Our oldest gay friend died yesterday at 88. We met him fifty years ago, and he and his partner quickly became our closest friends. We had a typical lifestyle of openly gay middle class urban professional couples in the 1970s: parties, gay bars, subscriptions to the opera, vacations on Fire Island, etc. Then the shit-storm of AIDS hit in the 1980s, and by 1987 his partner of twenty years was dead. For the next 32 years he was alone.
For a few years he soldiered on, then decided he wanted a completely new life. He retired and moved across the country to a very small resort town (pop. 1000) on the Oregon coast where no one knew him. He didn't have a "gay lifestyle"--a night out was usually having a drink at the VFW hall with other vets--but he never tried to hide the fact that he was gay. He did socialize with a few other gays and lesbians he met in the area, but his closest friends were the straight neighbors whom he interacted with in local groups: the local historical society, environmentalists, a group trying to set up a charter school because there was no elementary school in town, the public library supporters, etc. He became a well-known figure in town. We ("my friends from Palm Springs") visited him almost every year, often for a couple of weeks at a time in summer, and those were the people we got to know. A group of about a dozen met every morning for breakfast at a local restaurant, and we began to join them regularly during our visits. We got married in 2013, and our friend obviously had told everyone, because the first morning after our arrival when we walked in for breakfast, everyone stood up and applauded.
When his health declined from Parkinson's disease a couple of years ago, one of his neighbors took over responsibility for his care. The mayor came every morning to get him out of bed and get him dressed. For the 4th of July parade this summer, his neighbors brought him outside in a wheelchair and stationed him on the main street, where the parade frequently stopped for people who wanted to greet him. A section of the library bears his name, with a portrait of him on the wall.
We all have our definitions of the "good life," but I think his was one of the best.
Magic is a cream hair remover originally developed for African American men to eliminate the "shaving bumps" they get on their neck from actual shaving. Smear it on, leave for 7 minutes (label says 4 I think but after 20 years, I find that 7 works for me) and wash off in shower. Always do a test spot if you are new to the product.
Great on balls and ass, too. If you are doing much of your body, do it by areas. Sometimes it can feel funny if you do everything at once. I do back, ass cheeks, upper arms, upper legs, and the areas mentioned above. Once a year I do my chest and abs if I see some ingrowns coming on. Also if I am going to the cardiologist and having an ECG done - there is more than enough hair that I look moth-eaten afterwards!
"Acceptance" of a person has a much broader definition.... I dont understand WHY you people dont get it. You can accept a person, be ok with them politically, socially, spiritually etc, but you just may not want to be physically intimate with them. Just because you ACCEPT a person shouldnt make it Mandatory for you to want SEX with them. And that's the fuckin bottom line here. And this has absolutely nothing to do with being GAY. Being GAY doesnt mean that you fuck EVERYTHING that lives and breathes. Stop telling people where they should stick their dicks.....!
flguy got a reaction from + Keith30309 in Responses when you ask for a '3-fingered selfie'.
