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https://lgbt.digitalarchives.muhlenberg.edu/files/original/58f1739506d46abb74a2e939568d7b41.png
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Stories of Lehigh Valley LGBTQ+ Community Members (2022 - )
Oral History
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Laura Mercedes
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Felix Molina
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https://trexlerworks.muhlenberg.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=LGBT-26.xml
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5.4 February 22, 2022 Felix Molina, February 22, 2022 LGBT-26 45:17 LVLGBT Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive Collection Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository Support for the collection of this interview was provided by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS). trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Felix Molina Laura Mercedes video/mp4 MolinaFelix_20220222_video.mp4 1.0:|17(8)|48(6)|71(9)|96(3)|119(2)|140(4)|159(7)|184(10)|205(12)|226(9)|245(8)|264(12)|287(13)|308(10)|329(5)|354(18)|377(2)|396(5)|417(4)|440(3)|459(15)|478(2)|501(2)|520(10)|539(14)|560(12)|575(15)|594(7)|609(7)|628(4)|643(15)|662(13)|675(6)|698(8)|715(11)|740(4)|753(3)|770(11)|789(7)|810(3)|829(16)|848(8)|873(18)|892(5)|913(2)|918(5) 0 https://youtu.be/ig296ba1Ojw YouTube video Spanish 18 Interview Introductions LAURA MERCEDES: My name is Laura Mercedes, and I am here with Felix Molina to talk about his life and experiences in LGBT organizations in the Lehigh Valley as part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT community oral history project. Our project has funding from the American Council of Learned Societies, and we are meeting on Zoom on February 22nd, 2022. Thank you so much for your willingness to speak with us today, Felix. To start, can you please state your full name and spell it for me? Félix, gracias por estar aquí hoy. Para comenzar, por favor ¿puede decirme su nombre, apellido y deletrearlos?
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 ; FELIX MOLINA: Okey, mi nombre es Félix Molina. Mi nombre es F-E-L-I-X, Molina, M-O-L-I-N-A. 0 136 Early Years of Life LM: Muy bien. Pues, para comenzar, ¿me puede contar sobre los primeros años de su vida y describir su niñez?
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 ; FM: Bueno, yo nací en Río Piedras, que ahora pertenece a San Juan, aquí en Puerto Rico. Tuve una niñez muy feliz. Desde pequeñito, sabía que era gay. Como a los 10 años, 10 a 12 años, trataron de sobornarme ; me dijeron que tenía que pagar dinero, si no, le iban a decir a mi familia que yo era gay. Yo dije, “Pues no, yo no voy a pagar nada, así que yo se lo diré a mi familia.” Me senté con mi familia — nosotros siempre comíamos todos juntos — y les dije, “Bueno, quiero decirles algo: yo soy gay. Si me aceptan, bien, y si no, pues seguiré, pero yo no voy a cambiar mi vida por nadie. Éste soy yo, así que está bien.” Mis papás me dijeron, “Eres nuestro hijo, comoquiera te queremos.” Mi hermano me dijo que ya lo sabía. Quedamos así más o menos. 0 284 Representing Puerto Rico & ; Speaking at the NYC Pride Parade / Moving to the United States FM: Le invitan a ella y a mí a representar a Puerto Rico en la parada gay de Nueva York. Mi primo estaba enfermo con SIDA en ese tiempo y yo fui entonces para allá para verlo a él y participar de la parada. Y me pusieron en el station, me dieron el micrófono para que hablara. Y dije, “Bueno, parece mentira de que yo tuve que venir de Puerto Rico a visitar a mi primo, que él tiene tantos amigos aquí, y ninguno habéis ido a visitarle al hospital, teniendo tanto miedo por esta enfermedad que nos está afectando además a muchos de todos nosotros. Tenemos que dejar el miedo y venir y estar nuevamente juntos como hermanos que somos y hacernos procurar uno con el otro.” 0 399 Facing Puerto Rican Discrimination in the Lehigh Valley / Fighting Discrimination Laws in Allentown FM: Cuando llegué a Bethlehem, me di cuenta de que a los puertorriqueños los maltrataban. Definitivamente, discriminaban mucho por los acentos y por qué eras. Pero, más que todo, los mismos puertorriqueños discriminaban más a los puertorriqueños. Yo estaba en una tienda de espejuelos y había una -- yo estaba en la parte de atrás y vino una señora, “Ah, estas personas deben ponerles otro sitio de que estén esperando, que no pueden estar al lado de uno, que si esto y lo otro, que si me están haciendo -- yo estoy muy nerviosa aquí.” Y la gerente dijo, “¿Él la ha molestado en algo?” Y ella, “No, pero su presencia nada más me molesta, y esto y lo otro, que no voy a estar si no, pues que yo no vengo más aquí.” “Pues si no quiere venir, no venga, pero él está muy bien y lo vamos a atender a él.” Voy, se lo digo a mi amigo, y en vez de darme la razón, me dice, “Sabrá Dios si tú estabas gritando o con la voz tuya intimidaste. Está tu forma de ser, que esto y lo otro.” Pero la verdad es que nosotros mismos nos tiramos a nosotros mismos. Yo no dije nada, yo no estuve haciendo nada y hasta la misma gerente de la tienda lo vio. O sea que definitivamente no fue que yo estaba haciendo absolutamente nada malo. 0 696 Experiences as President of the Puerto Rican Parade FM: Y esta vez, sí, pasó por los miembros que estaban y fue un éxito. En ese tiempo estuve también como presidente de -- bueno, antes de ser presidente de la parada puertorriqueña, estaba como miembro. Y había mucho desorden después que se acababa la parada, porque había parada por la Hamilton, parábamos en la -- en aquel día, hacíamos una -- tocaban unas fiestas y unas cosas y esto y lo otro, y ya a las cuatro se paraba de cantazo y todo el mundo para su casa. Y estaban ya todo la gente con la ansia revuelta y lo que hacían era que empezaron entonces a revolucionar los carros y estar caminando y gritando porque querían más fiesta y todo. Y no se hacía más nada. Y tuvimos bastantes problemas porque decían que se iba a eliminar. Los antiguos miembros de la parada dijeron que como castigo a los puertorriqueños, iban a parar la parada un año. Y dije, “No. A los puertorriqueños no se les tienen que castigar. Y si se para por un año, va a ser más difícil para volver poder a hacerla nuevamente.” 0 1067 Working with the Pennsylvania Statewide Latino Coalition (PSLC) / Other Jobs FM: Durante estaba en eso, cambié a PSLC, Pennsylvania Statewide Latino Coalition. Y ahí tuvimos unos guardias de Pensilvania, de Filadelfia, atacaron a un latino y le apretaron tanto la medalla en el pecho que se la incrustaron dentro del pecho y lo mataron. Y cuando fuimos a ver -- eso fue en Shenandoah. La cosa era mucho más mala de lo que parecía. Estaba dentro la policía, la gente de la policía, el juez, el alcalde. Todos estaban incluidos dentro de esa trama en contra de los latinos. Y los White Supremacy estaban dentro. 
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 ; Cuando nosotros vamos, vamos en un grupo, esto y lo otro, estaban detrás de nosotros persiguiéndonos. Yo me eché a reír en una porque ellos se estaban escondiendo y tratando de mirar para dónde yo me había ido y yo había corrido por la parte de atrás y yo estaba ahora detrás de ellos. Yo les dije, “Hola.” Y cuando miraron y me vieron atrás, dieron un brinco. “Ah, ¿qué usted está haciendo aquí? Que usted no puede venir aquí sin pedir permiso.” Y yo digo, “Que yo sepa, esto es Estados Unidos y es un país libre, así que yo puedo venir.” Y el mismo representante, el council viene y me dice a mí lo mismo. Y da la casualidad que me lo dice frente al agente federal. El agente federal le dije, “Déjeme unas palabritas con usted, porque aquí no hay que pedir permiso para venir a su ciudad y esta no es su ciudad ; esto es ciudad de Estados Unidos y vamos a chequear.” 0 1248 Moving Back to Puerto Rico FM: De ahí, estuve un tiempo trabajando en diferentes casos de daños civiles a los latinos y también a los que no eran latinos, solamente eran prejuicios sencillamente porque eran pobres o porque eran gais. Y estuve bastante con una compañía de abogados. De ahí, me dije, “Okey, ya está bien de tantas cosas.” Me vine para -- mis padres estaban un poco más enfermos, ya mayores. Así dije, “Déjame irme para Puerto Rico a estar junto con ellos,” y decidí venirme para acá hace ya como 12 años que estoy acá. Estoy en Caguas. Estoy tranquilo. Estoy disfrutándome mis viejos, estoy junto aquí. Y extraño mucho todavía porque yo estaba metido -- yo, en un tiempo, estuve hasta en 10 organizaciones a la misma vez y trabajando en todas los diferentes cosas, y ahora no estoy haciendo nada. 0 1366 Relationship between the Latino Community and the LGBTQ Community in the Lehigh Valley / Being Latino LM: ¿Cómo usted vio la relación entre la comunidad latina y la comunidad LGBTQ aquí en Lehigh Valley cuando usted estaba aquí trabajando con estos dos aspectos, con estos dos --?
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 ; FM: Bueno. Yo la vi bien. No sé si era que a mí -- yo me di a respetar mucho. Yo en todos los sitios me hacía respetar y todo el mundo sabía que yo era gay. O sea, yo iba y puse la parada, puse que estaba la carroza gay, teníamos el día gay, que íbamos a la discoteca, que íbamos y salíamos y todas las cosas. Y la gente latina se ponían así, pero no se atrevían de frente a insultar o nada ; sencillamente aceptaban. Yo sabía que detrás a veces pasaba sus cositas, pero entonces cuando yo llegaba, todo se arreglaba, todo estaba tranquilo. Peaches and cream. No había ningún problema. Estaba todo bien y, no, los aceptamos, y están todos bien y seguimos lo más bien. 0 1598 Reacting to Discrimination LM: Si le puedo preguntar, ¿cómo usted manejó, manejaba, maneja ese discrimen? ¿Cómo lo maneja?
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 ; FM: Bueno, es que yo no me creo ni más, pero tampoco menos que nadie. Y yo hago que me respeten por lo que yo soy. Y yo sencillamente digo, “Tú tienes que valorarme por lo que -- conóceme y después me hablas. Y vamos a vernos y yo hago frente a lo que sea.” Como que me vean y, no es que me imponga, pero hago que me respeten. Tú puede ser que no me quieras o puede ser que no te interese que yo esté aquí, pero vas a tener que aceptarme. Como una canción vieja que decía que no importa cómo me veas, pero vas a tener que amarme. Pues, sí, haga lo que haga, vas a tener que amarme, porque yo no voy para ningún lado. Me vas a tener que aceptar de una forma o de otra. 0 1676 Lessons Learned from Father LM: Estoy yendo un poco para atrás. ¿Cómo usted llegó de hablar en la parada gay en Nueva York a tomar todos estos roles de liderazgo en la comunidad aquí?
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 ; FM: Yo creo que mi padre es bien hablador y es sumamente un líder como tal. Y él me enseñó mucho eso. Él era el Santa Claus de la ciudad. Como éramos cuatro hermanos, tenía una guagua y siempre montaba a todos los muchachos y les llevaba y nos llevaba a la bolera y pagaba con todo el mundo, nos llevaba a comer a todo el mundo. Si estábamos haciendo la feria de la ciudad, buscaba chavos para hacer la catedral. Y eso era todos los años. 0 1814 Getting the Anti-Discrimination Law Passed in Allentown LM: Quería preguntarle un poquito más sobre la ordenanza de antidiscriminación. ¿Puede dar un poco de detalle de qué diría usted que fue lo que logró que esa ordenanza se diera y cómo fue ese proceso?
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 ; FM: Si se hubiera mantenido el city council que estaba cuando se introdujo la primera vez, no hubiera pasado nada. Fue que la ciudad cambió ; la gente de la ciudad pidieron ese cambio. Y lo pidieron de una tal forma que también cambiaron a la gente que estaban en puestos dentro del city council, botaron a todos los que estaban en su forma retrógrada y pusieron entonces a unas personas mucho más avanzadas y pusieron directamente -- estaba Candida estaba dentro de la misma city council. Abiertamente una persona gay. 0 1940 What Can Still Be Done for the LGBTQ+ Community LM: Y pensando en ahora, ¿hay algo que usted sienta que hay que hacer?
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 ; FM: Bueno, creo que debe ser -- yo ahora mismo no estoy muy enterado si ya es una ley federal el no discrimen contra los gais, pero debe ser federal. Creo que todavía, lo tuvimos ahora mismo con Trump, los white supremacists siguen y están avanzados completamente. Y lo que más reivindican, lo que más quieren hacer ellos es dividir y conquistar. Y lo hacen con las minorías más que pueden y con lo que pueden hacer directamente. Y lo vemos que tenemos que aumentar la división de la iglesia y el estado. Sencillamente la iglesia, muchas iglesias, están creciendo por ahí fomentado la desunión, fomentando que esto es algo inmoral, que esto es algo directamente del Demonio y el Demonio va a eliminar a Estados Unidos y va a eliminar todas cosas porque no se están haciendo las cosas como tiene que ser. 0 2086 Being Gay in Puerto Rico LM: Pensando en Puerto Rico, ¿cómo fue para usted ser un niño de 10 años fuera del closet en Puerto Rico si puedo preguntarle para atrás un poquito?
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 ; FM: Como mismo te dije, como yo me hacía dar a respetar, yo fui el presidente de mi clase. Todo el mundo lo sabía. Yo era el presidente de la clase, yo fui el presidente de pequeño, estaba llamando a todos los sitios. Fui la primera persona que en un colegio católico de Caguas hice una huelga porque estaban no dejando entrar a unos de nuestros compañeros porque fueron a darle una serenata a unas muchachas en retiro y ellos la pusieron -- entonces, después de que lo que faltaba era un mes para acabarse las clases de cuarto año, querían eliminarlos y no graduarlos. 0 2203 Being Gay in Puerto Rico versus the Lehigh Valley LM: ¿Cómo usted compara ser un hombre gay en Puerto Rico ahora y en el Lehigh Valley?
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 ; FM: Fíjate, aquí los dirigentes están más con los gais. Tienen a los católicos, a los religiosos en contra diciendo que se van a ir al Infierno. Está un nuevo partido, que puso ahora uno o dos -- hay dos senadores puestos. Pero están mucho más aceptados ahora mismo en todas las cosas. Aun en la televisión, en todos los sitios. Aunque de vez en cuando, salen sus peleas y sus negaciones, pero es mucho más aceptado, es mucho más visto, mucho más querido. Y creo que en el Lehigh Valley era lo mismo. 0 2346 Working in Biological Sciences FM: Bueno, yo en el Lehigh Valley, lo de la parada y lo de Human Relations, eso eran mis pasatiempos, como yo decía. Mi trabajo fue directamente dentro del laboratorio. Yo trabajé en el University of Penn, trabajé en Lehigh University, trabajé en OraSure. Trabajé con Biological, trabajé haciendo todas las cuestiones en biología. Y me decían cómo era que yo podía poner la ciencia y estar mirando a la gente. 0 2418 Attending the Presidents’ Summit FM: También, cuando pasó lo de Presidents’ Summit, que estaba Bush, Clinton, y todos esos, fui uno de los representantes de Lehigh Valley. Estuve en Pensilvania representando a los latinos de Lehigh Valley. Fue una experiencia bastante grande. Conocí a mucha gente allí. Y todo fue directamente, o sea, allí, una de las personas que conocí que me gustó mucho su forma de ser fue Barbara Bush. 0 2494 Fighting for Other’s Rights FM: Estuve con la comunidad dominicana. Me dieron también una placa presumiendo de que los ayudé bastante a ellos, de que ellos no tenían quién levantar a la bandera ni la bandera dominicana en la ciudad y que no les daban permiso. Y yo luché por ellos para que le dieran el permiso de que levantaran la bandera directamente allí. Tuve buenas relaciones con los peruanos, tuve unas buenas relaciones con... Sencillamente, yo no me limitaba nada más a los puertorriqueños ; eran latinos, gais, o cualquier persona que sufriera directamente una discriminación por parte de alguna persona de que no querían hablar, lo hacía. 0 2622 Closing Remarks LM: Última pregunta: ¿sabe o piensa que hay alguna otra persona en la comunidad LGBT en el Lehigh Valley que deberíamos nosotros entrevistar para nuestro proyecto de historia oral? 
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 ; FM: Yo te diría si quieres buscar de gente de lo que está pasando ahora, lo nuevo, mi sobrino sería bueno para esas personas. Porque él sabe lo que está pasando ahora directamente dentro del círculo social, cultural y, junto con todo lo demás, laboral y todas las cosas juntos. Y él es abiertamente gay. O sea, él sabe lo que está pasando frente a la demás gente y está trabajando en el school district y sabe las penalidades que conlleva eso, está directamente dentro de él. 0 MovingImage Felix Molina recalls his early life growing up in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico, fighting against Latino discrimination and for non-discrimination laws in the Lehigh Valley, and creating space for the Latino community. INTERVIEW WITH FELIX MOLINA FEBRUARY 22, 2022 LAURA MERCEDES: My name is Laura Mercedes, and I am here with Felix Molina to talk about his life and experiences in LGBT organizations in the Lehigh Valley as part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT community oral history project. Our project has funding from the American Council of Learned Societies, and we are meeting on Zoom on February 22nd, 2022. Thank you so much for your willingness to speak with us today, Felix. To start, can you please state your full name and spell it for me? Félix, gracias por estar aquí hoy. Para comenzar, por favor ¿puede decirme su nombre, apellido y deletrearlos? FELIX MOLINA: Okey, mi nombre es Félix Molina. Mi nombre es F-E-L-I-X, Molina, M-O-L-I-N-A. LM: ¿Me puede dar, por favor, su fecha de nacimiento? FM: Tres, tres del '62. LM: Preguntarte consentimiento. ¿Da su consentimiento a completar esta entrevista hoy? FM: Sí. LM: ¿Da su consentimiento a que esta entrevista sea transcrita, digitalizada y publicada en línea en formatos buscables? FM: Sí. LM: ¿Da su consentimiento a que el archivo LGBT utilice su entrevista para propósitos educativos, incluyendo películas, artículos, páginas webs, presentaciones y otros formatos? FM: Sí. LM: ¿Entiende que tendrá 30 días luego del envío electrónico de la transcripción para revisar la entrevista, identificar partes que desee eliminar, y/o retirar en su totalidad la entrevista del proyecto? FM: Sí. LM: Muy bien. Pues, para comenzar, ¿me puede contar sobre los primeros años de su vida y describir su niñez? FM: Bueno, yo nací en Río Piedras, que ahora pertenece a San Juan, aquí en Puerto Rico. Tuve una niñez muy feliz. Desde pequeñito, sabía que era gay. Como a los 10 años, 10 a 12 años, trataron de sobornarme ; me dijeron que tenía que pagar dinero, si no, le iban a decir a mi familia que yo era gay. Yo dije, "Pues no, yo no voy a pagar nada, así que yo se lo diré a mi familia." Me senté con mi familia -- nosotros siempre comíamos todos juntos -- y les dije, "Bueno, quiero decirles algo: yo soy gay. Si me aceptan, bien, y si no, pues seguiré, pero yo no voy a cambiar mi vida por nadie. Éste soy yo, así que está bien." Mis papás me dijeron, "Eres nuestro hijo, comoquiera te queremos." Mi hermano me dijo que ya lo sabía. Quedamos así más o menos. Así que desde esa edad, ya todo el mundo -- yo había salido del closet y había hablado con ellos. A los 18 años, tengo mi primer novio. Mi mamá, molestándome, me decía, "Tú, aquí, hablando todo el tiempo por teléfono. Y cuando él termina de hablar por teléfono, sabrá Dios si él se va por allí por las calles buscando y estando con otras personas y todo." Y yo, "Pues yo me voy." "No te puedes ir a menos que se lo digas a tu abuela." Y digo, "Eso es fácil." Salimos de compras y le digo a mi abuela, "Mira, abuela, cómprame estas sábanas king." Y ella, "Pero ¿cómo king si la cama tuya es twin?" "Ay, es que se me había olvidado. Es que voy a mudarme para casa de unos amigos, y tenemos una cama king." Y ella, "Ah, pues sí, pues yo te la compro si necesitas." Yo dije, "Venga -- se lo dije así -- definitivamente mañana me mudo." Y de ahí, me mudé a los 19 años, me mudé de casa. Me fui a vivir con mi amigo, era mayor que yo. Estuvimos viviendo por 12 años. Cuando tenía como 25, yo estaba ahora con una amiga mía, se llamaba Christina Hayworth. Era bien conocida aquí en Puerto Rico. Ella fue la que fundó la parada gay aquí en Puerto Rico. Le invitan a ella y a mí a representar a Puerto Rico en la parada gay de Nueva York. Mi primo estaba enfermo con SIDA en ese tiempo y yo fui entonces para allá para verlo a él y participar de la parada. Y me pusieron en el station, me dieron el micrófono para que hablara. Y dije, "Bueno, parece mentira de que yo tuve que venir de Puerto Rico a visitar a mi primo, que él tiene tantos amigos aquí, y ninguno habéis ido a visitarle al hospital, teniendo tanto miedo por esta enfermedad que nos está afectando además a muchos de todos nosotros. Tenemos que dejar el miedo y venir y estar nuevamente juntos como hermanos que somos y hacernos procurar uno con el otro." La verdad es que fue un orgullo para mí estar en la parada gay en New York y estar en la tarima. Fue una experiencia bien grande para mí. En eso, a los 30, nos dejamos mi amante y yo ; nos separamos. Y yo dije, "Puerto Rico es muy pequeño para nosotros dos estar aquí separados," así que me mudé para Estados Unidos. Me fui para Pensilvania. Allí llegué a New Hope. De New Hope, conocí a una persona que vivía en Bethlehem. Voy para Bethlehem y ahí entonces -- bueno, mi primer amante era ruso. Era ruso. En Bethlehem conozco a un puertorriqueño. Y entonces tuve que ir a Estados Unidos a conocer a un puertorriqueño que fuera entonces a estar conmigo. Estuvimos juntos por 13 años. Pasamos los sinsabores. Cuando llegué a Bethlehem, me di cuenta de que a los puertorriqueños los maltrataban. Definitivamente, discriminaban mucho por los acentos y por qué eras. Pero, más que todo, los mismos puertorriqueños discriminaban más a los puertorriqueños. Yo estaba en una tienda de espejuelos y había una -- yo estaba en la parte de atrás y vino una señora, "Ah, estas personas deben ponerles otro sitio de que estén esperando, que no pueden estar al lado de uno, que si esto y lo otro, que si me están haciendo -- yo estoy muy nerviosa aquí." Y la gerente dijo, "¿Él la ha molestado en algo?" Y ella, "No, pero su presencia nada más me molesta, y esto y lo otro, que no voy a estar si no, pues que yo no vengo más aquí." "Pues si no quiere venir, no venga, pero él está muy bien y lo vamos a atender a él." Voy, se lo digo a mi amigo, y en vez de darme la razón, me dice, "Sabrá Dios si tú estabas gritando o con la voz tuya intimidaste. Está tu forma de ser, que esto y lo otro." Pero la verdad es que nosotros mismos nos tiramos a nosotros mismos. Yo no dije nada, yo no estuve haciendo nada y hasta la misma gerente de la tienda lo vio. O sea que definitivamente no fue que yo estaba haciendo absolutamente nada malo. De ahí, estoy como presidente -- me eligieron. Estaba entonces trabajando en la -- bueno, me fui a trabajar con recycling a traducir todos los papeles de la ciudad al español porque vi entonces la necesidad de que estuvieran las cosas en español. Ahí vino la gran ordenanza de que todo tenía que ser en inglés. Yo estuve peleando bastante con Tropiano y con mi amigo Julio Guridy porque él no hizo nada para quitarla. Él decía, "Algunas ordenanzas están muertas, ¿para qué pelear por allí?" Y le digo, "Porque definitivamente es injusto que esté diciendo que tiene que ser todo en inglés cuando más el porciento de aquí, que hay gente aquí, es en español, y no lo conocen. Así que, yo considero que tú deberías hacer algo para eliminarla," lo que nunca hizo. Cuando estuvimos trabajando con eso, me seguí involucrando en las diferentes agencias y caí dentro de la Human Relations Commission. Estuve entonces como representante y en un tiempo entonces fui el presidente de Human Relations. Y estábamos recibiendo ordenanzas directamente para -- lo que bregábamos era más con los del housing y las cosas. Y venían y decían -- en una creyeron que yo iba a decir que no, que estaba mal la gente, que había que autorizar a los latinos estar con la música en alto y todas las cosas. Y digo, "No, no, no. Eso está mal hecho y los latinos, se supone, tienen que respetar al vecino y tienen que bajar los volúmenes, todas las cosas." Y en eso, me hice un poco más susceptible de que si ellos creían que yo porque era latino iba a estar en todo de acuerdo a los latinos, y a todo lo que no era latino iba a estar en contra. De ahí, empezaron entonces para hacerse las ordenanzas de incluir como discrimen a los gais y todo dentro de la ordenanza en Allentown. El consejo no quiso aceptar nada. Y una de las cosas que yo le dije -- o sea, estaban discutiendo si era legal o si era un animal doméstico o si era un animal de granja un cerdo. Y yo dije, "¿Para ustedes es más importante adivinar eso pero no le dan la importancia de que una persona que sea gay pueda tener sus derechos para estar viviendo aquí?" Y eso salió bastante reluciendo en el Morning Call porque después que estuvimos -- nos dejaron hablar por un tiempo en el City Hall porque por ley nos tenían que dejar hablar. Que una vez que terminamos de hablar, empezaron y cambiaron el tema y como si no hubiéramos dicho nada. O sea, nos trataron como nada. De ahí, se fue bastante tiempo. Cambió el City Hall, cambiaron los miembros del city council, y pudimos introducir nuevamente la ordenanza. Y esta vez, sí, pasó por los miembros que estaban y fue un éxito. En ese tiempo estuve también como presidente de -- bueno, antes de ser presidente de la parada puertorriqueña, estaba como miembro. Y había mucho desorden después que se acababa la parada, porque había parada por la Hamilton, parábamos en la -- en aquel día, hacíamos una -- tocaban unas fiestas y unas cosas y esto y lo otro, y ya a las cuatro se paraba de cantazo y todo el mundo para su casa. Y estaban ya todo la gente con la ansia revuelta y lo que hacían era que empezaron entonces a revolucionar los carros y estar caminando y gritando porque querían más fiesta y todo. Y no se hacía más nada. Y tuvimos bastantes problemas porque decían que se iba a eliminar. Los antiguos miembros de la parada dijeron que como castigo a los puertorriqueños, iban a parar la parada un año. Y dije, "No. A los puertorriqueños no se les tienen que castigar. Y si se para por un año, va a ser más difícil para volver poder a hacerla nuevamente." Así que, ahí hicimos elecciones nuevamente y yo salí como presidente. Y dije, "No, lo que vamos a hacer es que vamos a proporcionar un sitio donde puedan sacar esa energía y quitarla." Ahí hicimos entonces la parada y un festival luego de la parada. Una de las cosas que me insistieron mucho fue que incluyera cerveza dentro del festival. Y dije, "No. Nosotros no necesitamos más para hacernos, así que va a ser sin cerveza, va a ser sin alcohol. Y vamos tener el mejor festival latino sin alcohol y de mucha gente." La primera vez que pusimos las solicitudes para quienes querían entrar, una de las primeras que nos trajo la solicitud fue Bradbury del grupo gay poniendo entonces, okey, que querían participar. Y yo, "Pues claro." Y nos presentamos en el comité y el comité todo el mundo dijo que sí, que aceptaba, "exactamente así vamos a hacerlo, vamos a tenerlo." Y estaba Diamonz, estaba Stonewall, estaba Candida y todo el mundo. Incluyendo la press, estuvieron todos participando. Hicimos una semana cultural, en la cual estábamos un día en el club puertorriqueño, otro día en una bolera. E hicimos entonces un día que era gay dentro de la semana cultural, los gais latinos, e íbamos a Stonewall e íbamos a Candida o íbamos a Diamonz y se hacía entonces la noche cultural. La noche cultural dentro de todo se ponía gay. Y fue una aceptación bastante buena de la misma comunidad latina directamente hacia la comunidad gay. Para colmo, estuvimos en un tiempo cuando íbamos a hacer la parada, nos paró el alcalde, dijo que teníamos que pagar la policía anticipadamente. Pero siempre le hemos pagado luego. Se hace la parada y de ahí cuando se recoge el dinero, se paga. "No, esta vez, si no me das los chavos ahora mismo, no tienes parada." Y da la casualidad que la que vino enseguida a nuestra defensa fue Sullivan y nos dio un cheque de 3,000 dólares para que hiciéramos la parada. Y dijo, "Pues aquí están los chavos." "Ah, ¿ustedes se unen con esa gente?" "Pues, mira, bastante bueno que soy, y quiere eliminarnos, aquí están los chavos, así que vamos con la parada." Entonces, él mismo quería unirse con el centro. Estaba un grupo de la unión y yo la había puesto diferente. Los políticos siempre iban al frente solos y cada uno iban aparte. Y él cogió a los de la unión, "No, no, no, yo los quiero a ustedes al lado mío, se vienen conmigo." Y yo, "La unión va atrás, donde yo los puse." "Ah, el alcalde me dijo a mí que yo iba a ir acá." Y yo, "El alcalde no es el que manda en esta parada -- el que manda en esta parada soy yo. Yo soy el presidente y ustedes van allí atrás o se van de la parada. Una de las dos deciden." Así que se quedaron en la parte de atrás y fue todo -- removió directamente todo. Tuvimos un buen éxito, se dio una parada bastante bien, llegaron hasta casi en un tiempo -- nos contaron [inaudible] entrando y saliendo de eso que así una parada que estuvo Andy Montañez. Vinieron casi 10 mil a 12 mil personas. Y fue una parada -- estaban todos bien contentos, recibimos bastantes anuncios de que era una parada que no tenía licor y que venía tanta gente celebrando con nosotros. Estaba Kutztown, la gente de Kutztown, el grupo latino, tenían las piraguas, venían muchos artesanos, el gobierno de Puerto Rico nos mandaba artesanos. Teníamos a diferentes pintores y todo directamente allí, había bastante comida. Todo salió bien de las cosas, estuvo A-Treat, nos servía con todo los refrescos. Y aun así, la Budweiser, aunque no bebía -- mandábamos cerveza, durante la semana se podía usar, ellos siempre nos compraban anuncios y nos mandaba para celebrar directamente cuando estábamos en la semana cultural, se mandaba. O sea que aunque no estábamos directamente, ellos siempre estuvieron con nosotros aun así, aunque no usábamos ningún alcohol directamente en la parada. Durante estaba en eso, cambié a PSLC, Pennsylvania Statewide Latino Coalition. Y ahí tuvimos unos guardias de Pensilvania, de Filadelfia, atacaron a un latino y le apretaron tanto la medalla en el pecho que se la incrustaron dentro del pecho y lo mataron. Y cuando fuimos a ver -- eso fue en Shenandoah. La cosa era mucho más mala de lo que parecía. Estaba dentro la policía, la gente de la policía, el juez, el alcalde. Todos estaban incluidos dentro de esa trama en contra de los latinos. Y los White Supremacy estaban dentro. Cuando nosotros vamos, vamos en un grupo, esto y lo otro, estaban detrás de nosotros persiguiéndonos. Yo me eché a reír en una porque ellos se estaban escondiendo y tratando de mirar para dónde yo me había ido y yo había corrido por la parte de atrás y yo estaba ahora detrás de ellos. Yo les dije, "Hola." Y cuando miraron y me vieron atrás, dieron un brinco. "Ah, ¿qué usted está haciendo aquí? Que usted no puede venir aquí sin pedir permiso." Y yo digo, "Que yo sepa, esto es Estados Unidos y es un país libre, así que yo puedo venir." Y el mismo representante, el council viene y me dice a mí lo mismo. Y da la casualidad que me lo dice frente al agente federal. El agente federal le dije, "Déjeme unas palabritas con usted, porque aquí no hay que pedir permiso para venir a su ciudad y esta no es su ciudad ; esto es ciudad de Estados Unidos y vamos a chequear." Estuvieron haciendo las investigaciones necesarias y da la casualidad que la persona que había matado al hispano era nieto del juez. Y los que estaban cubriendo todo, el policía y el jefe de la policía y todo, todos fueron arrestados. Todos fueron completamente. El juez, todos. Y el alcalde, todos se fueron completamente y se llevaron. Pero yo recibí bastantes cartas de los White Supremacy, que me estaban velando, que yo estaba organizando a los latinos y organizando a la gente, que no podían hacer cosas, que me estaban velando, que me tuviera mucho cuidado. Y yo digo, "Mi dirección es pública, todo es público, así que lo que ustedes quieran hacer, lo pueden hacer. Aquí estoy." Y me mandaron cartas. Las tuve que mandar al FBI para que chequearan lo que estaba pasando. Pero todo estuvo bien. Nunca me hicieron nada, así que estaba todo bien. De ahí, estuve un tiempo trabajando en diferentes casos de daños civiles a los latinos y también a los que no eran latinos, solamente eran prejuicios sencillamente porque eran pobres o porque eran gais. Y estuve bastante con una compañía de abogados. De ahí, me dije, "Okey, ya está bien de tantas cosas." Me vine para -- mis padres estaban un poco más enfermos, ya mayores. Así dije, "Déjame irme para Puerto Rico a estar junto con ellos," y decidí venirme para acá hace ya como 12 años que estoy acá. Estoy en Caguas. Estoy tranquilo. Estoy disfrutándome mis viejos, estoy junto aquí. Y extraño mucho todavía porque yo estaba metido -- yo, en un tiempo, estuve hasta en 10 organizaciones a la misma vez y trabajando en todas los diferentes cosas, y ahora no estoy haciendo nada. Ahora lo que me paso es haciendo rompecabezas o viendo películas, todo tranquilo. O sea, ha sido algo bastante diferente a lo que hacía antes. Pero esa ha sido más o menos mi vida en cortas palabras ahí diferente. Y sí, aun así, si veo cualquier discrimen, nunca me quedo callado, ni me quedaré. Siempre lo seguiré haciendo y les deseo la mejor de la suerte a todo lo que ustedes están haciendo. Muchas gracias. ¿Si tiene alguna pregunta? LM: Gracias, sí. ¿Le puedo hacer alguna pregunta? FM: Sí. LM: ¿Cómo usted vio la relación entre la comunidad latina y la comunidad LGBTQ aquí en Lehigh Valley cuando usted estaba aquí trabajando con estos dos aspectos, con estos dos --? FM: Bueno. Yo la vi bien. No sé si era que a mí -- yo me di a respetar mucho. Yo en todos los sitios me hacía respetar y todo el mundo sabía que yo era gay. O sea, yo iba y puse la parada, puse que estaba la carroza gay, teníamos el día gay, que íbamos a la discoteca, que íbamos y salíamos y todas las cosas. Y la gente latina se ponían así, pero no se atrevían de frente a insultar o nada ; sencillamente aceptaban. Yo sabía que detrás a veces pasaba sus cositas, pero entonces cuando yo llegaba, todo se arreglaba, todo estaba tranquilo. Peaches and cream. No había ningún problema. Estaba todo bien y, no, los aceptamos, y están todos bien y seguimos lo más bien. LM: Hablo un poco desde el punto de vista de la comunidad latina, ¿cómo era ser un hombre latino en la comunidad LGBTQ aquí? FM: Era bien discriminante. Me veían como que "ah, tú eres un latino. Tú no tienes razón de estar aquí metido." Muchas veces me pasó en Candida. Sencillamente, me veían como un extraño, de "¿por qué tú estás aquí metido? Tú no eres -- nosotros somos aquí -- los americanos somos los que mandamos. Ustedes no tienen de eso, tú tienes que estar escondido en la esquina o afuera y no frente a nosotros. Nosotros somos los que te decimos qué tienes que hacer y dónde hacerlo." Y eso sí me encontré mucho. En las barritas chiquitas, así pasaba. Fuera de Allentown y Bethlehem, para los Poconos, había muchas barritas que había que tener miedo para entrar. O sea, te decían claramente, "No te queremos aquí, ni porque eres latino ni porque eres gay. Fuera de aquí y no te vamos a atender. No te vamos a hacer nada. Lárgate de aquí." Y era bien fea. No podías hacer absolutamente nada porque estábamos en su territorio. Pero yo sabía que para Bethlehem o Allentown yo tenía las de ganar, pero si me iba para fuera, para los Poconos, pues yo las que tenía era las de perder, estaba fuera de mi ambiente. Así que me aguantaba, y sabiendo dónde hacer las luchas que tenía que hacerlas. Pero, sí, la comunidad gay Allentown y Bethlehem eran bien reticente de aceptar a otra gente. Máxime, los gais blancos, rubios se creen que se lo merecen todo. Son bonitillos y esto y lo otro, y sencillamente no aceptan a otros que no sean igual que ellos, de ojos azules y todo lo demás. Discriminan mucho con los latinos como tal. Aunque sean gais también. LM: Si le puedo preguntar, ¿cómo usted manejó, manejaba, maneja ese discrimen? ¿Cómo lo maneja? FM: Bueno, es que yo no me creo ni más, pero tampoco menos que nadie. Y yo hago que me respeten por lo que yo soy. Y yo sencillamente digo, "Tú tienes que valorarme por lo que -- conóceme y después me hablas. Y vamos a vernos y yo hago frente a lo que sea." Como que me vean y, no es que me imponga, pero hago que me respeten. Tú puede ser que no me quieras o puede ser que no te interese que yo esté aquí, pero vas a tener que aceptarme. Como una canción vieja que decía que no importa cómo me veas, pero vas a tener que amarme. Pues, sí, haga lo que haga, vas a tener que amarme, porque yo no voy para ningún lado. Me vas a tener que aceptar de una forma o de otra. LM: Estoy yendo un poco para atrás. ¿Cómo usted llegó de hablar en la parada gay en Nueva York a tomar todos estos roles de liderazgo en la comunidad aquí? FM: Yo creo que mi padre es bien hablador y es sumamente un líder como tal. Y él me enseñó mucho eso. Él era el Santa Claus de la ciudad. Como éramos cuatro hermanos, tenía una guagua y siempre montaba a todos los muchachos y les llevaba y nos llevaba a la bolera y pagaba con todo el mundo, nos llevaba a comer a todo el mundo. Si estábamos haciendo la feria de la ciudad, buscaba chavos para hacer la catedral. Y eso era todos los años. Yo cuando niño, me acuerdo que me dieron un libro que era la parada de la iglesia y me dieron la Biblia para que la aguantara. Y como no venían a buscarla, yo cogí, abrí la Biblia, y seguí caminando al frente de todo el mundo y, "Ay, mira, qué lindo, el nene de la Biblia." Y era yo, sencillamente porque no me dijeron más nada, pues seguí caminando al frente de todo el mundo y yo con la Biblia entonces. Y desde ahí, pusieron "el nene de la Biblia." Entonces, caminando siempre al frente de la parada. Pero yo creo que sí, es más siguiendo los pasos de mi padre, directamente, en la parte de ser jefe, de ser -- ¿cómo es? -- un cacique no indio dentro de la parada. LM: Quería preguntarle un poquito más sobre la ordenanza de antidiscriminación. ¿Puede dar un poco de detalle de qué diría usted que fue lo que logró que esa ordenanza se diera y cómo fue ese proceso? FM: Si se hubiera mantenido el city council que estaba cuando se introdujo la primera vez, no hubiera pasado nada. Fue que la ciudad cambió ; la gente de la ciudad pidieron ese cambio. Y lo pidieron de una tal forma que también cambiaron a la gente que estaban en puestos dentro del city council, botaron a todos los que estaban en su forma retrógrada y pusieron entonces a unas personas mucho más avanzadas y pusieron directamente -- estaba Candida estaba dentro de la misma city council. Abiertamente una persona gay. O sea que cogieron y cambiaron directamente el cuerpo -- la gente de Allentown cambió su mentalidad hacia una mentalidad mucho más avanzado y dijeron, "No, esto ya tiene que acabar, esto tiene que ser." Y creo que mucha gente lo hacían porque se educó de que ellos creían que -- al principio, decían de que eso no hacía falta porque eso estaba ya incluido. Ya cuando se les enseñó que eso no estaba incluido. Lo pensaban, pero todavía podía traer y hacer el discrimen porque no era una ley. Mucha gente decía, "Ah, no. Entonces, la quiero, sí, está bien. Entonces, quiero hacer ese cambio." Y se produjo entonces. Directamente, vino la gente a hablar y esta vez sí se escuchó y se hizo el cambio. LM: Y pensando en ahora, ¿hay algo que usted sienta que hay que hacer? FM: Bueno, creo que debe ser -- yo ahora mismo no estoy muy enterado si ya es una ley federal el no discrimen contra los gais, pero debe ser federal. Creo que todavía, lo tuvimos ahora mismo con Trump, los white supremacists siguen y están avanzados completamente. Y lo que más reivindican, lo que más quieren hacer ellos es dividir y conquistar. Y lo hacen con las minorías más que pueden y con lo que pueden hacer directamente. Y lo vemos que tenemos que aumentar la división de la iglesia y el estado. Sencillamente la iglesia, muchas iglesias, están creciendo por ahí fomentado la desunión, fomentando que esto es algo inmoral, que esto es algo directamente del Demonio y el Demonio va a eliminar a Estados Unidos y va a eliminar todas cosas porque no se están haciendo las cosas como tiene que ser. Y debemos saber que eso no es lo que dice en la Biblia, y que tenemos que estar -- yo soy muy religioso. Yo voy siempre a la iglesia. Y eso no es lo que dice en la Biblia. Tenemos que aceptar la división de iglesia y estado y tenemos que ponernos juntos a crear que esa gente no entren en el poder, como tengo miedo de que vaya a pasar en el '24. Sencillamente juntos nuevamente vaya a pasar, porque están bien adentro y tienen unas mentalidades bien retrógradas y solamente piensan en pajaritos preñados y no hacen absolutamente nada por el bien del pueblo. Creen que ellos se lo merecen y que ellos son los que lo saben todo lo tiene que ser para el pueblo. LM: Pensando en Puerto Rico, ¿cómo fue para usted ser un niño de 10 años fuera del closet en Puerto Rico si puedo preguntarle para atrás un poquito? FM: Como mismo te dije, como yo me hacía dar a respetar, yo fui el presidente de mi clase. Todo el mundo lo sabía. Yo era el presidente de la clase, yo fui el presidente de pequeño, estaba llamando a todos los sitios. Fui la primera persona que en un colegio católico de Caguas hice una huelga porque estaban no dejando entrar a unos de nuestros compañeros porque fueron a darle una serenata a unas muchachas en retiro y ellos la pusieron -- entonces, después de que lo que faltaba era un mes para acabarse las clases de cuarto año, querían eliminarlos y no graduarlos. Y quedamos en acuerdo de que ellos se graduaran, que no pasaran por la graduación, pero que tenían que graduarse y tenían que coger los exámenes. Y quedamos en ese acuerdo, y yo levanté entonces a la gente. Pero todo el mundo nos sentamos al frente del portón y no dejábamos que pasara ningún carro, dejar ni nadie ni nada. No podían entrar. Y eso me costó la medalla del pensamiento del estudiante. Pero me gustó más tener a mis amigos, en su posición, que tener cualquier medalla que me hiciera tener que doblegar mis pensamientos de lo que realmente era verdad para nuestra comunidad. LM: ¿Cómo usted compara ser un hombre gay en Puerto Rico ahora y en el Lehigh Valley? FM: Fíjate, aquí los dirigentes están más con los gais. Tienen a los católicos, a los religiosos en contra diciendo que se van a ir al Infierno. Está un nuevo partido, que puso ahora uno o dos -- hay dos senadores puestos. Pero están mucho más aceptados ahora mismo en todas las cosas. Aun en la televisión, en todos los sitios. Aunque de vez en cuando, salen sus peleas y sus negaciones, pero es mucho más aceptado, es mucho más visto, mucho más querido. Y creo que en el Lehigh Valley era lo mismo. Lo único que, como te dije, la diferencia entre los white supremacists gais, los blanquitos de ojos azules, frente a los latinos y frente a la demás gente, y aquí no se encuentra eso sencillamente porque todos somos de diferentes colores y todas las cosas. Aquí lo que tiene es que el que tiene el cuerpo mejor y va mucho a la playa y hace ejercicio y esto y lo otro, a todos nosotros que somos gorditos nos tiran para el lado. Pero con eso no se puede hacer más nada. A mí me gusta comer y yo no voy a dejar de comer para que alguien me quiera. Si me quieren, que me quieran así -- gordito. Si no, que no me quieran. LM: Estamos ya llegando al final. No sé si haya algo que no haya dicho que quiera decir, algo de lo cual quiere hablar o que quiera expandir sobre su trabajo en Lehigh Valley, sobre su historia, sobre lo que usted quiera. FM: Bueno, yo en el Lehigh Valley, lo de la parada y lo de Human Relations, eso eran mis pasatiempos, como yo decía. Mi trabajo fue directamente dentro del laboratorio. Yo trabajé en el University of Penn, trabajé en Lehigh University, trabajé en OraSure. Trabajé con Biological, trabajé haciendo todas las cuestiones en biología. Y me decían cómo era que yo podía poner la ciencia y estar mirando a la gente. Yo no creo que hay una diferencia. Sencillamente, es la persona. O sea, la ciencia mira mucho lo que son los datos para tomar entonces tu decisión. Y con la gente es lo mismo. O sea, tú los tenías que mirar y tomar entonces tu decisión de cómo actuar frente a ellos y cómo seguirlos. Y yo tuve la dicha de que mis jefes siempre me dieron las oportunidades de que podía tener un horario flexible y podía hacer todas las cosas que yo quería aun teniendo entonces eso, estaba directamente. También, cuando pasó lo de Presidents' Summit, que estaba Bush, Clinton, y todos esos, fui uno de los representantes de Lehigh Valley. Estuve en Pensilvania representando a los latinos de Lehigh Valley. Fue una experiencia bastante grande. Conocí a mucha gente allí. Y todo fue directamente, o sea, allí, una de las personas que conocí que me gustó mucho su forma de ser fue Barbara Bush. Era tremenda persona, bien open mind. Tenía su forma de ser y cómo miraba las cosas y cómo miraba a la demás gente y cómo ella se pronunciaba. Creo que fue una de las personas que me impresionó bastante. Fui bastante junto con Ridge, el gobernador, Tom Ridge. Él fue el que me dio la placa de primer Latino Award de Pensilvania. También la tengo bastante bien. Tuve unas buenas relaciones con ellos, directamente bregando con los asuntos de latinos, bregando juntos con todas las cosas. Estuve con la comunidad dominicana. Me dieron también una placa presumiendo de que los ayudé bastante a ellos, de que ellos no tenían quién levantar a la bandera ni la bandera dominicana en la ciudad y que no les daban permiso. Y yo luché por ellos para que le dieran el permiso de que levantaran la bandera directamente allí. Tuve buenas relaciones con los peruanos, tuve unas buenas relaciones con... Sencillamente, yo no me limitaba nada más a los puertorriqueños ; eran latinos, gais, o cualquier persona que sufriera directamente una discriminación por parte de alguna persona de que no querían hablar, lo hacía. Tuve una vez en Filadelfia un pastelero que no le querían pagar los chavos, lo querían mantener fuera de que no querían darle el dinero porque supuestamente él renunció y se estaba yendo. Dije, "Pero si él te dio las dos semanas, entrenó a la persona que va a estar por él, ¿y no le quiere aun dar...?" "Ah, pero es que yo quería que él estuviera aquí por más tiempo." Y yo, "Pero es que él tiene un hijo que está muriéndose en su ciudad y él tiene que irse para allá. Así que tú le vas a pagar y se lo vas a pagar ahora." "Ah, pero que usted... Yo vine con la prensa." Y la prensa le dijo, "Yo no sabía que era con Félix que ibas a luchar, así que mejor que le pague porque yo con Félix no voy a luchar, así que te toca pagarle." Y, okey, pues le pagaron y se fue él directamente. O sea, fue bastante -- fueron muchas las luchas. Y me siento orgulloso de lo que pude hacer en defensa de las personas que estuve para yo lograrlo. LM: Nosotros estamos orgullosos de usted, y de todo lo que ha hecho. ¿Algo más que quiera añadir o alguna otra historia que quiera contar? FM: No por ahora. LM: Última pregunta: ¿sabe o piensa que hay alguna otra persona en la comunidad LGBT en el Lehigh Valley que deberíamos nosotros entrevistar para nuestro proyecto de historia oral? FM: Yo te diría si quieres buscar de gente de lo que está pasando ahora, lo nuevo, mi sobrino sería bueno para esas personas. Porque él sabe lo que está pasando ahora directamente dentro del círculo social, cultural y, junto con todo lo demás, laboral y todas las cosas juntos. Y él es abiertamente gay. O sea, él sabe lo que está pasando frente a la demás gente y está trabajando en el school district y sabe las penalidades que conlleva eso, está directamente dentro de él. LM: ¿Cuál es su nombre? FM: José Ángel Molina Agosto. LM: Gracias. Muchas gracias por su tiempo y por compartir, por abrirse a nosotros y contarnos su historia. Y gracias a todos por escuchar. Voy a darle pausa, no se vaya. Copyright for this oral history recording is held by the interview subject. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source. 0 /render.php?cachefile=
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00:45:18
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Felix Molina, February 22, 2022
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Felix Molina recalls his early life growing up in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico, fighting against Latino discrimination and for non-discrimination laws in the Lehigh Valley, and creating space for the Latino community.
