a lab researching neurology at UCSF. He lived in Oakland and commuted into work at UCSF on a hillside in the Haight. His vehicle was an old white panel van. Only view out the back was through a window, and from the sides, the mirrors. I had the misfortune to drive it, it seemed to have no clutch. I would plan routes that had no hills so it wouldn't roll back while waiting for the clutch to catch. But Charlie did fine with it on the famous hills of San Francisco. He enjoyed Bay Area life, he had several friends in the area. We would often drive up to Oakland to visit Steve and Pat. Oakland gets bad press. It was Queen Liliuokalani's favorite mainland city, it has some of the best weather in the Bay Area, some of it is scary but a lot of it is really nice. From the hills at sunset you can look across the bay and see the sun setting behind the Golden Gate Bridge, it leaves a trail of gold across the bay, perhaps explaining the name Golden Gate. And we always liked to walk across that bridge during our visits. Of course, always visiting the Castro. Charlie had The Look down quite well. A tight green tank top, tight Levis, construction boots; as he walked down Castro guys would come out of the bars to check him out.
More later.
Charlie had some interesting and fun stories. He told me that the day he started law school, at UCLA, he took a law book down to the beach at Santa Monica to study and a sea gull crapped on it, he looked at that as a commentary by nature on law. For a time he had a rental upstairs from an artificial limb retail store. For a time, if I remember correctly, he lived in a house on the street where the Sharon Tate murders had taken place. UCLA offered a quarter away program in the TTPI, Trust Territories of the Pacific Islands. In the interview the interviewer asked Charlie if he could stand being away from LA for 3 months. No problem! LA drove Charlie crazy. While working with the TTPI he wrote a lot of their fishing laws and a good portion of their Constitution. He and other workers lived in a concrete hurricane proof house with no windows, it was always at least 100 degrees inside, they shared it with a shrew. He toured a lot of the islands in the area. Sorry I forget the name of the island, maybe it was Truk, but it was famous because thousands of Japanese jumped from the cliffs to their deaths rather than to be captured by Americans. He told about the locals smoking refreshments the thickness of a finger then going boating, and not knowing that you needed to have gas in the tank for the motor to run. He told about one pair of guys whose boat got lost at sea for weeks, but it was found with only one guy in it, surprisingly ( ! ) well fed.
In college, Stanford, he spent a semester at the school's campus in German. He was an accomplished linguist, he got an 800 on the GRE in German. Whenever we'd go to Stanford reunions the group that had gone to the German campus always had their own mini-reunions and Charlie was well remembered, well loved. He was a genius. Seriously. He got into Stanford at age 16 on a full ride scholarship. Also a scholarship to UCLA Law School. Brilliant. But he never lorded it over anybody. In law he was not competitive, he helped people. That was his natural instinct. His love was basketball. He played in as many as four leagues a week, he played on the San Diego team in the gay games (can't call it the gay Olympics) in Sydney in 2002. Anyway back to Germany. One of his stories had it that as WW2 was ending Germans knew they were losing, knew they would be taken captive, and one particular family he met knew they would be taken either by the Russians or the Americans. Naturally they feared being taken by the Russians. They told him that when a Black soldier knocked on their door they fell on their floor in tears of joy because obviously the Black soldier had to be an American; their fate was secure. Those mini-reunions were always fun. It was amazing talking to perfectly middle class, ordinary looking people who had for example hitched steamers across the Mediterranean, who had hitched through Eastern Europe and through the Soviet Union. Charlie also had fun stories about he and his family traveling through East Germany to Berlin; there were so few cars on the road they knew if you'd been speeding because your progress was marked from checkpoint to checkpoint. And there were a LOT of checkpoints. Dad, Chuck, asked one too many times for papers at such a checkpoint responded "How do you think we got this far without papers??" I guess the guard didn't understand English well enough to understand. Charlie's photos of East Berlin were remarkable, remarkable there could ever be so much gray, relieved only by red Party banners for Walter Ulbrecht. He and other Americans visiting Berlin walked down to the Wall to see it from the Communist side and were held at gunpoint by guards until it was established that they were not East Germans trying to escape.
