I’m am giving a new (to me) blogging app a whirl on my iPad Pro. To celebrate, here is a picture of Oneida Lake.
Oneida Lake is the largest inland lake in New York State. When one looks at a map of The Empire State in search of the largest inland lake, your eyes might be drawn to one of the Finger Lakes, Cayuga Lake in particular. But the largest inland lake is Oneida Lake.
For my junior and senior year in high school, every morning at 08:00 and four seconds after the bell signaled the beginning of home room, I stood in the high school office and led the school over the PA system in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.
I pledge allegiance, to the flag, of the United States of America
And to the republic for which it stands
One nation, under God, indivisible
With liberty and justice for all.
The first time I stepped into gay bar it was November 1986. The bar was called “Doc’s”. It was located in the basement of a pediatrician’s office in Jamestown, N.Y. I was a freshman in college at the time. I had met a guy at the college production of “The Normal Heart” and he thought we could meet up for a drink. He was 21, I was 18. Below drinking age and having never stepped foot in a bar on my own, I made the drive and walked in, ordering a Coca-Cola from the bartender. The bar wasn’t really big; it could probably hold 75 without everyone feeling overly cramped. There were three rooms once you descended the stairs into the basement: a room with a pool table, a room with some couches and chairs and other relaxation areas and the main room which had the bar, a decently sized dance floor and a few tables in chairs at the end opposite the bar.
The bar had about 40 people in it when I walked in and I felt everyone’s eyes on me; I was a new face. Having grown up in a small town where my contact with gay men was very minimal, I was probably quite skittish and didn’t strike up conversation with many folks. I just wanted to meet the guy I had met a few nights before.
I was always uncomfortable in unfamiliar social situations because I was always worried that I would be “found out” and subsequently be taunted for being gay. After a few moments of standing by myself, I came to the realization that this wouldn’t be a concern for me at Doc’s, everyone else there was gay. For the first time in my life, I relaxed and let my guard down. In that space at that moment, it was OK to be me. For the next couple of years going to a gay bar would be the only place where I could really be myself. Of course I was still socially awkward, that’s just part of my modus operandi. But I was less socially awkward there. If I was going to be taunted it would be due to my cheesy mustache or my poor fashion choices, not simply because of being gay.
The folks at Pulse in Orlando last weekend were just out for a fun night with friends in a space they considered safe. Now, 2016 is much different than 1986 when it comes to being gay in public, however, I imagine for many the gay bar is where they still felt like they were in a safe space. They could be themselves and let their guard down.
Except a man decided that he wanted to go in and kill as many “perverts” as possible. Whether he was indoctrinated, taught or just came up with the belief that gay folks are perverts is not relevant. The fact of that matter is he made the conscious decision to go into a gay bar and massacre as many gay folks as possible.
They just wanted to dance, have fun and feel safe.
Politicians have been quick to politicize the event. This massacre has been labeled a terrorist attack, presumably due to the assailant’s allegiance to ISIS. The fact of the matter is, this was a hate crime. This was a deliberate attack on individuals that are wired differently than many. People that are still demonized, ostracized and beat over the head with Bible verses for being sick, perverted, etc.
A couple of the victims were friends of a coworker and his family. Reports are showing screenshots of children writing to their parents moments before they were shot dead. This is the biggest mass shooting in the history of “The Greatest Country On Earth”.
I really wish we’d start acting like our grand declaration of “The Greatest Country On Earth”. We hear that a lot, don’t we. “Number One!” “Number One!” “Number One!”. When are going to start living up to our own hype and getting beyond stupid prejudice acts of killing like this? When are we going to start enacting sensible gun control? We all have to take our shoes off at the airport because one idiot decided to hide a bomb in his shoe but how many mass shootings will it take before someone says, “hey, we need to do something about guns.”
Just to be clear, I don’t believe that we should take away everyone’s guns. As I mentioned yesterday, that’s not going to solve the problem. But I do believe that we need to add another layer of security to the process of obtaining a gun.
All these folks wanted yesterday was to be in a safe place to have a great night out with friends.
Words can not express how terrible it is that they had to do die for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Earl and I were at the Central New York Tour de Cure bright and early this morning. Earl volunteered to help coordinate the breakfast tent and I was one of many participants in the cycling event. I rode the metric Century, which was actually 65.5 miles (100 km = roughly 62 miles). The ride went well and I completed it in four hours 39 minutes of riding time. There were five rest stops along the route.
It was at the first route that I posted a photo or two on Facebook and that’s when I saw the news of the mass shooting at the gay bar “Pulse” in Orlando. A gunman armed with an AR-15 assault rifle shot at least 50 people dead and wounded at least 53 others. It’s the largest mass shooting in the history of the United States.