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LGBT-26
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2022-02-22
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video
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and Archives
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and Archives
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The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
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Stories from LGBT Older Adults in the Lehigh Valley
Description
An account of the resource
This collection began in 2019 with the initial goal of collecting ten oral histories from older adult LGBT people in the Lehigh Valley. Topics explored include the childhood experiences of LGBT people, experiences within educational and religious institutions, coming out stories, understanding of the gay liberation movement (1960-1980s), experience of the early years of the AIDS epidemic and AIDS activism (1980s-present), and experience with the fight for marriage equality. The project has been a collaborative effort among faculty and librarians from Cedar Crest College, Lehigh University, Moravian College, Muhlenberg College, and members of the local community, under the direction of Dr. Mary Foltz, Associate Professor of English at Lehigh University and Co-Director of the South Side Initiative. <br /><br /><em> The project was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.</em>
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Foltz, Mary
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Whelan, Frank
OHMS Object
This field contains the OHMS Hyperlink (link to the XML file within the OHMS
Viewer)
https://trexlerworks.muhlenberg.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=LGBT-01.xml
Interview Keyword
This field adds keywords to the Omeka Oral History item type. Keywords are
included in the OHMS XML, this field in Omeka will allow for full data migration
between OHMS XML and the Omeka Record. This field does not impact the
OHMS / Omeka integration and is optional if you do not need to map the
“keywords” field in the OHMS XML to the corresponding Omeka record.
Le-Hi-Ho
OHMS Object Text
This field contains the OHMS Index and / or Transcript and is what makes the
contents of the OHMS object searchable in Omeka
5.4 July 23, 2019 Frank Whelan, July 23, 2019 LGBT-01 01:20:48 LVLGBT Stories from LGBT Older Adults in the Lehigh Valley Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository This oral history recording was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Le-Hi-Ho The Morning Call Lambda Center AIDS Whelan, Frank Foltz, Mary video/mov WhelanFrank_20190723_video.mov 1.0:|25(11)|54(5)|75(6)|98(18)|117(15)|142(10)|167(16)|196(2)|221(6)|244(2)|267(9)|294(8)|317(5)|340(13)|363(11)|386(8)|413(5)|440(7)|465(13)|494(9)|515(14)|546(4)|571(8)|592(13)|615(15)|640(2)|665(12)|690(16)|711(6)|736(16)|757(5)|784(6)|807(10)|830(8)|853(7)|876(5)|895(13)|918(17)|941(12)|964(9)|989(10)|1014(2)|1035(2)|1060(4)|1083(5)|1104(9)|1125(17)|1150(16)|1171(8)|1190(18)|1211(15)|1232(12)|1253(13)|1274(2)|1291(15)|1308(11)|1329(16)|1354(10)|1375(12)|1398(8)|1421(8)|1444(13)|1467(14)|1494(4)|1517(7)|1538(5)|1561(7)|1582(12)|1605(4)|1628(12)|1653(6)|1674(5)|1693(10)|1716(17)|1743(15)|1766(13)|1791(9)|1812(12)|1831(7)|1850(2)|1875(3) 0 YouTube video < ; iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Ncxuqg6zLeY?rel=0" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0"> ; < ; /iframe> ; 26 Interview Introductions MF: I’m Mary Foltz, I’m here with Frank Whelan to talk about his life and experiences in LGBT organizations in the Lehigh Valley as part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Oral History Project. And this project is sponsored by the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center and we are funded by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium. We are here in Frank and Bob’s home in Allentown and today is July 23rd, 2019. 0 93 Childhood / Family MF: Thank you. So, to really just start our conversation, I’m going to ask if you’d share a little bit about your childhood with us.
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 ; FW: Okay, I’ll fill you in as I can. I was born in Orange, New Jersey and I lived there only briefly. My parents got a chance to move to a home in Livingston, New Jersey, and in Livingston is where I actually grew up and spent most of my childhood life till I went off to college in 1969. I had a interesting early life. My parents were interesting people in a lot of ways. They were city people. 0 678 First Gay Experience / Schooling FW: Well, it was about that time when I was in, I guess, I was in Catholic grade school that I first got my first inklings about possibly being gay or whatever it was. I didn’t know. This was in somewhere between, like, the fourth or fifth grade. I had a friend, Martin, who I knew fairly well. He had some health problems and just they used to call a blue baby, as my mother used to say. And that was something that he had some, when he was born, he’d had some problems or his mother had had some problems with the pregnancy. But he was the first person I ever actually had contact with sexually. 0 1570 Encountering Gay Liberation Front FW: And in 1978, I graduated, I had gotten my master’s degree. In that interim, something happened that changed my life, totally. There was a man there, a young man who was working with me in the sociology department. He was a computer guy. He was married but he had been in the Air Force Academy and had left it because of some sort of cheating scandal or something like that. But he knew about computers, so he was handling the computers for this particular professor whose project I was working on. Gay Liberation Front 0 2101 Moving to the Lehigh Valley / The Morning Call FW: Meanwhile, my friend Walt Harrington had gotten a job here in Allentown with The Morning Call. And he was working very hard and got involved with the owner of the paper, was trying to change the paper. Paper in those days, in the early ’80s was really beginning to make a move, it was out of its provincialism. And the owner’s son was taking over and he hired Walt and a bunch of other people and they were doing really groundbreaking journalism stuff. The Morning Call 0 2308 Introduction to Le-Hi-Ho FW: Walt and I had a -- interesting relationship. But so, I did. I began to look in back about this local, this organization, this Le-Hi-Ho. I heard talk of it and I went to find out that a lot of these articles about Le-Hi-Ho and about the gay community were written by Bob Wittman. And so, one day, I went over to Bob and he was sitting at his desk and I said to him, “I see you’ve written a lot of articles about this Le-Hi-Ho organization.” And he said, “Yes?” And I said, “I’d like to get to meet these people, get to know these people. Barbara Gittings ; Le-Hi-Ho ; Paul Kendall ; Paul Reeder 0 2640 Beginning of Lambda Center / AIDS Services Committee/Center FW: But we got really interested in the gay things from there and Paul Kendall began the process of bringing forward the concept of the Lambda Center, a gay community center. He actually went on local television. He went on Channel 39 and they used to have a “Manager’s Chat,” they called it. And he came on and explained what this was about. AIDS Services Center ; AIDS Services Committee ; Lambda Center 0 3090 Inception of Le-Hi-Ho FW: One of the things I had not mentioned which I probably should had to do with the inception of Le-Hi-Ho. Now, I only know this because several years ago, about two years ago, Ron Seeds, who founded the Le-Hi-Ho, told me, sent me a letter. A fellow in New York named Dick Leitsch who was with the Mattachine Society, and Leitsch was very influential. Dick Leitsch ; Le-Hi-Ho ; Mattachine Society ; Paul Kendall ; Paul Reeder ; Ron Seeds 0 3269 More on AIDS Epidemic / Impact on Lambda Center & ; Le-Hi-Ho FW: So, now, have that on the record. Well, fast forward to 1984, ’83, ’84, and, of course, AIDS is now popping up. And this is the time period when a lot of people, wealthy individuals in the community who had lost their family members, in particular Ardath Rodale of the Rodale Press, her son, David, had died of AIDS and he had been in New York awhile and was very active in New York. AIDS Services Center ; AIDS Services Committee ; Brian Foley ; David Rodale ; Lambda Center 0 3835 Continuing LGBT Advocacy / Local Politics MF: So, what happens for you after Le-Hi-Ho closes its doors? 
 ; You’ve secured a place for the archive.
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 ; FW: Right.
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 ; MF: How do you continue to be involved?
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 ; FW: Well, I continue to be involved with consultations with writing about things about gays. I’m a little bit skittish about some things because, first of all, the younger people, I don’t want them to look that I’m interfering with them. I want to share this with you. So, this is something that -- the transition with Liz and Trish taking over the movement and basically, you know, they did -- excellent people, fantastic, what they did to getting the gay rights ordinance in Allentown. Allentown Anti-discrimination Ordinance ; Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center ; Liz Bradbury ; Trish Sullivan 0 4200 Issues at The Morning Call Regarding Pride MF: Okay, I’m back with Frank and we just sort of talked about Le-Hi-Ho and some of the other political organizations in the Lehigh Valley that were working on LGBT issues and some of the tension between different people in the sort of broader Lehigh Valley LGBT movement. I wanted to sort of ask you if you could expand a bit on maybe the kind of Pride scene in the Lehigh Valley because Pride became a major -- you know, Pride of the Greater Lehigh Valley became a major organization.
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 ; FW: Right.
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 ; MF: Could you share a little bit of your thoughts about that organization?
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 ; FW: Well, that organization was a great organization and I have no problem with it at all. It was great. You had those parades, we had those events that focused around Pride. We haven’t been to one in a while because, well, we just haven’t been. But we felt very much, well, this is the story, my story of Pride, what happened to me involved with Pride. Pride ; The Morning Call 0 MovingImage Frank Whelan recounts his life as a gay man, the LGBT organizations he was involved in, his work as a reporter for The Morning Call, and it's impact on the Lehigh Valley as well as his life. MARY FOLTZ: [It's gonna do just?] -- go ahead and press play. Or record, rather. FRANK WHELAN: Record, good. (laughter) MF: Okay. Oh, and I should just remind you, I'm going to ask you to say your name and spell your name. And it's Whelan? FW:Whelan, yes. MF:Whelan. And I'll ask for your birthday and then I'm going to just ask you to confirm that you -- all right, well, I'm Mary Foltz, I'm here with Frank Whelan to talk about his life and experiences in LGBT organizations in the Lehigh Valley as part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Oral History Project. And this project is sponsored by the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center and we are funded by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium. We are here in Frank and Bob's home in Allentown and today is July 23rd, 2019. Frank, thank you so much for your willingness to be here with us today to speak with me. I'm wondering if we could start? Could you please state your full name and spell it for me? FW: Certainly. My name is Frank Albert Whelan, W-H-E-L-A-N, Jr. MF: And could you please share your birth date? FW: My birthday is October 22nd, 1949. MF: And earlier, before we started recording, did we go over a consent form? Are you consenting to this interview today? FW: I am consenting to this interview, yes. MF: Thank you. So, to really just start our conversation, I'm going to ask if you'd share a little bit about your childhood with us. FW: Okay, I'll fill you in as I can. I was born in Orange, New Jersey and I lived there only briefly. My parents got a chance to move to a home in Livingston, New Jersey, and in Livingston is where I actually grew up and spent most of my childhood life till I went off to college in 1969. I had a interesting early life. My parents were interesting people in a lot of ways. They were city people. They were from the 1920s and '30s people, when they were born, and the culture of the '30s and '40s in the cities of northern New Jersey, New York, Newark, East Orange was something that they a part of. That's how they approached life. My father had -- was an interesting life, his background. His father was the son of a man named Charles A. Whelan. This would have been my grandfather, my great grandfather. Charles A. Whelan was the founder of the Whelan drugstore chain and he was also the founder, with his brother George, of the United Cigar Stores. They were extremely wealthy, very, very wealthy by just about anybody's estimate. It was estimated, in 1920, that they were, my grandfather, my great grandfather, who was Charles A. Whelan, was actually worth fifteen million dollars, which was quite a bit of money at the time. And he had a lot of money and they threw it around, and his family. And they bought a lot of homes and they toured a lot and they did a lot of things and then the stock market crash happened. And although they were not ever having to worry about where their next meal was coming from, believe me, they were not as wealthy as they had been. The '30s were tough times for them. My father had two brothers and my father's brothers were a little bit rough on him when he was growing up. He was the youngest one. And my grandmother, not intending to, of course, used to embarrass him constantly by referring to him as Baby Frank. So, my father grew up, he was Frank A. Whelan, Sr. So, my father grew up sort of with this complex about masculinity, which we could get into at some point. But he was -- it was an interesting household they had. My grandfather was a man who collected art. He collected rare books. He had the money. His father had plenty of money and so he did this kind of thing. One year in 1925, for example, my grandfather gave his father, my great grandfather, a copy of Joseph Conrad's manuscript of a novel Joseph Conrad had written. And so, this is the kind of thing that you're talking about here. And my grandfather knew a lot of painters in New York. He knew Edward Hopper, he knew several others who wouldn't -- John Sheehan, Sheehan,(John Sloan) think his name was, and these were the kind of people that he mixed with. And I got a lot of my information and background and interest in arts and things from him. I don't know whether he knew it or not but I think he suspected, as I was growing up, because of my interest in other things, that I was gay. My grandfather was a bisexual and I found this out one day. I was, like, sixteen years old and he and my grandmother used to come up to our home in Livingston on Sunday afternoons. And it was my job to take the lawn chair out of the back of the car and set it up so that he could sit there because he had a bad back. And one day, I'm doing this and -- (phone rings) MF: Okay, you were right out, setting up the chairs. FW: I was setting up the lawn chair that he always used because his back bothered him and he felt uncomfortable sitting in that kind of a harder chair. And while I was taking it out of the back of the car, he looked at me and he said, "Frank, I think you and I understand each other." And I said, "Yes, Pop, I think we do," because at that point I already had the feeling of where I was going with myself. And he didn't say any word. Nothing. We never spoke of it again but that's what was going on. Well, my father was of a different type than his father. My father, he was present when the family money was disappearing and he didn't have that kind of money. Grandfather and my grandmother still had enough money to make themselves comfortable. They had a summer home at the Jersey Shore, they had an apartment in East Orange, but they did not pass much of that on to my father. One of the things that they did do was buy homes. My grandmother bought a home for my father and his brothers out of her money that she had in Livingston for each one of them. So, that was something because none of them could afford it. My father never went to college. He got out of high school. He was in the Navy during World War II. He's in a ship in the Pacific, an ammunition ship, which he always likes to tell us was going to -- lucky there was not an atomic bomb attack. He was lucky there was atomic bomb attacks on Japan, otherwise, he would've been part of the invasion fleet of Japan. And he used to like to say to me, "And you would not be here." So, (laughter) anyway, I was aware from him different stories about his growing up that his parents, although my grandmother worked very hard to keep them together as a family, raise their boys properly, nobody ever urged them to go to college. Nobody ever urged them to have any kind of -- it was just sort of assumed that they would have money. Well, of course, they wouldn't have money, so they would of had to start out on their own. My father met my mother in East Orange, New Jersey in the late 1940s after he got home from the Navy. Oh, here's a story I'd like to share that I forgot about about my father in the Navy afterwards. In 1946, he was in San Francisco and he was with a bunch of other sailors and they went to this club in San Francisco and this person was playing piano. And he always liked the music of Eddie Heywood, who was a pianist, jazz pianist, popular in those days. And so, where he first heard him was in San Francisco. But they were in this club and he was with his friend, one of his little more older and more knowledgeable sailors. And he saw this good-looking woman and thought, boy, isn't she attractive? And so, you know, as we used to say in the Dark Ages, put the moves on her. And there was this other woman around and, like, giving my father dirty looks, you know? And, like, just looking at him, like, you know, "What are you doing?" Oh, and that kind of thing. And my father is twenty and naive about the world, asks the friend of his, he says, "Well, what's her problem? What's the matter with her?" And this friend of my father's said, "Well, you're trying to pick up her girlfriend, for one thing." (laughs) And my father said, "Her what?" (laughter) So, you can imagine. This is where my father's experiences with gay things begin. And he and my mother -- I should tell you, my mother was a wonderful mother, very good. She was a wonderful person. She had a -- from a family that was nowhere near the social class of my father. And her father sold Beechnut Baby Food out of the back of a big Packard car he drove around in, because he was this salesman for Beechnut baby food. And they lived in various parts of the Northeast. They lived in New York City for a while, where my mother was born, by the way, in Brooklyn, in 1927. But she had her mother, my grandmother, her mother was not a very nice person. She was an odd lady. Eventually, she would drink herself into oblivion. But she used to pick on my mother and was very unfair to my mother. And so, my mother grew up with sort of an inferiority complex about this whole thing. Well, I, you know, sort of got that impression from things that I'd sort of picked up over the years about the way they acted towards each other. It was a strange -- So, she had a strange relationship with her mother. My father couldn't stand her mother, just drove him crazy. And she -- it used to drive my father crazy. They mutually drove each other crazy. But eventually, my parents' marriage worked out to the point where they did have eight children, I being the first one. And my brothers and sisters, we all kind of developed very distinct personalities. None of us was really very much the same. So, as I was growing up, I knew what I wanted in life was a quiet place to read a book and be left alone and not bothered. And so, my brothers and sisters will tell you today it they were here, they would say something like, "Well, you were always in your room reading a book. You were never out with any of the rest of us." Well, I thought, well, yeah, well, why should I be, you know? What's wrong with that? And you have your life, I have mine, that's it. What's wrong with that? But they kind of knew I was sort of strange. Well, it was about that time when I was in, I guess, I was in Catholic grade school that I first got my first inklings about possibly being gay or whatever it was. I didn't know. This was in somewhere between, like, the fourth or fifth grade. I had a friend, Martin, who I knew fairly well. He had some health problems and just they used to call a blue baby, as my mother used to say. And that was something that he had some, when he was born, he'd had some problems or his mother had had some problems with the pregnancy. But he was the first person I ever actually had contact with sexually. And he was another boy. I mean, we were both boys, we were roughly the same age. We were both about thirteen, fourteen years old. And I knew at that point what I liked and I didn't know what it was. I didn't really know, you know? This is what I like doing with somebody else, with another boy, but I don't know whether, I mean, is this okay? And then, over the years, I met some other boys who I did this with off and on. This was not heavy duty. This is merely a lot of mutual touching and that kind of thing. But I tried to work that through but I didn't know, you know? It was so confusing. People today, people assume a lot. They think gay people assume that people are gay, you know, that you can be gay and it's just okay and that's fine and that's cool and RuPaul and hallelujah and everything else. But I got news for you: in those days, it wasn't, especially if you were fourteen, because I was supposed to be interested in girls and I wasn't. I tried dating. I dated one girl, Christine. Very nice girl. Rather big but nice and she was a friend. I liked her as a person. And then, there was another woman that I dated, Penny, Penny Way. I knew her through a church group that I belonged to. But, you know, it really became clear that, to me, at least I understand that these women wanted me to do something with them that I did not want to do and I didn't know why I did not want to do it. And that was the strangest thing to be involved with because you were going, like, between one thing and between another thing. So, I was, like, what does this mean? What does this mean? Why am I having these feelings towards these men, that I don't have any feelings towards these women. And, you know, then, well, at that time, I began to realize that I was having wet dreams and problems and masturbating myself thinking about men, not women. And I thought this is odd. What's wrong with me? And my father -- everybody knew I was odd, you know? My father knew I was odd. So, of all things, he sent me down into New York. This was 1966, into New York, to a priest there. There's a Franciscan monastery in New York, and to talk to this priest, to straighten out my life or whatever it was. And so, I did this and I talked to this priest and I finished speaking to him and he said to me, "Well, you realize, of course, you're a homosexual." I said, "What? (laughs) What?" (laughs) And I said, "Well, what does that mean?" And he said, "Well, you know, this is what you are. And, you know, you don't have to be. You can do things. You don't have to get involved with sex. You can do things that make you sexually, blah-blah, you have to recognize the fact that you're a homosexual." And he said, you know, this is what they said. "And you have to deal with it." And so, I came back home and I told my father. (inaudible) my father practically fell on the floor. But I think at least it gave my father an idea, a context of what I was going through. My high school years, I graduated from the Catholic grade school I was going to, St. Philomena's, in 1964. In 1964 to 1965, I was at Mount Pleasant Junior High School. Then, from 1965 to 1968, I was in the senior high school, Livingston High School. It was an interesting place to be for a lot of people. Many of my college students, fellow students were extremely bright people. They had a large interest in a lot of different things. They had parents who were pushing them towards college. They were taking the PSATs and the SATs and all these things. And all you heard about from them was, "I'm going to get a good college and my parents are going to kill me if I don't get in a good college. I've got to go to a good college." And one of my fellow classmates in this class was a young man named Roger Chen. And Roger Chen, in 2014, won a Nobel Prize for Chemistry. So, gives you some idea of the kind of caliber of people. And not that everybody was at Roger's lev but it was that kind of environment. I was not, obviously, in that crowd. I was very bright in history but abysmal in math and science. I could not work my way through math. I could not do algebra, I could not -- you know, they said A plus B [adds up?] and I said, "Well, where's the numbers? And it's an addition, why do we have letters?" And so, my mind wasn't shaping its way around that. And then, I just was sort of out. I was not part of one group, I was not part of another group, I was not a brain, I wasn't a jock. When I was in grade school through high school, in gym class, when they picked classes, I was the last one picked and the guy would say, "You want Whelan?" "No, I don't want Whelan. Do you want a Whelan?" "No, I don't want a Whelan." So, you can imagine, (laughs) I was pathetic at the time period. But I went to high school, went through, got through high school, and then I graduated from high school. And then, bingo, I'm out of high school and then what do I do? What do I do? I want to go to college but my father doesn't know how to help me. He never went to college. My mother doesn't know how to help me. She never went to college. Oh, yes, she did, actually. My mother spent two years in a Catholic college, studying to be a kindergarten teacher. And then she met my father and they were married in 1948 and that was the end of that. But I was basically left on my own when I got out of high school. So, took this little job here, took this little job there. And finally, and so at Essex County Community College, was opening in Newark, And so, I went there. Had to see what it would be like. And while I was there, I met two very remarkable people, both of them African American professors. One of them was named Stephen Butler, he was a sociology professor, and the other one was named Clem Price, who died just several years ago. He was president of Rutgers, or Rutgers, Newark, at any rate, when he passed away. But the two of them saw that I had a lot more on the ball in their classes and finally one day, and I can still see it in my head, talking to Professor Butler, standing in the hallway, and he said to me, "You know, you're too bright for this place. You really ought to be in a real college." Turns out he had some connections. He had another job at something called the Upward Bound program for black students over in Queens Community College in New York area. He was from New York City originally. And he said, "I could, you know, let me look into things." So, I knew one thing I really want to do is I wanted to go away to school. All my friends in Livingston were going away to school. And so, that's what I really wanted to do. I also had, I mentioned earlier, that I was part of a church group. That church group was not a Catholic church group. It was a Presbyterian Church group. I had broken with the Catholic Church and joined the Presbyterians because they accepted me and they liked me. And my mother, of course, cried, naturally, being an Irish Catholic of her vintage. But I didn't know those people and those people were all going off to college. I wanted to go away?, so I said to Steve, "Well, I'd like to go away." And so, he came up with some colleges for me and then he said, "Oh, Blackburn College in Carlinville, Illinois. Why don't you try there? They have a work study program there, you can work there at college, and it's cheaper." And so, I could actually use the government funding that I got from the student loans for that. And so, I did, and I went off to college, Blackburn College. Well, Blackburn's, like, in the middle of nothing. But it was, a wonderful place for me to be, because I grew up there and I began to come out to myself and to come out to some people. People began to realize that I was gay or whatever that was. And by 1969, when Stonewall's happening in New York, I am on a train for central Illinois to my first year at Blackburn. And I met some very good people there. One of my closest friends, Walt Harrington, straight man, who was a very good friend. And also, I met a lot of people that didn't know the other Frank and that was terrific relief. And so, I could begin to carve myself, who I was. And I still was dealing with problems with my sexuality. It was just something that I was trying to ignore and I didn't do anything about it one way or the other, you know? They used to say, "Oh, is that Whelan? He's just weird," you know, that they just wrote me off. "He's just odd." But I was doing very well in classes. I was doing very well in things that were not science or math related. And so, I did well. They kept me on and I was a history major and gradually I got to know things and got to know the college well. And people knew and I knew and the boys knew, the other men knew, young men knew that I was. And this one guy I knew, very attractive young man, Michael [Stieglitz?], he was a Croatian background from someplace, from East Chicago, Indiana. And he and I would eventually end up sometimes ending up in the big shower together. (phone rings) And then -- MF: Can we pause? I'm sorry. FW: Sure. MF: Hold on one second. (break in video) In describing some of his experiences with other students at college, and I'll just let you continue. FW: Well, I was particularly attracted to this young man, Michael Stiglitz. He was from East Chicago, Indiana. His family were a steelworker background. Very nice looking young man. And I would end up in the shower. I mean, they were big gang showers at Blackburn. And I never would make an overt pass at anyone. That I did not do. That I would figure, as my old man used to say, be spittin' Chiclets, meaning that someone's going to punch me out if I try that. So, I didn't ever do it. But I sort of would look at him. I'd look at him and admire. He's a beautiful man, you know? Well, one day, I was standing in line for the cafeteria and everybody else was standing in line in the cafeteria. And I realized, you know, for a while, I was thinking, well, Mike's probably not liking this. I'd better not pay attention to him anymore. This is ridiculous. And so, I stopped doing it once or twice. And then, we're standing in line, getting ready to go into the cafeteria with all these other students around. And he says, "Frank, haven't seen you in the shower lately! What's wrong? You tired of looking?" Well, I could've found a place in the sidewalk and disappeared at that point but nothing came of it. Nobody ever harassed me, nobody ever complained. So, I guess they all knew but nobody was talking about it, I don't know. So, 1973, I graduated from Blackburn and I was having trouble because of my history degree, I couldn't find a lot, different jobs. I was working in a lot of places. But one thing I did know: I came home briefly, for about two, three weeks, and I decided I did not want to spend the rest of my life in Livingston, New Jersey with my parents. Whatever else happened to me, I did not want that. And so, what I did was my grandmother actually loaned me some money and she said, "Well, you go out to the Midwest, you find yourself a job." And so, I went back to Carlinville because I had known people there, and found a job. And was a laboring job. Wasn't much and I was not terribly good at it, to be honest, but I did it. And the fact that I could do it and do something for myself and did not feel dependent on people, that really helped me. And so, gradually, I evolved. And then, my friend, Walt Harrington, who I mentioned, he was at the University of Missouri and he was with the sociology department. And he said, "Well, you have to go to a big school. You can't be here." So, I went there, back to the University of Missouri at Columbia for about a year or so. And I took some graduate courses and I was doing fairly well. But it wasn't perfect. It just still wasn't working out exactly as I wanted. So, I ended up going back to the work life and I found an opening for a small magazine in Springfield, Illinois. And my friend, Walt, who had helped me get to the University of Missouri, I said -- and he was just graduating from the University of Missouri's journalism school. He has a combined degree of journalism and sociology and he said, "I'm looking for a job" and I said, "Okay, well, here's this small magazine. Maybe you'd like to start there." And so, he did and he and I worked together for a long time. And he got a little bit nervous with me but not because we were [at it?]. Never proposed anything sexual with him. But one time, he said to me, he says, like, blew up, he said, "We're living too close together here. Just, you know, like, you're eating off me and I can't deal with it." And I said, "Oh, okay, well, I didn't mean to do that." But so, the magazine finally failed and I went back to journalism, back to the University of Missouri and I got a part-time job with the sociology department. And also, I was a graduate student in history. And in 1978, I graduated, I had gotten my master's degree. In that interim, something happened that changed my life, totally. There was a man there, a young man who was working with me in the sociology department. He was a computer guy. He was married but he had been in the Air Force Academy and had left it because of some sort of cheating scandal or something like that. But he knew about computers, so he was handling the computers for this particular professor whose project I was working on. Well, I found this man very attractive and so went up to him and propositioned him, which isn't something -- I didn't do much. At this time, I was also -- the Columbia -- Missouri had a small adult bookstore and so I would go there on occasion. Not often, but on occasion. And Tom [Jokehurst?], this fellow I knew as the computer guy. I said to him, you know, I told him, expressed my interest and then he picked up a copy of the University of Missouri's newspaper and he pointed to an organization called the Gay Liberation Front. And he said, "Frank, I can't help you but maybe these people can." And so, I was, like, okay, I hadn't even thought of that. Why wasn't I thinking of that? So, I went to the meeting and I went to the door and I tried to open the door at the meeting. And a doorknob wouldn't open totally. And finally, I was pulling on it and finally a voice from inside said, "Come on, come on in!" And I did and I've been gay, officially, ever since. MF:That's a good place to pause for now. (break in video) MF:So, I'm back from break and he's just described encountering the Gay Liberation Front for the first time. So, Frank, I'm going to ask you: well, what happened after you encountered GLF? FW:Well, after I encountered these gay people, I suddenly realized that, you know, I don't have to try and pretend that I'm straight because I was trying to date with young women from the sociology department who I was working with. And it was clear to them and clear to me as it had been way back when I was in high school to the women involved that I was not there with them in their space, interested in them sexually or, you know, romantically. And so, I began to see these people there as who I was and a part of what I knew. And so, I began to mix with them and go to club meetings and I didn't really have heavy duty sex with anybody there in that group. But I did get to know what it was like to be a gay person and out and open. And this really changed me. It changed me because then I realized I don't have to try and be something that I'm not. And that was an earthquake for me. People talk about moments that changed their lives and this was the one that changed mine. So, I began to just, you know, go to the gay meetings and this kind of thing and identified myself as a gay person. And once I was sitting in this restaurant in Columbia where a lot of students gathered and I was with some friends of mine from the sociology department and I was talking about being gay, you know? Just a little -- casual, I mean, I'm gay, yes, I'm gay man, and that's what I am. And then, a friend of mine, one of the sociology people who knew all this, he said, "Frank, you know, there's people in this booth over here. They don't like what they're hearing you say, what you're talking about." So, I said, "Well, they're going to have to learn to live with it because I'm going to do it." And nobody came around the corner and smashed me in the face or anything like that, so I guess that was that. But, boy, I tell you, it was -- and I just blossomed as a person. That was just wonderful for me. And finally, I was not only good in history and other things but I was finding -- making a name for myself. And so, by 1970s, 1978, I had my master's degree. And I'd also, at that time, while I was at Missouri, year or two after I joined the Gay Liberation Front, I got a job as the assistant archivist to the University of Missouri. And Ralph Havener and he was, you know, worldly enough to deal with it, you know? It didn't bother him. He was seen with me, it didn't bother him at all. Was a married man and had children, you know, this kind of stuff. But very, very with it for that period of time and it just didn't bother him. And I was working with him and with a woman there, Cora. I can't think of her last name at the moment but she was very nice. And so, we all got along fairly well and I gradually began to read gay publications. I had a good friend who got The Village Voice, so I started reading The Village Voice, started thinking about New York and I'm thinking about, wow, what's all going on there? And then, I got a subscription to Christopher Street, which is a gay magazine at the time and I was reading that and began to see, you know, there's a larger world out here of gay people that you don't know anything about. See, I didn't understand, when Stonewall happened, I was way on the other side of the country. So, I had thought, I mean, it was, like, yeah, well, there was this thing that happened but it was only till years later that I began to realize what Stonewall was. And I think that was the case with a lot of people. I mean, Stonewall grew to be a legend but it grew to be a legend largely because of time, people talking about it and writing about it in the gay community. When we were talking the other day about some of these things, I said and I was thinking, you know, this is how the movement spread and it didn't happen overnight. (inaudible) caught fire about Stonewall and the entire gay world was aware of it, took quite a while to penetrate. So, I was doing this in Missouri and then graduated in 1978. And then, Ralph Havener is the archivist at the University of Missouri, put me in touch with the archivist for the State of Missouri, Gary Behan. And that was a shake-up in my life because I would have to move from Columbia, Missouri, which was relatively, by Missouri terms, enlightened, quote-unquote. But to Jefferson City. And Jefferson City was not enlightened at all. Has a population of thirty thousand people, which was smallest state capital in the country. And I could do my work and do my other stuff but I had to, you know, I had to try and find gay people. And I had, again, to do that and I found some bad -- some guy who was a little bit older than I was, but a gay man. And he clued me in on the scene in Jefferson City. And he was actually from Springfield, Missouri. And believe it or not, Springfield, Missouri had a gay bar. And so, he took me down there to that place once or twice. There was a gay bar in Columbia called the Wheel or the Cartwheel, I can't remember, but it was down there. And so, it was there in Columbia. So, I also went to that sometimes when I was in Columbia and met some men there. But I didn't really get into the Jefferson City scene. And then, there was all the talk, you know, as the gays in Jefferson City used to call it "Closeta City" because there were so many closeted gay men in Jefferson City, one of whom was a very prominent state legislator. And the rumors were circulating around in the gay community that he was doing it in the office, his sexual office -- yeah, sexual office -- his senatorial office with boys he picked up on the monument that overlooked the Missouri River, behind the state capital building. And Missouri had this huge state capital, beautiful building. But there's a monument there and you look over this huge area and his car would cruise, his Cadillac would cruise back and forth there, trolling for men. So, I guess I wasn't worth it, so nobody trolled for me. But anyway, so that was a part of what my life in Jefferson City was like. Meanwhile, my friend Walt Harrington had gotten a job here in Allentown with The Morning Call. And he was working very hard and got involved with the owner of the paper, was trying to change the paper. Paper in those days, in the early '80s was really beginning to make a move, it was out of its provincialism. And the owner's son was taking over and he hired Walt and a bunch of other people and they were doing really groundbreaking journalism stuff. And so, Walt remembered that I had helped him get a job at that magazine in Springfield years before. And so, he contacted me and said, "Hey, I think you really ought to look. [I will try and?] help you get a job here." And he did. And he did. And then, there were all kinds of problems at The Morning Call. Not with me directly but with the paper, the father of the son of the own-- the original family was father and son. The father was not quite ready to retire. The son was pushing. There were a lot of people at the paper at the time who were very disillusioned with all of these new people coming in from outside. And so, there I was in the middle of all this. But it worked out okay for me. A lot of them left. Walt left to go to The Washington Post, which was a dream. And I think if I had asked and tried hard enough, I would have, could have, might have been able to get a job at The Washington Post in the library or some capacity. But by then, I had met Bob and that was a little thing that changed somewhat in my life, my -- approaching it. But I was interested in just trying to find my way in this town of Allentown. And then, I knew that, I sort of suspected that Bob was gay. He didn't come and talk to me. And he will tell you this story, and so I can tell you a little bit about it: at the time, I'd had a problem. When I was in Jefferson City, I had fallen down some stairs in the home which I was and my neck went back like this. So, I had to wear a neck brace. Well, every once in a while, it would act up. So, I'd put the neck brace on. So, I was in the newsroom, walking around, carrying huge piles of books because I was supposed to be a researcher. And then, Bob looked