A very odd homo memory from literally "out of the blue"; Another homoerotic memory that has stayed with me over the years; Another later, queer memory but far more confusing; Summation - memories that fill me with great sadness and regret

As I was cleaning the back yard today, I was thinking of John Inman and his familiars. Very suddenly I had an incredibly vivid recollection from the ninth grade.

It was a spring afternoon, at the start of social studies, Maurice Lockhart was in the desk in front of me talking. The exact wording is lost in time, but the essence was that people found me attractive, but I was too sissy-acting. As usual, I had no idea what he meant. I was me. Queer, sissy or other adjectives meant nothing to me. Maurice's comments, as I recall, were said without rancor, they were just casual comments.

This is an event that I would have guessed was erased long ago. But obviously not so.

The timeframe was later. My father, mother and I had gone to visit his sister in Niceville, Florida. It was Sunday, and as loyal Catholics, my father and I attended mass. It was a small white-clapboard church with a gravel parking lot nestled under huge oaks. I even remember that I was wearing a white polyester shirt with a square bottom, one intended as a vacation shirt to be worn outside the trousers. It had silver vertical threads in it, and I think I had a certain fondness for it.

As we approached the church, I noticed three guys my age, under one of the trees talking. But then one saw me and froze, stopped talking to his friends and gave me a very concentrated look. One which scared me, because I associated it with bullies. But this look was more intense, and he made no attempt to hide it.

After the service, he actually came up to me and asked if I was new to the area. Was I moving there? I remember saying no that we were there only for mass. That he would come up to me and ask questions frightened me. But in retrospect, he may have been smitten by me. Or he may indeed have been a bully sizing up his potential future victim. I like to think it was the former.

When I first started teaching, it was in a minority school, peopled with about half-a-dozen non-minority instructors.

One of these, Susan Dean, came about mid-semester of the first year for a science class. The previous teacher had some type of "nervous breakdown." I remember that she there for awhile, was gone for a month or so, and then returned. But her behavior from just a casual glance was erratic. She would literally be screaming in her class.

It was shortly after this that she disappeared, and Susan arrived. I'm not sure how Susan and I became friends. She was brusque, very determined, curt, domineering, etc. Qualities that bothered me then, and bother me even more today.

It may very well be that she engineered me to be her "friend." One of her requests was from time to time, to pick her up in the morning. I recall that when you entered the loving room there was a single door to the right that lead to the bedrooms.

I went by a couple of times, before the husband appeared. At some subconscious level, I recognized, what I now know to be, a buried homoerotic spark. Then I remember, he would come to the door dressed only in boxers. And I sensed it was very deliberate on his part. He was testing my reaction. Which was null and void.

But then one day, Susan no longer mentioned him. Which was unusual. And I'm very vague on this, but I think she soon divorced him. Now my estimation would be that she may have found him in bed with another man.

I'm thinking there was a period when guys found me interesting or attractive, but I had no idea how to respond. So, I have no idea what I may have missed.

Alas, my "salad days" have passed, and I must live with spectral images of unimagined possibilities.

PAX! Erin Go Braugh!