Words cannot describe how much my heart aches as I watch the direction our country is headed. This type of horrific event is becoming entirely too commonplace “from seas to shining sea”. There are reports of the gunman’s possible ties to terrorists groups in the Middle East. Many news outlets are accordingly calling this an act of terrorism.
It was an act of hate.
I have no answers. I have many questions but I have no answers. Yes, stricter gun laws should be in place but I know that’s not going to slow down killers that are intent on killing. I toyed with the idea of making biometric triggers mandatory on firearms but 1. I don’t know what that would really do and 2. Any firearm already out in the wild could easily be looked over for meeting that requirement.
The only answer I can come close to is that we need to stop the American fetishization of firearms and we need to ramp back the depiction of consequence free killing in the media. Honestly, I don’t know that either will help the cause but it’s a start.
I refuse to be afraid. I refuse to be intimidated. The only thing I fear is the direction the U.S. is heading. I read some comments on Twitter from popular politicians and it just increased my desire to vomit. Trump was being Trump, others are touting the virtues of the Second Amendment.
I have no answers. I’m sick and tired of asking the same questions over and over.
Tomorrow morning will be my third year riding in the Tour de Cure for the American Diabetes Association. I’m a little nervous about riding tomorrow because I started riding a little later in the season this year, mostly due to Mother Nature’s increasingly Sybil-like ways. The weather should be cloudy and will probably be windy, so it could be an interesting ride. When all is said and done I hope to ride 100 kilometers, which translates to roughly 62 miles.
I need to be up in 6 1/2 hours to head out for the event. I’m not an early morning guy. Hopefully the ride will wake me up.
Whenever I start a new programming project at work, the words of my very first computer teacher, way back in high school, stick in my head: “Never start a program with a GOTO statement.” My project, which ran on an Apple //e, was dinged five points by Mr. Kotschevar because I didn’t follow that advice.
Whenever I’m landing an airplane, something that I can do quite well I might add, I can still hear the voice of my flight instructor and good friend, Chuck as I make my final approach: “whatever you do don’t get flat. Don’t get flat!” The way I approach a runway there’s not much of a chance that I’m going to get flat, but I still hear his words.
Words stick with us. Words make an impact. Words linger for a long time.
Every once in a while an activist in the gay community (I can never keep up with all the letters) will write an editorial stating that the gay community should reclaim the word “queer”. This thought stems from the way that some African-Americans have reclaimed the “N” word. The argument goes that by reclaiming the word queer, the power to hurt with that word dissipates and we own the label.
The truth of the matter for me is that I don’t want to be labeled.
Back in the early 1970s there was an episode of “Match Game 73” that included a question that went something like this: “Did you hear the latest about Batman and Robin? It turns out they’re _blank_”.
The contestant filled in the blank with “queer”. Nanette Fabray wrote “Fairies”. Elaine Joyce and Bobby Van wrote “Queer”. There was some decency on the panel: Charles Nelson Reilly wrote “Divine”. Richard Dawson wrote “Married”. Brett Somers feigned shock at the answers the others wrote and chimed in with “Lovers”.
The Game Show Network doesn’t show that episode anymore.
I can’t tell you the number of times that I was called “queer” when I was in high school. I have to admit that it didn’t sting as much as being called a faggot, which happened quite a bit as well. I still bristle at the word faggot. A friend jokingly said faggot to me not too long ago and I surprisingly reacted rather emotionally to the word even though he meant no harm and I knew that.
Words linger on for a long time.
I can understand the argument for reclaiming a word and by doing so taking away the negative connotations and power associated with it. The thing is, I don’t really want to be labeled. I’m just me. When I was in college a girl named Tracy (she was from Long Island) asked if I preferred to be called gay or would I prefer homosexual. I replied that I wanted to be called “John” (this was before I was more insistent that I be called J.P.). Yes, I am a gay man, I have a husband and I have had homosexual relations for 30 years (quit counting on your fingers, Mom). I’m happy with who I am and I’m comfortable with my sexual orientation. But I don’t want people making assumptions of me based on stereotypes that have historically been associated with words like queer or fag or gay or anything of that nature. Self-imposed expectations of being a gay man held me back for too long. The word queer held me back for too long.
As I prefer to say, if you insist on labeling me then remember this: I’m just a guy with a husband. While being gay is part of who I am, it doesn’t even come close to describing the full view of who or what I am. I don’t need a label, I don’t want a label, I don’t find any sort of empowerment in labels and I don’t really identify with any sense of community that chooses to label themselves with a string of letters or words like queer.
You can be as queer as you like (and it even pained me to type that sentence) but don’t expect me to get in lock step with your labeling system.