over and saw me and said, "Who the hell is that?" to this woman who was sitting on his desk. And another reporter, "Oh, that's Frank Whelan. Don't you know Frank Whelan?" Said, "No, and I don't want to." Boom. That was the end of it. And so, I said to Walt, like, still contact with him, he was at the Post at this point and I said to him, "Are there any gay people here at The Morning Call?" And he said, "Yes, there are," because Bob was open at the paper, it was not a big deal for him at the time. And I said, "Oh, well, like, how can I meet them?" He said, "Well," he said, "if you people can find each other the way you tell me you can, you'll find him." Click. So, (laughs) okay. Walt and I had a -- interesting relationship. But so, I did. I began to look in back about this local, this organization, this Le-Hi-Ho. I heard talk of it and I went to find out that a lot of these articles about Le-Hi-Ho and about the gay community were written by Bob Wittman. And so, one day, I went over to Bob and he was sitting at his desk and I said to him, "I see you've written a lot of articles about this Le-Hi-Ho organization." And he said, "Yes?" And I said, "I'd like to get to meet these people, get to know these people. Could you tell me about them?" And then, he looked at me and said, "Okay. Let's go have a cup of coffee." (laughs) We went down to the cafeteria, had a cup of coffee, and that's really my first introduction both to Bob and the local Le-Hi-Ho scene. Now, Le-Hi-Ho in that day, in those days, was going through a kind of a transition. You have to understand, AIDS had not broken on the scene yet. I was still doing things with and picking up men at the adult bookstore and having tricks. But anyway, that's what I was doing. And I didn't think twice about those. Nobody thought twice about any of that in those days. And so, I just sort of figured, well, you know, and here's this guy Bob, he's nice, and he knows me, so we started to date a little bit and then go out. And he took me down to New Hope, which was the gay universe back then, you know? And I went down there with him a couple times and, you know, but about a year or so later, we moved into this apartment. It's up the street at 1036 Walnut, where we lived for ten years. So, at that point, Bob was telling me in the early '80s, because I came to The Morning Call in 1981. And so, this previous editor left, his father took over. There were all kinds of things happening. But I was asked to become a writer by the editor that took over. Said, "Can you write?" Said, "Yeah. I've done that." He said, "Well, go ahead and do some, we'll see what happens." So, I began to write local history stories and people seemed to like them. And so, that was the beginning of that. But with Le-Hi-Ho, Bob said to me -- I wanted to ask him questions about it. He said, "Well, I don't know. They're really kind of a strange organization. You know, they're okay, but the real movement that they were pushing is gone and now they have parties where they macramé and it's this kind of thing." And I'm, like, oh, wow, okay. I'll talk about macramé to people. But, you know, I want to meet people, I want to meet gay people. I wanted to meet gay people and I didn't just want to meet gay people at bars, men at bars. I did do that but, you know, it was not working for me because I had been out in Missouri and was not going back in the closet just because of -- I'm in Allentown, so I wanted to be with people. And so, I went to a few of these Le-Hi-Ho meetings and I could see what Bob was saying about it because it was just not happening here for me at those meetings. And then, I met, well, then we went, the new group of people had taken over the Le-Hi-Ho and they were the ones that invited Barbara Gittings to speak at Muhlenberg. And this would have been about 1982, '83. And Bob and I had been living together at that point, had already taken a trip to England. We'd gone to Europe once and so I said, "Let's try it. Let's go see what it's like." Well, then we met people there who were gay people who were out and were interested in gay politics and gay life and gay everything. Nothing to do with doing macramé. So, that's when Le-Hi-Ho began to fade out in the local scene. Never disappeared entirely but it wasn't the gay organization. Couple of other people who I met as a result of this meeting, older people, one a faculty member at Kutztown called Paul Kendall. Another one was Clint Miller, who was an organist at St. John's Lutheran Church over here. And these were people who had larger gay experiences far beyond anything that I'd had. And I became very good friends with some of them. And Paul Kendall and his partner, Paul Reeder, they had been living in the Village in New York. And Paul Kendall got a job at Kutztown, so then they bought a house out in rural Kutztown area, a nice property, ten acres of ground. It was on a mountaintop but they weren't farming, trust me. They did, like, new things. And we would go out to their house and have dinner. And Paul Kendall was a gourmet cook and he would cook these wonderful meals. And we'd sit there and Paul Reeder would make sidecars and I, like, after a while, Bob's driving, we're coming back from their house. And their house is way out in the country. It's, like -- (hums nervously) and I, you know, that, and I was sound asleep, so it didn't bother me. But we got really interested in the gay things from there and Paul Kendall began the process of bringing forward the concept of the Lambda Center, a gay community center. He actually went on local television. He went on Channel 39 and they used to have a "Manager's Chat," they called it. And he came on and explained what this was about. So, he was perfectly open. And he was a professor, you know, so these kind of people just really were the people that I got to know and I really, really liked them. And so, that was my kind of life. That's the life that I saw and I wanted to get involved with. And so, then, Le-Hi-Ho was, like I say, was there and we were part of it. But the Lambda Center begin to consume more and more of our time. And it was just at that point when the Lambda Center was starting to emerge that AIDS hit. I can remember clearly the first day that I knew there was something called HIV or "the gay plague". Or I didn't know what exactly they were calling it at -- that was a day in the summer, July, and I picked up a copy of The New York Times and there was an article by their medical writer, Lawrence K. Altman, about this strange illness that seemed to affect gay people and that the people were calling the gay plague and all kinds of other things. And I read this thing and at first I was just, like, I -- many gay people, you know, at the time, we'd always been hearing these people telling us about, oh, you know, this'll happen to you, you'll get cancer, you'll die, you know, for having sex, gay sex. And so, people were, like, what the hell is this? Who's cooking this up, the CIA, the FBI? What's behind this? At first, I was just not buying it. Just not buying it. And then, they said about it happening in New York and San Francisco and then I began to think, well, maybe it's a New York or San Francisco thing that they're doing. See, I had begun to get even more involved in the Lambda Center. I got on its board. We were doing all kinds of things having to do with being gay. Like, if your partner's involved in the hospital, how to get access to them. If you're doing a will, how to make sure your partner gets -- when you get out of the will, you can actually give to them. And that was something that, you know, I was interested in. All these things were happening. I was thrilled. And the Lambda Center, we had a lawyer come in and explain about wills. We had all kinds of -- or I gave a lecture on the rise of Nazi Germany, the anti-gay movement in Nazi Germany and what happened to the gay people in Germany. And, I mean, I was really moving, things were happening. And then suddenly, we felt the need, the organization felt the need, a number of people within the organization felt the need to create something, what they called the AIDS Services Committee. And then, the roof caved in as far as I was concerned. MF: That might be a good place to pause. (break in video) Record. Okay, this is Mary Foltz. I'm back with Frank. We were just talking a bit about the Lambda Center. And Frank, I'm wondering if you could tell us just a little bit more about what was the impetus to start the center, what was it like getting it up off the ground? FW: Well, the impetus for starting the center really did begin with this professor, Paul Kendall. He was saying and he did say quite a bit that we need an alternative to the bars. We need a place, an organization where gay people can deal with the political realities of life and that this doesn't have to be just someplace where you get to meet somebody. Now, Paul wasn't opposed to that but Paul said his attitude was that someplace, people should have some way to talk to each other besides a drink in their hands. And Paul was not opposed to drinking, I can tell you that right now. But he felt very strongly that a political slant had to be given to gay life. Okay, now we were trying to get -- gay people had begun to win some acceptance in the late '70s, early '80s. Now maybe this is time to have an organization to help, also, other gay people come out to deal with who they were, to give them an idea that, hey, gay is okay. It's normal. It's not odd, it's not weird. And just because you lived in a small town somewhere, you can feel isolated, but there's a place for you to go, a place for you to -- people will understand you. And that was really what attracted me to it and I think Bob to it, because we could remember quite clearly what it was like to feel like you were the only one and nobody else is going through what you're going through. Nobody ever had and nobody ever will again, you know? God or something, fate has dumped all this on you. So, I got together with Paul Kendall and various other people did, too. Paul Reeder, his partner, kind of got a little -- Paul Reeder was kind of a shy guy. He did the stuff but in the background. He did not take an active role in running the organization. There was another friend of theirs, interesting enough, also a Paul, Paul [Boutin?], who they knew from New Hope and who was also from New York, had been in New York. And they all got together and began to think about this organization and to talk to each other and to put a board together that would be the board of the Lambda Center. Paul Kendall very purposefully went on television on Channel 39, the "Manager's Chat," and this was a big moment for us all, too, because we did not -- you know, how would the public take this? Would there be outraged phone calls? Would there be, you know, threats to firebomb the place? What would happen? And Paul was very, you know, he was in a jacket and tie and he was pointing out that he was a professor at Kutztown and that what the Lambda Center was and what the explanation of Lambda was, and that was the beginning of the Lambda Center's birth, really. And when that program was on television, we began to get volunteers. People wanted to, willing to work on the hotline and people called. We began to get people contacting us. One of the things I had not mentioned which I probably should had to do with the inception of Le-Hi-Ho. Now, I only know this because several years ago, about two years ago, Ron Seeds, who founded the Le-Hi-Ho, told me, sent me a letter. A fellow in New York named Dick Leitsch who was with the Mattachine Society, and Leitsch was very influential. I mean, he was the driving force behind making it able for gay men to drink in New York bars without being accused of being gay, you know, and that kind of thing. Or saying, "Oh, you can't have and drink now, you're gay." So, he was involved with that. And so, when they were forming Le-Hi-Ho, this was created basically because Ron Seeds had met this young man, Rick [Balmer?]. And Rick Balmer was afraid of being drafted. This was still the Vietnam War era. The draft was still out there. That would have been 1968, '69. And, well, and Ron Seeds was acting as a draft counselor. And so, the two of them came to the conclusion that there have to be a lot of other gay people like us out there who need this kind of organization. So, they contacted Leitsch at the Mattachine Society in New York and they asked him, "Could you possibly give us a list of people from the Lehigh Valley who have contacted the Mattachine Society about gay issues?" And all they wanted to do with that was to send something out to people saying, "Hey, we're going to form this group. Do you think that there's a need for a group like this in the Lehigh Valley?" Just to these people because, clearly, these people had already contacted the Mattachine Society. And Leitsch did but he said, you know, "We don't want, you know, [you don't want to?]" -- they were a little uneasy about giving out names. So, I think they gave out, like, addresses or something like that instead of -- no names attached. And they sent those out across the Lehigh Valley. And from there, they got some responses, Ron and Rick did, and they began to write the people who responded positively about the creation of Le-Hi-Ho. So, that's how Le-Hi-Ho spread from the Mattachine Society and Dick Leitsch to the Lehigh Valley, because of Ron Seeds and Rick Balmer making the outreach to them, okay? So, that I wanted to clarify. So, now, have that on the record. Well, fast forward to 1984, '83, '84, and, of course, AIDS is now popping up. And this is the time period when a lot of people, wealthy individuals in the community who had lost their family members, in particular Ardath Rodale of the Rodale Press, her son, David, had died of AIDS and he had been in New York awhile and was very active in New York. And so, she came forward with some offer for money. But she refused to give it to an organization that advocated homosexuality. You know, it was, like, oh, oh! And I was, like, yeah, well, if she doesn't like us because we're gay, then why should we even think about this? But, of course, we live in America and money goes and money talks. And the idea of getting money for this AIDS Services Committee was too, too much. And so, they spun off and became the AIDS Services Center. And that was what really infuriated me. I was just livid. I thought to myself, my God, all we've tried to get to make this organization work and for all gays at all levels and the gay issues and now we're going to turn this into AIDS morning, noon, and night. And I didn't care for it. I mean, well, I guess I was being selfish to an extent and I grant you that. I didn't know anybody who had AIDS, I felt this was more like a New York and San Francisco kind of thing as many people in the Lehigh Valley did. And then, I was sort of distant from it. And it was at this point that Bob found or someone came forward to Bob, our friend Brian Foley, later our friend, who told us that he was HIV-positive. And told Bob and he wanted the story in the paper. And Bob wrote that story. I'll let Bob give you a lot of the details of that. That's his bailiwick. And he took that and wrote the first story about it. And except for one or two letters to the editor of The Morning Call, we didn't get a lot of reaction that was negative, any negative reaction. But I was fighting this other battle at the Lambda Center and I was watching what was happening. And it was all AIDS all the time and I was, like, okay, well, yeah, it's important. It's really important. It's really, really, really important. But I could see it was being eaten alive, Paul Kendall could see it was being eaten alive. Whole organization was being eaten alive by people who just weren't -- interested in AIDS. And so, eventually, the Lambda Center folded. But Le-Hi-Ho was still there. And Rick and Ron were gone from the area at that point, or I think they were thinking about leaving, or they sort of got out of their involvement with it because they had some rough periods in the '70s when locally things here were not too pleasant. But I was not personally involved with that, so I can't speak to all that. But I can speak to the fact that we sort of -- remnants of the Lambda Center sort of took control of what was left of Le-Hi-Ho. And we tried to have meetings and we tried [to have?] organizational things and we did a few things. And we had members who were happy but Le-Hi-Ho kind of fell into a group of friends working on gay issues and socializing. And that was what happened to Le-Hi-Ho. Meanwhile, the AIDS groups and these kind of things were moving forward with where they were going. And so, we kind of, well, that's it, you know? They've co-opted us. And I think Paul -- one of our good friends, Clint Miller, this organist from the church said, "We've been usurped." That was his word for it. "We've been usurped." And we were, basically. So, that ended the role of the Lambda Center. But we tried having, we did have some meetings, we had some things, various discussions and that kind of thing. We did attract some people to the meetings but it just was not the same after AIDS, the AIDS bulldozer came charging down on top of us. And so, I continued to go to these meetings. We continued to hold Le-Hi-Ho meetings till finally, Rick contacted us and contacted what was left of Le-Hi-Ho. He didn't know really what was going on, Rick Balmer. Rick, I'm sorry, Ron Seeds I should have said. Ron Seeds did not really know what was going on but he wanted some of the books that were down here, part of their collection and the gay novels and those kind of things, not the papers of Le-Hi-Ho. And so, at that point, as I'm remembering it, and you might want to clarify some of this with Bob because I'm sure he may remember parts differently than I do. But as I remember it, Ron, a lot of these books, he wanted to bring them back to Connecticut up there to use them for a gay community center up there that he was involved with. And so, we did that and then we decided, well, what do you want us to do with these papers and things? And he said, "Well, I don't have any use for them now." He said, "Why don't you keep them and see" -- and so, that was the consensus. Le-Hi-Ho's board, such as we were at that point, said, "Okay, fine, let's put these someplace." "Well, where are you going to put them?" "Well, I don't know. I don't have any space." "Well, I don't (inaudible)." Finally, they realized we had the space upstairs in our attic. And so, that's where they went, for years, (laughs) until, obviously, we decided, when Le-Hi-Ho was on the point of abandoning itself, to vote to go out of business, officially. And Bob and I said to the leaders, we got Paul Kendall and some of these other people. And so, "What do we do with the archives? What do we do with the records?" And Bob and I came up with the proposal and I'm pretty sure, you know, it was us, we came up with it, that we think they ought to be turned over to the Allentown Public Library. It's an Allentown institution, it concerns people involved in Allentown, primarily, and it was something that we felt, at that point, that this would be the best place for them. And we decided that, and we talked to Renee Harris over there, and she was very thrilled. She appeared to be very thrilled ; I assumed she was about it. And so, they came over here and we got the records out and brought them over there to the library. And there they sat till when Susan showed up. (laughs) But when I did this, we did this, when Bob and I did this, I sent a letter to George Chauncey up in Yale, and I said to him, "I know you're interested in these kind of things. I've read your book, Gay New York. I enjoyed it very much and I want you to know that this is where these records are." And I got a record back, I got a letter back from him saying, "Thank you very much. I wondered what had happened to them. I'm working on book on how gays, gay culture grew across the country after Stonewall. And so, thank you for telling me where they are," You know? That was the end of the conversation with George Chauncey. That's all he wanted to know, [as far as I can tell?]. But I was pleased with that and Bob was pleased with that. We wanted very much for those records to be preserved because it was important for us that the country know it wasn't just New York, it wasn't just San Francisco and a lot of things happening with a lot of people across the country. And Allentown had a gay organization six months before Stonewall, a gay political organization. So, if not the oldest, I -- we like to say we were the oldest gay political organization outside of New York and San Francisco, because we weren't the Mattachine Society, obviously. But so, that's what we did and that's where students of -- here you are. Any questions? MF: Well, I'm wondering, after Le-Hi-Ho closes its doors -- FW: Right. MF: -- you continue to be active in the LGBT community. FW: Yes. MF: So, what happens for you after Le-Hi-Ho closes its doors? You've secured a place for the archive. FW: Right. MF: How do you continue to be involved? FW: Well, I continue to be involved with consultations with writing about things about gays. I'm a little bit skittish about some things because, first of all, the younger people, I don't want them to look that I'm interfering with them. I want to share this with you. So, this is something that -- the transition with Liz and Trish taking over the movement and basically, you know, they did -- excellent people, fantastic, what they did to getting the gay rights ordinance in Allentown. That was something we both were involved in, Bob more than I was, and with her. But we felt that Trish, rather Liz was sort of dominating the whole thing. And she was kind of, I'm trying just to make this as, you know, because I don't want to discredit her at all. We think the world of her. But she got involved in local politics with the former mayor. And the former mayor was one of these hard knuckle guys. And so, she began to think that she should be hard knuckle, too. So, she, you know, she was following his lead and we felt that, you know, yes, your issue should be the gay community but why are we following this individual, you know? And there was all kinds of local politics involved. The mayor, Mayor Pawlowski, was involved in one thing and another, playing off one side and another. This was his modus operandi. And he did it, apparently, well enough to -- partly wasn't quite too honest but he did well enough for him. And the people in the gay community, Bob and I, we just felt like we were really shoved out. You know, Liz and Trish were going to run it and that's what they wanted. So, the Bradbury-Sullivan Center, we now appreciate it and we're glad that it's there but it took us a while to deal with that because, to be quite honest, Trish's -- right, Liz's attitude -- Trish is, like, just off there, she was always very nice, we said hi to her. But times were coming when we wouldn't speak to them. We'd see them in places like the farmer's market and just not talk to them because we felt that what they were doing was politicizing, small "P" politicizing it, turning this into something about politics and the mayor and doing whatever they could to boost up the mayor. And the center's creation, Bradbury-Sullivan Center was a payback to them for having supported the mayor. And that was, like, Bob had some problems with them. He can talk to you about those things if you want to talk to him about them and if he'll talk about them. He may not because he was very upset at the time. Bob was working with an organization called HADC. He still is on its board. He resigned but he was a grant writer for them and he was very active, very casually involved with their affordable housing agenda. Mayor Pawlowski had been head of another organization which had rivaled HADC. And so, therefore, Mayor Pawlowski did whatever he could to make HADC embarrassed. And Bob was furious at Pawlowski because of that. And then, of course, Liz Bradbury's [toading?] up with the mayor, you know, it just didn't synch or feel right to us. We thought this was some sort of a political payback. Okay, now Pawlowski's in prison, and so we're vindicated to that extent. But it was a lot of shit, to be quite honest, that we had to go through. And Liz was symbolically -- and, you know, we had such high hopes when she got the ordinance passed that this was going to be a different kind of thing. And it's amazing, when people got around Pawlowski, they became like him. And that was what they wanted to do because they figured they had to do that. These are amateurs playing at politics. And, you know, so they figured they have to be tougher than tough with the way they're playing politics. So, at any rate, so there was some disagreement, a lot of disagreement for a time with Liz, personally. Her personality, she has a very huge personality, and that kind of assumed a lot of things from a lot of people. And the people that had been involved in gay things for years who welcomed her, you know, wanted to see her involved, appreciated her involvement basically felt like we were used at that point. And Bob, you know, Bob got really furious one evening. His boss was up for an award for his work with the community and Liz was using all her influence to support somebody else. So, yeah, that's what was going on here. So, a lot of these things are happening and I know that's not really germane, necessarily, to what we're doing here. But that was the remnants of what happened after Le-Hi-Ho, and so -- MF: We just have to pause right now. (break in video) MF: Okay, I'm back with Frank and we just sort of talked about Le-Hi-Ho and some of the other political organizations in the Lehigh Valley that were working on LGBT issues and some of the tension between different people in the sort of broader Lehigh Valley LGBT movement. I wanted to sort of ask you if you could expand a bit on maybe the kind of Pride scene in the Lehigh Valley because Pride became a major -- you know, Pride of the Greater Lehigh Valley became a major organization. FW: Right. MF: Could you share a little bit of your thoughts about that organization? FW:Well, that organization was a great organization and I have no problem with it at all. It was great. You had those parades, we had those events that focused around Pride. We haven't been to one in a while because, well, we just haven't been. But we felt very much, well, this is the story, my story of Pride, what happened to me involved with Pride. We were contacted by the Pride board one year, I think it was in 2006, that they wanted to have an event that focused, that honored the grand marshals of the parade. Our friends Paul and Paul had been the grand marshals one year and so they had selected us, Bob and I. And we were thrilled. We were just thrilled. And we appreciated it. Taking this into account, want to say that The Morning Call never -- knew we were out, knew we were gay. Never, ever, ever in the years that we had been there had any objections. Matter of fact, they would go to Bob, in particular -- not much me but to Bob, in particular, ask him who in the gay community should we talk to? Who do you think we should deal with? How do you think we should deal with these things? So, when Pride advertised it, we were pleased. Well, what also happened was this: an editor from The Los Angeles Times, a lady named Ardith Hilliard came here. And she had just been named executive editor of the Call. And she had her own notions about the role of journalism. And journalists, in her universe, were to be, like, policemen or nuns or priests. You took a vow of journalistic ethics which you did not sully yourself with having opinion. Your opinion was not to be countenanced or whatever you felt about a thing was not to be shared and you should not take a stand on any political issue of the public moment. Well, Bob and I didn't see what we were doing as taking an issue on a political scene. What we were doing is basically supporting this Pride organization and being grand marshalls. Well, I swear, it just, like, blew up. This Ardith Hilliard just began -- she [attached?], established an ethics policy and if you didn't follow her ethics policy, she was going to accuse you of being, you know, something less than an ethical journalist. Well, Bob wasn't at the paper at the time. He'd already left. I was there and I could tell there was a movement afoot to get rid of a lot of the older people, a movement that was coming out of Chicago, and that they were looking for ways to get rid of people who were not young, let's put it that way. And it would probably end up costing them money or something like that was going on. Well, so, I knew of this. And they had a meeting for us and they got us all together and they basically told us that we had to, we should accept a buyout from them. And I said, "I can't. I can't do that. I'm sorry, I can't do that." So, ever after that, my bosses tried to embarrass me, to belittle me, to do whatever they could to make sure that I quit. And I refused to do it. Well, I think they hooked into this ethics policy to use as something that they could work on me with. And so, when it was said I was going to be in the parade, she forbid it. She said, "No, you're not going to be in that parade. You're not going to be in that parade. You can't be in that parade. It's unethical, taking a stand on a public issue, stand on gay marriage," which was kind of crazy, first of all. This had nothing to do with gay marriage to us, it had -- being honored by the gay community for our relationship. That was all. As a matter of fact, as Bob will tell you, he and I were probably people who were skeptical of the idea of marriage as marriage. We would say things, we had long discussions with Paul and Paul at their dinner table about it. You know, gay people should have something. Straight people should have marriage and that's fine and it works for them, okay. But gay people should go beyond that and do something that's a separate kind of thing for gays, you know, that -- it reflects gay life differently than straight people's lives. And that's what we thought. Well, Ardith Hilliard had a certain view of the world and so she wasn't going to accept that. And so, bingo, she basically said, "You're not going to be in the parade. You're not going to be in the parade. You're not going to be in the parade." I said to her, "Ardith, this is about my rights, my rights as a person. Why can't you see this?" And I couldn't understand why she couldn't see this. I mean, she was supposedly an enlightened liberal person from Los Angeles. Oh, and so she just pressed and pressed and pressed. And finally, we just had to say, "That's it. I'm going to be in the parade." And she was yelling at me and browbeating me. Finally, one day, I left the Call. I left the Call. I packed up my things, I walked out, early in the morning, before anybody else was there, and I said, "Goodbye, Morning Call," and I walked out the door and brought my stuff home. And I said, "I'm going to be in the parade." This was a Friday, the parade was the next day. I'm lying on a massage table and the phone rings. And I think I left a number where I would be if she had any questions. Well, she exploded at me. "You're not going to that parade! You're not going to the parade! If you go in that parade, you're fired! You're fired! You're not going to be in that parade!" And I said, "Ardith, I think we're beyond it at this point." So, I ran out of that place and she was browbeating me and browbeating me. "You'll lose your job, you'll lose your job! If you're in that parade, you'll lose your job!" And it's, like, I was horrified. And so, finally, I thought, well, this is the first time I heard why they're doing this to me. So, I just was horrified by the whole thing. And so, that day, the next day, Bob and I got in the car and we drove off and I lost my job. But Ardith Hilliard ended up getting involved in a huge lawsuit. We sued her because she defamed me, which is one of the things that journalism, you're not supposed to do. She basically used an article to call me unethical. The article wasn't about the parade. Didn't mention parade. The article didn't come out about the parade. It came out about Frank Whelan's being unethical. And this is a no-no. You can't do this, you know? So, and they used to give libels -- and so, they libeled me. And the word got out about this and our attorney, Rick Orloski, went after them and eventually, after much carrying on, they were finally -- Rick said, "Okay, I want you, under oath, under oath, under oath and in court to explain what exactly you were doing to Frank Whelan. What exactly were you doing?" And then, they pulled off, away from it. Later on, a woman who was going through a similar thing, was not gay, who was a very, extremely straight woman, she sued the Call. And I was called in to give a deposition about her by my lawyer, who was Orloski, in front of The Morning Call's lawyer, a man named Malcolm Gross. And, yeah, his protégé at the time, a young woman lawyer who was handling this thing. And finally, at the end of this, Orloski pulls out and says, "I have here a document from Susan Hunt. Susan Hunt had been the editor before Ardith Hilliard and Susan Hunt says that this whole thing was cooked up in Chicago to get rid of people who were of a certain age, fifty-five and up. I've got the document." And I've got a document upstairs, too, by the way, and a copy, I got a copy of the deposition. And I just couldn't believe it. And this young lady who was a very talented lawyer, she was, like, (gasps) just crashed. She couldn't -- it really, you know, this whole world crashed that day. But I was so glad and so pleased that I was vindicated. And then, through this whole thing, people stopped me and asked me how I was doing, was everything okay? The community responded to me, not her, not to Ardith Hilliard. They responded to me. So, I ended up -- there on that table is the picture that got us into trouble, picture of Bob and I together. And that appeared in The Morning Call. And that was what caused all this brouhaha and me losing my job. MF: Yeah. FW: Okay? MF: Well, we're about ninety minutes, so -- FW: Okay. MF: -- I think this might be a good place to stop. FW: Cool. Copyright for this oral history recording is held by the interview subject. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source. 0 /render.php?cachefile=
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01:20:49
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Frank Whelan, July 23, 2019
Description
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Frank Whelan recounts his life as a gay man, the LGBT organizations he was involved in, his work as a reporter for The Morning Call, and it's impact on the Lehigh Valley as well as his life.
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LGBT-01
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2019-07-23
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video
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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https://lgbt.digitalarchives.muhlenberg.edu/files/original/621d3cca833662553752535278cb5854.png
001804ed54fce6ab489e330351179e10
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Title
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40 Years of Public Health Experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community: COVID-19
Description
An account of the resource
In the spring of 2020, the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center and the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive received a grant to collect oral histories and written stories for 40 Years of Public Health in the Lehigh Valley’s LGBT Community: Collecting and Curating Local LGBT Health Experiences from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19.
The collection consists of oral histories from individuals who experienced the worst of the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s, as well as oral histories from members of the local community as they lived through 2020's summer of Covid-19. Running through both are the themes of dealing with the fear of an emerging health crisis, loneliness and isolation, and coming together as a community in support and activism.
The project was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Oral History
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Interviewer
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Kristen Leipert
Interviewee
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Gabby Hochfeld
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Viewer)
https://trexlerworks.muhlenberg.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=PH40_03.xml
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5.4 July 29, 2020 Gabby Hochfeld, July 29, 2020 PH40_03 00:48:24 LVLGBT40 40 Years of Public Health Experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository This oral history recording was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020- COVID-19 (Disease) Gabby Hochfeld Kristen Leipert video/mpeg HochfeldGabby_20200729_video.mp4 1.0:|19(8)|48(14)|73(12)|92(17)|111(7)|136(14)|159(15)|186(6)|205(15)|228(7)|251(6)|274(4)|293(11)|314(10)|335(13)|356(14)|381(10)|404(12)|429(11)|448(7)|473(14)|494(7)|517(3)|532(20)|557(13)|582(5)|603(6)|624(12)|645(5)|672(4)|689(10)|712(13)|735(9)|756(2)|779(5)|798(14)|817(2)|836(13)|857(3)|878(9)|903(12)|924(6)|947(7)|970(15)|995(9)|1018(7)|1039(12)|1082(7)|1099(5) 0 https://youtu.be/agof1WtrGxk YouTube video 0 Interview Introduction KRISTEN LEIPERT: My name is Kristen Leipert, and I am here with Gabby Hochfield to talk about her experience in the Lehigh Valley LGBT community during this time of the COVID-19 pandemic, as part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive. Our project has funding from the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, and we are meeting on Zoom on July 29th, 2020. Thank you so much for your willingness to speak with us today. To start, can you please state your full name and spell it for me?
 ; 
 ; GABBY HOCHFELD: Like legal first name and everything? Okay. Gabrielle Sarah Hochfield. G-A-B-R-I-E-L-L-E. Sarah, S-A-R-A-H. Hochfield, H-O-C-H-F-E-L-D. (laughs)
 ; 0 156 TRIGGER WARNING: Pandemic affecting work life, family life, and mental health GH: Okay. I’ll start with work, because I think that the pandemic quarantine situation started out affecting work, which in turn affected my family life. So, we moved at Bradbury-Sullivan to remote work, and before I lived an hour away from where I worked. I lived in the Poconos, in Monroe County. And I lived with my mom and my sister and my brother. And I barely saw them because I was constantly traveling for work. My job forced me to go to all of southeastern PA, minus Philly. So I’d very often have to drive to like Westchester. 0 470 Working as Bradbury-Sullivan Center's Southeastern Pennsylvania Health Outreach Coordinator during the pandemic GH: So I wasn’t really scared to lose my job, but I was like, how is this going to work? But mainly just telling gay people, stop smoking, stop vaping, please, thank you. Because it hurts us all. 
 ; 
 ; KL: Yeah. And have you been doing any of that work over Zoom? I mean, outreach with people.
 ; 
 ; GH: Yeah. So, stuff that I've been doing that was able to stay the same pretty much was worksite policy implementation. 0 634 Living with roommates/More on mental health GH: Yeah. I do have two roommates who are also Lehigh students. I’m not a Lehigh student, but they’re Lehigh students that are international students that were able to stay. I don’t really talk to them too much. We had a couple board game nights, but it kind of just was like, eh, we don’t really have a lot in common, okay. 
 ; 0 765 Realizations caused by the pandemic GH: There’s definitely some upsides. Before I was travelling way, way too much. I felt like I was a rocket ship and I didn’t have time to think about anything I was doing. I was just doing, doing, doing. And I feel like now I can kind of take a step back and sort of reflect on, again, even though my family situation was bad, I realized that I was not being respected and it made me realize what standard I set for the people in my life and I don’t. 0 1136 Interviewing in solidarity with domestic abuse survivors/Shaving head during pandemic GH: [...] But I just feel like, I hope that people that are going through domestic abuse situations come forward about this stuff. Because I feel like a lot of people feel very stuck, especially kids, during this time. I feel so bad for little kiddies that just are in a really, really abusive household situation. 0 1297 Identifying as queer/Thoughts on dating during the pandemic GH: [...] But I don’t know ; it’s also kind of awkward because I had a successful date with somebody that I knew this past weekend, and we hugged, but I was like, I guess I need to be serious or at least make sure that I want to be involved with this person because now we might be spreading germs, so that’s kind of similar to how -- not at all, well, I don’t know. It’s similar to HIV in that way. 0 1580 Thoughts on school openings GH: Yeah, it’s just not well thought out. What happens if one of the students gets COVID? What happens if the teacher gets COVID? I feel like they’re just like, "Well, we have to do this because if we don’t, then we lose money or we lose this.” And also obviously school is really important to continue and social -- homeschooled kids are very obvious to the -- you know who those are, versus a public school kid or whatever. But I mean, it’ll be fine. If we’re all homeschooled, then that’s the new norm. 0 1765 Thoughts on pandemic quarantine GH: It’s just so strange that we couldn’t -- if the answer truly was stay put for two weeks, I guess we can’t do that because there’s people that literally think this is a hoax, but I don’t know. Martial law is not -- if I was the president or dictator at this point, I would be like, “Okay, martial law. Two weeks. Get your groceries. You have a week to get your groceries and stuff, and then do not leave your property.”
 ; 0 1869 Randonauting during the pandemic GH: [...] But I need to be more active. I’ve been doing this thing called Randonauting, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of it.
 ; 
 ; KL: No, I don’t know what that is.
 ; 
 ; GH: It’s an app where they randomly generate a point on a map, given a parameter, and you’re supposed to “manifest” -- I don’t really like the idea of manifesting because I think it’s a little bit a crock of bullshit, because just because you think good things doesn’t mean good things will happen to you. 0 2040 Spending pandemic quarantine in a safe/creative way GH: I feel like a lot of people -- not me, because I don’t like alcohol that much -- but I feel like a lot of people are concerning me with their alcohol consumption. Like, I’ll call them and they’ll be like, “Oh yeah, I’m just drinking.” And like, again? 0 2189 Thoughts on Black Lives Matter/Thoughts on activism GH: [...] I’ve been very passionate about showing up and helping as much as I can. Sometimes it just conflicts with my schedule, but I recently went to the -- I don’t know if you heard about Palmerton’s protest a couple weeks ago. It’s a town over from where I used to live, and my good friends were the organizers. And it went very poorly. 
 ; 0 2713 Conclusion GH: Yup. Thank you for doing this. It’s really cool. I’m excited to see what the product of it is, and yeah. I think this is going to be -- it’s cool to be part of a history thing.
 ; 
 ; KL: Yeah, I mean thank you so much for your time. 
 ; 
 ; GH: Absolutely.
