September 2020

In the summer of 1986, freshly graduated from high school, I worked for the school district as a summer custodian. It was my second year with the gig; the first year I worked in the high school, the second year I worked in the elementary school. Because it was the school district, I made a little more than minimum wage with that job; I think I was making $4.00 an hour. I worked with a couple of other students from school and the normal custodial staff. It was a good little gig to make some money during the summer and I enjoyed it very much.

Because of my nerdy nature, the first thing I purchased with my first paycheck that summer was a “Boom Box” that ran on batteries. I think it took four “D” batteries and it would last maybe two hours before it was time to change the batteries again, but I would use it to record songs off the radio. The radio station of choice was 93Q out of Syracuse. Interestingly, the station lives on today.

One of the songs I recorded on my Yorx Boom Box was “Man Size Love” by Klymaxx. I found the song to be very singable but with the track being a very female oriented song and me being very not female and rather just peeking around the closet door at the time, I wasn’t about to let my family hear my belt out this song at the top of my voice. Though admittedly, I enjoyed singing the song very much and I did identify with the theme of the lyrics.

At the time I was driving a 1976 Pontiac Astre that was puke green. I had wired up a cassette deck, courtesy of one of my paychecks from the previous year. With a cassette tape fresh out of the Boombox with tracks recorded from 93Q, I drove alone in the “Dis-astre” along Route 177 about 25 miles from the house. It was there I cranked up “Man Size Love” by Klymaxx and sang it in full voice, along in my car. Looking back, that area of New York is probably the closest to the “snowy Alabama” mindset that’s a little rampant in those parts, so it’s pretty ironic that here I was, a young, gay man, peeking around the closet door, singing a song by a group of black women.

I remember pulling over, rewinding the tape, and singing the song again and feeling such happiness. It’s such a simple track but I found it so much fun to sing.

From 1986, here’s Klymaxx with “Man Size Love”.

Edit: I must really like this song, looking back this is the third time I’ve posted this video, and the second time in 2020. To be fair, this is the first time I’ve told the story around why I like this song so much.