This Year's Model

This weekend marked my 40th high school reunion. I decided not to attend the event, a decision I ended up regretting. The following is what I wrote on the reunion’s page on The Facebook:

I continue to hear stories from friends & acquaintances about the horrors of their high school years. The Husband is still bitter about HS & even today, finds his life leading in certain directions because of experiences during his 4 years at Lewis & Clark HS (class of 1968).

I enjoyed a happy & secure childhood & had a groovy time during my 4 years at Joel E Ferris HS, 1968-1972. I was involved in nearly every theatre & music activity. I traveled easily around the different sub-groups of high school: AV aids, nerds, jocks, greasers, druggies, band geeks, hippies, smart kids, teachers, debate team, 4H, & enjoyed an easy going relationship with the most popular people, you know who you are, don’t make me call you out by name, & of course,  I was quite at home with the drama nerds.

I went to every dance & prom, because I love to dance & because I was determined to make being gay unimportant or at least not tragic.

I give my classmates the credit for my good HS experience, for being friendly, open-minded, & occasionally willing to be naughty.

In HS, I wanted to work hard & train to become the best actor, singer & dancer possible with the resources available to me. My other priorities included getting loaded & getting laid. I was rather successful at both.

Now I regret NOT being at our 40th reunion. I am unemployed for the first time in 45 years. My Husband is just getting a new venture off the ground. Our lives don’t quite run in the black & we have made a game of spending as little money as possible & making big sacrifices. We got rid of our automobile & its monthly payments, insurance & upkeep, & purchased bicycles. We only dine out at “happy hour”, & we grow some of our own food. But travel, even to Spokane seemed out of the question.

Now, as you all celebrate, I wish that I had found a way to be there, even if I had hitchhiked, like I used to do in 1972.

I have deep affection for the group of us that went all the way through school together, grades 1 thru12 : Hamblen, Sacajawea, & Ferris. I would have really liked to have looked you each of you in the eye & heard about your life post-1972.

I would have welcomed the chance to shake hands & have a conversation with the idol of my youth, the distinguished screenwriter/producer- Harley Peyton.

As I mentioned in a message to childhood neighbor & school chum, Bruce Roberts, maybe there was a reason for my not making it to the reunion. There was always that chance that I would have had too much to drink, insulted someone, & made an unfortunate pass at someone else. At our 20^th reunion, & ended up smoking pot & having sex in the car with a former, then/now married classmate. Oh well… I never desired to be a role-model, not in 1972 or 40 years later.

I hope you all had a swell time & I will definitely see you at our 50th…  you will recognize me, I am the one with the really cool walker.

Keep It In The Family

Please, do not be unhappy with me dear readers of my little spot on the Internet. I was in a position that made it impossible to do blogs posts since 11am on Saturday 10th. The bad news, I am going to catch up by posting for each of the past 3 days & posting them as if they appeared that day, & force you to read several posts in an effort to catch up. I truly wish that you will stick with me. Post Apocalyptic Bohemia feels as if it might be getting more entertaining as I begin to name names. I'll start with this one: Jon Hamm.

Jon Hamm turned 41 on Saturday 10th. I am totally zany for him. Season 5 of Mad Men, the most intense & surprising TV series of all time, starts on Sunday 25th.

I went on a journey to be with the parental units in Spokane for the weekend. They are healthy & doing well, but in their early 80s, I feel I need to connect with them more than 2 times a year. My father had knee replacement surgery & I felt that I could assist my mother in his recovery.

I enjoyed a very happy & secure childhood. I am an only child of upper-middle class /working parents. They were & remain: supportive, funny, affectionate, open, & they are rather lovely & generous people (which is why my father voting Republican is so discouraging) .My parents attended nearly every recital, concert & play that I was involved in, following me to community theatre, university, drama department, to regional theatre.

The Lilac City, Spokane, with beautiful waterfalls in the center of town... It was a swell place to grow up; the school system in the 1960s had excellent programs of art, music, theatre, journalism, & sports. But, I wanted out & left on the evening of my HS graduation. I strangely returned in the late 1970s to teach & direct at Gonzaga University, after time spent in NYC that nearly killed me. I was not happy living in Spokane the second go around. I would continue to consider it a mistake, except that this where I met the man who would become my mate of 33 years. He also had been away from Spokane, working as a set designer in Europe & had come back to re-group, consider his life &  then decide how to move forward, just as I had.

To friends & classmates that continue to live in Spokane- I don't mean to belittle the place I grew up in, I really feel love for all of you... but you have to admit, Spokane can be a mean little city. You have to admit it. I mean, I can admit that Portland is hipster heaven, why can't you own up to the 1970s clothing (worn without irony) & the firearms?

The home my parents live in, in the country, 15 miles from Spokane, is not the house I grew up in, in fact their last home before this one, I only lived in during a brief school year (1971-72). I was doing summer stock theatre in Coeur D' Alene, Idaho, the summer of 1971. When I returned to Spokane in September, the parental units had moved, but neglected to tell me. It took a bit of work, but I located their new place & moved in a few days later.

When I moved from NYC back to Spokane in 1978, I moved back with the parents. What had been, for a short time, my room, had been appropriated by my father as an office. I took the guest room, painted it & fixed to my liking. About 12 weeks later, the parents asked if I would manage to have dinner with them, where they informed me that they were happier when I didn't live with them & it would be a good idea to get my own place. " YOU CAN"T GO HOME AGAIN..."

I have flown probably 100 times in my life. I am so old, I remember when we used to dress-up for an airplane. This afternoon's flight back to Portland was so roller-coaster that upon arriving at PDX, the passengers applauded.
My father is a car guy, & he always had a job, often that paid well, that allowed him to be a car guy, almost in the manner that I always worked in restaurants so to be able to be an actor. I posted bits & pieces of this on the Facebook, including these photos of some of Ed's cars:

1935 Dodge

1940 Mercury