 ; 0 MovingImage Gabby Hochfeld discusses her life experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic including the ways in which it has effected her mental health, work life, and social interactions. Gabby Hochfeld2020-07-29 KRISTEN LEIPERT: Okay, we are now recording. Uh-oh, I'm going to do Liz's trick of also recording audio on my phone if I can find it. Nope, not that. Not this. And okay, great. Okay. My name is Kristen Leipert, and I am here with Gabby Hochfield to talk about her experience in the Lehigh Valley LGBT community during this time of the COVID-19 pandemic, as part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive. Our project has funding from the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, and we are meeting on Zoom on July 29th, 2020. Thank you so much for your willingness to speak with us today. To start, can you please state your full name and spell it for me? GABBY HOCHFELD: Like legal first name and everything? Okay. Gabrielle Sarah Hochfield. G-A-B-R-I-E-L-L-E. Sarah, S-A-R-A-H. Hochfield, H-O-C-H-F-E-L-D. (laughs) KL: Thank you. Will you please share your birthdate? GH: My birthday? KL: Mm-hmm, birthdate. GH: June 25th, 1997. KL: Oh, happy a little bit after your birthday. Okay, so this is the consent portion. So you just need to answer these questions. Do you consent to this interview today? GH: I do, yes. KL: Do you consent to having this interview being transcribed, digitized, and made publicly available online in searchable format? GH: Yes. KL: Do you consent to the LGBT archive using your interview for educational purposes in other formats including films, articles, websites, presentations, and other formats? GH: Yes. KL: Do you understand that you will have thirty days after the electronic delivery of the transcript to review your interview, identify any parts you would like to delete, and or withdraw our interview from the project? GH: Yes. KL: Okay. This project has been approved by Muhlenberg College's institutional review board, and if you have any questions I can give you the email address of the person you can contact to ask questions to. So, how has the COVID-19 pandemic affected your life? And this could be your work life, personal life, social life, all the things. Anything. Go for it. GH: Okay. I'll start with work, because I think that the pandemic quarantine situation started out affecting work, which in turn affected my family life. So, we moved at Bradbury-Sullivan to remote work, and before I lived an hour away from where I worked. I lived in the Poconos, in Monroe County. And I lived with my mom and my sister and my brother. And I barely saw them because I was constantly traveling for work. My job forced me to go to all of southeastern PA, minus Philly. So I'd very often have to drive to like Westchester. Like we'd go to work, then go to Westchester, then come back to work, and then go home. So lots of driving, and when the quarantine happened, there was no out-of-county travelling supposed to be happening, so I had to stay in Monroe County. So I was constantly around my family because of this. And my little brother likes to game, and internet was really bad so I was blamed for a lot of it because I had a lot of Zoom meetings instead of in-person meetings, and it created a lot of tension. And something that I think a lot of people talk about is how this quarantine, this pandemic really exposes all the problems that already exist just even more. And my father is an actual diagnosable narcissist, and my counselor likes to say that having a relationship with a narcissist is a relationship of inevitable harm. And when you have a family dynamic underneath a narcissist, there's trauma bondage relationships. There's like all this psychological craziness, and it just came out. And I'm the only one in my family that's currently going to counselling. I've been going for like four years. I've had a couple different counselors, because moving and stuff like that. But this was the first time I've been counselled and realized there's a lot of stuff that I needed to figure out. And this quarantine really kind of pushed it to the forefront and kind of felt like I was scapegoated a bit. And I had to end up living with a friend for a little bit, which was really stressful because that took a while. Because I was afraid to go out of the house, really. So for three months I felt like my mental health was so bad. I don't know how, whatever, as long as my name is anonymous, I guess, but I did have suicidal thoughts during quarantine, and that's when I realized I really needed to leave my situation. And I was trying to do my part in the community by staying put and keeping to myself, but I couldn't. So I had to leave. And then I found an apartment where I currently am at, and it's a sublease from a Lehigh student, which wouldn't exist unless all the international students didn't have to go back home. So the person I'm subleasing from is from Vietnam, and they had to go back and they can't come back until January. So very fortunate situation for me, but not so much for them. So yeah, it affected my life in every way possible. Some ways it's a blessing in disguise, because it made me realize that a lot of my insecurities come from how I'm treated, not how I perceive myself. We don't come out of the womb and immediately start hating ourselves. I don't think that makes any sense, so yeah I just think that everyone's mental health seems like through the roof bad right now. And it just made mine all the much more worse, but also forced me to make me more serious about it in general. And work has been good, though. I mean, very supported through work, but that's not something I can say for everybody. Most of my close friends, they've been laid off more than once because they're laid off initially then they were back, and then they just got laid off again, or they don't have good COVID policies. One of my friends works for the zoo, and she feels like it's not really safe to work there because of the people that come in and they don't really wear masks and stuff. So I'm very, very thankful for where I work, and them taking this seriously. And even making a committee to figure out what the best way to reopen is. So yeah, I don't know if that was too much, but yeah. KL: No, that's great. So, when you talk about work, I know where you work, but would you like to say what you do there? GH: Yeah. So my job title's another mouthful. My name's a mouthful and this is a mouthful. But I'm the Southeastern Pennsylvania Health Outreach Coordinator, which most of my job has to do with tobacco prevention and education, because it's the number one health disparity in the LGBT community, fun fact. And we had to take the name tobacco out of my job title because a lot of people don't like that word, for some reason, especially schools. So it's easier for me to get into schools and educate LGBT clubs, like GSAs and stuff like that. I also used to do bar outreach before the quarantine. I would go and bring goodie bags of tobacco prevention information and I'd hand them out to people at bars. That's not happening anymore. Pretty much my whole position had to change. I am grant funded by basically, inadvertently or indirectly, the Department of Health. So I wasn't really scared to lose my job, but I was like, how is this going to work? But mainly just telling gay people, stop smoking, stop vaping, please, thank you. Because it hurts us all. KL: Yeah. And have you been doing any of that work over Zoom? I mean, outreach with people. GH: Yeah. So, stuff that I've been doing that was able to stay the same pretty much was worksite policy implementation. We're trying to get a bunch of LGBT-run, owned, or allied businesses to update or have a new tobacco policy. A lot of them are smoke-free policies, which don't include things that are still bad for their employees. Or they might not even include vaping, which is more common for younger people, I guess, nowadays. So, that was able to stay. Because it could just be done over email or phone call, and then we promote them on our social media. I used to do -- right now it's the summer, so I'm not working at schools really. But we would do after school club stuff over Zoom. Yeah, it's been kind of slow, honestly, but still just doing what I can. Most of it is social media and Zoom-based though. KL: Good. So, right now you are living in Bethlehem? I'm only assuming Bethlehem. GH: Yeah, I live in Bethlehem. I'm on south side, walking distance to Tally Ho's. (laughs) KL: Are you alone right now? GH: Yeah. I do have two roommates who are also Lehigh students. I'm not a Lehigh student, but they're Lehigh students that are international students that were able to stay. I don't really talk to them too much. We had a couple board game nights, but it kind of just was like, eh, we don't really have a lot in common, okay. KL: Well, at least you get some people time. I guess. I don't know. GH: It feels like I'm alone, which sucks. But I am like that friend that will give a phone call to my friends when I'm bored so I still keep in touch and I try not to feel alone even though it is lonely. But yeah. Again, mental health terrible for everybody. So at least if I'm feeling alone, I'm feeling alone in solidarity with everybody. KL: Oh my God. So you've mentioned mental health. So you're making sure you're doing well. GH: I'm okay now. I [shouldn't?] have talked about that. I'm okay. Just, when I was at my worst, that was like a wakeup call to me because I was like, I've never let that way and that's not okay. And if I was somebody else -- I've had a friend from high school who constantly was like, not good, and it was a worry all the time about whether they were going to be alive or not. So I was trying to think of myself as my best friend. What would I do if I heard this from my friend? And I was like, I've got to make sure I'm okay. So I'm good. I wasn't good, but now I am. KL: That's great. So has there been anything that's like a positive outcome of this, or things that keep you occupied, how you're making yourself -- I was going to say happy. Sane? (laughs) Satisfied? I don't know. At a calm level. GH: There's definitely some upsides. Before I was travelling way, way too much. I felt like I was a rocket ship and I didn't have time to think about anything I was doing. I was just doing, doing, doing. And I feel like now I can kind of take a step back and sort of reflect on, again, even though my family situation was bad, I realized that I was not being respected and it made me realize what standard I set for the people in my life and I don't. So in that way it was good. I also learned about meditating and stuff, and I think that's really important. I'm into astrology and I read cards, and I like crystals, so I'm still like, COVID's a real thing. Science is real. And my stuff is probably BS, but it's really fun because it's cathartic. And I also feel like I'm able to read for joy more. I feel like I'm not wasting a lot of gas anymore. I think that having a more calm life is really, really good for me. And I think for a lot of people, who have been just -- I don't know, we all live under capitalism, and capitalism makes us feel like we need to constantly be doing and constantly be working. And everyone asks, "What's your dream job?" Why is that the thing that we need to dream about? Can't we dream about the relationships we have and not necessarily romance, but just what is actually important at the end of the day is not what job we have. Unless you make it important and for me it is important. But it's not because I'm making money. It's not because of any of those reasons. I think that we're kind of learning how the world works in a way that treats humans better. But again, this isn't something that's sustainable for everyone. If you were working three jobs before, and you were like a waitress and you have kids and your rent is too much, that's not something that really works for everybody. So I'm definitely in a place of privilege where I can say, "Yeah, I'm chilling," because of this, but other people are like, it's every day. Just terrible stuff, and I was very, very privileged to be able to walk away from a bad situation. Some people are stuck in domestic abuse situations, and that's definitely not a positive. But for me it was absolutely a positive, just didn't realize it when it was happening. But yeah. And it also kind of, I still work forty hours a week, but I don't work on the weekends anymore. And I kind of have flexibility. We have core hours during our workdays and I can do my personal flex hours, if I want, after dinner. Or really early, so I can have an early day. And that's really helpful for moms and parents in general who, that works really well for after the kid's asleep, they can do their work or whatever. So yeah, I think that there's definitely a lot of good stuff with this. KL: Yeah, and not that this is about me, but there is something nice about -- I have two children -- so it's been nice to be like, "All right, it's ten o'clock in the morning, let's go for a walk." You know? And then we can all reset our morning and then I can get back and I can be like, "Okay, go play video games so I can work for the rest of the day." And not feel too guilty. (laughs) That they're just screen time all day. Because I've just had to make peace with that. But yeah I'm like, we can go for a ten o'clock walk in the morning can go play outside at three. And then I can go back to work and just get it done before dinner. GH: Yeah. I will say, (inaudible) didn't remember to talk about that, but I do feel like I'm constantly in front of a screen, which is not good. And humans are social creatures, so it's tough to like -- so I'm absolutely a thousand percent, wear a mask. But it is tough to kind of just see this [covers lower half of face with hand] because I'll smile at somebody in public and they won't realize I'm smiling. So there's a lot of stuff that kind of feels a little bit inhuman about this. But it's for the best. Hopefully we can figure out how to get out of this. KL: I know. GH: I feel like this is going to be a lot longer than any of us will think it is. Mainly because we don't want to do that two-week strict quarantine, but -- KL: No, so stressful. GH: Also I think there was a study that was done that said that only half of the population that was surveyed about whether they get a vaccine or not would actually get a vaccine, so even if we do develop a vaccine, will it be taken seriously? That's tough. That's a personal thing ; that's just me kind of talking, so I hope that's usable. I don't know if it is. KL: I mean, it is. That's the thing, right? If someone in 30 years, who's going to know what happens, what the outcome of this is, can look back on it and be like, "Oh, that's what it was like to be living in it." Everyone has a story, and they all say something. You know? GH: Yeah. So the reason why I wanted to do this -- and I'm sorry I forgot about it for a while -- but I really think that my story is an important one, because -- and I am queer, but my family is just, that's not even something I can even talk about really. But I just feel like, I hope that people that are going through domestic abuse situations come forward about this stuff. Because I feel like a lot of people feel very stuck, especially kids, during this time. I feel so bad for little kiddies that just are in a really, really abusive household situation. Yeah, and I hope that this is something that resonates with people, because it was bad. (laughs) Yeah. And I shaved my head, too, because (laughs) I had a whole, full-blown identity crisis. And what's a better time to shave your head than in a pandemic where you're all inside all day? So check that off my bucket list, move on. KL: Perfect. I did think, "I should've colored my hair at the beginning of this." GH: You have such fun hair. You have like -- KL: I've got little nubbies. I call them my nubbies. Again, because I'm like, "Oh, now my hair's too long and I'm done with it." I've just gone like this and I just don't even care. (laughs) So you've shaved your head. That's awesome. GH: (inaudible) Grown out. I used to have a pixie cut, so it wasn't like anything crazy. But it was crazy for me. I just did it because I tried to give myself a haircut and then I was like, "I want a side shave." And then I did that and it didn't look good and I was like, "Okay, well I guess it's not salvageable, so you've got to shave it." And then I was like crying while I was doing it, but I was also like, "But this is so satisfying." So yeah. And there's some theories about how trauma lives in the hair, so maybe that was a symbolic sort of cleanse. I don't know, but yeah. Everyone kept calling me brave when I shaved it. I was like, "It's not brave. I kind of just have to deal with it." And I bought a wig but it looked terrible, so I was trying not to be brave. Yeah. It's kind of growing now. We're getting there, I don't know. KL: I like it. I know. Okay. So, you identify as queer. GH: Mm-hmm. Yeah, just generally queer. Yeah. I don't really care too -- I guess the closest -- I used to care about the label, because it's helpful to sort of have something to understand and feel connected with people on. Like, are other people experiencing this? And I was resonating with pansexual before. And then I was just like but I don't really know and I don't really care. And so I kind of just say queer or gay. I don't know ; I don't really care. Yeah. Yeah. KL: Is there anything else you want to talk about before I start asking you about obnoxious things like virtual Pride? GH: I don't know. KL: I'm sure you're all in on that. GH: I actually feel like something else that changed is dating during a pandemic. I'm [inherently?] single. I'm not mad about it, but I did try to go back on Bumble and stuff. And I did go on a virtual Zoom date and it was terrible. And because it was boring. And yeah, I feel like it's already hard enough to date when you're queer because everyone's dating everybody. I feel like the gay community is like band kids. Like all the band kids would date each other and it was just like, "What are they doing?" So it's a challenge, because everyone I know that's gay is already an ex of my friend or something. I'm just like, okay. But I don't know ; it's also kind of awkward because I had a successful date with somebody that I knew this past weekend, and we hugged, but I was like, I guess I need to be serious or at least make sure that I want to be involved with this person because now we might be spreading germs, so that's kind of similar to how -- not at all, well, I don't know. It's similar to HIV in that way. Except this affects everybody, so now I guess the straight community has to deal with like, oh, where has their mouth been? Where has their butthole or whatever been? Like, I don't know. So I think that there should be more said about dating in a pandemic. Obviously I think that the right answer is just keep your partners to a minimum because you don't want to spread shit, but is that really feasible? Are people going to listen to that? Obviously not because -- not that I'm saying that they shouldn't, I think that they should -- but it's kind of like telling people just not to have sex until they're married. That's not going to happen for most people. So yeah, I don't know if that's relevant, but [I want it to be?]. KL: No, it totally is. And some of the AIDS interviews that Liz has done -- so many people say the same thing, you know? They were active at the time, during the AIDS crisis, they were in their 20s and they were active in talking about safer sex with people and handing out condoms, and then totally being promiscuous on their own and taking none of their own advice and talking about how they did one thing and said a different thing. So I think it's similar, how you can say something and think, "Okay." Even going to the grocery store or whatever, when you're like, "Okay, I'll stand six feet apart from people." But then you're just walking past them because they're in your way. You just got to go. There's something that's human in how you're not used to being far apart from people, no matter what. And I don't know. Like in dating yeah. I mean, how can you just be like, "What's up? It's nice to meet you." And then just -- how do you end that conversation without like, a hug or something? GH: I just think about how colleges are reopening, and I was gross in college. Like, one of my best friends and I did a make out competition and we had -- first of all, everything was consensual. We had to ask to kiss somebody, whatever. But I made out with twelve people in the course of two weeks. We can't do that right now! We can't do that. That's gross! And also Moravian College just had the mumps outbreak before COVID, so I mean, it's just a lot to think about here. And everyone's just like, "Nope, we've got to keep on going because the economy." And I was just, "You can't have an economy if you lose a lot of people." And just because it says 1% doesn't mean that's a small number. Obviously comparatively, yeah, that's small. However, 1% of a million is a lot still. And I feel like teachers should be a little bit uncomfortable with reopening if like, "Well, only one percent of your students might die." You shouldn't want that. Anyways, rant over with that. I don't know. KL: I know. Well, that's all my feelings right now. And again, this isn't about me. But I'm on this college end of it, so I'm seeing how that college planning is going, and then I've got these kids in elementary school and I'm like, "I don't want them to go back to school," only because I hear all these faculty members -- they're not teaching in class. They don't want to be with students in class, and yeah, college kids are gross. But you know who else is gross? Fourth graders. You know? So it's like, how is -- yeah. Yeah. GH: Yeah, it's just not well thought out. What happens if one of the students gets COVID? What happens if the teacher gets COVID? I feel like they're just like, "Well, we have to do this because if we don't, then we lose money or we lose this." And also obviously school is really important to continue and social -- homeschooled kids are very obvious to the -- you know who those are, versus a public school kid or whatever. But I mean, it'll be fine. If we're all homeschooled, then that's the new norm. I don't know. KL: Yeah. Well I know. Some kids need to go to school because they need to learn how to be social with other kids. And I'm like, "Okay, my kids are super social so they don't need that part," so I feel like keeping them home for a year. They're going to be fine. I mean, they might not like it because they love other people, but hey, who likes it? I don't like it. I miss everyone I work with, I miss my friends, you know. GH: It's just so strange that we couldn't -- if the answer truly was stay put for two weeks, I guess we can't do that because there's people that literally think this is a hoax, but I don't know. Martial law is not -- if I was the president or dictator at this point, I would be like, "Okay, martial law. Two weeks. Get your groceries. You have a week to get your groceries and stuff, and then do not leave your property." KL: Yeah, lock everyone in. GH: I would be hated, but I would've saved the whole world. (laughs) KL: Everyone just do your thing. Binge TV shows for a week, a couple weeks, you're good. Eat and binge TV shows. Work out if you want to. GH: Yeah, and so I feel like a lot of cities aren't necessarily having issues. I feel like it's more left in cities, but where I'm from, there's Trump signs everywhere and everyone has a lot of property. So you don't even have to keep it inside. Just go outside and chill. I don't know. But yeah. What was the next question you had? KL: Oh my gosh. I don't -- it's whatever you want to talk about. I've got social life and personal pursuits, some categories. I have mental and physical health. We talked about dating. GH: Physical health, I guess physical health -- [dings] sorry. I had a gym membership before the quarantine, and I was going like three times a week. So I was trying to be better, and then this happened and I was like, "Perfect, I don't have to exercise anymore." I do have to cancel my gym membership though. But I need to be more active. I've been doing this thing called Randonauting, I don't know if you've ever heard of it. KL: No, I don't know what that is. GH: It's an app where they randomly generate a point on a map, given a parameter, and you're supposed to "manifest" -- I don't really like the idea of manifesting because I think it's a little bit a crock of bullshit, because just because you think good things doesn't mean good things will happen to you. Obviously having a positive mindset is ideal, but you know, I just think it's a little bit privileged, coming from that. Not everyone can think good thoughts and good things will happen to them. But you're supposed to manifest something, and then the point is generated, and then you go to that point and see what's up. And a lot of people on Reddit and Twitter have been finding really weird stuff. Like there's a lot of articles about people finding -- they'll manifest "death" and they'll find a dead body on a beach or something. So I don't do that, but what I do do is, I manifested -- I went with a friend because it kind of can be creepy sometimes, but I manifested a cryptid, which is like Sasquatch or Loch Ness. It's like mythical creatures. I was like, "I want to see a cryptid." And then they generated a point towards a strip mall, which is like, that's interesting. And we saw a groundhog. So it was like a cheeky sort of experience, but it's kind of fun and a lot of the times it'll be in the middle of a forest. So you have to hike, so that's been my sort of physical activity. I'll just go with a friend that I see regularly, because (inaudible) live together. If I have COVID, she has COVID. That's my sort of mental, or the way I work that out in my head. I hope it's not problematic, but if it is, I'm okay with it because I literally don't see anybody all day. So -- KL: No, I you know -- GH: I don't go to parties. I don't hang out with a lot of people. It's like three people that I see outside of my house, and that's it. But I guess people should get creative with how to spend their time, if they can't do the things that they were doing before. Yeah. KL: And like, reaching out to people that you can, I don't know, video chat with. Or be with in your bubble, whatever they're calling it. GH: I feel like a lot of people -- not me, because I don't like alcohol that much -- but I feel like a lot of people are concerning me with their alcohol consumption. Like, I'll call them and they'll be like, "Oh yeah, I'm just drinking." And like, again? It's a Tuesday. So I guess that goes along with mental health. But no, I haven't been doing that. Although maybe I should, on a weekend. But I feel like it's like, I don't know, doesn't feel like -- I don't know. KL: That's not the hobby you want to develop right now. GH: No, but I do feel like a lot of people are like, "Whelp, if I'm not going to go out, I guess I'm going to drink here," and then yeah, so, concerned. I think that there should be a -- if we're going to be doing this for a while, I think that there should be more messaging about how to be a person in this time. Because it seems like they're just telling us what we should be doing and then a lot of people get mad about it, that aren't creative. I don't know. Here's how you should be safe during a pandemic and also in a mental health way. Because not many people are about here with a counselor. So yeah. I think that that should be something that's focused on. I don't see that a lot anywhere, though. KL: Yeah I know, that's really true. I know, I'm like so thankful for my friends who I can be sad to every day, or be happy to, or yeah. GH: Oh, I guess another part is like, Black Lives Matter. I've been very passionate about showing up and helping as much as I can. Sometimes it just conflicts with my schedule, but I recently went to the -- I don't know if you heard about Palmerton's protest a couple weeks ago. It's a town over from where I used to live, and my good friends were the organizers. And it went very poorly. KL: Oh, no. GH: Lots of counter protestors. There was a lot of rumors that we were bussing in three hundred people from the Lehigh Valley, which is a very intentional terminology used by a lot of conspiracy theorists who think that George Soros funds this stuff. And there were like maybe 80 people there, and then like over three hundred of the other people there, not wearing masks. They also had guns and were pushing people, so I felt unsafe. I was having some heart palpitations from it, because it was hot out and I felt unsafe. So I left a little early, but it kind of was a wakeup call to me to see that people are really upset on both sides, and it's really hard to communicate. Not for me ; on my social media, I am pretty honest about my beliefs and I'll post something and be like, "If you want to talk about it, I'm absolutely down to talk about it. However, if you're rude, you're not allowed to. And you can absolutely unfriend me if this offends you." You know, like I'm not going to unfriend people for disagreeing. I will unfollow them if I see racist bullshit. I just don't want to create an echo chamber for myself, but I also don't want to spend time on people who just won't change. So I feel like a lot of people just don't want to have conversations. A lot of the Black Lives Matter protestors actually did want to have conversations, I will say, but I don't think they ever were in debate in high school or understand how to not -- I don't think opening up with, "That's racist," is going to reach people, even if it's true. So I feel like with the Trump presidency and with all these really, really contrasting views, it's just really hard to communicate. And no one's setting a real example, I think. If somebody called me a racist, I would be like, "Okay, why?" But I think most people would just be really offended and be like, "You're an asshole, fuck you." And I think there has to be some sort of know your audience, but unfortunately the people that showed up to this protest that were counter protesting it were not interested in listening at all. Because you know, if you showed up to protest a protest, I don't think you're going to listen. So I kind of tried -- I was the person that was trying to kind of reel us all in like hey, just ignore them. The more you do this thing -- you can't tell who's the idiot, if you're arguing with an idiot. So, I think that that was a big mental health thing for people. I'm mostly coming from the Black Lives Matter perspective rather than the other side, because that's a whole different sort of thing for me. But a lot of my friends continue to argue on Facebook and Instagram and Twitter, and I'm out here and I'm just like, "You know what? I need a break. This is a lot." And I know that kind of is selfish to take a break when other people can't take a break because this is their everyday life, but I can't continue to do my best and fight for what's right if I'm going to be drained and upset, so I'm going to educate myself. I took a week to read some Black and queer poetry, and then I talked with friends about it, and tonight I'm going to do a city council thing. We're going to do our best. I just don't think that a lot of people are realizing that they can't continue to keep doing the same thing and feel better. They're not going to. I appreciate the fight, though. I appreciate that people have so much passion for it, but I just realized, I'm twenty-three. And trying to please everybody has never worked for me. It's only made me want to die, so I'm not doing that anymore. I'm going to please myself, I'm going to try to please other people to the best of my ability, and if it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen. So yeah. But small towns are tough, and I'm really glad that Lehigh Valley, at least the police aren't complete trash. They haven't been violent, as far as I can tell. So thankfully there's that, but not the same for the rest of the country, which is also really scary. Just a million different things happening that are completely bogus and crazy, and we're supposed to just be chill? Like no, it's okay to not be chill. Just don't push through that. Actually, we're in a pandemic, we're supposed to be quarantined. Take a second. You can. The fight's still going to be there tomorrow, absolutely. Yeah. I just wish I could tell people to slow down when they're supposed to be slowed down for a sec. And this is advice actually not that I came up with. This is advice from my advisor in college who I am friends with, and she is a really intelligent person. She has done a lot of good social justice work, but she takes breaks because you can't keep -- if it's a marathon, you can't just do that. KL: Yeah, because then you just can't continue to do it. You can't continue that work, and -- GH: As long as you get back into it. Some people, it is just a trend for some people. That's to be expected, and it doesn't bother me as much as it should, probably, because I'm just like, well, the women's march back in 2016, the more people involved, I think the less specific an issue becomes. Obviously it's raising awareness towards something, but I think a lot of the criticisms of the women's march were that it was vague. And it was, but it also showed how intersectional feminism can pretty much encompass every part of our lives, so you know, good and bad with it. But with stuff that is racial, it's probably best for people that aren't going to say the right stuff to let other voices come through more, because some people really are like, "Yeah, Black Lives Matter, but I'm not racist." You know what, if you're white, you're probably a little racist at least. KL: Yeah. You can't see that in yourself and admit that. GH: Yeah. Some of the protests I went to, where they had people like come up and speak about something. I saw some white people go up. I'm like, "Sit back down, sit back down. This isn't your time. Wait until other people go up, oh my gosh." So you know, I'm not necessarily [in bad?] about it. I mean, obviously the more the merrier that are going to stand in solidarity, but some people's voices do come through when they shouldn't. Just like with TERFs, like JK Rowling. I mean, we don't want her to be talking right now. No thank you. Yup. Yeah. KL: Yeah. Okay. I don't know, I feel like we have a few more minutes. So if you have anything else to say before we wrap it up. GH: Not really. I think I did a good rant sesh. KL: Me too. It was awesome. GH: Yup. Thank you for doing this. It's really cool. I'm excited to see what the product of it is, and yeah. I think this is going to be -- it's cool to be part of a history thing. KL: Yeah, I mean thank you so much for your time. GH: Absolutely. KL: And it's interesting on -- it's been fun to see everybody. It's been fun to listen to people, and I don't know. I don't know if fun's the right word, but it's been good. And it's, I think, a good -- I don't even know. A good view of all the things. GH: So, is this an anonymous thing, or not really? KL: Not really. I mean, if you want it to be. GH: So, I guess it's fine. I'm comfortable with sharing any of that, but I feel like some people -- I guess with the mental health stuff where I talk about the sensitive stuff, definitely trigger warning for some people. And I want it to be very evident that I am okay, because I don't want people worrying about me. I didn't tell anybody at work that -- they knew that there was stuff going on in my life, because they saw that my environment changed on Zoom. But I didn't tell them that I was that bad. So I guess I'm chill with it. I just hope that it's put in a way that doesn't concern my friends and family. Which, it is concerning but I'm okay. I don't know. I'm cool with whatever, and I'm not going to take back anything. KL: Well, I mean, I'm still recording by the way. But I mean, you'll get the transcript and you can look through it, and if you want to cut anything out, we can do that. GH: Yeah, okay. KL: And then, what else? GH: It should be fine. KL: And Ariel did one of these, too. GH: Ariel? KL: Mm-hmm. He did that. He did one. GH: Ollie also told me he did one. KL: Oh, did he? GH: I think so. Do you know Ollie? KL: I do know Ollie. GH: He used to work at the center. KL: Or, did he, with Liz? GH: Maybe with Liz. KL: Maybe he hasn't done it yet. Anyway, sorry, I just got [involved?] thinking of all of Liz's (inaudible). GH: You're really good at this. You made me feel very comfortable. Yeah. KL: Good, I'm glad. I know. I should stop recording, and then I'll say -- anyway, thank you! I'm going to stop recording, and then I'll just talk to you for fun. GH: Oh, Okay. KL: Hold on. And -- END OF VIDEO FILE Copyright for this oral history recording is held by the interview subject. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source 0 /render.php?cachefile=
Duration
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00:48:24
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Title
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Gabby Hochfeld, July 29, 2020
Description
An account of the resource
Gabby Hochfeld discusses her life experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic including the ways in which it has effected her mental health, work life, and social interactions.
Identifier
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PH40_03
Subject
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COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020-
Date
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2020-07-29
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video
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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https://lgbt.digitalarchives.muhlenberg.edu/files/original/b7f661043f76d6df8a84d27278ac8734.png
efdf32d959853f802e80e7bff954aa72
Dublin Core
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Title
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40 Years of Public Health Experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community: COVID-19
Description
An account of the resource
In the spring of 2020, the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center and the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive received a grant to collect oral histories and written stories for 40 Years of Public Health in the Lehigh Valley’s LGBT Community: Collecting and Curating Local LGBT Health Experiences from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19.
The collection consists of oral histories from individuals who experienced the worst of the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s, as well as oral histories from members of the local community as they lived through 2020's summer of Covid-19. Running through both are the themes of dealing with the fear of an emerging health crisis, loneliness and isolation, and coming together as a community in support and activism.
The project was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Oral History
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Interviewer
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Liz Bradbury
Interviewee
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Ian Wagner
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Viewer)
https://trexlerworks.muhlenberg.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=PH40_29.xml
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5.4 July 7, 2020 Ian Wagner, July 9, 2020 PH40_29 00:56:26 LVLGBT40 40 Years of Public Health Experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository This oral history recording was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020- COVID-19 (Disease) Ian Wagner Liz Bradbury video/mpeg WagnerIan_20200709_video.mp4 1.0:|1385(5) 0 https://youtu.be/gj2WoluJDTE YouTube video 0 Interview Introduction LIZ BRADBURY: -- record on this computer. I’m also going to do an audio recording because I did one last week for the HIV/AIDS ones that we’re doing for people who were around during the AIDS epidemic, and I did ten people, and one of the people I was doing didn’t record it right. She had stopped it, I had to stop it because we lost a connection for her. And I pressed resume but on Zoom resume does not mean resume. It means you resume to the opportunity to record again. (laughs) So, then you have to press record again. So, luckily I had an audio recording of her. And her camera, her video recording camera was really bad anyways, so I felt ever more exonerated because I didn’t mess it up. Can you hear me okay?
 ; 
 ; IAN WAGNER: Yes, I can, how about me? 
 ; 
 ; LB: You sound great. We are recording and I’m going to read you the stuff here. And it says -- let’s see, turn off phone. I think my phone is already off. Yes, it is. And I’m recording, I’ve got the audio, I’ve got the video, okay. I have to pin you. Wait a minute. I have to do the pin thing. Whoops, no, I want to pin video on you. That’s not right.
 ; 
 ; IW: Don’t you love when you have technical difficulties? 0 297 Finishing up clinical counseling degree online/Counseling people through Zoom LB: Let me ask you first, in the place -- well, so, you’re working now? You’re working online? We’ll just talk about that. 
 ; 
 ; IW: Yes, I am. I actually just obtained my master’s degree in clinical counseling. So, I was in my internship when all of this started back in March. I actually finished school during COVID. And I did my internship and practicum with Pinebrook Family Answers where I still am today. I’m actually in the middle of transferring from there to Holcomb, I just obtained a position as a counselor with them. 
 ; 0 444 Experience living with roommates during the pandemic LB: You’re working in this house in New Tripoli. And who else is in the house with you? You’re not all by yourself? 
 ; 
 ; IW: No, I’m with my roommate Rachel Zane and her daughter Sarah Zane. 
 ; 
 ; LB: It’s lucky that you have other people there because when you’re with other people it’s easier. Do you think it’s easier? 0 528 Securing a job in the middle of the pandemic/House protocols for going back to in-person work LB: When you graduated right in the middle of this, were you afraid it would be hard to get a job? 
 ; 
 ; IW: Not really. Just because I already had an offer from Pinebrook so, at least I was okay there. And I do still work full-time as a support coordinator for service, access, and management, so thankfully as far as work that wasn’t a concern. And I realize I’m incredibly blessed because what I do with the social work and the counseling it’s able to go virtual and I can still work full-time. Like I didn’t get affected as far as employment. Which I know a lot of people were, so I consider myself lucky on that stance. 0 731 Communicating digitally during the pandemic LB: So, there’s questions here about if you’re doing communicating by phone or online for work, but what about socially? Are you doing that for socially? You have friends that you’re talking to that way too, or what do you think? 
 ; 
 ; IW: Yeah. I have used Facetime more than I probably ever have, and Zoom, and Skype. Something me and a couple of friends are doing is we enjoy Broadway, and of course, that’s been closed down. So, there’s this app, which I’m forgetting right now, but it’s Broadway World, I don’t know, I forget it. But we’re using that to watch Broadway shows that have been previously recorded. 0 841 Concerns about the pandemic LB: What’s your biggest concern? In terms of the whole world and what’s happening, what’s the stuff that’s really concerning you most with regard to this virus? 
 ; 
 ; IW: In regards to COVID-19? 
 ; 
 ; LB: Yeah.
 ; 0 909 Knowing of someone who has died from Covid-19 LB: Do you know anybody who’s had it? 
 ; 
 ; IW: Not really. There was a classmate of mine from high school who I’ve lost touch with since high school, but unfortunately he did pass away due to COVID-19. Which was really a hit to home for me because this guy was my age, perfect health, was an athlete back in high school, and he got sick and unfortunately passed away. So, it was that thing where I knew it didn’t really matter my age, but that was a yeah, it doesn’t matter, this is someone you know, and -- 
 ; 0 972 Thoughts on Dr. Rachel Levine LB: So, we really would love to know, one of the things that I think we’re all concerned about, or at least people you and I know, are very concerned about the lack of federal leadership, let’s put it that way. (laughs)
 ; 
 ; IW: Okay, let’s put it that way.
 ; 
 ; LB: But one of the things that we have in common is that we have some pretty great leadership in the state. And Dr. Rachel Levine has been really for me a mainstay, I’ve felt a lot of comfort. How do you feel about when you see her? Have you seen her when she’s talking about stuff? (overlapping dialogue ; inaudible)
 ; 0 1044 Fears and frustrations regarding pandemic/Counseled patients' experience with the pandemic LB: There are fears in terms of -- that you have about that kind of stuff too. Because -- what do you think would happen if you got it? 
 ; 
 ; IW: I have thought about that. I don’t know. I mean, just hope and pray that the treatment they give me in a hospital would work and I would pull through. For my loved ones, I would hope I would find out as soon as possible so I can either be isolated or put into a hospital where I can’t affect my loved ones. Honestly that’s probably my biggest fear is not so much me getting it. Like, I obviously don’t want it, but getting it and affecting those around me. 
 ; 0 1189 Use of queer dating sites or hookup apps during the pandemic/Pandemic affecting dating life LB: We have some things on this list of questions and one of them is, are you using any queer dating sites or hookup apps? 
 ; 
 ; IW: You know what? No, right now no. I don’t understand why anyone would be because then you would want to go meet that person, again, you don’t know who they’ve been around. So I see it -- I don’t understand. 
 ; 0 1255 Difficulty for counseled patients coming out during pandemic LB: You’re in a situation where you never have to worry about being out because you’re as out as can be and you live with people who are totally comfortable with you being out, they’ve always known that you are gay. But are you coming in contact with people, particularly young people since you are working with young people who are really at risk because they can’t be out to anyone because they’re at home, have you had anybody like that? 
 ; 
 ; IW: I’ve had a client like that who couldn’t come out specifically as transgender. So, that was difficult for him. And it’s a matter of, at least for me, assisting them to make sure they’re safe both physically and emotionally. And trying to give them as many tools as I can. 
 ; 0 1360 Participating in Bradbury-Sullivan programs online/Skepticism over Covid protocols switching to code green LB: Can you get to do any kind of queer activities besides just hanging out with your pals? 
 ; 
 ; IW: Just on the -- at the Center online we do some things. You recently gave (inaudible) talk, so I really enjoyed that. So, some things. I mean, other activities, no. I really am trying to stay inside as much as possible. Even now that we’re in green, I just don’t want to take any chances. 0 1440 Experience with neighbors in New Tripoli during the pandemic LB: New Tripoli is north of Allentown up in north of Lehigh or sort of on the northern end of Lehigh Valley, and it’s a little bit more rural. Are you finding that people are being more neighborly and more careful or less -- or more sort of independent or about the same as you would imagine? 
 ; 
 ; IW: I would say about the same. Like we’re so far from each other as far as like neighborly that we’re on a hi, bye, kind of status, but we don’t see each other unless you’re driving by, which a lot of us aren’t because we’re not going anywhere. 0 1523 Not feeling safe at the grocery store LB: Do you think that the stores, I mean, when you go to -- I haven’t really been to stores. We have a young person in our life who was sick, and she was in college, and she got the virus, and she was quite sick, but now she’s all better and she actually has a high level of antibodies. So, we don’t even feel guilty about making her go to the store for us because not putting herself at risk and she’s not carrying it to other people either. Which is a unique situation because we really don’t, I mean, most people that we know well haven’t gotten it because they’ve been so careful and they’ve been in and stuff. But when you go to the store, do you feel confident in the store? Do you feel like the store --
 ; 
 ; IW: Honestly, no. Just because I go to the store and I see some people where they take their mask off as soon as they get in the store, or they have it like half on with their noses out, or even like completely down so the mask is covering their chin. 0 1686 Going out besides grocery shopping during the pandemic/Counseling in person LB: Have there been any instances where you’ve had to go someplace, other places besides just getting essential food or something? 
 ; 
 ; IW: I did, actually I did just go to my office for the first time yesterday. Because, like I said, I’m switching jobs from Pinebrook Family Answers to Holcomb Behavioral Health, so there are some clients who I feel it’s my ethical duty to see them in person during this termination time because it’s difficult for some people. 0 1803 Spending less money during the pandemic LB: Do you think that you’re spending more money because you’re stuck away? Or you’re spending less?
 ; 
 ; IW: Incredibly less. 
 ; 
 ; LB: Yeah?
 ; 0 1870 More on socializing/communicating LB: Are there people that you think that you’re actually in more contact with than you have been when you were working and you had to run around and stuff?
 ; 
 ; IW: Honestly, no. I still kind of keep my little close circle, so those are the people I’m still like well now I’m Skyping and Facetiming with, whereas before I would actually be with them in person. 0 1906 Taking walks/Exercise routine changing LB: You don’t realize how much time you take commuting. And I live really close to the Center, but I walk to the Center each day which is a good forty minutes a day, which I totally save. And yet, it’s harder to get exercise. Are you finding that’s true for you? Can you go outside?
 ; 
 ; IW: I can go outside because thankfully our neighbors aren’t really close, so walking around is definitely doable. I take my little dog for a walk. But even that it’s not too far. So, yeah, exercise is definitely proving a challenge. Hopefully, maybe I’ll get back to a gym someday, who knows. 0 2114 Worries about the future LB: How worried are you about the future? What do you think about the future? 
 ; 
 ; IW: Honestly, personally I’m worried that tele-health is going to become like the new norm. Because I’m not a fan. I want to go back to the office and see my clients in person 0 2207 Sources of hope during the pandemic LB: What gives you hope now? What gives you hope now? 
 ; 
 ; IW: Good question. What gives me hope now is I tend to be an optimist. Kind of a glass half full guy instead of half empty. Yes, I try to be realistic and look at the world and see what’s going on, but my hope is looking at my friends and my family, and other people who are doing, in my opinion, the right thing as far as like remaining social distance and washing your hands and mask and everything. It shows me like okay, look, there are people out there who are doing the right thing and maybe we are putting a curb on this infection, on this disease. That gives me hope is people. And we tend to be resilient, which I really love. Especially in the LGBT+ community, for us this is not our first pandemic 0 2448 Attending Kutztown University during the pandemic/Using and learning digital collaborative platforms LB: Where did you get your graduate degree? 
 ; 
 ; IW: Kutztown University. 
 ; 
 ; LB: Did you have to go to Kutztown for that? Did you have to take classes online at the end? 
 ; 0 2706 Best aspect of pandemic life LB: What’s the best thing out of this that you’ve done? 
 ; 
 ; IW: Again I think learning new things. I led a very busy lifestyle before, again, with school, and I basically had two jobs between my internship and my full-time job. So, now, I was able to learn new things like I’m one of those people who probably in other interviews have said this, I’ve learned how to bake. 0 2764 Thoughts on Black Lives Matter LB: So, a lot of things have been happening and at the same time, certainly a lot of political things that we’re all very concerned about, and the tangential things to those or the products of those that have to do with instances of discrimination, and rights, and for our community, and for all communities. And also, certainly, some very serious things with regard to Black Lives Matter, and the circumstance of racism, and the awareness of racism in the United States. Do you want to talk about that? How has that affected you? 
 ; 
 ; IW: Honestly it affected me very personally. I’m a black male and I have had to look deep within myself on how I feel about the situation. Personally growing up I never really had to deal with racism. 0 3132 Thoughts for the future LB: So, we’re coming to the end I think. So, I just want to ask you if there is anything else that you think someday somebody in the future is going to look at this and I think, I hope, that will be the case. And it might be in the near future, it might be many, many years, it might be decades, we might be all gone by them. 0 3329 Conclusion LB: Thank you so much for this. I really am very, very grateful for this opportunity to talk to you. It’s fun to talk to you. I love the room that you’re in. 
 ; 
 ; IW: Yeah, my new office while all this is happening.