So I am seven days into my “Three in 30” challenge and I think things are going well. I’ve made one important discovery: Facebook is (unfortunately) becoming somewhat of a necessity in my life. The social network is becoming as pervasive as AOL was in the late 1990s and this frustrates me. My contributions to Facebook have been minimal, but it’s the way I stay connected to friends scattered throughout the country and the world. I had to compromise that aspect of my three in 30 challenge to minimal interaction instead of complete isolation.
Compromise is occasionally the name of the game.
Yesterday I elected to set aside all computing devices during my lunch hour. My brain needed a rest from the intensity of being a husband, a pilot, a career minded software developer and the like so I took the opportunity to drive to the local Park and Ride and just let the breeze blow through the Jeep as I watched the clouds roll by.
It was quite calming.
I used to practice a similar exercise back in the days when I commuted 55 miles one way to the office; long-time gentle readers will recall my blog entries from a shopping center parking lot where I would see a pleasant cat on a daily basis after securing an iced tea from the local Dunkin’ Donuts. I rode out blizzards, thunderstorms and beautiful days during my lunch hours parked in that parking lot and I found the practice to be calming.
Watching the clouds roll by with all electronics turned off is just what I needed. I recommend folks try unplugging once in a while just to recall what things were like before we became so technology dependent.
Back in the days of Windows 98 through Windows XP, Microsoft used to feature the “Bliss” wallpaper as a standard desktop feature. Legend has it that Bill Gates designed that wallpaper himself as it reminded him of lying in a field as a kid, watching the clouds roll by. It was bliss to him.
I firmly believe he was onto something.
While I’m out my morning bike ride I allow my mind to wander a little bit. Sometimes I reflect on a dream that I had before waking up, sometimes I think about work, a lot of the time I think about flying. But once in a while I just let my mind go into full geek mode and allow myself the freedom to think about anything that might pop into my head.
One of my favorite places to ride in the morning is along Main Street in the nearby village of Whitesboro. Whitesboro was in the national news earlier this year when the village’s citizens decided to keep the official Village Seal, depicting a settler wrestling a Native American. Some find the depiction to be outside the guide rails of political correctness because it looks like the settler is strangling the Native American. I wasn’t present at the wrestling match that inspired the seal, so I’ll refrain from comment on that.
Main Street used to be NY Route 69 before the building of what is today’s Oriskany Boulevard. The boulevard is the result of the filling in of the original Erie Canal, which passed through the village long ago. With the relocation of Route 69 onto the new roadway, Main Street was bypassed to a certain degree. New bridges were built and other roads were relocated. Today there isn’t much traffic on Main Street. Much of the retail establishments moved to the busier boulevard long ago. The homes along Main Street still have their early 20th century majestic appeal, though I believe some of them have been converted to multi-tenant dwellings.
At the west end of Main Street, just west of the village boundary, a short bit of roadway was built to connect Main Street to Oriskany Blvd. The remaining portion of Main Street was turned into a No Outlet roadway. In the picture above, I’m standing on that bit of roadway, near what remains of the small hamlet of Carey’s Corners.
I don’t know much about Carey’s Corners outside of the fact that it was prominently listed on old maps up until the late 1950s. I believe there were several buildings demolished for the building of what carries Route 291 over the adjacent railroad to the north. What is currently labeled as “Carey Road” (another dead end roadway) probably made its way onto present-day 291 (what used to be Route 12C until 1972) to take one out of Carey’s Corners to the north.
Little bits of highway history like this make me wonder what today would be like if we as a society didn’t develop such a fondness for automobiles and the building of the modern day Interstate system. Would life be as fast paced as it is today? Would many of us be living in crazy high high-rises while others still lived a rural life out in the country? Would suburbia as we know it be a thing? Shopping Malls? Big Box Retailers?
Many things changed in the mid 20th century with the drive to move out of the cities, follow the freeways and set up life in the suburbs. I really do wonder what life would be like if that mass migration hadn’t taken place. I’m sure the United States would be a markedly different place to live today.
Skaneateles is considered the eastern gateway to the Finger Lakes in Upstate New York. Situated along US Route 20, this charming little town is at the northern end of Skaneateles Lake. Strolling amongst the charming village green along the lake shore, it is evident that there’s a bit of money in Skaneateles. As I understand, the Baldwins (Alec, Stephen, et al) and the Clintons (Bill and Hillary) enjoy spending some down time in Skaneateles.
In case you’re wondering, it’s pronounced “Skinny-atlas” when using the typical flat Central New York accent.
Earl and I spent the day relaxing today. We had the top off the Jeep, we drove amongst back roads and we just spent some quality time together. It’s a downtime weekend for us after about a month of traveling and being focused on our careers. One of our stops was in Skaneateles.
And it was a wonderful day.
Just a guy with a husband. We’ve been together 28 years and he still makes me see fireworks on a daily basis. Hiker. Storm Chaser. Private Pilot. Tech Guy. Hackerish.
Weird? Eccentric!
