It's not gay-themed, but of course we're all used to transposing pronouns and things in our heads, aren't we fellas? This song hit the charts in the spring of my senior year, and it recalls to mind all that I felt during the Pat-and-me era I blogged about last week: equal parts thwarted love and the high electric charge of youth.
A compilation of the most poignant scenes from your Head Trucker's favorite movie:
Which makes me remember that I have neglected to mention here in the Blue Truck that last month on June 7th, it was 40 years ago that I graduated from high school. My, how the years rush away, the older you get. Perhaps some of you fellas will relate to how slowly time seemed to pass for me as a teenager - I used to feel like I would never be old enough to get my driver's license, and then it was another eternity until I finally got out of high school hell.
But the time did eventually pass, though not without some big bumps and detours along the road. I spent several months of the spring of my senior year in a state of suicidal depression - not for the first or for the last time, I might add - it all had to do with the gay thing, and the fact that I was in a militantly evangelical and extremely homophobic church.
All of which happened so long ago now, I don't remember exactly all that led up to it - though for the seven years I was in that church, from age 14 to 21, when I finally had enough and left, I was chronically depressed and often thought of doing away with myself - there could be no future for me, since I was such an enormously wicked sinner whom even God hated with fury.
I know some of you boys, even the ones who just lurk here at the Blue Truck and never comment, can relate to all that. Looking back, it's a wonder I got through alive, so alone and utterly isolated from any other gay people. Or at least - so I thought at the time.
Looking at the early scenes in the clip above of how Jack and Ennis met somehow reminds me in a vague way of my best buddy Pat in senior year and how we got to be close. I don't remember exactly how we met now, but we were part of a network of church friends and relations. We also both had close relatives in a major city 300 miles away, and I had a car, so it worked out nicely that whenever I would drive up to visit my family, Pat would ride along and share the gas expenses and visit his people too.
Our story was not outwardly like that of Jack and Ennis, who in the movie are already full grown and living all on their own. I was still living at home, though Pat had dropped out of school and was working construction jobs. He was about a year and a half older than me, so when I was 16 he was already 18. I was never much to look at in either face or body - the scrawy kid always picked last for teams - but Pat already had the body of a Greek statue from all that manual labor: if you can imagine an appearance like a blond Cherokee Indian with a sharp, sensuous face and rippled muscles beneath a skin that was always bronzed from working shirtless in the sun - well, that was Pat. The blond hair came from the Irish side of his family, I suppose. (Continued below . . . )
Another friend of Pat's, who I now think was as queer as we were, used to tease him about looking like 1950's movie/TV star Nick Adams, but although I can see why he said that, I never thought it was a close resemblance.
The Pat I knew was a lot sexier.
By a very curious coincidence, I just happened to find these pics of a current young star of Broadway, also named Nick Adams - and this, my friends, is much more what Pat looked like to me, though with surfer-blond hair.
He was hot all right, yeah buddy. I tell you what.
And he definitely has Pat's body, which I knew so well - from but a slight distance.
Can you blame me, fellas, for being smitten?
Jeezus, if only they'd had TV shows like this when I was staring at the ceiling of my room, wondering and fearing I was the only boy in the whole world who had ever felt these things, or ever would.
Good night, guys, and may all your dreams be lovely ones.
Joe Jervis reminded his readers a few days ago that this song was number one thirty-five years ago right now. Which hit your Head Trucker right between the eyes - where the hell did the time go? I do recall being entranced by this song when it was brand new, and dreaming dreams that young men have always dreamed, with one set of pronouns or another. At that age, it was easy to believe not merely in the possibility of happily-ever-after, but in its certainty as well.
Ah well. We live and learn. Meanwhile, just enjoy the might-have-been here with some studly pronouns - and dream of a dangling modifier or two.
A gray, gloomy day in Texas, a day of quiet tasks and deep thoughts. A day to shut the doors, keep the wind out, and avoid looking in mirrors. It is not until you begin to grow old that you realize what a cruel thing that aging really is. A thief, a robber with no mercy. Nothing you have is safe from his clutches.
All the more reason to enjoy your youth while you have it.
Yesterday would have been my husband's 61st birthday. Not looking for sympathy; nothing anyone can say about that now. Just remembering. Funny how time slips away.
But my husband had a rather Egyptian idea of immortality: that no one dies as long as their name is spoken and remembered.
So this is for Cody: and for me, a meditation on what was, what might have been . . . and what can never be.
Sorry to be late with this guys, I sat up drinking with a buddy Saturday night till nearly dawn, so Sunday was kind of a washout here, ya know what I mean?
Sun, sand, sea, sky, skin, sweat, sex: hope you guys are enjoying some of all that.
This week, something a little different. The song works my nerves, but I love these paintings: Walker is so talented, and every picture tells a story, or suggests one. See what you think.
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, harmony; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that I may seek not so much to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.
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We cannot all do great things, but we can do small things with great love.
and welcome to the Blue Truck, a blog for mature gay men with news and views on gay rights, history, art, humor, and whatever comes to mind. Plus a few hot men. The truck's all washed and gassed up, so hop in buddy, let's go.
CAUTION: For mature gay men only beyond this point. Some posts and links may not be suitable for children or the unco guid. You have been warned.
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My Story
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Churches say that the expression of love in a heterosexual monogamous relationship includes the physical, the touching, embracing, kissing, the genital act - the totality of our love makes each of us grow to become increasingly godlike and compassionate. If this is so for the heterosexual, what earthly reason have we to say that it is not the case with the homosexual?
It is a perversion if you say to me that a person chooses to be homosexual. You must be crazy to choose a way of life that exposes you to a kind of hatred. It's like saying you choose to be black in a race-infected society.
If God, as they say, is homophobic, I wouldn't worship that God.