 ; 0 MovingImage Ian Wagner talks about the current COVID-19 is affecting him, his friends and family, and the people he lives with, his work as a therapist and not being able to see clients face to face and his new job, how it is affecting LGBTQ people, Black Lives Matter issues, community leadership, learning to bake, and what gives him hope. Ian Wagner 2020-07-09 LIZ BRADBURY: -- record on this computer. I'm also going to do an audio recording because I did one last week for the HIV/AIDS ones that we're doing for people who were around during the AIDS epidemic, and I did ten people, and one of the people I was doing didn't record it right. She had stopped it, I had to stop it because we lost a connection for her. And I pressed resume but on Zoom resume does not mean resume. It means you resume to the opportunity to record again. (laughs) So, then you have to press record again. So, luckily I had an audio recording of her. And her camera, her video recording camera was really bad anyways, so I felt ever more exonerated because I didn't mess it up. Can you hear me okay? IAN WAGNER: Yes, I can, how about me? LB: You sound great. We are recording and I'm going to read you the stuff here. And it says -- let's see, turn off phone. I think my phone is already off. Yes, it is. And I'm recording, I've got the audio, I've got the video, okay. I have to pin you. Wait a minute. I have to do the pin thing. Whoops, no, I want to pin video on you. That's not right. IW: Don't you love when you have technical difficulties? LB: I think I may have messed up the whole thing before. Who am I seeing now? I want to pin it on you. Unpinned. No, you're pinned. Okay, you're good. Wait, unpin video. Pin you, pin video on you. Yes, good, okay, that's right. So, now, you're pinned. Okay, I've got it. Now I've got to read you this stuff. With this project Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center at the Trexler Library at Muhlenberg College will collaborate on forty years of public health experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT community collecting and curating local LGBT health experiences from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19. My name is Liz Bradbury and I'm here with Ian Wagner to talk about his experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT community during this time of the COVID-19 pandemic as part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive. Thank you so much for your willingness to speak with us. Oh, I was supposed to give the date of this interview. The date is Thursday July 9th, 2020. Thank you so much for your willingness to speak with us today. To start, can you please state your full name and spell it for me? IW: Ian Wagner, Ian, I-A-N as in Nancy, Wagner, W-A-G-N-E-R. LB: Great. And can you please share your birth date? IW: June 29th, 1988. LB: Great. And what town are you in? IW: New Tripoli. LB: Okay, because we have to put that. Now this is the consent part, so, do you consent to this video for us to -- no, do you consent to this interview today? IW: I do. LB: Do you consent to having this interview being transcribed, digitized, and made available publically online in digital formats? IW: Yes, I do. LB: Do you consent to the LGBT Archive using your interview for education purposes in other formats including films, articles, websites, presentations, and other formats? IW: Yes, I do. LB: Do you understand that you will have 30 days after the electronic delivery of this transcript to review your interview and identify any parts you would like to delete and/or withdraw from the -- or you could actually withdraw the entire interview, if you choose, from the project? IW: I do. LB: Good. Okay, so we're going to start out by just a couple of things. What is your zip code where you live? IW: 18066. LB: And what is your age? IW: Thirty-two. LB: How do you identify within the LGBT community? Sexual orientation, gender, identity, anything you want to say with regard to that. IW: I am a gay cis male. LB: Here are some things -- so, this is about the different things. And, you know, there's a lot of different questions on here, I hope you had a chance to look at those. But we don't have to hit every one of those things, so it's just general stuff. Let me ask you first, in the place -- well, so, you're working now? You're working online? We'll just talk about that. IW: Yes, I am. I actually just obtained my master's degree in clinical counseling. So, I was in my internship when all of this started back in March. I actually finished school during COVID. And I did my internship and practicum with Pinebrook Family Answers where I still am today. I'm actually in the middle of transferring from there to Holcomb, I just obtained a position as a counselor with them. LB: Great. And you're doing that from home now? IW: Yes. LB: That is counseling people and it's sort of on Zoom stuff. IW: Yeah, we use a special Microsoft Teams because it's HIPAA compliant. LB: I see. Normally, if you were not, if it wasn't the COVID-19 circumstance, would you be seeing these people in person? IW: Yes, I would be going to the Pinebrook office and have the sessions there. LB: And how's it working out to have these sessions on Zoom? What do you think about that? IW: They work for some people and they don't work for, my caseload, most people. Yeah, just because one, I have a couple of kids, so, it's hard to keep them focused when they're not in a room with you and getting to actually participate with them. They have toys around them in their home, they have other distractions, so it's hard to get them to really participate in the counseling session. Some adults have issues with anxiety, so no matter how much I explain that Microsoft Teams is HIPAA compliant, they just don't feel comfortable discussing personal things over the phone or even over the app. So, I find in person counseling to be best. And I hope to get back there one day. LB: Yeah. Have you had anybody that liked it better? IW: I do. I have one person and that's because they live in Wind Gap, so it avoids the travel for them. So, this has actually been beneficial for that client. LB: Yeah, Wind Gap is really far. IW: Yeah. LB: You're working in this house in New Tripoli. And who else is in the house with you? You're not all by yourself? IW: No, I'm with my roommate Rachel Zane and her daughter Sarah Zane. LB: It's lucky that you have other people there because when you're with other people it's easier. Do you think it's easier? IW: I do actually. The house is a decent size so we are able to not be on top of each other throughout this entire thing. We basically each kind of have our own floors because Sarah's bedroom is on the first floor, Rachel's is on the third, and I'm actually in the basement with my own entrance and everything. So, it works out pretty good. LB: Yeah, that does work out good. Would you think that it would be -- what do you think it would be like if you were all by yourself? Or would you like it better? IW: No, I think I have the best of it right now. Because I think if I was alone I would eventually get lonely and then it's like ugh, who do I invite over because who have they been around, do I want to go outside. So, at least with them here I know where they've been and again, we don't really step on each other. So, if I want my alone time I just go to my room and that's fine. LB: When you graduated right in the middle of this, were you afraid it would be hard to get a job? IW: Not really. Just because I already had an offer from Pinebrook so, at least I was okay there. And I do still work full-time as a support coordinator for service, access, and management, so thankfully as far as work that wasn't a concern. And I realize I'm incredibly blessed because what I do with the social work and the counseling it's able to go virtual and I can still work full-time. Like I didn't get affected as far as employment. Which I know a lot of people were, so I consider myself lucky on that stance. LB: Are the other people in the house, in your house sort of in that same situation? I kind of know the answer to this but, people who are watching this may not. And remember people may be watching this that are thirty years from now. So, it will be really an interesting time capsule to explain to people because some people might not understand the circumstances of what's really happening now. IW: Yeah, for all I know, maybe tele-health will be the norm and they'll be like, he went to the office, why? LB: (laughs) Really? Rachel's a teacher and of course it's the summer. IW: Yeah, so that worked out perfectly. Again, I mean obviously COVID-19 is horrible, but as far as when it occurred for us it happened in March, so she only had a couple of more months. So, she did teach online for a little bit, but now here we are in the summer so she would have been off anyway. LB: Right. IW: And Sarah is still in school. She goes to Northampton Community College. So, she's just taking classes online. Which she doesn't like. She's a more -- just like me, I did not like online classes, I avoided them like the plague, I like to go to the class. So, it's a little difficult for her. LB: Yeah. I mean, I don't even know if this is on the list but I'm fascinated because I'm sure you're all in the house considering this, that if Rachel has to go -- what do you think is going to happen? Some states are requiring teachers to go back to work even though it's incredibly dangerous, particularly in Florida, for example. IW: Yes. We've talked about that. Especially since I believe for my clients, some of them need to do the in person counseling. So, we've had that discussion like if they lift it and I'm able to go to the office, for some clients I would want to go to the office. So, basically all we can do, considering that we both work in basically a humanistic profession, her being a teacher, me being a counselor, that we would just have to do the best we can as far as obviously remembering to wash our hands, we have our own masks, I keep extra masks in the car just in case I walk out of the house and forget mine, and in case I come across someone who needs one I can give them one. And when I get home, if I -- because we have to go to the store and stuff like that, so, on the rare occasions that happens, we come home, we immediately throw our clothes in the washer, and we take a shower. So, we try to be as careful as we can. LB: So, there's questions here about if you're doing communicating by phone or online for work, but what about socially? Are you doing that for socially? You have friends that you're talking to that way too, or what do you think? IW: Yeah. I have used Facetime more than I probably ever have, and Zoom, and Skype. Something me and a couple of friends are doing is we enjoy Broadway, and of course, that's been closed down. So, there's this app, which I'm forgetting right now, but it's Broadway World, I don't know, I forget it. But we're using that to watch Broadway shows that have been previously recorded. LB: Oh cool. IW: What we do is we set up our laptops, phones, whatever we're using, and we press play at the same time so we're watching the show at the same time together just in different houses. Yeah, it's been really nice. We still get to socialize and talk about it and still remain safe as far as social distancing. LB: And then you're like on the phone talking about it while you're watching it. IW: Yeah. So, like I set up my iPad so it will be facing me and I'm watching the TV, so I can look down and at them, and be like oh my god, did you see that. LB: That's great. That's a great idea. That's really smart. Trish and I have been watching opera at the Metropolitan Opera on a really big screen, we have a really big screen here. IW: Yeah, I need to get a bigger screen. LB: Well, it's the screen -- we don't have TV, but it's the screen I use at the community center and then I project it with my projector through my computer. So, it's an enormous thing that was really interesting. What's your biggest concern? In terms of the whole world and what's happening, what's the stuff that's really concerning you most with regard to this virus? IW: In regards to COVID-19? LB: Yeah. IW: I am concerned that we're going to be in green too soon, we're already in green. And people being home for so long are going to let their guards down and go to places like the beach, the park, and wearing a mask is uncomfortable. At least I find it uncomfortable. So, they may like put it down so their nose is out or something. And I just -- without a vaccination or proper treatment yet, I think it's really dangerous for people to still come together in large groups. LB: Do you know people who are doing that? IW: Not personally, but I see it online and stuff like that. LB: It's funny that I really don't know anybody that's doing it, but I do see it online. And I'm glad that I don't have to yell at my own friends. IW: Exactly. LB: Do you know anybody who's had it? IW: Not really. There was a classmate of mine from high school who I've lost touch with since high school, but unfortunately he did pass away due to COVID-19. Which was really a hit to home for me because this guy was my age, perfect health, was an athlete back in high school, and he got sick and unfortunately passed away. So, it was that thing where I knew it didn't really matter my age, but that was a yeah, it doesn't matter, this is someone you know, and -- LB: Was he in the area? IW: Yeah. LB: Wow. Was he doing something like in an essential services situation? Was he a healthcare worker? Because a lot of healthcare workers -- IW: No, not to my knowledge. Again, we lost track. LB: Yeah. So, we really would love to know, one of the things that I think we're all concerned about, or at least people you and I know, are very concerned about the lack of federal leadership, let's put it that way. (laughs) IW: Okay, let's put it that way. LB: But one of the things that we have in common is that we have some pretty great leadership in the state. And Dr. Rachel Levine has been really for me a mainstay, I've felt a lot of comfort. How do you feel about when you see her? Have you seen her when she's talking about stuff? (overlapping dialogue ; inaudible) IW: Sorry? LB: The Secretary of Health, for peoples' edification. IW: Yeah. Fortunately I was able to meet her at one point, so that was really nice. And I am always watching her when she's on TV or I search for the article if I miss something on TV. I think she's a real leader in so many ways, and I'm incredibly thankful that we have her. She's taking this pandemic seriously and is trying to protect us all and help us all as much as she can. LB: There are fears in terms of -- that you have about that kind of stuff too. Because -- what do you think would happen if you got it? IW: I have thought about that. I don't know. I mean, just hope and pray that the treatment they give me in a hospital would work and I would pull through. For my loved ones, I would hope I would find out as soon as possible so I can either be isolated or put into a hospital where I can't affect my loved ones. Honestly that's probably my biggest fear is not so much me getting it. Like, I obviously don't want it, but getting it and affecting those around me. LB: Yeah. No kidding. I mean, I think that we all have people who are at risk around us and it's very frightening, I think. I mean, to think that you could hurt someone else. IW: Especially someone you care for. LB: Yeah. It's hard to not be angry at people. It's hard to not feel anger. Anger. Have you been having a feeling -- I have a lot of feeling like that. IW: More frustration and confusion on how these people are not taking it seriously and how some people believe that it's a hoax, that it's not really happening. And quoting things like oh, more people die from the flu every year, but it's like that doesn't mitigate what's happening here right now. LB: When you're working with the people that you're seeing online, they probably, I would guess that some of them are very scared. Does that happen? IW: Yeah, some of the kids don't understand so, it's a matter of helping them to understand and seeing where they are. And some of the adults are just downright frustrated. They want to go out, some are not used to not being able to do what they want to do because they're older adults, so they haven't had to answer to anyone in a really long time. And now it's like it's almost like you're punished, like go in your room and don't come out, like you can't come out of your house. LB: It is like that. We have some things on this list of questions and one of them is, are you using any queer dating sites or hookup apps? IW: You know what? No, right now no. I don't understand why anyone would be because then you would want to go meet that person, again, you don't know who they've been around. So I see it -- I don't understand. LB: (inaudible) online dates. IW: Yeah, people are doing like Zoom dates and stuff like that. I haven't thought about it. And honestly, I haven't dated so long because of school it's not really different for me. What I do find funny was I was telling myself before all this like you graduate this coming year, after you graduate you're going to get back out there. And then COVID and it's like nope, you're staying right here, no dating for you. So, I was like okay. LB: That's true. The whole universe is stacked up against you. IW: Ian's going to be alone. LB: You're in a situation where you never have to worry about being out because you're as out as can be and you live with people who are totally comfortable with you being out, they've always known that you are gay. But are you coming in contact with people, particularly young people since you are working with young people who are really at risk because they can't be out to anyone because they're at home, have you had anybody like that? IW: I've had a client like that who couldn't come out specifically as transgender. So, that was difficult for him. And it's a matter of, at least for me, assisting them to make sure they're safe both physically and emotionally. And trying to give them as many tools as I can. LB: It's tricky. This must be new in some ways for you as a therapist or a psychotherapist that somebody's got this set of problems and by the way, I also -- IW: Exactly. LB: -- have all of this stuff. It's a new set of tools that you have to have to do something. IW: Exactly. It's like you know you're in a home where you love your loved ones, but you can't be yourself around them. So, now you have to stay there 24/7. It's very difficult, I would imagine. Like you said, thankfully I'm not in that situation where I have to hide myself. I do feel for my client. And again, I try to help them as much as possible. I've told them about the Center, about the things we're offering online, trying to let them know that they're not alone. LB: Can you get to do any kind of queer activities besides just hanging out with your pals? IW: Just on the -- at the Center online we do some things. You recently gave (inaudible) talk, so I really enjoyed that. So, some things. I mean, other activities, no. I really am trying to stay inside as much as possible. Even now that we're in green, I just don't want to take any chances. LB: It's still a huge risk. Just because we're in green. And in some ways people seem to be wearing masks way less. They certainly are in the city way less. And Trish says that the choice of green was a stupid thing to call it because it seems as though everybody is saying, just go, now you're fine, green. It's not red, it's not yellow, it's green, just go ahead. IW: It definitely has that connotation. It's like go, you're free. And that's exactly how some people are acting like they were locked up and now they're free and they're running about. And it's like yes, we're allowed to be outside more, but it doesn't mean we're safe. LB: New Tripoli is north of Allentown up in north of Lehigh or sort of on the northern end of Lehigh Valley, and it's a little bit more rural. Are you finding that people are being more neighborly and more careful or less -- or more sort of independent or about the same as you would imagine? IW: I would say about the same. Like we're so far from each other as far as like neighborly that we're on a hi, bye, kind of status, but we don't see each other unless you're driving by, which a lot of us aren't because we're not going anywhere. I personally downloaded, and I know a couple people in the neighborhood have downloaded this app called Neighbor or Neighborhood, and it's basically around your area and you can post if you do need help or something like that. So, if a person who is living alone and maybe not quite as healthy, especially physically, they can post like hey, I need some groceries. And if I feel up to it and I think, you know what, this is worth taking the risk, I can do their grocery shopping for them. It's a way for us to be exactly that, neighborly, without leaving our homes and helping out as best we can. LB: Do you think that the stores, I mean, when you go to -- I haven't really been to stores. We have a young person in our life who was sick, and she was in college, and she got the virus, and she was quite sick, but now she's all better and she actually has a high level of antibodies. So, we don't even feel guilty about making her go to the store for us because not putting herself at risk and she's not carrying it to other people either. Which is a unique situation because we really don't, I mean, most people that we know well haven't gotten it because they've been so careful and they've been in and stuff. But when you go to the store, do you feel confident in the store? Do you feel like the store --IW: Honestly, no. Just because I go to the store and I see some people where they take their mask off as soon as they get in the store, or they have it like half on with their noses out, or even like completely down so the mask is covering their chin. And I know, at least I feel, like the employees are working as hard as they can. But realistically I just don't think -- you can't wipe down everything that everyone is touching. To me it's not possible. So, if I'm touching things I'm taking a risk. So, what I personally do and I look silly doing it, but it's worked so far, I put a glove on one hand, and that's my store glove. Like I use that to touch everything. And then my other hand I don't like accidentally reach for something, it's in my pocket. And then when I get to the register, I use my clean hand to touch my wallet and all that, do my card, and the glove hand, punch in the numbers, and when I get outside I de-glove, put it in the garbage, go back to my car, I have some hand sanitizer in there. I also have this thing called CavIWipes, which we used to use at the hospital when I was a nursing assistant. So, it's really strong. I wipe down my steering wheel and my doorknob and everything like that. So, taking as many precautions as I can think of, at least. LB: Do you know anybody that -- I mean, anybody in the neighborhood or any -- you've already mentioned somebody that you know that died from it, very serious. But do you know anybody in the neighborhood that has gotten it, or people in the store? Of course, they're probably not telling. Because they're not going to tell you at the store that oh yeah, six people got it in the last time they were in here. IW: Exactly. Talk about bad for business. LB: Really. Have there been any instances where you've had to go someplace, other places besides just getting essential food or something? IW: I did, actually I did just go to my office for the first time yesterday. Because, like I said, I'm switching jobs from Pinebrook Family Answers to Holcomb Behavioral Health, so there are some clients who I feel it's my ethical duty to see them in person during this termination time because it's difficult for some people. So, I went there, but I talked to them about it beforehand, we took temperatures, they were wearing a mask, we met in my conference room so we were at a big table far apart from one another, had them wash their hands when they came in, I did the same. Again, took as many precautions as I could think of. I wiped down the table before they got there, I wiped it down after they left. Yeah, that's the only place I've been since that or this. And to my maiLBox. LB: Yeah, it's interesting that you recognize that you don't have to go many places. We've had to go to the doctor a few times and suddenly we realized that we had to register the car. So, we went in order to do that, to get the mileage on the car, it's in the garage next to the Community Center, so we drove over there in our other car. And I went to get in to turn it on and it was dead. So, I went to look at the mileage, but because it was dead, the mileage wasn't -- I couldn't see the mileage. So, I said, eh, I'll just leave it here. IW: Just leave it. Or guess. LB: Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. Do you think that you're spending more money because you're stuck away? Or you're spending less? IW: Incredibly less. LB: Yeah? IW: Yeah, because living in New Tripoli the office is in Easton. And my other job as a social worker, I was going to peoples' homes. So, I was constantly driving. I'm not spending money on gas, I'm not eating out because I'm not out. And when I do grocery shopping I'm actually using the food. I will say unfortunately sometimes when I do grocery shopping before, I was out so much that some food would get spoiled, so it was a waste of food and money. Definitely not happening anymore. I'm cooking. It's definitely less money. LB: Are people taking turns cooking in the house or are you always cooking? IW: No, we kind of just cook when we want. And thankfully so far it's kind of balanced out. LB: That's good. IW: And we cook so -- and we have leftovers, so it's really like you don't even need to cook every day. It's working out. LB: Are there people that you think that you're actually in more contact with than you have been when you were working and you had to run around and stuff? IW: Honestly, no. I still kind of keep my little close circle, so those are the people I'm still like well now I'm Skyping and Facetiming with, whereas before I would actually be with them in person. Well, actually, there is one cousin that I talk to more now. Being home more often gives me the chance of like, you know what, I haven't checked in with this person, let me do that. LB: You don't realize how much time you take commuting. And I live really close to the Center, but I walk to the Center each day which is a good forty minutes a day, which I totally save. And yet, it's harder to get exercise. Are you finding that's true for you? Can you go outside? IW: I can go outside because thankfully our neighbors aren't really close, so walking around is definitely doable. I take my little dog for a walk. But even that it's not too far. So, yeah, exercise is definitely proving a challenge. Hopefully, maybe I'll get back to a gym someday, who knows. LB: Would you normally have gone to a gym? IW: Honestly no. (laughs) My exercise is going to my clients' houses and walking to and from and all that. And a lot of standing. I would stand when I was at the office, we had those desks that rise. So, I tried to do little things like that, but I'm not a gym person to be honest. LB: I have a bicycle desk. IW: Nice, I've heard of those. LB: It's cool actually. So that like when you were watching the Broadway shows with your friends, if you were watching on a laptop, for example, you could do that and then you could ride the bicycle desk. IW: That's not a bad idea. I actually helped a client get -- it wasn't attached to a desk, but the same thing, it was on the floor and it was a bicycle. I didn't even think about that. That is the perfect idea. LB: They're actually very quiet and they're not, they don't run by power, you power them. IW: Exactly. LB: They're easy to move around and they fold up too if you don't want it in the way. But I have to say that I've had bicycle desks for about six years. And I use them all the time. It's actually a very successful thing because you are sitting around anyway. And if you have to read a lot of documents or you have to be in a really long boring meeting. IW: Yes. LB: You know what I'm saying? I do it even if it's not boring, you can pay attention. So, with our staff meetings I always do it during our staff meetings because I can perfectly pay attention and stuff like that. But people see me going like this the whole time. IW: They're like, what is she doing. LB: Yeah. IW: That's something that I'm able to do now with the counseling and when I'm calling my clients on the social work aspect, is if I'm talking to them on the phone and not be a Zoom or anything, I can actually walk around. Whereas of course in a counseling office I'm sitting there with them. But now it gives me the opportunity like I grab my cup of coffee, I have my headset on, and I'm walking around on the deck or walk around the garden. LB: Well, there you go, you've got that going for you. IW: Because sometimes you just want to get out and stop looking at the four walls. LB: I think it's not a bad thing. It's almost like you're going for a walk with the person too, which is not necessarily a bad thing either. IW: Exactly. LB: That's an opportunity for you to do stuff that's a little bit different. That's something different that you do. Let's see, so we've been asking people about that. How worried are you about the future? What do you think about the future? IW: Honestly, personally I'm worried that tele-health is going to become like the new norm. Because I'm not a fan. I want to go back to the office and see my clients in person. So, selfishly, that's the first thing that comes to mind for me is like oh, I hope this doesn't become the new norm. As far as the world? I don't know. I am nervous that all of this is going to affect our upcoming election, which makes me really nervous. Because obviously, or at least to me, our leadership is very important. So, I'm nervous about the elections. I'm nervous about will we get proper treatment, will we discover anything about this really that will help it get us back to some semblance of normal. Kind of I guess the unknown is what I'm worried about. LB: Yeah, I guess maybe the people who are watching this thirty years from now know the answer. IW: Exactly. LB: I always talk about the difference between watching a movie about WWII that was made after WWII or made during WWII. And when it was made during WWII the people who made it really didn't know if we were going to win. And it was more propaganda but also really scary in a way. You could feel how it was scary, people are just trying to make people have hope. What gives you hope now? What gives you hope now? IW: Good question. What gives me hope now is I tend to be an optimist. Kind of a glass half full guy instead of half empty. Yes, I try to be realistic and look at the world and see what's going on, but my hope is looking at my friends and my family, and other people who are doing, in my opinion, the right thing as far as like remaining social distance and washing your hands and mask and everything. It shows me like okay, look, there are people out there who are doing the right thing and maybe we are putting a curb on this infection, on this disease. That gives me hope is people. And we tend to be resilient, which I really love. Especially in the LGBT+ community, for us this is not our first pandemic. So, we've bounced back and I feel like if -- I feel like we're not better prepared, but I feel like we are ahead of the game. LB: Well, explain that to the people in the future a little bit. Because I think that's true too. Explain that a little bit. IW: Back in the eighties we had when HIV was in a huge rise, even before they knew it was HIV, I believe they called it Gay-Related Infectious Disease, GRID. So, we've been battling HIV/AIDS crisis for decades at this point. And we've gotten through, we've gotten better treatments, people are smarter on how to avoid the infection, avoid the disease. And in my opinion at that time when it was brand new, that was a pandemic. You didn't know how was it spreading, do we have any treatment for it. Again they called it GRID because they didn't even know that heterosexuals could get it, they thought it was just LGBT, specifically gay men, I believe. And that's what I mean when I say we've been through that before, like we've already had our pandemic. And we're lucky, at least my generation, because I was born '88, so, I feel like I'm lucky that not only the generation before me are still around to teach us and guide us, but they are willing to do so. Take yourself, for example, you're leading the teaching at the Center, you do all the trainings. And I think that's amazing for you to give your knowledge. LB: Yeah, it's something that we can definitely do online. I've done a lot of trainings online already. I had a lot of trainings booked that ended up not being able to be given because everything was shut down. And at the time I said to people, you know, I can do these virtually for you and they said, no, no, that's okay. Now they're all getting back to me and saying, okay, let's do it online. IW: I think because I don't know if it was foolishly or hopeful, but I know myself included, I told some clients okay, we don't have to meet until we get back into the office, thinking this wouldn't be long. And now here we are months later and I'm like, I know you don't like online, but we're going to have a couple of sessions. We have to embrace the norm that we're in right now. LB: Yeah, we have to roll with it. It's what is happening and we can't pretend it's not. IW: Yeah, we can no longer pause our lives. Because I feel like that's what we all did for a little bit. And now we're realizing all right, this isn't going away any time soon, so we have to press play and just be safe about it. LB: Yeah, there's definitely that. Where did you get your graduate degree? IW: Kutztown University. LB: Did you have to go to Kutztown for that? Did you have to take classes online at the end? IW: Online at the end, yes. Like we were in the middle of the semester when everything got -- when we got sent home and put on social distancing and everything. So, we just started doing things online. I actually, the week it happened was the week I had to do a presentation that was originally going to be in class. So, I had to redo it and get it ready to present online. That was interesting because I had no one to go off, I was the first one, so everyone was going to like follow my lead. LB: No kidding. Yeah. IW: That was fun. LB: Yeah, all of these interviews that I've been doing, we got this grant to do twenty COVID interviews and ten HIV/AIDS interviews with people who had gone through that epidemic in the eighties and nineties. And because I'm the old fogey, I know those people, so it wasn't too hard, I've already done those ten interviews. But I pointed out that we're also doing archived interviews of long-time LGBT activists that through Lehigh University, and that team of people have done about ten of those interviews and it took them about a year to do them. A little bit more than a year. And then Adrian came to me and he said, well, here's this grant to do this. And I look at the grant and I said, this is thirty interviews in two months. And these other people, it took them a year and a half to do ten people. And I had never used the Zoom, so it took me a couple of weeks to get used to doing that. Luckily, it's not too hard, but still, you've got to know how to do it and get used to it. IW: Exactly. LB: Was that hard to get used to doing? IW: Other than like getting on there and being able to talk, like I can connect with someone but there's other stuff that Zoom and other platforms like Skype and Microsoft Teams offer. So, it's like you need to learn those things, like how to share your screen, for example. If I'm having -- if I'm in a staff meeting, sometimes I have to share my screen and it was like uh, how do I do that. So, I mean, again glass half full type of person, I think that's a good thing that came out of this is we're all learning new things. So, I don't know, do you feel like you would have learned about Zoom had it not been for COVID? LB: And I actually like it. Because -- IW: See? LB: Because videotaping people is hard. If you have a camera and to go to their place and with a camera and everything. But if you're doing it with Zoom it's really quite easy to do. You just press a button on it and it's done. IW: Exactly. LB: I don't have to go far away to meetings in Harrisburg and stuff like that. IW: Again, we're saving on that travel, no more gas. LB: No kidding, it really matters because that would take me the whole day for like a two-hour meeting. And now since they say we don't have to break for lunch so we'll just make it an hour and a half meeting, I'm like I hated the lunch anyway. (laughs) IW: It's like no, yeah, let's work it in, let's just get out early. LB: It's harder to network. So, it's harder to talk to people individually. IW: Yeah, and I'm a face person, so there are some people who don't really like using video, and I'm like but I don't want to talk on the phone, can we at least Facetime so I can see your face. And things get lost in translation via text, so I'm like -- LB: Text is terribly hard, I think. Text is just to say yes or no. Yes, I can talk to you at ten. But it's dangerous to try to do business on text, that's definitely the case. IW: I definitely prefer video conference. LB: What's the best thing out of this that you've done? IW: Again I think learning new things. I led a very busy lifestyle before, again, with school, and I basically had two jobs between my internship and my full-time job. So, now, I was able to learn new things like I'm one of those people who probably in other interviews have said this, I've learned how to bake. I was one of those people baking bread those first couple of weeks. And like cake, and I would have never thought, I cannot cook, it does not work well for me. So, who would have thought I'd be able to bake, because I've heard like that's a lot harder, like it's more of a science. But baking I can do, cooking I cannot. That's my sister's job. But you need a cake, I'm not it. LB: All right. Well, that's good to know. (laughs) IW: And I find it fun. LB: Yeah. So, a lot of things have been happening and at the same time, certainly a lot of political things that we're all very concerned about, and the tangential things to those or the products of those that have to do with instances of discrimination, and rights, and for our community, and for all communities. And also, certainly, some very serious things with regard to Black Lives Matter, and the circumstance of racism, and the awareness of racism in the United States. Do you want to talk about that? How has that affected you? IW: Honestly it affected me very personally. I'm a black male and I have had to look deep within myself on how I feel about the situation. Personally growing up I never really had to deal with racism. Because although part of my family is Caucasian, they're my family like I was always accepted. And we're a very mixed family, like I'm not the only mixed child. Like basically my entire generation is mixed. So, I was always accepted there, everywhere we lived was usually [majorily?] in a Black or Hispanic area. Now, as an adult, with everything going on and looking, seeing these things happen online, it made me realize how lucky I was because not everyone had that. And I really had to sit back and reflect on it. And it's hard also being a counselor at this time, being a black counselor, in my opinion, just because what we're taught is as far as a counselor my job is not to push my morals onto my client. And I'm supposed to be a safe space for them. I do have some clients that disclosed to me like listen, I don't think black lives matter, I think this whole thing is foolish, and I've had one client tell me that they hate Black people because of this because they're causing these riots, and it's just for attention because they're looting and beating up on their own people, they don't really care. And as much as it kind of hurts me, and part of me wants to defend and discuss it, I know in that time and place it's not my place. Like I'm there as their counselor, their confidant, I'm not there to challenge them really. So, it's a really weird spot to be in. LB: Yeah, that is weird. That must be very stressful. IW: Yeah, because I have to definitely make sure I'm centered and remember my purpose in that moment. And I try to educate, but you can never just come out and be like, well, I think you're wrong. Or even really challenge them completely. If it was my normal personal life, I would definitely get into it. But as a counselor that's not really my place. LB: Yeah. On the info-line, people call the info-line and they ask questions. I had a guy recently ask me, he was very, very agitated and there's something really wrong with this person, and he started to say he wanted to talk to PFLAG, and I said, well this isn't PFLAG. And he finally got the whole thing out and he was really, really angry. And finally it turned out that another LGBT organization in the greater Lehigh Valley had determined that this person was a racist, they said, "Because of things you've done, we see this as racism, and we don't want you to be associated with this organization." And he said, "This is ridiculous." And I said, "Well, what did you do?" (laughs) IW: Yeah, before -- LB: He said, so, I did this thing. He didn't want to tell me. And then he finally said it and I said, "Well, I can see why they thought this was racist." And he said, "But it's not." And I said, "Well that's not really the issue. The issue is what they perceived and they did perceive that. IW: Honestly that is a big thing that I've been discussing with people actually in counseling and outside of counseling is perception. Like right now they, you know, people are debating about this monument, about Abraham Lincoln, where he's standing and there is a black male there with the chains like this, but they're broken. If you know your history you know that Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, that statue is to show that -- that he helped free the black people. But honestly, if you look at it from afar, it does look like a white man standing and a black man on his knees like he's less than the man. So, it's about perception. LB: That's a good point, yeah. Yeah, I think that a lot of people are not comfortable in trying to take a different point of view other than one is narrow and sort of justifying how they were feeling in the past. And they still want to say, I don't want to change. And I think really this whole time that we're doing stuff is really about change. You have to change. IW: And I think honestly that's a beautiful thing right now is that people are noticing there's a need for a change. And people are making things happen for that change. Like people are taking the steps. And yes, there are boulders in the way and the path is not exactly smooth but marching along anyway. LB: Yeah, that's a tricky thing. It's hard. So, we're coming to the end I think. So, I just want to ask you if there is anything else that you think someday somebody in the future is going to look at this and I think, I hope, that will be the case. And it might be in the near future, it might be many, many years, it might be decades, we might be all gone by them. We had another pandemic about one hundred and two years ago that was very, very serious, and if you came to any of my art history classes I happened to talk about it all the time because it's always in my (inaudible) if you talk to Rachel because she was in almost all my classes, I'm always talking about the flu epidemic of 1918. And one of the reasons was it had such a profound impact on a lot of the areas of art that I've spoken about. And it had an impact on my family because my grandmother died in that flu epidemic. But I think that we don't have any oral histories from that time, we don't have anybody talking about that. And in fact you weren't allowed to talk about that time because it was considered an act of sedition because it was during WWI, and the government had said you can't say anything negative about the country, including that we're all dying of this disease, or you'll go to prison. And so, that's one of the reasons why we don't have a lot of information. Now we do. And we all have the opportunity. They didn't even have recorders then, now we do. So, we have the opportunity to do that. And here's the chance for you to say something to somebody way in the future about what it was like right now, just in general. So, here you go, go ahead. IW: Well, it's challenging, and I think it's important to have hope. And to not be afraid to be a leader. Like there are going to be some people around that say oh, that's foolish, I don't believe in that. And it's important for a person to believe in their own beliefs and have the courage to stand up for them. And hopefully decades from now, hopefully even sooner, things are a lot more equal for us, and I hope that's the case. And if it isn't, I hope the individuals in the future keep on fighting until we do reach equality because we all matter. LB: Yeah, that's for sure. IW: And I think that's something as far as Black Lives Matter that a lot of people are not getting is they think by saying Black Lives Matter is black people are better. No, it's just that there's a realization that we're not being treated equally. So, it's kind of like a black lives matters too, so we all just want to be on the same playing field, the same level. Like LGBT, different people of color, men, women, like we all just want to be equal. And I think that's important. So, if there is a group of people in the future that are not being treated as equal, fight for them. Even if it's not your person. LB: That's good. That's a good thing to tell the future. That's a great thing. IW: Thank you. LB: Thank you so much for this. I really am very, very grateful for this opportunity to talk to you. It's fun to talk to you. I love the room that you're in. IW: Yeah, my new office while all this is happening. LB: Now are those blue and red squares painted on the wall? IW: Yeah. This isn't my room. LB: I love it, I absolutely love it. And I have a master's degree in art, so feel free to have the person who's room that is, tell them I think it's fabulous. It is fabulous. IW: Rachel's daughter, Emily, she did this, this was her room. LB: It's beautiful. IW: I like specifically the chalk, the black squares are chalk, so I get to write on them. LB: Yeah, that's a special kind of paint that you can write on with chalk. I think that's a very good idea. Good for you. I'm going to turn off the recording now. END OF AUDIO FILE Copyright for this oral history recording is held by the interview subject. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source 0 /render.php?cachefile=
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00:56:26
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Ian Wagner, July 9, 2020
Description
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Ian Wagner talks about the current COVID-19 is affecting him, his friends and family, and the people he lives with, his work as a therapist and not being able to see clients face to face and his new job, how it is affecting LGBTQ people, Black Lives Matter issues, community leadership, learning to bake, and what gives him hope.
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PH40_29
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COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020-
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2020-07-09
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video
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Muhlenberg Special Collections and College Archives
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e7a5310cbe604bdd2e08986d4e22d395
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Stories from LGBT Older Adults in the Lehigh Valley
Description
An account of the resource
This collection began in 2019 with the initial goal of collecting ten oral histories from older adult LGBT people in the Lehigh Valley. Topics explored include the childhood experiences of LGBT people, experiences within educational and religious institutions, coming out stories, understanding of the gay liberation movement (1960-1980s), experience of the early years of the AIDS epidemic and AIDS activism (1980s-present), and experience with the fight for marriage equality. The project has been a collaborative effort among faculty and librarians from Cedar Crest College, Lehigh University, Moravian College, Muhlenberg College, and members of the local community, under the direction of Dr. Mary Foltz, Associate Professor of English at Lehigh University and Co-Director of the South Side Initiative. <br /><br /><em> The project was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.</em>
Oral History
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Jane Land
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Mary Foltz
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https://trexlerworks.muhlenberg.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=LGBT-10.xml
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5.4 May 29, 2020 Jane Land, May 29, 2020 LGBT-10 02:01:53 LVLGBT Stories from LGBT Older Adults in the Lehigh Valley Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository This oral history recording was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Mary Foltz Jane Land video/mp4 LandJane_20200529_video.mp4 1.0:|27(10)|62(3)|77(18)|92(14)|111(13)|128(18)|147(6)|168(16)|187(2)|204(7)|221(17)|240(17)|259(7)|280(11)|301(14)|322(4)|343(12)|368(7)|391(13)|412(12)|437(3)|454(8)|479(10)|500(7)|521(8)|546(5)|563(16)|580(12)|597(15)|616(16)|639(7)|658(10)|675(10)|694(9)|713(14)|730(12)|751(15)|776(18)|797(17)|816(19)|833(14)|852(18)|871(11)|892(3)|915(12)|934(12)|953(8)|976(13)|995(9)|1010(6)|1027(9)|1040(15)|1059(8)|1072(15)|1097(9)|1114(3)|1135(11)|1152(11)|1175(6)|1196(7)|1219(4)|1240(15)|1257(14)|1280(15)|1299(4)|1324(9)|1349(5)|1364(12)|1387(11)|1408(3)|1431(12)|1452(5)|1473(9)|1492(3)|1515(4)|1536(13)|1559(6)|1580(8)|1595(2)|1614(4)|1635(7)|1656(14)|1683(2)|1704(10)|1725(5)|1748(2)|1771(5)|1792(8)|1815(8)|1834(7)|1853(6)|1870(11)|1887(2)|1906(11)|1927(7)|1944(5)|1961(3)|1978(16)|1999(8)|2016(9)|2035(7)|2054(14)|2073(9)|2088(16)|2109(12)|2128(11)|2149(18)|2168(14)|2189(12)|2208(10)|2229(10)|2250(10)|2269(6)|2292(9)|2313(11)|2336(2)|2359(15)|2382(12)|2405(8)|2426(11)|2447(14)|2468(6) 0 https://youtu.be/vTO9qsDg640 YouTube video 4 Interview Introductions MARY FOLTZ: All right. My name is Mary Foltz, and I’m here with Jane Land to talk about her life and experiences in LGBT organizations in the Lehigh Valley. And this is a part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Oral History Project. Our project has funding from the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium. Jane and I are meeting on Zoom because there’s a pandemic going on, and today’s date is May 29, 2020. So, Jane, just first, thank you so much for agreeing to talk with me today.
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 ; JANE LAND: Oh, sure.
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 ; MF: And to start, could you please state your full name and spell it for me? 0 125 Early Life/Family
 ; MF: Okay, great. Thank you, Jane. So to start our discussion today, I’m wondering if you could tell me a little bit about your childhood?
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 ; JL: My childhood, it was a long time ago, -- I’ll be seventy next month -- and I grew up in the country. My father was a chemist. He had a PhD in chemistry, and he worked for a large pharmaceutical company. And my mother had a library degree, a master’s in library science, but she was a homemaker until I was in seventh grade. I had only one other sibling, my sister, an older sister. She was six years older. She passed away a few years back. So I grew up in the country, and it was a great place to grow up, and I think it had a bearing on who I am. I spent a lot of time outdoors, playing outdoors, and my friends that I played with, my playmates, -- there weren’t too many kids around -- they were all boys. 0 518 College Pressure MF: So you described wonderful adventures as a child in the outdoors and making rafts on the river. And you described a kind of self-sufficiency, a kind of self-knowledge earlier -- early on in your life. What kinds of things were you interested in beyond the outdoors as you were going through middle and high school?
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 ; JL: Well, you had asked about -- just mentioned something about education and I... There was a lot of unspoken pressure I think to get a college degree. Everyone in the family was educated. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, and I struggled with that. I really was not keen on going to college because I had no idea what I wanted to do. I have a lot of college credits, but I never got a degree in anything. [laughs] So I did start out by going to college after I graduated. I went to Bucks County Community College for a year and learned... I signed up for data processing. I had degrees in data processing, which was the old punch card system, ones and twos on the punch cards, and that was really boring to me. But as part of that, one of the courses I had signed up for at Bucks County Community College was accounting, and I learned that I liked accounting very much, so I changed majors to accounting. 0 755 Looking Towards the Future JL: So after I got divorced from my husband, I started searching for -- thinking about going back to college. I did attend some college, some more college. I was in Minnesota with my sister-in-law who had gone there for her master’s degree. I took some courses there, I came back to Muhlenberg, took some courses there. Eventually ended up living in Bethlehem and attending Moravian College, and I was getting a degree in social work. And then, one semester before I was due to graduate with a bachelor’s degree in social work, I realized that that was not what I wanted to do. I still hadn’t figured out what I was going to be when I grew up, what I really wanted to do. 
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 ; I was talking with one of my psychology professors at Moravian, and when you asked me to do this oral history with you, I did spend some time thinking about what were the people and the things that influenced my life the most. And that college professor, he -- a psychology professor, his name was Tony LoGiudice. And I was talking with him about so actually getting depressed thinking about spending the rest of my life being a social worker. Social work is a fine profession, but it just was not going to be my thing. And he said, “Well, you know I can give you some -- a battery of tests, and they’ll show what you have an aptitude for. I’ll send them away, and they score them, and then when I get them back, get the results back, we can sit and talk about what you might do when it showed your strengths were.” 0 1112 Schooling & ; Career
 ; MF: This is a wonderful story that you’re sharing now. I’m curious if you could just talk a little bit about why you felt compelled to explore social work and accounting prior to thinking about other things like mechanics like -- and auto mechanic courses in particular. And I guess what I’m trying to ask is like during that time period of the ’70s, what seemed possible to you as a woman laborer? Did you feel that there were specific careers like social work that were open to women and others that were closed? So I’m just curious why you were -- you thought social work in the beginning even though you weren’t really enjoying the classes. So could you talk a little bit about that, the logic that you had for the courses you were choosing prior to really finding this field that felt really compelling to you? 
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 ; JL: Sure. Well, accounting was simply by accident. It was a course requirement that I was taking. It fulfilled some liberal arts requirement for a degree, and I just discovered that I really liked it. I really liked working with numbers. I’m not a mathematician, that’s an entirely different thing than -- accounting was just basically arithmetic, but I really excelled at that. And it’s funny that fellow Doug, that boy that used to come over to play, we would often play bank. We would play banker in the -- in my room, and we would do things with money, and it was funny. But to this day, I still do volunteer work as a bookkeeper for the church and have for several churches. So it wasn’t really anything conscious there. It was just something I found I really had a knack for. 0 1659 Being a Woman in a Male Dominated Workplace MF: So you described finding this career in -- entering Northampton Community College. I’m curious, what was it like to be the only woman in that -- in the classes for mechanics at Northampton? 
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 ; JL: Well, the first thing I did was I didn’t tell my family what I was doing. I stopped going to Moravian College and enrolled at NCCC -- in Northampton County Community College, and in that program. I went to the classes for several months pretty much the first semester before I was in a situation where I had to admit to a family member that I was no longer going to Moravian College, [laughs] so... And there were several family members -- and this is beyond my immediate family. I can remember my uncle in particular sending me -- as he lived in Illinois, him and my aunt, and my uncle sent me this scathing letter about what a big mistake I was making not finishing my college degree in social work and that the idea of being a mechanic was a really bad idea, and that I should really reconsider what I was doing with my life. 0 2351 Social Life in Bethlehem/NOW
 ; MF: At this point, you were divorced. What was happening in your social life during the -- that time in Bethlehem and then while you’re moving into this new career? 
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 ; JL: At that time, I got involved with NOW, became a member of a chapter in Bethlehem. I was just a member but trying to get plugged into women’s rights and find some support there, that kind of thing. So I belonged to that for a while, and eventually, there was another chapter in Allentown. I don’t remember if it was called -- I think it was called Lehigh Valley rather than Allentown NOW. I’m pretty sure that’s Lehigh Valley NOW, and that’s where I met Dixie White who was an activist that I’m sure you probably know about. I know that ; Liz Bradbury had talked to me about that connection and finding my name in some of Dixie’s memorabilia once Dixie passed away. 0 2415 International Women's Conference 1977 JL: [...] I got the job in August of 1977, and I took the job with the stipulation that even though I wouldn’t have been entitled to any kind of vacation after just joining the company, that I be given time off to go to the international women’s conference that was held in Texas in 1977. I’ve been chosen as a delegate for that. 
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 ; MF: What was that conference like when you went to Texas? 
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 ; JL: That was pretty amazing. I was young though. I was twenty-seven at the time, I wish that I had -- and just newly plugged into NOW and women’s rights, and I wish I had -- I could’ve appreciated it more because the women that attended that... I got in as a delegate. Dixie White said, “Why don’t you apply to be a delegate for this?” and I said, “Okay.” 0 3018 Experiences with the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community MF: It’s 1977 or ’78, around there, you got a great job at PPL. Are you dating at this time? Are you in the LGBT community at this time, and if so, what was that like? 
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 ; JL: Dixie and her partner [Carol?] were always on the lookout to find someone for me to match up with, and I did eventually. I’m trying to remember how we exactly met. Oh, I know. So I was working at Dave & ; Wayne’s, and for the moment, I can’t remember exactly how I met Diane, but -- or maybe it was actually another woman. But this woman had a house on Carlton Avenue in Bethlehem where she was -- and I got to know her and [Diane?], my first lover. [Annie?] had a room on the third floor of this house that wasn’t in use. It was actually the attic. 
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 ; I needed a cheaper place to live to meet my expenses and so I talked Annie into letting me make the attic a livable space and letting me live there. So I insulated it and did some other work to it and ended up living there, and that’s where I met Diane. She lived there also. She had rented another room. So there were four women living there, Annie, Diane, me, and a woman from -- who was a professor, a visiting professor at Lehigh University. 0 3388 Coming into Lesbian Identity MF: Good. I don’t think we talked about -- how did you come into a lesbian identity? When did you start to get a sense of your sexual identity? Was it in the ’70s, was it earlier? How did that happen for you? 
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 ; JL: I came out to myself in 1977. I realized looking backward that I’ve been in love with my camp counselor, [laughs] in love with a girl that I met at Girl Scout camp also, and just realized that, wow, I’m not heterosexual. Those relationships aren’t working out. Even when I was going to mechanic school and working at Dave & ; Wayne’s and also working at Paul’s Garage, I still dated men, but it wasn’t doing it for me. And I realized when I got involved with NOW and were around all these women that it was incredibly exciting because I realized that this is who I was, that I was a lesbian. 
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 ; MF: What was it like to live with in Diane in Catasauqua together when you built that, that home together? 0 3618 Life in the 1980s MF: So you’re living in Catasauqua, you’re working at PPL, what -- how -- what changes in your life in the ’80 s are you -- how do you sort of enter into the ’80s? What are the big things that are happening for you in those early years? 
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 ; JL: Well, once I got a job with PPL in the garage, you start out as a handyman. In garage is basically you’re a gofer, you run for parts, you jockey cars around. Pretty much that’s what you’re doing. You don’t really get to do any mechanical work. So I had gone from doing pretty much -- doing a lot of mechanical work at Paul’s Garage to being a gofer. 0 4253 Being a Lesbian at Pennsylvania Power & ; Light MF: Well, I mean, that has -- that kind of leads me to wonder about what it was like to be a lesbian working at PPL during that time period. I’m curious, was there homophobia in the workplace? What was it like to be at PPL as a lesbian person? 
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 ; JL: Yeah, that was really tough. It was hard enough being a woman in a nontraditional job, and then to be lesbian on top of it was really hard. The whole time I worked in the garage, I was closeted, I was not out but every-- virtually everybody knew it. [laughs] Well, I don’t know ; it’s kind of weird. The guys who gave me a hard time, they seem to know it, they seem to pick up on it. They guys who were my friends didn’t exactly seem to pick up on it because actually several of those friends along the way expressed that they had a romantic interest in me in one form or another -- two of them did. 
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 ; We managed to weather through that and not go in that direction without me saying I am not interested in relationship with a man other than a friend. And we managed to maintain our friendships. Eventually after I left the garage, I ended up in -- I was a mechanic for a number of years and then a job came along as the parts person. They called it the transportation material handler. And the fellow who was in that job, they needed to have a second person, and his name was [Dave?]. He came to me and asked me, “Would you please apply for this job?” I said, “Why?” He said, “Well, the pay is about the same, and I’m not a mechanic, and you’re really good at what you do. And there’s some men that are applying for the job -- going to apply for the job that I do not want to work with, so would you please apply for the job?” 0 4612 Fighting for LGBT Benefits at PPL
 ; MF: So PPL today has an LGBT staff group. At that time, were -- did you know other people at PPL that were lesbian or gay, or was it mostly like people knew but didn’t know or was it -- 
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 ; JL: No, you knew, you knew who the gay people were there. Your gaydar told you who they were. You gingerly approach them and then they acknowledge they were gay also. So in ’95, they started cutting back on services, and they went through the transportation department. Because of the union, I was -- the fellow Dave who asked me to take that job as the parts person, he was there first, so they cut back to one material handler in every garage, so I lost my job in 1995. I went up to the service center, which was also on the same property and became a dispatcher for -- a power dispatcher for repairs of electrical -- sending people to repair electrical equipment for storms and that kind of thing. And that’s when I became out. I was actually outed by a lesbian up there who was not a very nice person and decided she would do that for me whether I liked it or not. 0 5347 Work with Other LGBT Organizations in the Lehigh Valley/AIDS Outreach MF: So while you were working with GLOW at PPL, were you aware of other LGBT organizations in the valley that were working on similar issues? Or did you have connections with other activist organizations in the valley? 
