Here's my bitch. And I don't mean Fred.

Here it is, the week before Fall Diversity Weekend, and I'm stuck in Kansas City. I can't go. Shit. I've canceled reservations and come to accept the fact I'll be here while I SHOULD be in Eureka Springs.Shit, shit, SHIT!

I suppose there are more important things to be pissed off about. I could focus on (in no particular order):

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No. 1. Pork (not the verb kind of pork)

My father called last week. «Yip, Super Fresh Groceries has pork loin on special. If I pick one up, will you cook it for me? You know, the way you did those pork chops the last time I was over?»

Yip: You mean with the marinade recipe Monika gave me?

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This was my initiation to gay bashing. It didn't happen to me, but to an acquaintance of mine named Lester. I was merely a bystander who tried to help. This was back in the summer of 1969, before I was old enough to go to the gay bars, and while I was still ignorant of the abuse gay people are subjected to on a regular basis. It wasn't called gay bashing back then. It was usually referred to as

(drum roll please)

Rolling Queers.

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After a harrowing taxi ride to the Hudson river, we board the boat for a dinner cruise of New York bay. This little excursion is sponsored by the gay parents group, so we know most of the people on board, at least by sight. We float up and down the Hudson river, then around to the East river, then out by Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty.

Wow! What an incredible experience. New York is beautiful by night. All the lights and great big buildings were pretty intriguing for us small town Midwesterners. After sunset the night was getting a bit chilly. It was quite overcast, and began to drizzle. It didn't matter. We were seeing New York from a totally different perspective. We were wandering around the deck with a friend named Andre, from southern California, when we neared the Statue.

****Ladies and gentlemen, we interrupt this mess for a sightseeing suggestion from Tour Guide Yip.*****

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For a couple of weeks in 1994 gay people were given New York. Actually, we TOOK New York.

When Fred and I were active in a gay parents group, we would attend their yearly conferences in different parts of the country. In 1994 the conference was in New York City, coinciding with the Gay Games and the 25th anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion. Oh wow! This was going to be good! Gay people from all around the country – all around the WORLD – in the same place at the same time. We made our conference reservations and excitedly planned the things we would do in the city.

The parent's conference was held at a hotel in White Plains, just north of Manhattan. I arrived one day before Fred, and asked some other people about a good place to hook up with Fred when he arrived. The clock in the middle of Grand Central Station seemed to be the appropriate, easiest place for both of us to find. He could get there easily from the airport, and I could take a train from White Plains. I called Fred that night and told him where to meet me.

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I've been thinking about aging a lot lately. Mainly because I'm, well, aging. I started losing my hair in my early 40's. Now that 60 is knocking at my door, and I have a very obvious bald spot, I've WILLED it to stop falling out.

Some people think male-pattern baldness is sexy, but I'll tell you what; I've NEVER met a man with thinning hair who is happy about it. Of course, a lot of them say it doesn't bother them. (Of course they're lying. Why? Because I say so, that's why.) Ok, maybe it doesn't really bother them, but it bugs the shit out of me.

When I was in junior high school, there was a girl named Jan up the street that I sometimes spent time with. Her mother would say to me, «You have such a wonderful hairline!» (She really did.) I wonder what she'd say if she saw me now. Back then I had a flat stomach and an ass like polished granite, too. Now everything is sliding south and I have more hair in my ears than on my head. So it goes. If I could go back in time, I WOULDN'T. I'm SO glad those days are over. But, please, the next time you see me, tell me my hair looks nice.

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Let's see…where were we? Oh yes, we're on the Greyhound bus speeding toward Hays, Kansas with the Skinny Cowboy, Mr. Foot and Miss Texas.A couple of hours after leaving Colby, and several phone calls from Mr. Foot to everyone in the known universe, we pull into Hays. Miss Texas lets everyone on the bus know that she has GOT to get to the ladies room, FAST! Mr. Foot tells her – and everyone else – that men are superior, because they just learn to hold it without complaint. As the bus comes to a stop I'm wondering how bladder size makes one person better than another.

Everyone exits the bus to smoke cigarettes and visit the restrooms, with Miss Texas leading the way. The «operator» has told us his replacement will be here shortly, and that we have 15 minutes to explore.

«The bus will leave in EXACTLY 15 minutes. Be on board or be left behind!»

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After Fred's family farm was destroyed by a tornado this past spring, we've made several trips to Northwest Kansas to help his parents try to piece things back together, clean up, and relocate. We've been out there for a few days on this trip, and I have to get back to work in Kansas City. We've decided I will take the Greyhound back to Kansas City, Fred will stay on at the farm to help with the (massive) cleanup for another week or so.

I have a brother in K.C. who will pick me up at the bus station when I get in, about 9:00 in the evening. The station is located in a particularly seedy part of K.C., but my brother is a life member of the NRA, always packs heat, and has no problem meeting me among the winos, hookers and street urchins. I decided it would be better to inconvenience my brother than my elderly father to pick me up, as my dad would be passing out cigarettes, sharing sips of bad liquor in paper bags and making new friends with the homeless while waiting for my bus. My brother would just shoot them.

The bus station closest to the farm is an hour's drive away in Colby, Kansas. As it turns out, the «bus station» is in a McDonald's restaurant. At the counter I ordered my ticket to Kansas City along with a Big Mac. I'm one of the last passengers to board the bus. The only seat left is directly behind the driver, beside a kind of skinny guy wearing a straw cowboy hat. He's eating something from McDonald's also. Half of the bus seems to have picked up something from McDonald's. (It's good the bus station wasn't located in a furniture store.) I plop in the seat and say hello to Skinny Cowboy. He smiles and says hi.

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My son, Dan, is now 24 years old. Amazing. Especially considering I'm only 35. (Believe that? I've got a bridge to sell you.) He has his own car, works two jobs, and is generally a great young man. He's a little shy, but has a good sense of humor and a lot of insight. I have no idea how, but we've done a good job with him. (Thank you, God!) He's responsible, for the most part, doesn't do drugs, (as far as I know, anyway) hasn't gotten anybody pregnant (as far as I know, anyway) so I figure that's damned near perfect. He still lives, «at home,» and probably will for quite some time. And that's fine with me.

The kid has a wonderful work ethic. He's worked part time since he was 14, has NEVER missed even an hour of work, and is often called in on his days off if someone else doesn't show up. He never refuses.

A few years ago, when he didn't have his own car, I would take him to and from his jobs. I would leave my work at 10:00 in the morning, go home to pick him up, take him to work and then come back to my work. Sometimes he'd work a split shift and I'd pick him up from work at 2:00 in the afternoon, take him back home, then take him to work again at 5:00. I'd pick him up at closing time, usually around 10:30 p.m.

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My father and I are in Branson to see my brother and his wife, and to celebrate my father's 86th birthday. They tell us an old friend from New Jersey will be joining us for part of the weekend—a guy named Joe.

They have told me about Joe in the past. He's a great big Italian my brother worked with for a time in New Jersey. They've stayed in touch over the years, seeing each other and respective families a couple of times a year. My father has met Joe also and speaks highly of him.

Maybe I've watched too many Godfather movies, or have preconceived notions of what New Jersey Italians are like. I picture a guy with no neck, a broken nose, and an accent thicker than San Francisco fog. He's GOT to look like someone right out of the Sopranos.

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