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Apr. 2nd, 2015 12:50 pm
Queer old thing
Two trips to Hyde Park within a month's time, this has to be some sort of a record. The weirdest part is that I didn't see any of my old pals either time. (Sorry, guys!) It was amazing. As many time's as I've experienced the weather shifts that accompany movement from one part of this town to another, I'm still caught out at times. I thought about taking the Garfield bus to the Reg to save a little time, but I decided it was too nice a day and walked 57th instead. I was very quickly too warm in a camel hair blazer. Daffodils were out. Meanwhile, back home, the Old Man said he considered sitting on the porch but it was "too cold".
What was I doing back at a place whose dust I'd long since shaken from my feet? Attending the opening reception for their new exhibition in queer life at UofC as an honoured guest. It's almost two years to the day since a fresh-faced undergraduate came to my house to take my oral history of my years there. I barely recognised her all made up with her butch short do. I barely recognised anyone, to be honest. I thought some of the folks I overlapped with would be there, but everyone I met seemed to be earlier or later.
Not that that was bad. The curator (my ex-neighbour--who proclaimed this in the middle of her remarks when she suddenly spotted me in the crowd) introduced me to someone on the basis that we "gave the two longest interviews" but then moderated that dubious distinction by mentioning that we'd both done the most to try to encourage people who were closeted to share their stories (sadly, with very little success). I ended up having pizza at the Med with him, his best bud, his interviewer, my interviewer, and her friend.
What struck me most about the conversation was just how different his experience of the university was from mine only eight years later. He came to the College from a huge public school in upstate New York expecting a much more tolerant environment than back home and was disappointed; I came from a private school in St Louis expecting the same and found it. What happened in the meantime? The AIDS crisis and the politicisation of gay men in the USA.
He and his bud both told great stories. At one point, Gabby asked his friend to tell us his "most outrageous" one and his friend immediately started questioning what he meant. I leapt in to say, "This is a UofC conversation after all! Define your terms. There are many continua of 'outrageousness'." He took up the challenge by relating a terrific anecdote about an "orgy" involving Gabby (which of course led to a terminological debate--one Gabby lost--concerning what constitutes an "orgy").
People were surprisingly willing to exchange information, and I may even be coming back Alumni Weekend for the big do in a penthouse by the lake. Seems a couple that I vaguely remember from my summer as a houseboy bought (or inherited it) from the estate of the professors I was working for and have kept up their tradition of hosting annual shindigs. Now that would be a nostalgia trip to rival any I could have in the old library.
What was I doing back at a place whose dust I'd long since shaken from my feet? Attending the opening reception for their new exhibition in queer life at UofC as an honoured guest. It's almost two years to the day since a fresh-faced undergraduate came to my house to take my oral history of my years there. I barely recognised her all made up with her butch short do. I barely recognised anyone, to be honest. I thought some of the folks I overlapped with would be there, but everyone I met seemed to be earlier or later.
Not that that was bad. The curator (my ex-neighbour--who proclaimed this in the middle of her remarks when she suddenly spotted me in the crowd) introduced me to someone on the basis that we "gave the two longest interviews" but then moderated that dubious distinction by mentioning that we'd both done the most to try to encourage people who were closeted to share their stories (sadly, with very little success). I ended up having pizza at the Med with him, his best bud, his interviewer, my interviewer, and her friend.
What struck me most about the conversation was just how different his experience of the university was from mine only eight years later. He came to the College from a huge public school in upstate New York expecting a much more tolerant environment than back home and was disappointed; I came from a private school in St Louis expecting the same and found it. What happened in the meantime? The AIDS crisis and the politicisation of gay men in the USA.
He and his bud both told great stories. At one point, Gabby asked his friend to tell us his "most outrageous" one and his friend immediately started questioning what he meant. I leapt in to say, "This is a UofC conversation after all! Define your terms. There are many continua of 'outrageousness'." He took up the challenge by relating a terrific anecdote about an "orgy" involving Gabby (which of course led to a terminological debate--one Gabby lost--concerning what constitutes an "orgy").
People were surprisingly willing to exchange information, and I may even be coming back Alumni Weekend for the big do in a penthouse by the lake. Seems a couple that I vaguely remember from my summer as a houseboy bought (or inherited it) from the estate of the professors I was working for and have kept up their tradition of hosting annual shindigs. Now that would be a nostalgia trip to rival any I could have in the old library.
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