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 ; JL: We did. Air Products was one we often -- that we were connected to, and we would often talk with, maybe meet with here and there. They were ahead of us in trying to get benefits, but in the end -- I’m not sure if they ever got benefits in the end. The people at Air Products were -- all the people we worked with were professional people, people with degrees, so they were considered management employees at Air Products. So I think because of that, Air Products acknowledged them earlier than PPL acknowledged our gay and lesbian workers. But I think because of maybe financial issues, the company was -- I’m not sure why that Air Products seemed to struggle. You would have thought they would get all the benefits before we did. 0 6077 Spirituality MF: Well, we’re nearing the end of the interview, and there two sort of areas that I’d like to explore just a little bit further. I’m interested, you’ve mentioned a few times about being a Quaker in the ’70s. I’m wondering if we could talk a little bit about your spirituality? I’m wondering if you could just discuss a little bit about your emergence into the Quaker church and maybe the evolution of your faith? 
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 ; JL: Okay. Well, I started going to Quaker Meeting in the early ’70s I guess. And I mentioned my psychology professor, Tony LoGiudice went there, and that’s how I ended up attending a Quaker Meeting. He said that I might like this place. Maybe he recognized I was a lesbian -- that was years before I knew I was a lesbian -- I don’t know. But maybe just because I was in a nontraditional -- looking to get into a nontraditional job or probably because Quaker Meeting was a place that allowed people to -- it was not dogmatic, a dogmatic type of religion. 
 ; 0 6363 Connection Between Faith and Lesbian Identity
 ; MF: It sounds to me like your faith -- the faith communities that you’ve been involved in, the Quakers and now the Unitarian Universalist, have been really affirming of both women and LGBT people. Like the MCCLV church in Bethlehem has been -- in Bethlehem and Allentown has been really supportive of LGBT people. Would you say that you ever struggled as an lesbian with your faith? Or would you say that your faith always confirmed the value of your identity, of your sexual identity? 
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 ; JL: I didn’t have a religious faith until I was a young adult and did a bunch of searching at different churches to try to find where I fit in. I did that for a good number of years. So it wasn’t until maybe like 1972 -- I would have been twenty-two at the time, twenty-three, around there -- that I found Quaker Meeting. So it’s probably to my advantage that I didn’t have much of a religious upbringing because even not having a religious upbringing, I still struggle with -- that I was a gay person and that this was wrong in society’s eyes. 0 6463 Meeting Michele MF: That certainly was the case for me being raised Catholic ; it was a little bit of a challenge. Okay. So since we’re nearing the end of the interview, I’m wondering if you could share the Michele story? Like how did you meet Michele, if you could talk a little bit about this primary partnership in your life?
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 ; JL: Well, it’s pretty bizarre. [laughs] Before Michele, before I met Michele, I had two other lovers. The first one was Diane, and the second one was Janice. And Janice was with me a couple of years and maybe four I guess it was, and she had two children. We all lived together, and Janice had been a straight woman and then she decided that being a gay woman was what she wanted. And she did that for four years and then decided she wanted to be straight again. So she left me and I had the house still in Catasauqua, the town house. 0 6869 Effect of Marriage Equality on Relationship with Michele MF: What did marriage equality do for you and Michele? 
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 ; JL: Oh my God, it was huge. It was huge, just huge, and I’m surprised. We were so shocked that we got the right to get married in Pennsylvania, the state of Pennsylvania. It was 2014, May of 2014 when they passed that, and my brother-in-law who lived in Texas -- my sister had passed at that -- by that time -- my brother-in-law who never speaks to me called me. He’s an extremely quiet guy, extremely quiet -- called me and said, “I just heard this on the news.” He was the one who told me that it had been passed in Pennsylvania. 
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 ; Later that day, I got -- the phone rang, and I picked it up and it was -- I didn’t understand what I was listening to at first, but it was a conference call with the gay... I can’t even remember at the moment which gay group it was, but they were having a conference call, the lawyers that had fought for these rights and talking about what had happened, what had transpired, and what it meant. And so when I say it was huge, we’ve always been married whether we could be legally married or not. We’ve always been married in our minds, in our hearts. But it meant that we no longer had to maintain huge insurance policies to try and help pay for -- you know if one of us passed away, the other one would inherit it. 0 7198 Closing Remarks MF: [...] But before we do that, Jane, I just want to ask, is there anything that we really -- that we missed today that you really felt you wanted to share in this interview? 
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 ; JL: Not that I can think of. I will share one story, and I don’t know why this just popped in my head. But when I retired from PPL by that time, I had -- it was a good company to work for, good benefits and good pay, so I kept taking jobs that were there. I always considered the garage my home. That’s really who I am, really where I spent the most time, but I moved on to other jobs. But when I retired, I had not worked in the garage. I retired in 2012 ; I had not worked in the garage since 1995. When I retired, it was the guys in the garage who threw me a party, and that meant the world to me. 0 MovingImage Jane Land describes her childhood in Bucks County, her experiences at Moravian College in a social work program, and her movement to Northampton Community College to study mechanics where she was the only woman in the auto mechanic program. Land goes on to discuss her work as an auto mechanic at a variety of shops until she took a job at PPL in their garage and eventually as parts manager. With reference to her work, she discusses sexism and homophobia in the workplace and her work on gay and lesbian rights for employees of PPL. Beyond her discussion of her career, Land describes LGBT community spaces in the 1970s and 1980s, her work with N.O.W. in the 1970s (including attending the 1977 International Women’s Conference in Texas) and AIDS Outreach, and her religious affiliations with Quakers and UUC. Toward the end of the interview, Land discusses marriage equality and her spouse, Michele Strohl. INTERVIEW WITH JANE LAND MAY 29, 2020 MARY FOLTZ: All right. My name is Mary Foltz, and I'm here with Jane Land to talk about her life and experiences in LGBT organizations in the Lehigh Valley. And this is a part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Oral History Project. Our project has funding from the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium. Jane and I are meeting on Zoom because there's a pandemic going on, and today's date is May 29, 2020. So, Jane, just first, thank you so much for agreeing to talk with me today. JANE LAND: Oh, sure. MF: And to start, could you please state your full name and spell it for me? JL: My name is two syllables long, so you have to listen carefully, it goes by fast. It's Jane Land. Last name is spelled L-A-N-D, and first name is J-A-N-E. MF: Thank you. And can you please share your birthday? JL: June 28, 1950. MF: All right, so prior to starting this interview, you and I talked a little bit about consent for the interview, and I'll start by just asking you, do you consent to this interview today? JL: Yes. MF: Do you consent to having this interview being transcribed, digitized, and made available online in searchable formats? JL: Yes. MF: And do you consent to the LGBT archive using your interview for educational purposes in other formats including articles, websites, short films, presentations, or other formats that might become available? JL: Yes. MF: And do you understand that you will have at least 30 days after the electronic delivery of the transcript to review the interview, to identify parts that you might want to delete, or to withdraw the interview from the project? JL: Yes, I understand. MF: Okay, great. Thank you, Jane. So to start our discussion today, I'm wondering if you could tell me a little bit about your childhood? JL: My childhood, it was a long time ago, -- I'll be seventy next month -- and I grew up in the country. My father was a chemist. He had a PhD in chemistry, and he worked for a large pharmaceutical company. And my mother had a library degree, a master's in library science, but she was a homemaker until I was in seventh grade. I had only one other sibling, my sister, an older sister. She was six years older. She passed away a few years back. So I grew up in the country, and it was a great place to grow up, and I think it had a bearing on who I am. I spent a lot of time outdoors, playing outdoors, and my friends that I played with, my playmates, -- there weren't too many kids around -- they were all boys. The family on a lot adjacent to ours, -- we had three and a half acres, and it was rural, so everybody had some acreage -- there were four boys there so that's primarily who I played with. We didn't have a lot of toys, so we invented things all the time to play. And we traveled quite a distance to play. We had a creek that was maybe a mile away, and we would ride our bicycles into town sometimes. But mostly, we played outside in -- at the creek and in the fields and in -- climbing trees, building treehouses, and building rafts for the creek to navigate on the creek and dams on the creek and catching crayfish and putting them in our pond that we would make. I can't think of all the ways in which we invented things, but we have very few props, very, very few toys, so we had to use our creativity a lot. MF: So what part of the country did you grow up? Where was the closest small city to your country home? JL: I grew up in Northern Bucks County, Pennsylvania, so I was between... The closest town was a small town called Telford, which is actually in Montgomery. And I lived just three houses from the borderline between Bucks and Montgomery counties. I went to Pennridge High School and graduated from there in 1968. MF: And culturally, what was it like in that area around Telford? What was the community spirit like? What kinds of values were promoted in that country community? JL: I don't know. I just know the immediate families that my parents socialized with or had a connection to, basically neighbors. My parents were both educated, my father more than my mother even. My sister went on to get a master's also in biology. And a lot of the people they socialized with were similar middle-class families that the father had an education, mother may or may not have had an education, often did but didn't use it. As far as political -- politically, I'm not really aware politics went -- things that were talked about. MF: I'm curious about your relationship with your parents. You described their emphasis on higher education that they really believed in education. What was your relationship like with your parents when you were a child? JL: My father had to -- he had a job with -- at that time, it was called Merck Sharp & ; Dohme, it later became Merck Incorporated. And his commute to work from our home was maybe like twenty-five, 30 minutes. But at the time, I was eight years old, he took a job in -- had to take a job with the company in North Jersey, so he traveled. He commuted about three hours a day, so I didn't see much of my dad. When he was around, he was -- he had a fleet of cars that he would use to get to and from work. When one would break down, he'd have to grab another one and leave it for the weekend when he could fix it. He was a very bright man and very self-sufficient. He didn't have a lot of time to talk or spend with me, but I do remember watching him do things a lot, watching him fix the cars and anything that broke in the house, that kind of thing. My mother was I think a depressed person and so I didn't have -- you know, she kept to herself a lot. So I pretty much had to learn how to be self-sufficient early on. MF: So you described wonderful adventures as a child in the outdoors and making rafts on the river. And you described a kind of self-sufficiency, a kind of self-knowledge earlier -- early on in your life. What kinds of things were you interested in beyond the outdoors as you were going through middle and high school? JL: Well, you had asked about -- just mentioned something about education and I... There was a lot of unspoken pressure I think to get a college degree. Everyone in the family was educated. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, and I struggled with that. I really was not keen on going to college because I had no idea what I wanted to do. I have a lot of college credits, but I never got a degree in anything. [laughs] So I did start out by going to college after I graduated. I went to Bucks County Community College for a year and learned... I signed up for data processing. I had degrees in data processing, which was the old punch card system, ones and twos on the punch cards, and that was really boring to me. But as part of that, one of the courses I had signed up for at Bucks County Community College was accounting, and I learned that I liked accounting very much, so I changed majors to accounting. But then after a year, I ended up getting married. This was during the Vietnam War. I married a man who then ended up getting drafted into the service, and we traveled. He was first stationed in Phoenixville and then we traveled to San Francisco. When he was drafted, his -- after he finished basic training, he became -- he was assigned the career of a medic. And since it was during the war, medics was not a good occupation to be in. In times of war, they always try to take the medic and the radioman out of commission, so -- the enemy that is. So he signed up for more time and became kind of the equivalent of a M*A*S*H nurse, a field hospital nurse, and... The only reason I mentioned that because, obviously, that was a mistake I made in my life, getting married to a man. It took me a while to figure that out, but I mentioned it because I got the chance to travel a lot. So I lived out in California for a while and got to travel around the country. MF: Well, I'm curious, how did -- did you -- how did you two meet, and how did that relationship develop during that really tumultuous time of the Vietnam War? JL: He was the nephew of a high school professor, a high school teacher that I actually never had in high school. But he was -- Uncle John was a very -- a freethinker, and as it turned out, a closeted gay man. But he was a very dynamic teacher, and he would hold these -- he would have get-togethers with his students where they would come to his house and talk about all kinds of ideas. Really a very, very good teacher who would really expand your horizons, get you to thinking about different things in life. So after I got divorced from my husband, I started searching for -- thinking about going back to college. I did attend some college, some more college. I was in Minnesota with my sister-in-law who had gone there for her master's degree. I took some courses there, I came back to Muhlenberg, took some courses there. Eventually ended up living in Bethlehem and attending Moravian College, and I was getting a degree in social work. And then, one semester before I was due to graduate with a bachelor's degree in social work, I realized that that was not what I wanted to do. I still hadn't figured out what I was going to be when I grew up, what I really wanted to do. I was talking with one of my psychology professors at Moravian, and when you asked me to do this oral history with you, I did spend some time thinking about what were the people and the things that influenced my life the most. And that college professor, he -- a psychology professor, his name was Tony LoGiudice. And I was talking with him about so actually getting depressed thinking about spending the rest of my life being a social worker. Social work is a fine profession, but it just was not going to be my thing. And he said, "Well, you know I can give you some -- a battery of tests, and they'll show what you have an aptitude for. I'll send them away, and they score them, and then when I get them back, get the results back, we can sit and talk about what you might do when it showed your strengths were." So we did that, and we met. He said, "Your mechanical ability is extremely high." I said, "Well, what would I do with that?" He said, "You could be -- well you could be like -- you could be like an electrician or a carpenter or an auto mechanic, something like that." I said, "Really?" and he said, "Yeah, you know this is a really high score in mechanical ability and ability to analyze things and investigate them, be able to apply logic to come up with answers," so I said, "All right." Well, I'm not good at science, so I don't know how well I'd do at being an electrician, understanding the science of electricity. And at the time, it was 1975, and there was a recession going on and so the construction trade was really struggling. I was doing very poorly, so that was a -- that would be a really poor career choice because it'd be tough to make a living and so I chose mechanics. So my next step was where to go to school to become a mechanic, how do I do that. But I quit Moravian one semester shy of getting my degree in social work and one year short of getting a minor I guess, you'd say, in accounting or a dual degree in accounting and enrolled in Northampton County Community College. But before I did that, I went there. I was going to enroll there because they had an auto mechanics training course. But this was 1975, and it was like, would they even let me in as a woman. So I talked to somebody in admission, and somebody said, "Well, why don't you -- I'll give you the phone number for the fellow who runs that training program, and why don't you talk to him, see what he has to say whether he'd let you in or not?" So this fellow's name was George Gerstenberg, and I called him up. He just turned out to be a young fellow. He was not that far from my age, pretty close to the same age -- this was in 1975 -- and told him what I was interested in doing and why. I told him that after I had taken this test and learned that I had this -- realized that I had this ability. I thought back in when I was going to Moravian, I worked my way through college cleaning houses, and along the way for some reason -- these were often households that had educated adults in them -- and the men were not very handy. And the women would ask me if I could fix things and actually really insisted that I try to fix things ; I don't know why. This one woman asked me one day if I could fix a lamp, and I said, "Well, yeah, I'm pretty sure I could fix a lamp because I'd watched my father do it." She said, "Well, here, take this, go and fix -- see if you can fix it and then bring it back." So the next week, I brought it back, and I made the repair, and it worked again. She said, "That's great. I have a mixer that doesn't work, you think you could fix my mixer?" And I said, "I don't know about that. I have no idea about a mixer." She said, "Well, why don't you just take it home and try it, see what you can do with it? It's not working, so if you can't fix it, fine, but if you can, it's broken and I could use -- I'll pay you to fix this mixer." So I took it home, and I took it all apart, and that's something I realized that I used to do when I was a kid. My mother had a friend that had a son my same age, Doug was his name. He would come with his mother over to our house to visit, and we would squirrel ourselves away in my bedroom, and we would take things apart, so... [laughs] So it was just simply by taking it apart, it was -- had a bunch of, I don't know, hair and fuzz, dust stuck in it, and it just needed a good cleaning and lubrication again, and I put it back together, and it worked. So I talked to George Gerstenberg and he was like -- I was really surprised. He was like, "That would be terrific. It would be great to have a woman in the class." He said, "You'll be the only one," but he said, "I welcome it. I encourage you to try that. I think it would be wonderful." So because George thought it was wonderful, I got an opportunity. I'm not sure I would have gotten that opportunity if he hadn't thought it was wonderful back in 1975. MF: This is a wonderful story that you're sharing now. I'm curious if you could just talk a little bit about why you felt compelled to explore social work and accounting prior to thinking about other things like mechanics like -- and auto mechanic courses in particular. And I guess what I'm trying to ask is like during that time period of the '70s, what seemed possible to you as a woman laborer? Did you feel that there were specific careers like social work that were open to women and others that were closed? So I'm just curious why you were -- you thought social work in the beginning even though you weren't really enjoying the classes. So could you talk a little bit about that, the logic that you had for the courses you were choosing prior to really finding this field that felt really compelling to you? JL: Sure. Well, accounting was simply by accident. It was a course requirement that I was taking. It fulfilled some liberal arts requirement for a degree, and I just discovered that I really liked it. I really liked working with numbers. I'm not a mathematician, that's an entirely different thing than -- accounting was just basically arithmetic, but I really excelled at that. And it's funny that fellow Doug, that boy that used to come over to play, we would often play bank. We would play banker in the -- in my room, and we would do things with money, and it was funny. But to this day, I still do volunteer work as a bookkeeper for the church and have for several churches. So it wasn't really anything conscious there. It was just something I found I really had a knack for. One thing that I do realize is really instrumental in my childhood was my father never said you can't do this, you can't do that, a girl can't do this, a girl can't do that. He never ever said those things. And so in a silent way -- he was a pretty quiet guy, in a silent way, he was very encouraging that there wasn't anything that I couldn't do that -- if I put my mind to it, which is pretty much what he had done with his life. He was an only child whose father had died when he was still in college and so he pretty much -- I imagine he'd been in the same kind of circumstance where he just had the confidence, and he just decided there wasn't anything he couldn't do. He was trained as a chemist, but he is busy teaching himself how to repair automobiles and all kinds of equipment. The water pump died, he'd be hauling it out of the well and replacing that. Just anything that broke living in the country where there weren't many services or people who were trained in services, you had to do it on your own. You had to learn how to do it on your own, and that's pretty much what he did. So I think just being around that even though I remember as a kid, I'd ask -- as I got older, I'd ask if I could help because he was basically working all the time. Whether it was going off to work for a paid -- for a salary or working around the house, he was just always incredibly busy. So I'd ask if I can help, and usually within sixty seconds or less of me then trying to do what he had told me I could -- I should do, he'd be impatient and take it away from me because he just didn't have the time. I realize that in retrospect. But I think that was a huge -- an influence on me that he, in his silence, never gave me the idea that there wasn't something I couldn't -- anything I couldn't do. So when I went to college, I probably took -- I probably decided on a degree on social work for the same reason that virtually everyone who goes into social work and psychology goes into it for, which is their chapter one or their childhood had some major dysfunction in it. And then you were -- you went on to college and enrolled in those two disciplines to try and figure out your chapter one. And so it helped me just figure it out some and -- but the thought of -- and I enjoyed the courses. Along the way, I had to do a service project in the community, and I ended up at Northampton County prison. There was a small women's detention center there, and it was a very small area. They kept them segregated from all the men because they thought that would be a huge problem, and they basically had nothing to do. They were in this tiny area and had nothing to do. So I started a program there. It wasn't hard to get them to... I thought it would be really difficult to get the prison system to take any suggestion I had, but I think they were concerned about public opinion and the press. I started a program there where I got some sewing machines donated, and the women had sewing machines. And they actually had some women guards I think who had some sewing ability who then helped them learn how to sew as a career, as a way to make money when they would get out of prison. And so I enjoyed that part of social work, but it was not what I wanted to make a living out of, trying to help people figure out their own problems. I had enough trouble figuring out mine. [laughs] MF: Well, now, I'm curious about -- you said you were drawn to social work to figure out your chapter one. What did you figure out in the social work program about yourself or your family? JL: My mother lost her mother when she was -- I think it was ten -- ten years old and so my mother -- I figured out that my mother was stuck at that age. She had a trauma. There weren't many psychologists or psychiatrists back in those days. People didn't go for therapy particularly if you lived out on the country, so she pretty much was stuck at that age. And a lot of her life was tied to that, so she spent -- so I think she was a fairly depressed person and I didn't... I actually didn't see a lot of her growing up. She was a librarian as I had mentioned, and she spent a lot of time reading, escaping. My father was a good man, but I think he was angry that his partner in life was not being much of a partner. So he had a pretty bad temper. And my older sister, she was six years older, and six years older is like a lifetime at that age. I learned all this from social work and -- social work curriculum and my classes in social work and psychology that she picked up the dominant parent's behavior, so she had a very bad temper. So I spent my childhood trying to stay out of the reach of depressed and angry people [laughs] and a good part of my -- a good portion of my adult life too, so... MF: So you described finding this career in -- entering Northampton Community College. I'm curious, what was it like to be the only woman in that -- in the classes for mechanics at Northampton? JL: Well, the first thing I did was I didn't tell my family what I was doing. I stopped going to Moravian College and enrolled at NCCC -- in Northampton County Community College, and in that program. I went to the classes for several months pretty much the first semester before I was in a situation where I had to admit to a family member that I was no longer going to Moravian College, [laughs] so... And there were several family members -- and this is beyond my immediate family. I can remember my uncle in particular sending me -- as he lived in Illinois, him and my aunt, and my uncle sent me this scathing letter about what a big mistake I was making not finishing my college degree in social work and that the idea of being a mechanic was a really bad idea, and that I should really reconsider what I was doing with my life. My father was like, "Okay, great, and what will you do with it when you're done?" I said, "Well, you know I hadn't gotten that far yet," and he said, "Well, if you want to go in to business for yourself, let me know and I will help you." And my sister who I had a terrible relationship with because she was so angry also all the time -- she was -- had a very unhappy childhood. Because she had the same parents I had but also because she was -- she was very heavyset. She had extremely curly hair that she couldn't manage back in those days, -- the hairdressers weren't used to that -- and she also had terrible acne, so she -- I think those things were all factors in our life that made her a pretty unhappy and angry person. But I was surprised. She said to me when -- and she was the one I had to admit. She kind of pinned me down in a conversation long distance, and I had to admit to her that I wasn't going to Moravian anymore and told her what -- I had to admit to her what I was doing. I was scared that, uh-oh, now, I'm going to get in real trouble, and she surprised me. One of the few times in my life that she supported me, and she said, "You know, I wish my husband could go back and take something that he really enjoyed doing because he's not happy doing what he's doing." So I ended up really different from my family. I didn't want to spend my life as an angry, depressed person. I didn't want to... It wasn't a degree that mattered to me, it was that I found something that I had a passion for, and I found that I just loved mechanics. I just adored mechanics. I did well at school. I had so many credits that I didn't have to -- I transferred all my liberal arts credits and fulfilled all those -- that criteria and just was taking the automotive course and still working to support myself cleaning houses. I never finished the auto mechanics either. I did well, I think I was maybe first in the class, I can't really remember. But I took enough courses that I got it, and I was confident that I could keep learning. And then I decided that. The money was running pretty thin, I didn't want to take out loans, and so I got a job as an auto mechanic and finished learning to be a mechanic by working in a garage. MF: How did the other students in Northampton respond to you as the only woman in that program? And then I'll continue that, like how did male mechanics respond to you on your first jobs out of college? JL: You know I don't remember anybody in the auto mechanics class giving me a hard time because George wouldn't have allowed it. But I was busy learning. I didn't really care what they were doing. [laughs] I was busy learning, and it was just -- I was like a vacuum cleaner, I just sucked it all up, I just loved it. It was definitely my thing. I did well in classroom and well in the shop. Probably the question that you're asking should be asked of the guys that I went to school with. My guess is that they weren't... They were a little intimidated by me, I would imagine, because we were all students, and it's one thing to have another male student -- if you're a male, have another male student by yours side, and you're learning. But to have a woman doing better than you were doing in school was probably hard for them. I know for sure later on in life when I worked as a mechanic, that was one of the things that I recognized. If I did well as a mechanic and as being a female mechanic, it was really hard for men who weren't great at what they did to work alongside a woman who did a better job at mechanics than they did. It was a problem, and I realized that later on in my career, so... I first worked at a place in Bethlehem that might still be there. It was called Dave & ; Wayne's. What I did was when I decided that I'd had enough education and really couldn't afford anymore and needed to get a job, I just went door to door to garages asking for a job. Now, I don't believe anyone hired me because they thought that I could do the job at that time. I believe I was hired because it was a novelty, and they thought it would be fun and that -- probably that they could like... It would be fun to see me fail is what it would be. So at Dave & ; Wayne's, I did okay. I think the biggest problem I had was the male mechanics there would come over and want to talk, want to chat, want to flirt. Sometimes, it was great that they'd come over because I could learn from them, but the bosses did not like it. And so I was there maybe three months, something like that, and I got fired because I wasn't getting enough work done. I wasn't getting enough work done because these guys kept coming over and [laughs] interrupting me from working on a customer's car. It was the only job in my life that I was ever fired from, and I was devastated. It was not Labor Day. It was right before Labor Day. It was probably on a Friday. I know it was on a Friday. It's probably the Friday right before Labor Day weekend. Yeah, they came over to me in the morning and said, "We're going to let you go, so you can finish out your day, and we'll give a paycheck and then you can be on your way." So I thought about it for a few minutes, and I thought, well, I've still got half a day to go look for a new job. I had to support myself. I mean, I'm sure my family would've helped me if I asked them, but I didn't want. I wanted to be my own person. I felt if I was going to be in this career, and originally I felt they weren't going to approve of it, I needed to pay my own way. So after about half an hour, I went to Dave and Wayne, and I said, "If it's okay with you, I'll leave now," so they let me go. It's about eleven o'clock in the morning, and I did the same thing all over again. I started pounding the pavement, going to different garages looking for another job, and by the end of the day, I had another job in a garage. I'm sure it was for the same reason that I worked for Paul's Garage on -- in Fountain Hill on Broadway. I don't know if that's still there. I'm sure he's no longer in business because he was older than me but not by much. And I got a job there, I'm sure for the same reason, and actually, he used to work -- he started out his career working for Dave & ; Wayne. I didn't know that at the time. And so I'm sure I was hired there because I was going to be a novelty also. But Paul was -- he was owner of the garage, and he had a part-time mechanic working there, a young guy named Jeff, and I think that he was more -- a little bit more practical. I think he felt that he could take advantage of me pay-wise -- that he could use me to do a lot of work and pay me little and get away with it. So that's what happened. I worked my butt off for him. I became really fast at what I did. He taught me things. I learned how to do valve jobs on engines really well, so... He liked the work I did on that and so I would do a lot of the valve jobs, engine repair, upper half of the engine on a lot of vehicles. I would do other things too. I got my state inspection license while I was there, and I did a lot of tune-ups, that kind of thing, so... And you asked, how did men -- how did people feel about me being a woman working in this career. I remember at Paul's Garage, the customers that gave me the hardest time were women. Women play a part in discrimination also and stereotyping also. So for the women, a lot of them looked at me and were like, oh my God, I don't want a woman to work on my car, she doesn't know what she's doing. I need my car fixed, I don't want it to be wrecked. And so those were my toughest customers were the women. Sometimes, Paul would tell them, "Well, we'll get your car fixed, and we'll call you." And then after the car was all fixed and working fine, then he would tell them that I had worked on it. He would do things like that. He wasn't terribly supportive of me, but he was in the sense that he gave me a job. You know, 1975 to give me -- to give a woman a job in the garage was pretty big deal, so I have to give him credit. MF: At this point, you were divorced. What was happening in your social life during the -- that time in Bethlehem and then while you're moving into this new career? JL: At that time, I got involved with NOW, became a member of a chapter in Bethlehem. I was just a member but trying to get plugged into women's rights and find some support there, that kind of thing. So I belonged to that for a while, and eventually, there was another chapter in Allentown. I don't remember if it was called -- I think it was called Lehigh Valley rather than Allentown NOW. I'm pretty sure that's Lehigh Valley NOW, and that's where I met Dixie White who was an activist that I'm sure you probably know about. I know that ; Liz Bradbury had talked to me about that connection and finding my name in some of Dixie's memorabilia once Dixie passed away. So I learned the one thing that NOW was good for -- I've never been real big on being a member of groups. I'm just more of a solitary person who needs to do my own kind of thing. But what I got out of NOW was a sense of connection and sisterhood and some support in that way. And also, I met a woman named Sharon who worked for PPL -- it used to be called Pennsylvania Power & ; Light -- and she said, "You ought to apply for a job at PPL." I said, "Well, it's an electric company, what would I do for them?" She said, "Well they -- you could be a mechanic in the power plant." She said, "Or they have a garage where they repair their vehicles, you could work for the garage maybe." So I applied there. And you asked how men reacted to me working in this nontraditional field for women, I'm the only person that I ever encountered at PPL who had to go through four interviews to get my job. The job interviews were not about... Well, and first of all, they didn't just -- I didn't just put in an application, and they called me. I put in an application, and I didn't hear from them in several weeks, so I called their HR department, and they told me, "Yeah, we'll get to it, we still have your application, we'll get to it." So I called maybe two or three times and so after maybe three times of calling them, they brought me in for an interview. And so the interviews were all about not my mechanical ability. Didn't ask me, how do you do this, or how do you fix that, or what do you think would be wrong with the vehicle if this happened? Because some of the people who were interviewing me weren't just HR people. Most of the interviews -- I think maybe the first interview was probably the HR department, and the other three were people who were in admin in the garage, in the transportation department. And so they'd want to know things like, well, if you're out in the field working on equipment, construction vehicle equipment like bulldozers or digging trucks, whatever, and you have to go to the bathroom, what will you do? Those are the kinds of questions [laughs] they wanted to ask. Or what are you going to do when some guys swears in front of you? I mean that's what those three interviews were all about. I remember only them asking me one -- somewhat a mechanical thing, which was if you have to go out and fix a flat on a line truck, how would you go about doing that? Because you're talking about a tire and a rim -- an 1120-tire with rim weighs more than I do. So I told them how I would use leverage and just like a guy would do. He's not going to pick up a 1020 [laughs] and throw it on to -- the studs on the wheel, so... So eventually, I got the job. I got the job in August of 1977, and I took the job with the stipulation that even though I wouldn't have been entitled to any kind of vacation after just joining the company, that I be given time off to go to the international women's conference that was held in Texas in 1977. I've been chosen as a delegate for that. MF: What was that conference like when you went to Texas? JL: That was pretty amazing. I was young though. I was twenty-seven at the time, I wish that I had -- and just newly plugged into NOW and women's rights, and I wish I had -- I could've appreciated it more because the women that attended that... I got in as a delegate. Dixie White said, "Why don't you apply to be a delegate for this?" and I said, "Okay." So I did, and I wasn't picked, and this was a process that went on for several months, maybe a half a year or something like that. She said, "Well, try again, but this --" She said, "If you want to get in since you're not really plugged into the leadership, you're my friend and I'm a leader in NOW, but since you're not really plugged into the leadership or haven't had any -- an active role in leadership," she said "you have to find -- you have to be a minority. Why don't you try being a specific minority, and maybe you can get in to fill a quota that way with the conference?" I said, "Well, what minority would that be? I'm a female and I'm white, what minority would be --?" She said, "Well, you're a Quaker, so apply as a religious minority," and so that's what I did, and I got chosen because I was a Quaker, which is a not very well-known type of religion, so... And that's where I knew Tony LoGiudice from, my psychology professor. That's how I ended up at -- being a Quaker was because he was also a Quaker and attended the Lehigh Valley Quaker meeting. So I went to the conference, and it was incredible. Shirley Chisholm and Bella Abzug, you name it, Gloria Steinem, they were all there. The conference was to set -- it was run by parliamentary procedure and was to set what were the important things that women needed to pursue to become equal citizens in our country and in the world. It was really an international thing, and so... I don't know ; they picked out maybe 20 platforms of things that needed to be worked on from an equal rights amendment to women having access to educa-- equal access to education, equal acce-- equal pay for jobs. It was pretty heavy stuff. [laughs] MF: Did you bring back some of those platforms to the NOW organization in the Lehigh Valley? What were the major Lehigh Valley, the kind of platform issues for the NOW organization here? JL: I did not. I ended up not being much of a NOW member. I'm trying to think of a way to say this. There was a lot of dissension about how things were going to be run, and I'm a doer and not so much a talker, and so... They got rather enmeshed in trying to figure out who was in power and where the leadership was going and so I drifted away from there pretty quickly. MF: It's 1977 or '78, around there, you got a great job at PPL. Are you dating at this time? Are you in the LGBT community at this time, and if so, what was that like? JL: Dixie and her partner [Carol?] were always on the lookout to find someone for me to match up with, and I did eventually. I'm trying to remember how we exactly met. Oh, I know. So I was working at Dave & ; Wayne's, and for the moment, I can't remember exactly how I met Diane, but -- or maybe it was actually another woman. But this woman had a house on Carlton Avenue in Bethlehem where she was -- and I got to know her and [Diane?], my first lover. [Annie?] had a room on the third floor of this house that wasn't in use. It was actually the attic. I needed a cheaper place to live to meet my expenses and so I talked Annie into letting me make the attic a livable space and letting me live there. So I insulated it and did some other work to it and ended up living there, and that's where I met Diane. She lived there also. She had rented another room. So there were four women living there, Annie, Diane, me, and a woman from -- who was a professor, a visiting professor at Lehigh University. MF: So what was the community like? I mean that sounds great to have a house of four women in Bethlehem. What was the community like in the '70s, the LGBT community? JL: 1977, it was pretty closeted. You had to worry about losing a job, not just losing a job but having... It was difficult to be out because you had to really worry about how you were going to make a living because it was not -- it was -- people were pretty ugly about it back then. Diane and I ended up being partners, moved out of Anne's -- Annie's house and bought a home in Catasauqua. You could go to Rosemary's bar in the Flatiron building in the east Allentown off Union -- very close to Union Boulevard, and that was it. You found each other. You're gaydar helped you find sisters and brothers out there in the community. You found ways to manage to hint at things that you each would safely realize that you were both gay. And then you would see each other at each other's homes, do those kinds of social events, and go to the bar and be able to dance and let loose there. And there were a couple of festivals around. There was a good one called [Sister Fire?] down in Maryland every year, those kinds of things. MF: What was Rosemary's bar like? Will you describe what a night out at Rosemary's might look like? JL: Rosemary's bar was a good location. It was on this little -- literally on this little triangle of land. It was pretty much the building, so you didn't have to -- the wonder of the bar didn't have to share the building with someone else. There wasn't a neighbor that could -- a neighboring business that could complain about a gay bar being there. And it was a great place where you could just go and be yourself. They have a deejay, a number of deejays, really good deejays. You could go and dance and drink and just relax and be yourself. And Rosemary kept that bar going for a lot of years, and it's a pain in the butt to run a bar and she was just -- you know, a lot of times back then, the bar owners were really supportive of the community. They would have special events and that kind of thing. It was like a home. Back in those days, Diane and I used to have -- on Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day, we would have open house at our house. Any of the friends that we had, gay and lesbian friends could come and visit and hang out at our house. We put out the invitation every year because a lot of gay people could not go home to their families with their significant other. Maybe they couldn't go home at all even by themselves. They had been ostracized by their family, they had been abandoned, turned away by them -- by their family, and they were not welcome. So it was always a place where people could come to be together and instead of being depressed about their family's treatment toward them, where they could feel good on a holiday. MF: Good. I don't think we talked about -- how did you come into a lesbian identity? When did you start to get a sense of your sexual identity? Was it in the '70s, was it earlier? How did that happen for you? JL: I came out to myself in 1977. I realized looking backward that I've been in love with my camp counselor, [laughs] in love with a girl that I met at Girl Scout camp also, and just realized that, wow, I'm not heterosexual. Those relationships aren't working out. Even when I was going to mechanic school and working at Dave & ; Wayne's and also working at Paul's Garage, I still dated men, but it wasn't doing it for me. And I realized when I got involved with NOW and were around all these women that it was incredibly exciting because I realized that this is who I was, that I was a lesbian. MF: What was it like to live with in Diane in Catasauqua together when you built that, that home together? JL: Well, it was an existing home, and actually, we had lived also in -- we moved from the South Side of Bethlehem to a row home in Allentown that we owned with a third woman who was -- so the three of us on the house together. She was much older. She was from Quaker Meeting also. So it's tough living, two people together, let alone with three or four. So first we lived together, four women and then it was three women and then we realized you just need to live with your significant together because it doesn't work out too good. So we ended moving to a town house in Catasauqua. And you had to be careful about what you were doing that you didn't offend the neighbors. It was still a fairly closeted situation, although the street we lived on in Catasauqua, we had just picked it as a house that we liked well enough and could afford, and it turned out, it was like lesbian heaven there. We had two women, two gay women that -- oh, sorry, we had two lesbian couples that lived on that street. It was just a circle, a town house circle, two lesbian households and two gay men households on that street, and they were -- in this development, there were three circles. On the other circles, there were also gay people, so it turns out that there was a lot of gay people there. So we also had that support that even though we weren't being really out in the neighborhood, we had each other there, and somebody we could turn to or socialize with. MF: Who knew that about Catasauqua? I've got to say like who knew? JL: [laughs] Yeah. [laughter] Right, we didn't know. It was just an accident. Well, I don't think it was just an accident ; I think it was meant to be. MF: So you're living in Catasauqua, you're working at PPL, what -- how -- what changes in your life in the '80 s are you -- how do you sort of enter into the '80s? What are the big things that are happening for you in those early years? JL: Well, once I got a job with PPL in the garage, you start out as a handyman. In garage is basically you're a gofer, you run for parts, you jockey cars around. Pretty much that's what you're doing. You don't really get to do any mechanical work. So I had gone from doing pretty much -- doing a lot of mechanical work at Paul's Garage to being a gofer. But I did that for a couple of months, and it didn't take long until I got into the mechanics. They had a mechanics training program there, so... It was a four-year program where you worked and you also went to school. And so once I got started at being a mechanics, I had shift foreman whose name was Al Koch. And when I think back -- when you ask me to do this, I thought back to who were the people in my life that really made a difference, Al was another one. Just like Tony LoGiudice and George Gerstenberg, Al Koch, my shift foreman, right away let me inspect cars and trucks. The transportation department, PPL was responsible for all the equipment, any -- everything up into cranes, all the equipment they owned or leased at the time and did the repair work on. Al recognized that I had my state inspection license, which usually if you went through PPL's training program, you didn't get a chance to sit for your exam and become a state inspection mechanic until year three of your training. He gave me the opportunity to do that right away. He was encouraging, but he was fair. He didn't treat me differently than the others. He treated me a little differently in the sense that I remember very keenly one day he paired me with a guy named Jack, another mechanic there. And it was to do a routine maintenance, lubrication, change oil, that kind of thing on a line truck, a digging truck that would dig holes to plant poles -- and to do the maintenance and also the state inspection on it, so pull wheels to look at brake lining and that kind of thing. Jack was not a very good mechanic. He hated working with me. He refused to speak to me the entire time that we did the work on this vehicle, so I ended up having to... All the parts of the vehicle that he checked over, since he wouldn't tell me what the condition was, I had to do the whole -- I had to do his part of the job also. And so when it was done, it had taken me twice as long as it should have taken two people to do that job because I -- he wouldn't talk to me. And I went to Al, and I said, "This is what happened." I said, "Please don't put me with someone again." He said, "I understand, I won't, I won't do that to you again. You're a junior mechanic with a state inspection license, I put you with someone who was farther along in the program, but obviously, it was a problem, it made --" He didn't say all this out loud, but this was the gist of the interaction we had that this was an embarrassment to this man, plus he wasn't a very good mechanic, so he never did that again. So I did all my work on my own. Very rare that I work with someone, it was extremely rare. So Al was really good about that, really supportive. He protected me in that way. When I worked on the garage, I would think of it this way. I looked at the men that I worked with, and there were the guys who were like, it's no problem that you're a female working on this job, and those became my friend, they're my friends and good friends. And about a third of the mechanics, it was like, okay, so you're here, that's fine, no big deal, but we didn't become close. And then the last third, they were the problem ones, they were the ones -- and it took me a long time to understand this. It took me a while to understand this, a couple of years, but I came to understand that those men that really hated working alongside a woman or working with a -- or having -- the idea of having a woman as a mechanic. Those men were ones that were not good mechanics, they were not confident in their skills, they didn't really understand mechanics very well, it was not really their thing. And those were the ones that were -- gave me the hard time, all the time. They were constantly threatened because... And I realized, they might -- being in a situation where I do a much better job than they did and then what did that mean about them. And so those were the ones that would sabotage my work where when I'd walk away from the vehicles and go to the restroom or whatever, come back, they'd had poured transmission flood down the carburetor so that when you start it up, it would smoke like crazy. They'd change the -- loosened the distributor and changed the timing on the engine so that the engine would backfire and wouldn't run, those kinds of things, so... But then, there were the guys who realized that I could be helpful because I have little hands and I could get in really tight spaces. Where when you're working on the hydraulic systems of a line trucks, the digging trucks and the bucket trucks, that I could get in these very tight spaces to get fittings loosened or started again to get them threaded and all kinds of places that were little places, so... But the one thing I remember when I first became -- started to do mechanical work there, a lot of the guys were upset with me, and finally after a couple of weeks, the union steward, the shop steward took me aside and said, "Look, you have to slow down. You're working way too fast, and you're making us look bad, so you need to slow down," [laughs] so I did. And, yeah, I have to say I always enjoyed working for a union. The union is real -- really instrumental in me being able to keep my job. The union was a fair enough union. It had its problems just like everything does in life, but they were about keeping the union employees employed. And so there could be... Along the way, I wanted a place to change my clothes and shower just like the guys did. You're filthy dirty, and you have to crawl into your vehicle and drive home. They didn't have a locker room for the women. The first thing they did was to take -- to -- in response to my request, the union stood behind me, but management was not about to build one woman a locker room, and so what they did was they changed my hours by half an hour. So I would use the men's locker room at the beginning of the shift and at the end of the shift. My shift was half an hour different, so I could use the women's locker room. The union made -- meant that I was going to get -- I was a mechanic trainee just like the other mechanic trainees ; I got paid the same amount they did. So I really appreciated working for a union. But I think that I was a pretty darn good mechanic. I'm not one to toot my horn, but I do think I was a pretty darn good mechanic, and that's what changes people over time. That's what changes discrimination. So along the way occasionally, women would bid into the job of transportation handyman, and it was always a mixed blessing. It would be nice to have another woman there, but if they weren't putting out a thousand percent, then it was -- made my life harder. And along the way, the women that did come through, pretty much all of them were in the category that they weren't really mechanics. They didn't have the training or the inclination or the, yeah, aptitude for it. And over time, it no longer became a problem for me because they did recognize that I was a good mechanic. And they'd say things like, "Oh well, you're different." But I had plenty of people from other departments, like the linemen would come in to drop off their vehicles, and they come up to me and say, "You know you're taking the job away from a man. You don't belong here. You're taking a job away from a man," and I'd say, "Well, who's going to support me? I have to have a way to support me too. Why shouldn't I be able to have this job?" "Well, you should marry a man and then there would be -- and then that job would be there available for a man." MF: Well, I mean, that has -- that kind of leads me to wonder about what it was like to be a lesbian working at PPL during that time period. I'm curious, was there homophobia in the workplace? What was it like to be at PPL as a lesbian person? JL: Yeah, that was really tough. It was hard enough being a woman in a nontraditional job, and then to be lesbian on top of it was really hard. The whole time I worked in the garage, I was closeted, I was not out but every-- virtually everybody knew it. [laughs] Well, I don't know ; it's kind of weird. The guys who gave me a hard time, they seem to know it, they seem to pick up on it. They guys who were my friends didn't exactly seem to pick up on it because actually several of those friends along the way expressed that they had a romantic interest in me in one form or another -- two of them did. We managed to weather through that and not go in that direction without me saying I am not interested in relationship with a man other than a friend. And we managed to maintain our friendships. Eventually after I left the garage, I ended up in -- I was a mechanic for a number of years and then a job came along as the parts person. They called it the transportation material handler. And the fellow who was in that job, they needed to have a second person, and his name was [Dave?]