Live 2 Learn

Mississippi Burning was a movie produced about a tumultuous summer in Mississippi when three Civil Rights workers were killed and buried under an earthen dam outside of Philadelphia in Neshoba County. Some of the events in the movie were fictionalized or based on things that happened in other counties like the one in which I grew up – Pike County. That summer was bizarre and frightening for a ten year old kid like me. Lying in bed at night I could hear explosions that sounded like thunder but would turn out to be a “Colored Church” hit with a Coke bottle filled with gasoline, it’s “wick” made from a torn cloth inserted in the bottle neck ignited just before being thrown through a church window. A couple of nights Daddy asked me if I wanted to go see the fire and I would ride with him to sit and watch a church burn down to its foundation. Even though he was a product of his upbringing and held racist views himself he would shake his head and say, “This is not right – the Klan has gone...

SHIT! Not that question! I really like Facebook but now it's making me have to come out all over again. I'm 57 friggin' years old and I'm out dammit. Everyone at work knows I'm Gay, everyone at church knows I'm Gay, everyone in my family knows I'm Gay - my partner would add everyone who has seen me knows I'm Gay (here I pause to squint menacingly at him...). BUT and this is a BIG BUT - 98% of the people with whom I graduated from high school don't know. I didn't know I was Gay when we were in high school - wait, not true - I was completely in denial about being Gay. I first "fooled around" with another guy in 5th grade but thought it was a phase. 6th grade, 7th grade, 8th...by the time I graduated high school I could count nine boys with whom I had sex but still I thought I was straight. I had never kissed any of those guys cause that would mean that I was Queer and I wasn't! I had a steady girlfriend - so I was straight - "str...

(Names are changed) A controversial photo appeared in 1989 called "Piss Christ" (click on the title of this post to be taken to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piss_Christ) It garnered a lot of attention primarily because an anti-National Endowment for the Arts group used it as exhibit one in its attempt to cut or eliminate tax-payer funding of the NEA. The photo was of a crucifix submerged in a beaker of urine - the artist's own urine. The argument was that tax payers who were offended by such displays should not have to have their tax dollars go to fund the work. The NEA really took a beating and was made to look like they were anti-Christian, anti-Christ (double meaning intended), and pro-atheist. The photo had a different impact on me - it reminded me of an event from my childhood that I had suppressed so well that I had never thought of it for almost 30 years. Here's the story as I remember it now. I grew up in a small town where the largest facility owned and opera...

Today I decided to go home for lunch - my third sinus infection in two months was making me feel like I needed some alone time. After fixing a sandwich and sitting down at the table I clicked the television on to Court TV or maybe it's called TruTV now? Anyway, coverage was focused on the conclusion of a trial involving a man accused in the robbery and murder of a Gay man. It seems that three men had been arrested when they were selling the victim's car and the defendant on trial admitted that he was involved in selling the car but that he had not participated in the murder. He actually said when he found out they were going to kill the man to get the car he told them he didn't want any part of murder but would help sell the car. He must have gotten bad legal advice because admitting what he did made him as guilty as if he had pulled the trigger (or in this case, handled the knife) under Florida law. Or maybe he was just stupid because between his arrest and the time of tri...