Stanford...what a beautiful school. What nice people. Charlie always loved Stanford, always cherished memories of his years there, always enjoyed visiting. And other Stanford grads I have met all felt the same way, a deep love of their university. The alumni association takes very good care of the alums, keeping them involved. One of the nice things is visiting alums can attend lectures by professors to catch up on work in their fields. You could select anything. We went to physics, geology, economics, art, and music presentations. Very interesting, and it does keep the alums involved. Although a U of Oregon grad myself I kind of consider myself part of that Stanford family, kind of a legacy from Charlie. I root for both the Ducks and the Cardinal. Oh. They used to be the "Indians" but that name became politically unacceptable. There was a poll to search for a new name. Charlie said quite a few people supported "Robber Barons". I loved his sense of humor! However the Stanfords made their money, they did a magnificent thing in creating that University, what a wonderful legacy not just to California, not just to all the people who have graduated from it, but to America and the world. The entire computer revolution, the entire electronics revolution, began because of basic research carried on at Stanford.
Charlie got a CO status during the Vietnam War, after graduating from Stanford. He worked at a lab researching neurology at UCSF. He lived in Oakland and commuted into work at UCSF on a hillside in the Haight. His vehicle was an old white panel van. Only view out the back was through a window, and from the sides, the mirrors. I had the misfortune to drive it, it seemed to have no clutch. I would plan routes that had no hills so it wouldn't roll back while waiting for the clutch to catch. But Charlie did fine with it on the famous hills of San Francisco. He enjoyed Bay Area life, he had several friends in the area. We would often drive up to Oakland to visit Steve and Pat. Oakland gets bad press. It was Queen Liliuokalani's favorite mainland city, it has some of the best weather in the Bay Area, some of it is scary but a lot of it is really nice. From the hills at sunset you can look across the bay and see the sun setting behind the Golden Gate Bridge, it leaves a trail of gold across the bay, perhaps explaining the name Golden Gate. And we always liked to walk across that bridge during our visits. Of course, always visiting the Castro. Charlie had The Look down quite well. A tight green tank top, tight Levis, construction boots; as he walked down Castro guys would come out of the bars to check him out.
More later.
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Political
Charlie's delegate T shirt from the 1992 New York Democratic National Convention
A portrait of President Franklin Roosevelt given by a member of the Roosevelt family to Charlie's mother. She grew up near Warm Springs, Georgia, and often in the area saw President Roosevelt driving his specially equipped car with controls on the steering wheel. She was a highly intelligent woman. Although raised in the South she adapted to a changing world. She accepted Charlie's gayness and our relationship. Regretfully, to be sure, but she accepted. Politically she was always right on. Her pantheon of heros: Jesus Christ, Franklin Roosevelt, Jimmy Carter, Jefferson Davis. Her graduation annual from U. of Georgia, 1940: every single graduate was white! Not a single Black or Asian face. Amazing. How times have changed.
Charlie with Morris Kight, a legend in gay liberation, his activism going back to the 1950's. A true hero. Photographed at the 2000 Los Angeles Democratic National Convention. Charlie's last time as a delegate. We stayed at a modest but quite adequate little hotel run by an Indian family in downtown LA, within walking distance of the venue, the Staples Center. I got to be in the hall for President Clinton's memorable and rousing speech. Democrats are always very considerate of each other, trading or loaning credentials to get on the floor. There is no experience like it, it is monumentally exciting to sit in on history being made. Or, in Charlie's case, to actually be in on making history. At that convention Al Gore was nominated for President, he chose Joseph Lieberman, Senator from Connecticut, as his Vice Presidential nominee, and for that portion of the convention Charlie got credentials for a Jewish friend. Tears flowed down his face as Lieberman got the Vice Presidential nomination. This is a great country. 
Another photo from the 2000 Democratic convention in LA, Charlie with some of our women delegates. Our gay San Diego Democratic Club has been sending delegates since 1980. It is undeniably fun and exciting but also extremely important. The party gets a great deal of direction and guidance from its conventions, the platform being a major example. The party and its elected representatives in office act on the ideals expressed in the platform. It has been a long, slow process. Lots of people contributed to the present state in which gay equality has been mentioned by President Obama, and in which states are actually voting in favor of gay marriage today. Truth is, gay lib began with a riot at the Stonewall Inn in New York in 1969 when drag queens refused to accept bullying from the NYPD. Sad it takes violence but the truth is, thats all bullies understand, its all that works. But civilized politics changes laws. Responsible representation of the concepts gain public acceptance. Charlie served in both those capacities. And as a Democrat he was on the county central committee and on the state Democratic Party committee for decades.
A photo of Charles with Governor Gray Davis and Dede Alpert. Democrats are so reasonable, so sane!Friday, February 15, 2013
Honored
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