. He came to me and asked me, "Would you please apply for this job?" I said, "Why?" He said, "Well, the pay is about the same, and I'm not a mechanic, and you're really good at what you do. And there's some men that are applying for the job -- going to apply for the job that I do not want to work with, so would you please apply for the job?" And at that time, I was getting really tired of the guys who would sabotage my work and so I thought, oh, maybe -- it was the same pay, maybe this would be a good idea. It broke my heart to stop being a mechanic but I... And it was a hard transition for me because I love what I did. I just was tired of the struggle every day coming and having to deal with some men [laughs] who just couldn't wrap his head around the idea that I would be -- as a woman, be working there. It was a blow to their ego and so there was a certain number of men who it was constantly -- they were out to get me, but like I had said before, not all of them. But I decided I would do that. And so I became material handler and really kind of became the parts manager, even though that was not a title, that was not my title. Because the other fellow really wanted to just do the paperwork, pay the bills for the parts, and this, that, and the other, and wanted me to be the one to find the parts for all the equipment we have. And so it turned out, I ended up loving that job. I could use my mechanical background to do that job, and I could use my knack for accounting and my knack for problem solving. I would find parts sometimes all over the world. I remember one time, I had to -- I ended up pursuing -- looking, and I would read the diagrams for all the vehicles and all the hydraulic plumbing and everything. We had a cable stringer that needed a part, and the cable stringers were used a lot in dock work. You'd think, well, what do you need a -- why would you go to...? I went to the manufacturer of this particular piece of equipment, and it was used for dock work, but it was also used to string electrical cable, heavy -- really heavy cable. I ended up talking to somebody in Italy to find this part. And I was equally as good at doing that job if not better because I was -- I got to operate by myself. I used my mechanical ability and also my problem-solving abilities, and I felt I was really appreciated by the management there. In fact, sometimes, one of the poor mechanics would ask me for a part, and I'd think, why in the world would you want that part, and I'd ask him. I'd say, "Well, what's the problem with the vehicle?" and they'd say, "Well, it's doing this or that or not doing this or that, and I want this part." So I'd say, "Okay," and then I'd have to go to the foreman and say, "So-and-so wants me to order this part. This is what's wrong with it, I don't think this is the problem, I think he needs this other part instead." And the foreman would say, "Yup, you're right, go ahead and order it." So that didn't make me popular with that third group of mechanics who weren't competent at their job. But I was on a much more level playing field because I was the only game in town. They had to come to me for their part. So if you treat me too badly, you might not get the part you needed in the time you need it. [laughs] MF: So PPL today has an LGBT staff group. At that time, were -- did you know other people at PPL that were lesbian or gay, or was it mostly like people knew but didn't know or was it -- JL: No, you knew, you knew who the gay people were there. Your gaydar told you who they were. You gingerly approach them and then they acknowledge they were gay also. So in '95, they started cutting back on services, and they went through the transportation department. Because of the union, I was -- the fellow Dave who asked me to take that job as the parts person, he was there first, so they cut back to one material handler in every garage, so I lost my job in 1995. I went up to the service center, which was also on the same property and became a dispatcher for -- a power dispatcher for repairs of electrical -- sending people to repair electrical equipment for storms and that kind of thing. And that's when I became out. I was actually outed by a lesbian up there who was not a very nice person and decided she would do that for me whether I liked it or not. But in retrospect, it turned out to be one of the best things in my life because I was just tired of trying to be closeted. And so that's when I got involved in -- shortly thereafter, another woman, a lesbian there -- PPL announced they were going to start diversity groups, and a woman activist there named Donna asked that there be a gay group and so that was begun. And I ended up writing the proposal for lesbian and gay rights for employees. Because at that time, if you were a heterosexual employee of PPL , you got all kinds of benefits for your family. And if you had -- you were in a gay relationship because you couldn't be married, you couldn't get any of those benefits. So the biggest argument I made in the proposal I wrote for all kinds of benefits for gay and lesbians was you are -- it should be equal pay for equal work. And that's what you say you have here at this company, but it's not because all of the single people are subsidizing the married couples because they get a huge advantage cost-wise of paying for the benefits for the rest of their family. Whereas our lesbian or gay partner does not get those benefits and has to go out and buy them elsewhere. It took seven years. I think it was seven years... I'm not sure about the timing here whether it was -- it took -- I think it took seven years and maybe seven years for management to get the benefits. It was either five years and seven years or seven years and nine years. Management got the benefit first, employees that were gay and lesbian that were management, and then it took two more years to get the union to give us the benefits. And I still to this day cannot believe that the union stood behind us. [laughs] It wasn't easy to get them to stand behind us. It was actually from the larger union leadership of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers who pretty much forced our local IBEW to give gays benefits. Prior to that time, if your significant other in life died -- and we had several of these situations. If that person died, you might not even get the time off to go to the funeral. MF: Not all of our listeners, especially younger generations, will be familiar with the kinds of benefits that you were asking for. But what you've just described is like the ability to attend a funeral, the ability to leave work to go to a hospital if a loved one is experiencing illness. I'm sure life insurance might have been something else. But could you describe a few of the benefits that you really identified in that white paper and that you really fought for those seven years for all gay and lesbian PPL employees to have access to those benefits? What were they? What did you really prioritize? JL: Sure. The first benefit we got was a single benefit and what was the right to go -- have the day off to go to the funeral of your partner. That was the first one. And you had to declare that you had a relationship, and you had to prove that you had that relationship by -- now, this isn't something that anybody who was married had to do. They didn't have to turn in their marriage certificate in order to get benefits. They just had to say, "Hey, this is my wife or my husband, and these are my kids' names, and these are their birthdates," and that kind of thing. But the very first benefit we got was a funeral benefit and bereavement benefit. And that was that you could have from the time you're -- just like the straight people got, from the time your partner died if you had them registered as your partner to the time that the funeral occurred, you could have those days off and then you had to return to work the day after the funeral. I know in dispatch, there was someone who was in that case. Well, actually, in that department, it was called -- the fellow held the job of system operator, and his partner died. And because system operators are -- you must -- there aren't a lot of them, and they had to be on the job 24/7, and they did a lot of overtime just like the people in dispatching did, this fellow, they would not let them go because they didn't have a replacement. And so I can't imagine, I can't imagine how much -- how hard that must have been and how much that must have hurt. I was amazed that the fellow hadn't even -- hadn't quit the company, but he weathered through it. There was nothing for us when we started, nothing. When I say it took the seven and nine years, that was to get health insurance. So we're looking to get health insurance, and you couldn't be married at that time as a gay person. So you were looking to get that health insurance. I remember there was one woman in the -- our group there at PPL. The name of the group was called GLOW, Gays and Lesbians in the Workplace, and [Tammy?] was her name. She would call her her wife even though they legally weren't married, and her wife had two children. Actually, the two children were born by artificial insemination in the time that they were together. And so Tammy was a great poster child for our cause because we would occasionally be able to have a meeting with someone in higher management, and we would bring Tammy in to plead her case -- she was great. And Tammy worked as a power plant operator out in Central Pennsylvania, and she will come in. She was a tough broad, but she would tell them, "It breaks my heart when my children are really sick, and I don't have health insurance for them. And I must try to take them to the hospital and get care for them, and I can't get care for them really very well because I don't have insurance, and my partner does not have insurance." And so eventually, the best that they were able to do was to get her partner and the children who were her biological children, she had carried them, on Medicaid. But still on Medicaid, the services were really poor. And so she was one of the big factors that helped turn them around, but it was a lot of factors that -- a lot of work over seven years to try to get them to give health insurance. When you got health insurance, they made it clear that -- the legal department at PPL made it clear that if you left the company -- well, let me not even say left the company. If you retired and you're -- you went on Medicare then because you're a retired employee, that your spouse would no longer -- if the spouse was younger, they would be kicked off of the PPL insurance policy because you weren't legally married. So actually, the rights that I fought for, for all those years, I never ended up using because my partner and now, my -- who's now my wife, Michele was eight years younger, and she's self-employed. We looked at that and said, "You know, I'm going to retire, you'll get bumped off. You have a preexisting health condition and you will end up not being able to be insured, so we're going to have to continue insu-- you're going to have to continue insuring yourself because I don't dare put you on this policy. Because, one, you'll be in your late fifties when I will retire, and trying to find you an insurance policy would be very difficult, that we could afford." It was really already unaffordable, I mean, until I was able to get married -- till we were able to get married and then I could go back to PPL and say, "Okay, now even though I'm retired, you need to put my wife on your insurance policy." That was in 2015, not very long ago. [laughs] But by that time, Michele was paying twelve thousand dollars a year for health insurance as a self-employed person. So when you say help younger people understand, this was huge. Also, I was able to get a life insurance policy for Michele when I was at PPL. That was huge because when you couldn't be married, you're talking about if one of you passes away, the other one has to pay fifteen percent inheritance tax on everything you have accumulated in your life together, and Michele and I have been together thirty-six years, and we maintained -- early on, we got life insurance policies against each other so that if one passed away, the other one would have the life insurance policy to pay the inheritance tax on everything we had built in life. MF: So while you were working with GLOW at PPL, were you aware of other LGBT organizations in the valley that were working on similar issues? Or did you have connections with other activist organizations in the valley? JL: We did. Air Products was one we often -- that we were connected to, and we would often talk with, maybe meet with here and there. They were ahead of us in trying to get benefits, but in the end -- I'm not sure if they ever got benefits in the end. The people at Air Products were -- all the people we worked with were professional people, people with degrees, so they were considered management employees at Air Products. So I think because of that, Air Products acknowledged them earlier than PPL acknowledged our gay and lesbian workers. But I think because of maybe financial issues, the company was -- I'm not sure why that Air Products seemed to struggle. You would have thought they would get all the benefits before we did. MF: Were outside of employee -- like industry-based LGBT organizations, were you aware of social or health-based LGBT organizations in the Lehigh Valley? Or were you involved with any other organizations outside of the -- outside of GLOW at PPL? JL: On the individual level, I got involved with a community service group, a gay community service group called AIDS Outreach. I didn't have the time to try and dig out when I had actually all the -- when I started volunteering for them, but I'm pretty sure it was somewhere around '92, '93 maybe that I volunteered to be a worker at AIDS Outreach. At that time, the AIDS epidemic had been going on for some time, and it was getting activists. AIDS activists were getting their stories out more and more in the press. There was still a hugely negative sentiment around someone with AIDS. When I started with that group, what that group did was I was, what they called, an AIDS buddy. So they would pair a volunteer to be a support person for someone who had AIDS that had come to AIDS Outreach for services. And so as an AIDS buddy, I was there to be the cheerleader, the person who would help when someone is really sick, get groceries, to be an advocate for services, which might be health services, all kinds of things. And when I started, I volunteered for that job because I had read an article in the newspaper and I thought -- just it moved me to tears. I thought it's hard enough to die, let alone die without a single person in the world there to support you, to give you comfort, to touch you. People were just scared out of their minds by AIDS. And AIDS Outreach not only provided the buddy program, but they educated the public that it's like, you're not going to get AIDS from this person who has AIDS by touching him. You're not going to get it unless you have a transfer of blood products or -- and that kind of thing. You are more of a danger to that person who has AIDS and a compromised immune system than they ever will be of you. If you're not having sex with them, you're not swapping saliva or blood or semen -- I'm sorry to be graphic, but that is basically a product semen -- and so you're not going to get AIDS, and you're not really at risk at all. The first AIDS buddy I had when he was hospitalized -- every time he'd be hospitalized, they had him in a quarantine room. The people would -- or the nursing staff would come in and when they absolutely had to. They pretty much avoid coming into the room. They were scared to death of AIDS and not unlike the situation we're in right now with COVID-19. But I think in a lot of ways, it was even worse because there was the stigma of in our country it was, you don't have this disease unless you're gay on top of it. So you have this horrible disease, it also means you're gay and we don't -- society, for the most part, really ostracizes and does not like gay people at this time in history. And so, I couldn't imagine trying to live with AIDS or die with AIDS without a support system so that's why I got involved. It was hard back then. MF: For how many people were you a buddy during that time period in the early '90s? JL: I worked for AIDS Outreach until the year 2000, and I had three AIDS buddies. I was an AIDS buddy for three clients over that time. The first one, his name was [Brian?]. It was early on, and there was -- they didn't have a combination drug regimen at that time, so he did not last long. So it was maybe a year that we were together. The second person that I was an AIDS buddy for, his name was [Nick?], and I had him for a good number of years. By that time, they had combination drug therapies, but again, they weren't the greatest, and Nick was not -- Nick was -- well I'll just say it. Nick had drug-use problems and so that being a drug user and having AIDS was pretty darn tough on someone's immune system. We were probably together for five years -- four years -- maybe four years, yeah, maybe like three to four years, I guess, until he passed away. And then the last person I had was a woman who was a heterosexual woman who had gotten AIDS from having sex partners -- male sex partners that had AIDS because -- probably because they were drug users. I think she dabbled some in it but not hugely in drugs. And she had four boys, and she was the last client that I worked with. MF: Did you -- in 2000... I guess my question is like, did that organization, was that still -- organization still going strong into the early twenty-first century, or did the volunteer structure change in that, in AIDS Outreach as an organization? JL: I looked on the internet this morning to see if AIDS Outreach still existed. It looks like it does still exist. I know they worked closely with the Lehigh Valley Hospital to provide services for people who have AIDS. People are able to live decently, decently well with AIDS these days, so the picture has changed a lot. I stopped being a volunteer for AIDS Outreach in the year 2000. The last woman, the woman that I had, her name was [Marie?]. The woman who ran AIDS Outreach is a wonderful person named Linda Lobach, and to this day, I think of Linda Lobach every couple of months probably because she had a great saying. She would tell the volunteers and all the people that work for her that "When you're dealing with people with AIDS, AIDS is one thing, but there's a lot of other behavior that enters into working with another human being and trying to support them." When there was a problem, she would say, "Take the AIDS out of it, and what are you left with? Is this reasonable or not reasonable?" [laughs] And so I still use that little bit of wisdom and logic to deal with a lot of things in life, take the whatever out of it, and what are you left with? Yeah, this is not reasonable behavior. [laughs] So I parted ways in 2000 because the last client I had, Marie was... She ended up losing her four children because -- I often had to be the parent. These kids would go without food. I didn't have to, but I wanted to try to help them. Eventually, somebody reported her to a neighbor, or someone she knew reported her to children and youth services, and they took her four kids away because she was... She had AIDS, but take the AIDS out of it, and you were left with someone who was doing drugs, drinking to excess at times, and basically hanging out at bars to find men, and leaving her kids unattended, so... I thought that it was a good time to part ways. AIDS Outreach had been -- to me and my way of thinking, had been established for a very good reason, and that reason was getting lost. And it may have just been... I don't want to discourage AIDS Outreach -- [cat purrs] Hi, Spanky. This is my cat Spanky. [laughs] Say hi Spank. [laughs] Okay, Spanky, go play somewhere. I don't, by any means, want to disparage AIDS Outreach. It was a wonderful organization and did a lot of good work and probably still does a lot of good work. And it may just have been the client I had, but I thought I'd had enough. I needed to do something else, so... MF: Well, we're nearing the end of the interview, and there two sort of areas that I'd like to explore just a little bit further. I'm interested, you've mentioned a few times about being a Quaker in the '70s. I'm wondering if we could talk a little bit about your spirituality? I'm wondering if you could just discuss a little bit about your emergence into the Quaker church and maybe the evolution of your faith? JL: Okay. Well, I started going to Quaker Meeting in the early '70s I guess. And I mentioned my psychology professor, Tony LoGiudice went there, and that's how I ended up attending a Quaker Meeting. He said that I might like this place. Maybe he recognized I was a lesbian -- that was years before I knew I was a lesbian -- I don't know. But maybe just because I was in a nontraditional -- looking to get into a nontraditional job or probably because Quaker Meeting was a place that allowed people to -- it was not dogmatic, a dogmatic type of religion. They encouraged people to be freethinkers. You could believe in God, or you could have eastern India -- East Indian background and religions. So you could be of any kind of faith and be accepted there. There were people who were agnostic or atheists. It was a hodgepodge of people that basically believed there is a spiritual light within each of us that we can touch and nurture and share with each other. Quakers were early pioneers of endorsing domestic partnership relationships. Before there was marriage, there were certain states where you could go and be united in the -- as a domestic partner with each other. So it turned out to be a good place for me. MF: Are you still in the Quaker church, or was that your consistent faith community through your adult life? JL: I will always be a Quaker at heart. They worship and they don't... We have what's called an unprogrammed -- the one in Lehigh Valley was called an -- what we called an unprogrammed Meeting where there was no minister. You would sit in silence and meditate. When you felt that a strong urge to speak that you had been given a message from -- a spiritual type message to share with others, then you would stand and share that message. When I say I'll always be a Quaker at heart, it is because that's the way I prefer to worship or to -- that's my spirituality that speaks to me. I'm not a member of Quaker Meeting any longer. There are no Quaker Meetings where I live now. The closest I could come is Unitarian Universalist Church, which again is very supportive of gay people. Any disenfranchised groups, both the Quakers and the Unitarian Universalists are -- champion rights of the oppressed or the disenfranchised group. They worship very differently and so I will -- I like the people at the Unitarian Universalist Church. I share a lot of the same values with them, but their way of worshipping is entirely different. They have a minister and a programmed service, and so... That's not so much to my liking. MF: It sounds to me like your faith -- the faith communities that you've been involved in, the Quakers and now the Unitarian Universalist, have been really affirming of both women and LGBT people. Like the MCCLV church in Bethlehem has been -- in Bethlehem and Allentown has been really supportive of LGBT people. Would you say that you ever struggled as an lesbian with your faith? Or would you say that your faith always confirmed the value of your identity, of your sexual identity? JL: I didn't have a religious faith until I was a young adult and did a bunch of searching at different churches to try to find where I fit in. I did that for a good number of years. So it wasn't until maybe like 1972 -- I would have been twenty-two at the time, twenty-three, around there -- that I found Quaker Meeting. So it's probably to my advantage that I didn't have much of a religious upbringing because even not having a religious upbringing, I still struggle with -- that I was a gay person and that this was wrong in society's eyes. So there were some guilt but not as much as -- I certainly had a number of friends who had been, say, brought up in -- maybe the Catholic church was one of the hardest ones. If you were brought in the Catholic faith and you were going to be gay, you were doomed to struggle and struggle and struggle with what you had been taught was wrong to do and try to figure out how to come out and be a reasonably happy and well-functioning gay person. MF: That certainly was the case for me being raised Catholic ; it was a little bit of a challenge. Okay. So since we're nearing the end of the interview, I'm wondering if you could share the Michele story? Like how did you meet Michele, if you could talk a little bit about this primary partnership in your life? JL: Well, it's pretty bizarre. [laughs] Before Michele, before I met Michele, I had two other lovers. The first one was Diane, and the second one was Janice. And Janice was with me a couple of years and maybe four I guess it was, and she had two children. We all lived together, and Janice had been a straight woman and then she decided that being a gay woman was what she wanted. And she did that for four years and then decided she wanted to be straight again. So she left me and I had the house still in Catasauqua, the town house. I could make it financially on my own, but I had other, a couple of loans because I had made some renovations to the house. I think I had a car loan out, and I was really strapped for cash, so I needed to find a roommate fast. So I asked my friend Dixie White. This was one of the people I said, "I'm looking for a housemate that's going to be probably somebody who's a lesbian or possibly a gay man, but somebody that wouldn't be offended living with me, and I need to find somebody fast." So Dixie had gone to -- she put out the word to a couple of people. And this one day, she went to the dentist, and the dentist, hygienist, or maybe it was the office manager was a gay woman, a lesbian, and she said, "I have this friend who's looking for a housemate." And so, this woman whose name was Gay [laughs] took down my name and my phone number and said, "I'll keep that in mind." And so as I recall, I think I have these details right -- Michele might confirm it when you speak to her -- but Michele was a patient I believe and came in to the dentist's office and so Gay told her. And Michele had just lost her lover who had gone and run off with some woman, other woman and so Michele needed a place to stay. And so this woman, Gay who was a total stranger to me and not very well known at all to Michele ended up putting us together. And Michele contacted me. She came over to look at the house, and I was pretty traumatized at having been left and I was pretty scared of... I just wanted a roommate to help me pay the expenses and so I -- and so Michele had -- she smoked and while she was there, I asked her if I could get her something to drink. It was during the day, oh probably late afternoon, and I didn't expect her to say she wanted some type of alcoholic drink, but she asked for an alcoholic drink. And so I was like, oh, I was a little scared, she wanted alcohol and she smokes, and I told her. I said, "No one smokes in this house. I will not allow you to smoke, you'd have to smoke outside." And she was nervous, had a couple of drinks and so I wasn't sure about that. And so she said, "Well, let me think about it." And she called me back sometime later and said, "I have decided that I don't want to become your roommate," she said, "but I would like to date you." [laughs] So that's how we met. MF: Well, what did you say? What did you say when she said that? JL: So we started dating. It was tough because we both struggled financially because neither one of us ended up with a roommate. We did that for about six months and then she moved into the house with me. [laughs] MF: That's a great story. [laughter] If you reflect back on your relationship because you get -- been together decades, how would you describe your relationship with Michele? JL: Well, Michele is a psychologist by profession, so.. But you take the psychologist out of it as Linda Lobach would say, and you're just left with a person where you have to learn how to negotiate a lifetime together. Do we fight? Sure, we fight at times over the years. It's gotten to be less and less and less, but we both needed to grow, and we grew together. And so we have a pretty solid relationship at this point. And we are a team. We've been together longer than any of her siblings and their relationships. Let me think here a minute. All of Michele's siblings are divorced and have remarried or -- let's see, are they all remarried now? Yup, they're all remarried. They've been divorced at least once if not twice. And so occasionally when they were going through the hard times in their relationships, they would ask us, "Well, what's the -- what's your secret to staying together all these years?" And we'd say one word, "Commitment." You want to make a relationship work, you have to be committed to the relationship. When you're having a hard time, you don't get to run away. You have to stick it out and work it through, and it is no magic bullet. You're not going to be madly in love with each other like you were at the first for the rest of your life. It's going to be a different kind of love that grows very deep because through thick and thin, you stick together, which builds trust, which is an issue for a lot of gay relationships. And you are there for each other and don't break that trust, and you'll get through it, whatever it is. MF: What did marriage equality do for you and Michele? JL: Oh my God, it was huge. It was huge, just huge, and I'm surprised. We were so shocked that we got the right to get married in Pennsylvania, the state of Pennsylvania. It was 2014, May of 2014 when they passed that, and my brother-in-law who lived in Texas -- my sister had passed at that -- by that time -- my brother-in-law who never speaks to me called me. He's an extremely quiet guy, extremely quiet -- called me and said, "I just heard this on the news." He was the one who told me that it had been passed in Pennsylvania. Later that day, I got -- the phone rang, and I picked it up and it was -- I didn't understand what I was listening to at first, but it was a conference call with the gay... I can't even remember at the moment which gay group it was, but they were having a conference call, the lawyers that had fought for these rights and talking about what had happened, what had transpired, and what it meant. And so when I say it was huge, we've always been married whether we could be legally married or not. We've always been married in our minds, in our hearts. But it meant that we no longer had to maintain huge insurance policies to try and help pay for -- you know if one of us passed away, the other one would inherit it. We didn't have to have these really complicated legal documents. We didn't have to... We could be married, and Michele could be on my insurance policy at the company I used to -- that I retired from. I mean that was the biggest one. What did it mean to have marriage equality? Health insurance. [laughs] That's what it meant, health insurance and the right to inherit without having to pay tax. That's it in a nutshell. You no longer had to produce documents, if one of us was in the hospital, that said we had the right to see each other or to make decisions if someone was in poor health, and we were in that situation a number of times. Doctors that would fight with us, get out of here, you don't have a right to be here, huge. MF: Did you have a ceremony together when you got married, or what was your marriage like? JL: We got married at the Unitarian Universalist Church that we belong in -- belong to here in Athens, in the area, Athens and Sheshequin. Good friends of ours from the church, Katie and Chris were the first couple in the county to go to the courthouse and apply for a marriage license. Michele had to think about it a day or two, what it might mean to be out as a psychologist in business for herself. And she thought about it for two days and said, "That's it, I'm not going to live in the closet, we're doing this." We became the third couple to apply. And interestingly, the second couple to apply in our county was from New York State where they already had marriage, the ability to get marriage -- be married for a couple of years, but the county that they lived in in New York State were very close to the border. The clerk there that would issue the marriage license was very homophobic and gave them a very hard time and so they came to Pennsylvania to get their license. So Katie and Chris were the first and Michele and I were the third applicants, and our minister was just finishing up a sabbatical from the church. She came back in June -- I think as of June the first and Katie and Chris and Michele and I were all married at the same day in the same ceremony. We wanted to do it quickly because we were afraid that the state of Pennsylvania would withdraw. The legislation would be overturned, and we would no longer have the right, or it would become a legal issue. So we wanted to get married quickly, so it would at least make it tougher for them to divorce -- to divorce us, so to say, so... And our anniversary is coming up June the fourth, and Katie and Chris and Michele and I still join together every year on -- if not that day, the closest day that we can to it to celebrate that we were all married on the same day. MF: Oh, that's just wonderful. Well, we are well over 90 minutes, so... I have more that I'd love to talk about, but I feel like I really need to end the interview. But before we do that, Jane, I just want to ask, is there anything that we really -- that we missed today that you really felt you wanted to share in this interview? JL: Not that I can think of. I will share one story, and I don't know why this just popped in my head. But when I retired from PPL by that time, I had -- it was a good company to work for, good benefits and good pay, so I kept taking jobs that were there. I always considered the garage my home. That's really who I am, really where I spent the most time, but I moved on to other jobs. But when I retired, I had not worked in the garage. I retired in 2012 ; I had not worked in the garage since 1995. When I retired, it was the guys in the garage who threw me a party, and that meant the world to me. MF: Well, it's clear that they agreed, too, that you really were a star in that garage, and they felt really connected to you. JL: Even the ones that gave me a problem when I worked there, after I was forced to be out, I go back and visit periodically, they all become my friends. And so we all stay in touch till this day. MF: Thank you for sharing that story. The way that I'll end our interview is simply by saying, Jane, it's just really been an honor, a real privilege to hear your story today. Thank you so much for agreeing to meet with me and to talk about your life. JL: Well, thank you for inviting me, Mary. I'm a pretty low-key person. At first I really didn't know if I wanted to do something like this, but I thought, oh, let me be out of character a little bit and do it. So I hope it works out for you, what you needed. Thank you for the opportunity. MF: Thank you so much. Copyright for this oral history recording is held by the interview subject. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source. 0 /render.php?cachefile=
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02:01:53
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Jane Land, May 29, 2020
Description
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Jane Land describes her childhood in Bucks County, her experiences at Moravian College in a social work program, and her movement to Northampton Community College to study mechanics where she was the only woman in the auto mechanic program. Land goes on to discuss her work as an auto mechanic at a variety of shops until she took a job at PPL in their garage and eventually as parts manager. With reference to her work, she discusses sexism and homophobia in the workplace and her work on gay and lesbian rights for employees of PPL. Beyond her discussion of her career, Land describes LGBT community spaces in the 1970s and 1980s, her work with N.O.W. in the 1970s (including attending the 1977 International Women’s Conference in Texas) and AIDS Outreach, and her religious affiliations with Quakers and UUC. Toward the end of the interview, Land discusses marriage equality and her spouse, Michele Strohl.
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LGBT-10
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2020-05-29
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video
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Title
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Stories from LGBT Older Adults in the Lehigh Valley
Description
An account of the resource
This collection began in 2019 with the initial goal of collecting ten oral histories from older adult LGBT people in the Lehigh Valley. Topics explored include the childhood experiences of LGBT people, experiences within educational and religious institutions, coming out stories, understanding of the gay liberation movement (1960-1980s), experience of the early years of the AIDS epidemic and AIDS activism (1980s-present), and experience with the fight for marriage equality. The project has been a collaborative effort among faculty and librarians from Cedar Crest College, Lehigh University, Moravian College, Muhlenberg College, and members of the local community, under the direction of Dr. Mary Foltz, Associate Professor of English at Lehigh University and Co-Director of the South Side Initiative. <br /><br /><em> The project was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.</em>
Oral History
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Interviewer
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Mary Foltz
Interviewee
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Joseph Burns
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https://trexlerworks.muhlenberg.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=LGBT-07.xml
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Le-Hi-Ho
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5.4 October 12, 2019 Joseph Burns (Part 1), October 12, 2019 LGBT-07 01:29:35 LVLGBT Stories from LGBT Older Adults in the Lehigh Valley Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository This oral history recording was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Le-Hi-Ho Joseph Burns Mary Foltz video BurnsJoseph_20191012_Video 1.0:|27(4)|50(9)|71(6)|92(5)|109(13)|134(9)|155(7)|174(14)|191(7)|214(16)|235(10)|260(2)|281(18)|300(6)|319(15)|340(14)|363(3)|386(2)|415(2)|436(3)|459(4)|480(6)|501(13)|522(9)|541(5)|564(2)|583(11)|604(3)|627(14)|650(12)|675(4)|694(11)|711(9)|732(4)|751(10)|770(7)|791(10)|812(14)|835(9)|854(14)|879(3)|900(14)|919(2)|940(6)|961(6)|978(18)|995(7)|1016(4)|1037(2)|1054(13)|1071(3)|1090(2)|1123(7)|1142(5)|1165(10)|1184(6)|1209(3)|1232(3)|1245(10)|1274(10)|1301(10)|1334(3)|1353(13)|1374(6)|1395(9)|1420(7)|1437(13)|1458(3)|1477(9)|1496(5)|1519(17)|1546(12)|1563(8)|1586(11)|1605(10)|1626(4)|1649(4)|1672(3)|1697(7)|1720(5)|1737(14)|1762(13)|1789(7)|1812(3)|1833(10)|1850(7)|1875(7)|1892(7)|1913(2)|1926(5) 0 https://youtu.be/mrynu9OOewM YouTube video 4 Interview Introduction MARY FOLTZ: My name is Mary Foltz and I’m here with Joseph Burns to talk about his life and experiences in LGBT organizations in the Lehigh Valley as part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Oral History Project. This project has funding from the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium. We are here with Joseph in his home in Boiling Springs, Pennsylvania. It is October twelfth, two-thousand nineteen. Carol Moeller is our videographer today. Joseph, I want to thank you so much for agreeing to --
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 ; JOSEPH BURNS: Thank you.
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 ; MF: -- talk with us. And the first thing I want to ask is did you consent to this interview today? 0 63 Childhood / Early Life MF: And just to start our conversation today, could you tell us a little bit about your childhood?
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 ; JB: Okay. I was born in Butler, Pennsylvania, which is north of Pittsburgh, about thirty miles. And it’s a town of about thirty-thousand, I think. Maybe twenty three- thousand at that time. So, it’s a medium sized town and it was the county seat. And it was a great life. This was before the war. I was born before the war. Then, I began -- the war years, of course, started in forty-one and we spent our time, a large part of our time outside the city because they were polio summers, okay? So, when the summers came, we went outside the city. 0 738 Starting Le-Hi-Ho / About Le-Hi-Ho MF: I just am excited for you to keep going. You should feel like you can just keep talking in the direction that you want to go. And then, if you exhaust it, then I’ll ask a question. I mean, I have so many things that I’m curious about. Why? Why you started Le-Hi-Ho and how it kind of came together, who you were talking with? You know, how did you imagine this organization?
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 ; JB: Oh, I left town. When I left home, I was ready, I think. I was ready to go. I was ready to find what I knew was there, okay? I knew that there were, I knew such of a thing -- was gay bar. I had never been into one prior to that. I had had, I think, yeah, and twenty-three, I had another event, another time when I was with somebody. Le-Hi-Ho 0 3135 Le-Hi-Ho Newsletter MF: So, my questions are, you know, what in particular did you want to publish in the newsletter? Did you publish on politics or was it --
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 ; JB: Okay.
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 ; MF: -- more social?
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 ; JB: I did -- it was politics. I was [strong?] informational and, a matter of fact, got into trouble for it. I was writing as much -- I was doing all this scholarship on the side. And so, I was making what I called reviews of these books. They weren’t reviews of these books. They were really giving you -- since you aren’t going to read the book, this is what the book said. And these are important ideas, okay? Le-Hi-Ho 0 3598 Being Out in the Lehigh Valley MF: Can I ask, before you moved to the Lambda Center, what was it like for Le-Hi-Ho and just to be out in Bethlehem as a city. Like, what was it like at Bethlehem Steel --
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 ; JB: I didn’t have --
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 ; MF: -- to be out?
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 ; JB: -- any problem with it. I wasn’t extraordinarily social. I mean, I kept with some gay people. Remember, at that time, you had -- Friday night was your gay -- okay, Friday, Saturdays was your gay time. And so, that was, it was kind of what you did, okay? Le-Hi-Ho 0 4198 Contact with Other Organizations MF: May I ask -- there’s this really interesting way that in the stories that you’re telling, Le-Hi-Ho is moving all around the region. Members are going to Philadelphia, you’re going to New York City, you’re in contact with these major --
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 ; JB: I was.
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 ; MF: -- organizations, yeah.
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 ; JB: So, I was because I wanted to be, okay? And I wrote that. And, you know, I wrote about the Stonewall and the meeting and the conflict that was taking place between the old guard and the new guard, which is the homophile organizations and this new group that wants to be out and political and it wants to be very forward and right in your face, confronting. 0 4414 PA Council for Sexual Minorities / Gay Caucus JB: I just did it and the Le-Hi-Ho, two things happened. There was an organization that started in ‘75. This is five, this is six years later, in Reading, okay? Came to Le-Hi-Ho and said, “We’re starting, need your advice.” I went down and stayed with them, literally, for a long time. That organization that we started was called -- at that time, there was movement to start this Pennsylvania Council on Sexual Minorities. There was a group that met in Harrisburg, conceiving this idea, making it up with Governor Shapp’s approval. 0 4917 Impact of Le-Hi-Ho MF: So, I just want to ask that -- you know, for you, personally, what kind of impact do you think Le-Hi-Ho had on Bethlehem, on the Lehigh Valley, and just on the region, more broadly?
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 ; JB: Okay, ask me again.
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 ; MF: What kind of impact did Le-Hi-Ho have on Bethlehem, on the Lehigh Valley?
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 ; JB: Okay, I --
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 ; MF: What’s its legacy?
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 ; JB: -- said that the educational thing was very important. Okay, you’re reaching out to high school students, to college students, giving them good information on a regular basis. 0 5200 Citizens of Decency JB: I’ll tell you what: there’s another organization that founded in ‘87. We founded in Allentown with the Allentown -- so, we call ourselves Citizens (inaudible) for Better Community. The reason we did that, there was -- it was a professor at Lehigh, professor at Muhlenberg, Frank -- I’ll think of his name after awhile. It’s not important or anything but -- who, as soon as we announced that we were going to try for gay rights in Allentown -- organizing organization called Citizens -- COD, Citizens for Decency, something like that. 0 MovingImage Joseph Burns talks about his experience of being a gay man in Bethlehem, PA in the 1970s and '80s, namely his involvement with Le-Hi-Ho (Lehigh Valley Homophile Movement). MARY FOLTZ:My name is Mary Foltz and I'm here with Joseph Burns to talk about his life and experiences in LGBT organizations in the Lehigh Valley as part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Oral History Project. This project has funding from the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium. We are here with Joseph in his home in Boiling Springs, Pennsylvania. It is October twelfth, two-thousand nineteen. Carol Moeller is our videographer today. Joseph, I want to thank you so much for agreeing to -- JOSEPH BURNS:Thank you. MF:-- talk with us. And the first thing I want to ask is did you consent to this interview today? JB:Yes, of course. I did, absolutely. MF:Wonderful. We're really grateful that you take the time to talk to us. And I want to start by asking you, could you please give me your birth date? JB:Eight-one-forty. August first, nineteen-forty. MF:And just to start our conversation today, could you tell us a little bit about your childhood? JB:Okay. I was born in Butler, Pennsylvania, which is north of Pittsburgh, about thirty miles. And it's a town of about thirty-thousand, I think. Maybe twenty three- thousand at that time. So, it's a medium sized town and it was the county seat. And it was a great life. This was before the war. I was born before the war. Then, I began -- the war years, of course, started in forty-one and we spent our time, a large part of our time outside the city because they were polio summers, okay? So, when the summers came, we went outside the city. We had a piece of property outside the city about eighteen or nineteen miles. We went there and spent our summers as children and took our friends along and really stayed out -- pretty much out of the summer polio season, which was devastating in terms of how many people would get sick. And we never did. But outside of that, it was very happy. That was an extraordinarily happy time to be -- my family was good. Well off enough to be able to afford to stay out there. My father came and went every day, for work. And my mother ultimately became a member of the school board, which kind of influenced my life a little bit, made me a little, you know, a little more cautious about who I was and what I could do. But really (inaudible) a whole lot but she -- I think my -- between the two of them, my father would be the more nurturing figure, okay, and the person that I really went to for more nurturing. And that was just true of the family. My mother was a good person and really -- but she had her feelings about things, very different, and was not as caring somehow, not able to communicate the same sort of warmth as my dad did. And so, we had a very special relationship (inaudible) and that was very warm and well-remembered. He lived until I was nineteen. Died in 1960. By that time, I was growing up enough -- I had come out -- I didn't come out, as a matter of fact. I was hesitant, lonely as a child (inaudible) a lot of my childhood, and especially as I became gay. At about thirteen, I think, was my first experience, with a friend. Another person in school, the same age, the same grade of school that I was. Happened in my home. In the basement, there were a pair of, set of bunk beds downstairs, and that's where we had our first encounter. And we went on for probably several months but not longer than that. He was an individual interesting to me because he had some effeminate characteristics more than I would have and more than typical for men. But he also -- and I saw him a gap of time, okay? Remember, I was thirteen then. We were probably -- I remember knowing him till we graduated school and he was a clerk in a men's store, which -- he was still a clerk in a men's store. That's what he did for his whole existence and retired from there. And I didn't see him again for fifty-five years when we came together for the high school reunion. Went to first high school reunion. I went back, it was fifty-five years. So, he's the same person. Exactly the same person. But he was married all these years, to a woman. Assume had children. Nobody talked about children at the reunion. Surprised the heck out of me. I thought that would be the whole conversation. Not at all. Nobody even talked a word about children. And people were so much the same as they were in high school. Like, the high school president was still in charge of this particular occasion and he -- very much the same. Looked the same, talked the same, was the same. Personality, the same. And it was true of so many people but it was also true of this boy, which I thought was most remarkable that he had not changed in all these years and yet had never probably been gay himself. I just find it absolutely remarkable that he remained -- maintained marriage and maintained his lifestyle. And after that, there was only one other person. Then, there was a long period of plight for a long time when I was too shy, too afraid, and too absorbed in the whole business of being gay to reach out. Probably fearful, probably not ever very heterosexual and could -- that was not something I even got to very much at all. I tried. Went out on a few dates. But there was not anything that I was really interested in doing, quite honestly. And that -- maintained myself, even through high school and college. I did not have another encounter with anybody. I knew I was gay. Certainly was dealing with the issue myself but I did not reach out to any other gay people and rarely knew any. When I left Butler, finally, at the age of twenty-seven, and this was years later, I still only knew two gay people in Butler. So, it was a lonely life for me there and was very willing to leave and went to Allentown, Bethlehem, really, in '67, and at twenty-seven. Partly, I had dropped out of college and I was going to go back to college. Well, I went back and I didn't go to college but I did stay in Bethlehem, very happily, and started to come out. And slowly, going to a bar called Rubes. I don't know what Rubes is -- was in existence then, on the corner of Ninth and Hamilton, as I recall. And there was another bar down -- the bus station was kind of gay, part-time, on weekends, especially. And as that happened, in '69, somebody bought the bar by the name of Larry Johns. Yes, Larry Johns is his name and he bought that particular bar, called the Rendezvous, then. And it was the bar that was associated with the bus station and it's just a very small bar. I don't think more than fifteen seats in it. And he put a dance floor in back, which was quite exciting for the time. And then, he founded Stonewall, later on. Sold the Rendezvous, although Rendezvous continued for a long time as a bar. And, let me see, so coming out was slow for me. I met a few people prior to Le-Hi-Ho who were -- in that day, there were queen bees, okay? And a queen bee would be a male homosexual who is -- usually a lot of personality and enough to hold other people. And he would create a social circle for himself. Now, in some times, and this was true almost in every town in America -- probably had a queen bee who was truly -- dominated that society. And not a very large circle. There might be just five or six people, it might be fifteen people. Might be a very large group depending on the person himself. But they were very -- they were leaders, they were social leaders. Commanded the social scene and really, there were specific people. They were funny, they were gregarious. They were also extraordinarily sarcastic, sarcasm being the coin of the realm, to a certain degree, because that passed for sophistication. I'm not sure quite what had happened. I always thought sarcasm hurt more than it was good. But it still was the coin of the realm and if you were sarcastic, then you got to be more popular and more -- dominating those people. So, I met a young man who was in his fifties, had a small coterie of two, three other people, I think, and a home in Bethlehem. A nice little home, quite comfortable. And that was my social set for a while. I met a few people at the bar, older men, specifically. By that time, I was twenty-seven going on thirty. And Le-Hi-Ho was founded when I was twenty-nine. So, my point was that I went -- being, feeling lonely. I was going to a psychiatrist for a period of time and I would talk to him about how do I get to know people? How do I be social? What do I do? Le-Hi-Ho started in, I think, in May or April of 1969, just right after the Stonewall -- and that's important. I'll talk about that. But that was the end of my psychiatry, yeah. I found what I needed, you know? I really kind of did not bloom but I certainly came out and was willing to come out. I had read in the paper, the Philadelphia -- no, wouldn't have been, 'cause that -- I'm not sure. Would have been the morning paper out of Philadelphia and I don't -- I'm not sure that I remember the name of it anymore. But Barbara Gittings was listed in there and she was my inspiration because I thought if Barbara Gittings could be out like that, and she (inaudible) she had been the editor of Ladder and was an activist in Philadelphia. A gay activist (inaudible) be an activist. And I thought, boy, if she could do it, I could do it, too. And so, my opportunity, then, came up pretty quickly after that and I was very, very happy and it was the first moment I knew I was going to be out. I was not going to be one of the closeted people. But that was the brief up to that point, okay, if there are any questions about that. Do you have anything to ask me about that? Any illuminations? MF:I just am excited for you to keep going. You should feel like you can just keep talking in the direction that you want to go. And then, if you exhaust it, then I'll ask a question. I mean, I have so many things that I'm curious about. Why? Why you started Le-Hi-Ho and how it kind of came together, who you were talking with? You know, how did you imagine this organization? JB:Oh, I left town. When I left home, I was ready, I think. I was ready to go. I was ready to find what I knew was there, okay? I knew that there were, I knew such of a thing -- was gay bar. I had never been into one prior to that. I had had, I think, yeah, and twenty-three, I had another event, another time when I was with somebody. And then, it became a little more natural and I met some more people. Individuals. Typically older. Oh, probably even older than I was and I was already twenty-seven. Now, that's interesting. I came out at that age, too. I decided I was coming out and so I wrote to my mother first and the rest of the family and said, "I'm gay" and was -- came out, literally, to them and to other people. So, I was working in Bethlehem still at that point. And I was able to come out in my work, which -- I was working as a laborer. And open-hearth furnaces and so on (inaudible) so, I knew people but it -- again, it was a lonely, lonely existence and I felt that keenly. And I felt very, very lonely. I called it my lonely years, twenty-seven to twenty-nine, between twenty-seven and twenty-nine, when I was able to come out, when I was able to really reach out to other people with Le-Hi-Ho and found my, you know, my niche for myself. Well, I was very, very happy about that afterwards. Became the first newsletter editor for them. And the first meeting, I think the -- well, we'll talk about that, too. I was -- Le-Hi-Ho was founded through the auspices of Mattachine, New York City. And approximately, I think, February. I don't know the date. And I have the letter and it's in the -- I sent that (inaudible) inviting people to -- person who was going to form a group through the auspices of Mattachine, New York. He was a local, Ron Seeds. And Ron Seeds was also working at Bethlehem Steel. He was more, he was in the office, and I don't know what he did. I think he was probably mid-management somewhere but it would be mid-staff management, I believe, not directly supervising anybody that I'd be aware of. He was approximately my age. I'm not sure where we were. At that time, I was twenty-nine when Le-Hi-Ho was formed. I met my lover that first meeting and I did not get together with him. But I knew I saw him, knew who he was. Met him again at Christmas time, at New Year's, New Year's Eve, at -- in 1970. New Year's Eve -- of [Grant?], the 1970s, '69 into '70. And we were a place called the Coral Reef in the Poconos. Now that's important because among other things, we -- Le-Hi-Ho had early fundraising was drag shows. And they were down at the Coral Reef, the Coral Reef being in the Poconos, some distance from where we were. And they were successful. We would have several hundred people and we made three or four hundred dollars out of them, which was a lot of money to us. I mean, we were shoestring budget the whole time, literally. We just never needed, we never lacked for money. If they ever did, they put in the newsletter, "We need money" and people would contribute and they went on. But it was still, it was not, never became a greatly funded organization. Just went along, published this newsletter for twenty-five years, there's been a continuous newsletter. Now, the fact that Le-Hi-Ho was founded -- this is important -- again, it was founded in 1969, April or May. It was through the Mattachine. There was a decision, first, that we had to make about whether we'd go with Mattachine, would become a Mattachine, or we'd become an independent organization. I argued for independent organization and I think that most of us were in favor of that, rather than sending our money away. A little money, it was. It would have cost us twenty-five dollars a year, I think, something like that. But was twenty-five dollars is twenty-five dollars back in that day. It was different. That was a sum of money that you didn't automatically have when you were young. So, we went to stay, but what happened with Le-Hi-Ho was it was formed, therefore, as a social educational organization, okay? And this was what early organizations were. And you talk about homophile organizations? Homophiles stayed in the closet. If you remember Mattachine, they had this structure -- was such that they had -- the leadership was supposed to be out and leading the organization to be there for the public presence, okay? And they could do all the public things and everybody else could remain in the closet and be spoken for. That did not preclude them being activist people but the Mattachine grew to about four-hundred people, which was, at that time, was quite enormous. Now, they had done that, of course, by maintaining all the names, never letting anybody go. We did the same thing with Le-Hi-Ho and with other organizations later on. We just kept them on the books for ourselves. Kept saying the newsletter's -- so, we claimed them as members, even if they were no longer active, which very typical that they weren't. Okay, but being social, educational was what Le-Hi-Ho did, okay? They had a social hour after every meeting. I think I talked about, well, I talked about it before we started. There were about thirty people, would go to a meeting. A number of them would be the activists who took the meeting. And then, they would follow it with a social hour, assigned coffee, assigned refreshments and coffee, and every month. And it was very, very popular. That was what people went for, they really -- that social hour was well attended and very important, I think, again because it was, at that time, probably the social alternative to the bars. There were virtually no others, and certainly none of that ilk, in which you can get to know people without [the bedding, coming off?], without that being the focus of conversation. You would talk about all kinds of other things. You would talk more as a normal conversation. I think it was a very important aspect and a very important difference that went down that made that such an important organization. And it waxed and waned. There were sometimes -- were fewer people, more people. At the beginning, would all connect the business together. Well, that was a three-hour meeting if they had to do that kind of thing. And then, we also learned that that was just not successful. That was not what people went for. So, we learned to -- they built a board, ultimately, that took care of the business. And there was a -- Ron made himself the -- I forget what it was called but the Mattachine, New York and there's actually the same executive. And I don't remember -- executive something or other. Thank you. Okay, so Ron was the executive, meaning that he was responsible for the organization. Once led a fight one time to get the key for the mailbox. Now, the reason I did it was I felt that there were things going to the mailbox that I wanted to know about. I was the newsletter editor and I was really wanting to know about other activities across the horizon, which we didn't -- which I was not informed of but Ron was because, at that time especially, when there are other organizations, you sent your newsletter out to everybody else and the other organizations to keep them reminded, as -- that you were both in existence, what you did. So, but Ron said, "Look, I'm --" faced down the board and said, "I'm going to keep the key. I'm going to be here. I'm going to be head of this organization and I will be here tomorrow and when you guys are all gone, I'll be here." He was almost right. Almost right. He left about '87, I think, somewhere in the late eighties, I'm thinking, like -- and I don't know what that story was. By that time, I was gone myself. To finish that story, okay, back with Ron. And so, he led the organization, did most of the business and conducted most of the meetings. We did get a president. We named ourselves Le-Hi-Ho ultimately. Was a while there -- we wrote some bylaws. Bylaws was -- piece of shit. Never do it. It just takes -- big waste of time because you never -- you don't pay -- little attention to the bylaws after they're written. And they can take up a great deal of time. But finally, they give us a name, which came out to be Le-Hi-Homophile Organization and we shortened that to Le-Hi-Ho. And I remember who did it. That's neither here nor there. There was a person involved with the organization who was a rare book seller. Interesting man. He served that and he was a person who did not like conflict at all, so he didn't even like the meetings. He felt the conflict was too strong for him. Was a very gentle man. Very gentle person. But he came up with the name, ultimately. Good friend and a good person. Older. Again, older than myself, even at that point. Le-Hi-Ho was distinguished by being a little bit older. Generally, the membership would be in their twenties to thirties. And that's a little unusual for gay organizations of any ilk, to not be much younger and much more college age or whatever. These were young men who were starting their careers, typically. And again, that's who came. And sometimes from a distance. We had people coming from Wilkes-Barre, people coming from that area, and around, around, around. There were a few interesting people that might have belonged at one point or another. There was a fellow name of Paul. What was the last name? Oo, can I -- forgive myself. (inaudible), he was a -- Phil Andros, which if you know Phil Andros was a pornographic writer. But he was, yeah, that's what it was. And he -- but by then, he'd been retired from that. He was no longer writing the books but he was (inaudible) with his lover and was one of the interesting characters we once knew at Le-Hi-Ho that were associated with -- and he died, I think, not very long after that, I believe of AIDS, but I'm not sure of that. There were no other famous people, particularly, that I can think of. And Phil was very modest. Paul was very modest. Told us that but he never claimed -- and I was probably -- I was one of the few who would recognize him from pornography. I used to go to New York City and pick up the stuff in Times Square. So, of course, yes, I knew what Paul -- Phil Andros. That was exciting and he was a major author. When I came out in Pennsylvania, I had been to college in Pennsylvania. I had been to college in Bethlehem. And I went thereforth to college, universities -- one university, Lehigh. And then, there are four colleges, I believe: Moravian, Muhlenberg, Lafayette, and -- three cities. And there was also a Catholic school, St. Catherine, St. Catherine, Saint Frances de Sales. And there was even, actually -- there was a Baptist school that nobody knows about -- was in existence. Not quite unknown but it was a college, probably a junior college, but I never knew which one. I used to know its location and I used to observe it. My point was that I went to the colleges, I went to the universities, and I went to the libraries, particularly, that I could find, okay? And I was not much, I was not a great, I was not at that point much of a scholar. But I could not find in any of those libraries anything in the card catalog under homosexuality. There was zero works, okay? And what I could find one time was a book I -- it's written by a psychiatrist, I believe, in association with, well, very famous Midwest -- doesn't matter now. At any rate, there was one blurb about homosexuality, short paragraph thing. Two paragraphs, perhaps. And there was a book in Le-Hi-Ho by Derek, Philip Derek? What was his name? He was one of the very few novelists at that time who was actually publishing books that were gay specific. His last name was Derek and now I can't remember his first name, most regrettably. There was supposedly a copy of that in Lehigh University. It was not on the shelves, I can tell you that. And that was typical. That's what I found is there was very, very little, and not in. I was actually, with a very good book shop because I'd been a student and liked the Moravian Bookshop a great deal. It was a wonderful resource. They thought I was a student. I had been there so often, been there for years. I don't know how they thought I was a student after I was there fifteen years I was associated with them. But they were -- I knew people there and they were my sources. And so, I got a lot of books. I developed a nice library for myself, about one-hundred and fifty books by the time Le-Hi-Ho opened up. And there were not very many books at that time. You have to remember that Psychopathia Homosexualis was still in existence, okay? Now, 1874, it was written. This was a textbook for gay people! Come on! I mean, this is bad stuff. And it was all case histories, that sort of thing, and very -- people like Berger -- Bieber were writing at that time. I don't know if you've ever read Bieber. Irving Bieber was, oh, he was -- terrible man. Wrote a book in 1952. I got a copy of it, was, like, the thirteenth edition. That's how bad it was. I mean, it was all that was available and it was -- he was the one who said, you know, he equated us with -- homosexuals are criminals, teachers were criminals, they all have the same personality. They're all psychopaths. It's all psychopaths. Well, that taught me, that's -- I wasn't. I mean, that was my beginning of my liberation, was knowing who I was not. I was not that person. Nobody I knew was that person. Nobody I knew was of that ilk. But he was just devastating and everything he had to say was very, very negative and he had all his cases and all this stuff and illustrations. But it was a paperback book and the thirteenth edition. And that's just sick when you think about it. Still makes me sick when I think about it because that was really -- that and Berger, Edmund Berger or was it Edmund Berger? [I think Renee?] -- was all I could find. And these were the books that were coming out then. These were the authorities -- were trying to find out why am I homosexual? Was a big question. Screw the question, you know? I learned quickly to forget that, that just that was irrelevant. I am. But it was -- intellectual journey through that. And then, I got, like, The Homosexual in America. Loved Donald Cory. I was just grossly a fan of this man who would -- in '50, I think, perhaps, in the time of the McCarthy era, wrote this book called Homosexual in America, which was probably the first apologist for homosexual -- and he himself was a married man. He was a member of Mattachine. And I wrote to Mattachine a fan letter, as a matter of fact, and said, "I really appreciate the fact that you've done this. This is extraordinary and what a brave and courageous and wonderful" -- they wrote back and said, "He's out of the organization. We kicked him out." (laughs) So, the story about him is, and I find this out later, he was a sociologist who wanted to use the organization for research and to make himself a famous researcher, to [promote?] himself. And Lehigh -- and they turned him down on it. They would not support that. And he tried to become leader of the organization, tried to become the executive director, and that's when they threw him out. His name was -- I want to know, 'cause this is important. He still wrote that -- hate senior moments like this. I'll think of it and I will add that back. But he believed that men were afraid of women, is why they became homosexual. And this was [Ralph Ellard Ellis?] if you remember the name, was a psychiatrist which was -- this was his whole thing. And he said that that was his -- it was his thesis, that people are homosexual because they're afraid of women. He spoke at Le-Hi-Ho one time, which was not a time I was -- by that time, I had acquired a lover and was not directly involved with Le-Hi-Ho, or not very much, so I didn't know he was there. And I was quite surprised because -- but he came and spoke to the organization. Matter of fact, it's in the newsletters. I was actually quite shocked because I wouldn't have had him. He was really -- and he had a major following. But he also wasn't as tough on it. He wasn't just condemning homosexuals as Bieber and Berger and the other people had been. So, I had a library. I did a lot, well, as much research as I could. I find out about Evelyn Hooker, obviously, Ford and Beach, who was the sociologist who made it clear -- the cross-cultural studies and cross species studies. John Money, his sexual studies. And began to learn that there was a whole modern view emerging. Now, I think that that's very important, intellectually, okay? The intellectual beginnings of this were interesting because there were very few authors prior to this who were doing anything on sex at all, okay? And especially when they were across studies or other cultures. For instance, Richard Burton, a very, very famous author, very famous traveler in the East who had written a lot of cross-cultural studies and a lot of cross-cultural things about the -- and that whole Eastern culture. You can think of -- who? Carpenter, John Carpenter. And it was John Carpenter in England, did that -- wonderful books. André Gide wrote a book called Corydon. Was very famous homosexual. He also happened to be a pedophile, regrettably. Went to Algiers. But he wrote about it. One of the books that I found for the library was his diaries, his journals. Journals they were called in that day and he'd written about -- they were continued in four volumes. And I had the slightly abbreviated paperback edition but it was good enough and certainly told me a lot about -- and he was world famous at that point and he was an authority -- if you remember, Leo Tolstoy, after War and Peace and Anna Karenina, became such a famous author and became the voice of peace and this world known, world renowned moralist. And that's the role that Gide filled. He became in -- writing a book called The Immoralist, among other things. He became that kind of authority figure and was very much highly regarded despite being gay. Corydon was published and when he published it, he only did twelve copies, so that never did get out until after he was dead. Then [there were -- the number?] (inaudible) published. I happen to have, was fortunate enough to find a copy of it. His thesis talked about a male's beauty and how beautiful males were and they were dominant. And you find beautiful birds, okay? Cardinals, for instance, the cardinal family, the male is the red cardinal. The females are the brown cardinals. The females also lead. They go first, then the male follows when it's safe. But they also were in, (clears throat) I'm sorry, in nature, were very often the more beautiful of the species, the more resplendent of the species to get -- and they were the ones that the females were attracted to. Remember that they, you know, that they did perform the dances or whatever. They had the plumage, the right plumage and the right light and look to be -- [set their genes?], partly because of the (inaudible) and he -- so that's what he emphasized. Interesting thesis. Also, interesting to me, when you talk about early homosexuality, and this was back in -- the term was (inaudible) until eighteen-something, seventeen-something, eighteen, I think. At any rate, [it was?] not a term. And before that, they were called inverts, intermediates, third sex. All-important concepts. And they used to talk about the important contribution that these particular people made, okay, that they could make the society that I've always kind of believed in. I've always thought that homosexuals had a special mission, had a special something, that we understood differently than the dominant culture did, the dominant heterosexual culture did. We weren't as marriage-oriented, for instance. We were freer in our associations and -- but I think now, as we've gone on, I think that what we were looking for is what is now emerging, which is that wonderful fluidity, that you could be anything, okay? That you could be male, female, without limits, without labels, without anything to identify with, that -- and yet, that fluidity, this makes you go all over so that you are all of those things, happily. I was not. I was a male homosexual and I, at my point, when I came out, was binary choice, okay? You were gay or you were straight. I chose gay, absolutely. I wanted to be that and I also emphasized my maleness, as opposed to anything, and really was not happy with the social sets in which the guys would call each other Mary. That made me uncomfortable because I thought that's kind of denial of who we are. And it so often was biting and so often was a putdown or an insult and sarcasm, that sarcasm that I talked about, was so much part of the humor. And that was a part of the humor, too. You had parties, drag shows, and what you did, okay, you -- everybody -- where you went into drag. I never did again. And it just wasn't me. But I think, too, that I really feel that I should have had -- I already knew growing up, when I was asking myself these questions, that there's a large part, a large component of me is feminine as other people would understand it. Not a sports person. A person who liked more concerts, liked music, who liked more things that might be softer and less hard and less harsh. And my brothers were athletic, I always thought. And I felt that difference. So, I kind of still -- I wish I had developed that more and been more open to developing it, that I would be a different person. And now I don't understand, it's very difficult for me to understand young homosexuals because they are so fluid and they are so -- can make that change and identify with it in a way we couldn't. To me, bisexuality was almost an excuse. But again, it never was. There are true bisexuals. I have learned that over the years, too, and accept that. But now, there's something more than that. There's this wonderful fluidity of being whatever you want to be and expressing it all. And I think, especially, Adrian does a terrific job and the Lehigh Valley is doing a terrific job of emphasizing that particular aspect of things. I look at the programs and what I get are everything is very much oriented to the trans community, a lot of it is. You're doing a lot of trans (inaudible) so many of the programs emphasize that as opposed to, okay, a more strictly male homosexuality. Come back to Le-Hi-Ho again for one second. This was a very male organization. There were no women, okay? There was one woman who was directly involved in Le-Hi-Ho in the first 10 years. Her name was [Lou Augustine?]. Lou Augustine became a member of the governor of Pennsylvania, the Governor's Council on Sexual Minorities. She was appointed to that. She lived in Reading. And she [come up to?] groups. She came up to Le-Hi-Ho periodically through all those years. And she was almost the only one who did. And I used to fight Le-Hi-Ho because after -- and in those first ten years, I began to change. There were so many feminists, and met Dixie and so on, so I was really trying to get them to understand that they don't have women, that they need to look at this because -- for many, many reasons. I thought that, for instance, now was our model -- except that the feminist movement was so broad. And that's for many issues, from childcare to pay, to just everything was so different for them. And men didn't pay attention. They did not support that. They didn't support the abortion rights, which they wouldn't do -- they wouldn't come out and say, Le-Hi-Ho -- and I tried to get them to do this. Would not adopt a resolution in favor of abortion or anything else, anything to do with feminism. They just simply wouldn't do it. And I wasn't disappointed and I understood because -- but they were a conservative organization. Again, they were founded two months before the Stonewall, it made them very different. They were social, educational, homophile. No organizations after the Stonewall or after -- yes, after Stonewall, I went to a conference in October of that year, '69. It was last meeting of ECHO, East Coast Homophile Organizations. There were several organizations involved. Le-Hi-Ho was new but so were a whole lot of other things, like HI, Homophiles of -- where? I don't remember. There was a group in -- [Robert Biddings?] was in charge of a group in Philadelphia. Mark Segal had just founded Gay, I think -- the GAA, yes, thank you. And so, I think there were quite a number of organizations. I recall there were thirteen organizations, almost all of them new. Now, the question, of course, with the old guard was shall we seat these people? Can we believe them? You know, they're new, they're young, they're radical about -- and they were, for instance, Foster Gunnison was himself an organization. Foster Gunnison, his whole job and his whole organization was, himself, keeping all the archives of all the earlier groups. And so, he built up a tremendous library and a very important library in New England of all those early newsletters and whatever was new and all the records of those groups. He tried to maintain some semblance of it. But that was (inaudible) okay. Mattachine New York was Dick Leitsch, who I went to see one time. When I came out, I went to New York. I had been to see a program, I think, in '63 that talked about Mattachine and showed the door of the organization, which was somewhere in the Village at that point, as I recall, a glass door. I'll never forget that. And so, really, that was one of the first things with them, when I came out, and I couldn't go to school the next day. I went to the library and I looked up Mattachine. MF:Do you want to stop? JB:It was important to me. And I went there, went to see him in New York. Went to the Mattachine office and walked in and just introduced myself. I was so happy. Went to Philadelphia. At that time, Janus Society was in existence and one called the Homosexual Law Reform Society. Both happened to be the same address in what turned out to be Polak -- why can't I remember their first names? I can remember his last name but I can't remember his first name -- published the Janus Society newsletter called Drum. And he also ran a pornography shop -- is what he did. I think was easier as a business or whatever. When I went to the address, went upstairs to the second floor, met the secretary. He was not in. Dammit, his name just crossed my name again. I mean, he was not there but clearly there was pornography all over. You know, the shelves in back were -- and that was what he did was supply -- pornography supplier. I don't know if that was his main job. He was well known and he did -- Drum was unusual, a little bit pornographic in terms of the newsletter. And I had a copy for years and didn't realize that I -- and I probably turned it into the projects here at the Dickinson when I realized that it was, in fact, the newsletter of the organization. But it had pictures of -- posed pictures back in that day. It's what you did, the posing straps and that sort of thing were de rigueur. You do nothing naked. That wouldn't have been possible but as much naked -- as close you could get. Clark Polak, I believe. Clark Polak, I believe, was his name. Joined their West Coast organization. I would join ONE to me was (inaudible) which was -- I think one in San Francisco, one in Los Angeles. ONE was an educational organization, did meetings, did presentations constantly to the public. Le-Hi-Ho was distinguished for that. They had a wonderful speakers' bureau. I was not a member of it. I wasn't Ron's favorite person but [as their?] -- was really very much in charge of that. Did a wonderful job. Presentations all over the Valley, very, very active, and through all the schools, the high schools, the colleges. Was a very main function, as well as the social organization, which we talked about. They also were very supportive about other things but they didn't -- they were not supportive about women. They wouldn't do the women's rights. They weren't really big on women's rights, although ERA was becoming stronger and stronger through now and now is very, very powerful organization in Pennsylvania. And Ellie Smeal was president, national president, and come from here. Gloria -- not Steinem but Gloria -- what was her name? Sackman-Reed. Gloria Sackman-Reed was the president then, followed by Dixie after that. And Dixie held conference in Philadelphia. And, I'm sorry, in Allentown. And then, she became president that year, [but did?] the conference -- she was self-nominated or nominated (inaudible) president -- Pennsylvania NOW. And that was '87, I believe, '86, '87, because in '87, we're supposed to have a conference in '86, in '87, early '87. We never did. And I'll tell you, that's another story and a later administration. But stay with Le-Hi-Ho for the moment. So, Le-Hi-Ho was very definitely male, strongly male. And I think that later, they did change but it was not until after I had left. I left in '83 to go to Chicago to live with my lover. And lived with him for ten years there, then another ten years in Houston. And then, we got divorced. His choice. I came back here to live with my sister in two-thousand. Had been together, been with Doug for eighteen years at the time he wanted the divorce. We stayed together for another year and a half just in order to sell the house, prepare the house, and so on, for sale. And I wanted to celebrate the coming of the new century with him, the millennial -- I wanted to do that. And really, it was a little bit of an anti-climax in the end. Not sorry that I did it, though. He was a good man and I was very much in love at that point but it just didn't work out. And they were my feelings, not his. Okay, Le-Hi-Ho. MF:May I ask -- JB:And what else can I say about that I could, yeah, (inaudible) MF:Well, I'm curious about your role as the newsletter organizer for Le-Hi-Ho. JB:Okay. MF:So, my questions are, you know, what in particular did you want to publish in the newsletter? Did you publish on politics or was it -- JB:Okay. MF:-- more social? JB:I did -- it was politics. I was [strong?] informational and, a matter of fact, got into trouble for it. I was writing as much -- I was doing all this scholarship on the side. And so, I was making what I called reviews of these books. They weren't reviews of these books. They were really giving you -- since you aren't going to read the book, this is what the book said. And these are important ideas, okay? This man is representing, for instance -- the writer, one from a man by the name of Wainwright Churchill -- wrote a book on -- and it's one that's gotten lost that I very -- don't understand why it did -- on the pro-gay cultures in the past. And so, he emphasized Greece as homo-positive, positive as opposed to negative, and the Roman culture as being more positive than negative and other cultures being more positive than negative. And he talked about them quite specifically, in quite a great, celebrated depth. And so, I would write that in the newspaper, wanting you to know that this saves you. This is saving your ass, okay? Very, very important piece of writing, this thing is. And so, I did it that way. Barbara Gittings wrote a letter and said, you know, "That's not a review." And Ron Seed wrote a letter and said, "You aren't earning views?. You're fired." So, I was fired. And that was about a year and a half later, year and a half or two. There was a person who -- the gentleman who started the newsletter was a guy who owned -- the real bookseller was throwing an advertisement, I think, after the first reading. So, I say, "We're going to have a second meeting." So, he wrote a newsletter for it. Well, that was the beginning of the newsletter and I took over the next one as being the newsletter editor because I wanted to do that. I thought it was a good fit for me. And I did things my own way. There was a little bit of humor that I wrote. I'm not funny. Believe me, it was a terrible piece. It was a lousy idea. And it really was a kind of a bit of a campy persona, which I am not and couldn't really play well. But that was that. And so, my emphasis was trying to be on educational -- and telling them about what was going on, okay? And I think that at some -- what I thought was positive about newsletters that I liked was that, okay? And other newsletters were done -- for instance, there was -- when Gays United of Lancaster's college, U.L., was founded, they formed -- they did a newsletter that became the Pennsylvania -- not rural but what do they call it? Damn. I'll have to think of that again later, too, because it was an important contribution. It was to, like, by the Boston Gay News. Talks about all the other organizations. Talked about what was going on, what was important, what were the leading causes, what -- and so, politically, if you were an activist, that's what you read because it really gave it to you in a way that The Advocate was not doing and it was much more social, much broader, and a lot more advertising in terms -- and a lot of beautiful boys, that sort of thing. And kind of light on good material. Now, it had not always been that way. I remember The Advocate, [firstly?] when it started, and reading it -- I was subscribing at that point -- like, I was a member of those organizations remotely because I couldn't -- that was my way of participating. All I could do what there was to join and pay attention. And one was giving me good information, Advocate was giving good information. And much as I could participate, they were. So, I thought that was a very, very important part of it. I found -- I just donated, I think I've said that, all those books for the library of Le-Hi-Ho, to start the library at Le-Hi-Ho. Mattachine donated their extra books, okay? And if you went to Mattachine, the forepart of -- you walked in, there were stacks of books there. Not very many. It wasn't -- maybe four or five depths but that was the largest collection that I ever saw and knew of. And my one-hundred fifty books, I thought, was quite extraordinary for the time because there were so few still being written. You know, openly -- books that were not people who -- there were some English books. They were hard to find and I tried to find everything I could find. I mean, I would go to books on the margin, okay, that were being dumped onto the market because they weren't any good, going to a special seller. And you'd go there and find books by English authors about -- writing about people who were gay. Was wonderful to me (inaudible) and plays. Very little of that. Le-Hi-Ho often went to plays in New York. Went to see Puppy Dog Tails, went to see -- what was the, shit, Boys in the Band, was, of course, new then. The Homoerotic Opera. Thomas Mann, A Night in Venice? Is that -- I think it was called? Went to see that. And so, they went often. But that was the beginning. They were Off-Broadway. Very little mainstream stuff. We did show, incidentally -- one of the first mainstream movies was, damn, sorry, why can't I think of the name of it? We had a meeting and we're meeting at that point at the Unitarian Church in Bethlehem, which is up in Fountain Hill, way up in the hill. Yeah, that was -- went there. They were good friends of ours. And so, it was early when we were looking for a place to meet and they did, I think, about three or four or five months into the organization. And it was all those years until we left, which would have been -- I think '83, I think is when the center started that Le-Hi-Ho moved out of there and met at the center -- MF:The Lam-- JB:-- was also there. They have their meetings at the center, as well. MF:The Lambda Center. JB:And stopped going to the church. MF:Okay. JB:Okay? As far as I know. MF:Can I ask, before you moved to the Lambda Center, what was it like for Le-Hi-Ho and just to be out in Bethlehem as a city. Like, what was it like at Bethlehem Steel -- JB:I didn't have -- MF:-- to be out? JB:-- any problem with it. I wasn't extraordinarily social. I mean, I kept with some gay people. Remember, at that time, you had -- Friday night was your gay -- okay, Friday, Saturdays was your gay time. And so, that was, it was kind of what you did, okay? You'd live the much more limited life Monday through Friday. Weekends, then you went somewhere to be gay, maybe in town, maybe elsewhere. I went to a lot of gay bars elsewhere just to see what they were. And because (inaudible) and I wanted to know about them and I put that in the newsletters, too. It was a lot of that sort of thing -- you know?] gay guides were very important. Also, talking about the electoral development, I think that we don't realize how much Sexology magazine had to do with publishing the early arguments about gays -- were done in that particular medium before they were done elsewhere and before there were more academic studies by Money and Hooker and so on and Ford and Beach, before those books came out, they were largely arguing in Sexology over the fact that homosexuals -- how they were acceptable and a natural part of sexuality. MF:And that's a magazine? JB:That would be important. Sorry? MF:Was that a magazine or you just -- JB:Yes. MF:-- mean the discipline? JB:Short magazine. Small one. MF:Oh, really? JB:It was almost a 'zine size. And it was pretty informal. It certainly was not a rigorous journal by any means. Ladder was the first lesbian journal, ONE, for -- a publication called ONE, which was probably the first serious journal of any sort. Christopher Street came out, ultimately. That was a literary magazine, the first one. The New York -- Craig Rodwell opened Oscar Wilde Bookshop in the Village. I went to see that. That was interesting. I went, that was right after Stonewall. And Stonewall was very exciting for me. I knew about what had happened and within a month or so, I think I'd gotten to -- I think Craig opened this bookstore and I went to the bookstore. I'm now thirty years old and the kids in there -- and this is when kids -- if you were over thirty, you were not to be trusted anymore. You were over the hill. And so, the kids in there were looking at me very peculiarly and really making comments about Mattachine and how ill they were for being against -- not as out, okay, as we are. They aren't as free, they aren't doing this whole youth thing. And remember, when Stonewall happened, the first thing that happened was you got this wonderful GSG, Gay Liberation Front's organization. Very, very leftist. Very leftist. And, like, remember Harry Hay, founder of the Mattachine was a communist. These guys were leftists of that ilk. Not into communism, particularly, but very leftist in New York, well known. Lots of books, you know (inaudible) sort of book. They were quite exciting people when we met them at that -- yeah, met them in Philadelphia at the ECHO meeting. They were -- exciting group of people. But there were three or four organizations that -- I remember there were -- Columbia University, there was New York City University, there was just every kind of school you could imagine. The state university as opposed to the city university. And they represented -- they bloomed. Like, Philadelphia one or several and Gay Liberation Front's were much more oriented to being political in a broad sense. You were supporting the lettuce -- the Chavez and the agriculturists and the leftists all over the world, were -- your concern -- the Chicago Seven, the, you know, the twelve, the elevens or whatever. Their protests -- were the kind of things that you were supposed to be active in. That was not pleasing to a lot of the membership, so that they started GAA as opposed to that -- Gay Activist Alliance, which said, "We are gay, we're going to pay attention to gay causes and not pay attention to these other causes or not support them." And that was a big thing at that ECHO meeting. There was a huge fight. Frank Cannaday was the president of the organization, president of that particular meeting at that time. And he presided over the meeting and when there was this old guard and the new guard, the old guard and the new people, these new radicals coming in. It was a kind of battle, a very big battle about getting seated in the first place and then the battle was over what to do about the Day of Remembrance. You have the Day of Remembrance -- was held at the Statue of Liberty on the Fourth of July and that was Frank Cannaday's, that was his -- "here's the deal." The first organization (inaudible) in '64 and marched in Washington with the picket line. Famous picture of Barbara Gittings -- is very prominent in that set and -- but he was in charge of that particular meeting and had presided over this battle royale. And again, the issue that they were fighting about was, well, among other things -- I remember that there was somebody in that organization that was talking about Barbara Gittings as a baby killer, you know? So, at that time, they were not as unified on abortion as we got to be, by no means. There was a terrible battle over that and horrible things happened as a result of this terrible argument going on between the baby killers and the right to lifers. And the other thing that happened was coming out, okay? This is when the GFL in New York was -- very important for -- they went over and took a firehouse, took over, literally, just -- and at that time, you could -- walked in and just took over, literally. And they -- an abandoned firehouse. They took it over and it became quite a major organization. They were doing dances of about five-hundred people and they were (inaudible) super, super exciting. And so, they really lit up New York, completely, and in a way -- but also, as these GSAs were -- GFLs founded on all kinds of campuses everywhere. Every campus would have a GFL. There was a group in Kutztown, as a matter of fact. A young fellow that came to Le-Hi-Ho, Frederick Reed. And Fred Reed was -- became vice president of Le-Hi-Ho. And he was also president of (inaudible) about five members, I think, in Kutztown University at that time. He was a student. And then, sadly, he went to the University of Pittsburgh as a graduate student and died -- I don't know how he died. I don't know the circumstances. I've always been suspicious because he fell off a tower. And one of the towers in Pittsburgh was famous for having these -- their first dormitories were twin towers, okay? Dormitory towers. And he died -- jumping, you know, falling off of that. And who knows? Fred would have been out, he would have been -- outspoken person. Very forthright. He also went to the first Christopher Street Liberation Day Parade and I got in there and he and I and my lover and a woman went in the first parade together. Very happy circumstance. Barry says that there are pictures of me there. No, I knew that there were. I was pictured -- the week, next week, I'm pictured in The Advocate -- my sign is pictured in The Advocate. I'm sitting there -- but the picture's taken with my back to the camera, so no way -- you can see my bald spot. That's how I can -- recognize my lover and you can recognize Fred Reed, who was standing there with me. Was an amazing time. That's a different story, and inspiring, inspiring, inspiring moment, that first march but -- and so, (inaudible) for years and found out from Ron that he had died (inaudible) -- at the university. MF:May I ask -- there's this really interesting way that in the stories that you're telling, Le-Hi-Ho is moving all around the region. Members are going to Philadelphia, you're going to New York City, you're in contact with these major -- JB:I was. MF:-- organizations, yeah. JB:So, I was because I wanted to be, okay? And I wrote that. And, you know, I wrote about the Stonewall and the meeting and the conflict that was taking place between the old guard and the new guard, which is the homophile organizations and this new group that wants to be out and political and it wants to be very forward and right in your face, confronting. And I wasn't sure. I really had to take a stand, oh, and my stand was I prefer to be out. That was clear. And Ron did not at that time. I remember I put his name in the first newsletter and he protested. Now, he didn't stay that way. I mean, Ron became much more public over this period of time, of necessity. And certain lover certainly did because (inaudible) speaking and so on. But at that time, he was protesting it and that would have been -- that more typically Mattachine -- as I said, Mattachine was supposed to be the leadership was out and everybody else wasn't. The only person ever (inaudible) that was Frank Cannaday and he would insist on it. The stories were funny because Frank always tells it that I was the only person who was out. They said, "We never knew that." It wasn't us. We always thought we were out, we always thought we were doing things under our own name. And Frank said, "No, we all had nicknames." (laughs) Wasn't true. Was true in Mattachine in New York. And the very famous person at Mattachine New York outside of Dick Leitch was the executive director, was a lawyer by the name of -- was great. Austin Wade. That just has marble halls behind it. Austin was, in fact -- and he was -- his name was Arthur Kennedy and he was a professor at Princeton Law. And he was the legal counsel for Mattachine Society but known as Austin Wade and he was more known widely through that. And I was a great admirer of Austin Wade because he was the only -- he was the most powerful figure anybody knew and there were no lawyers, no doctors, nobody of any name or of any profession out at that point. So, what was her name? Was a Puerto Rican woman who was the secretary and she was as famous as anybody else because she was such a mother to everybody and a wonderful person. I've forgotten her name now, unfortunately. But Austin Wade was one of those people -- was a big figure in my mind. And, as I said, I find out later what his name was and he was a member of the Pennsylvania Council on Sexual Minorities, from New Jersey. But he was an invited member of the organization. Very distinguished man. Now, you ask me, why did I do that? MF:Yeah. JB:I just did it and the Le-Hi-Ho, two things happened. There was an organization that started in '75. This is five, this is six years later, in Reading, okay? Came to Le-Hi-Ho and said, "We're starting, need your advice." I went down and stayed with them, literally, for a long time. That organization that we started was called -- at that time, there was movement to start this Pennsylvania Council on Sexual Minorities. There was a group that met in Harrisburg, conceiving this idea, making it up with Governor Shapp's approval. Governor Shapp was a wonderful, wonderful leader and a man of -- that's a whole chapter in itself. It's a very interesting story. As a part of that, well, they did a conference in Harrisburg to introduce the idea of the council and to generate with them on the community enthusiasm for it. And it got some people to -- members of the council. And that happened in '75. In '74, December '74, the Reading group was founded, on Christmas -- New Year's Day, matter of fact, of '75. I think that's correct. But they came to us and I went down and that's how I became involved. But through that conference, they started a group called the Caucus -- in order to get more representatives from Philadelphia and Pittsburgh to equalize -- Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and then the rest of the state, okay, so that there were three bodies. Philadelphia has seven, Pittsburgh had five, I think, and we had three. Well, that was not enough for the rest of the state combined. So, we caucused to get more people and call ourselves (inaudible) Gay Caucus. This was interagency organization. So, we then founded -- we met the organization of Gays United of Lancaster, Reading was just beginning. Le-Hi-Ho was a major member and I went and represented Le-Hi-Ho at this new group called the Caucus and it became a separate organization, a state organization, worked for state causes, worked on the state level, wanted to be an interagency kind of thing. So, I was the liaison for that. And Le-Hi-Ho chose not to be involved. I could do the involvement but they were not directly involved. No, they did play a major part later on, a very important part, but they chose not to be active in it, okay, I'm just pointing it out. MF:Why not? JB:It's because they were a different organization. They were not politically oriented as such. Now, they didn't ignore it but they weren't about to invest in it, okay? Like, they wouldn't invest in women. They just wouldn't do it. That wasn't their thing. Was okay. I mean, I got along with them but I didn't feel that it would've been better had they done one of the things that -- Reading was very much oriented, was very open, about half and half. Was half men and half women. Five, six men, five or six women. Every meeting, okay? The Caucus had co-chairs in everything we did. We have co-chairs of the Caucus got there every meeting, every committee we had, push at everything because we wanted to be equal. Equality was very, very important to us and equality with men and women was very, very important. And then, again, the ERA was a major issue at that point, so -- Reading was famous that way, Lancaster was very much that way. Very much oriented to having as many women represented -- but female representation they could get and had generated. And most organizations were. Le-Hi-Ho was the exception, had always been the exception. Again, it was an older organization. They had it as a different substantiality. They were okay without -- didn't need to be something different. Very happy with what they were and did a wonderful job, I thought. I mean, they were so important in terms of the people's lives that were there, okay? And I always say that people come with agenda, okay? They come to your organization with an agenda, something that they need. And mostly, it's just to be known, just to tell you that I'm gay and be accepted. And that's the importance of the organization. If you could shine a love on somebody, that's liberation. That is, in fact, liberation. That's what it's all about, is just that little bit of love and they just bloom. They become these wonderful flowers. And it happened to me, it happens every -- to all those people. And, like, an organization -- let's take Homophiles of Williamsport. Three years they exist as two hundred people and six different counties came to that organization. The important thing was that they had a group talk afterwards, okay, that people came to be able to say -- express their concerns, have their questions, get their information, got their agenda taken care of. That was the important part of the group and outside of that, it probably didn't make a -- it did. It made some wonderful -- some contributions. And it tried to be political but it wasn't so much -- its real satisfaction, it was the same as Le-Hi-Ho. It was a homophile organization. It was founded as homophile organization they said. So, social education was what they thought they thought they were doing but they did much more than that. But there were younger members much more oriented to being out and active in a way that Le-Hi-Ho just wasn't. You could belong -- a very satisfactory life with Le-Hi-Ho, be an active member in Le-Hi-Ho. There were wonderful people involved with that, a whole board full of people and that -- oh, they, just -- Bob Steelman, Helmuth Baerwald, oh, [Ron?] and our first president was Al Ravert. Second was -- oh, the person from Wilkes-Barre. Came to the meeting, said -- again, Le-Hi-Ho had that kind of draw, okay? People would come from distance to be there because it was a working organization. Staying in existence gives you a good reputation, just -- people know when you're going to meet and you're going to meet next week or next month, too. Made a big difference. And so, a lot of people came from elsewhere to be at Le-Hi-Ho. Was true everywhere. All those organizations, -- homophile, as I said, there's homophile -- in that little group (inaudible) knew that they had two-hundred members and they had the membership list. I don't have the membership list. That wasn't my thing. That was Ron's thing. He was the one who was keeping track of all the members and who was involved and who wasn't and where they were from. Garth Watkins was the second president. MF:Well, we're about at an hour-and-a-half and that's when we like to stop. And so, maybe, can I ask one more question and then we'll -- JB:Sure. MF:So, I just want to ask that -- you know, for you, personally, what kind of impact do you think Le-Hi-Ho had on Bethlehem, on the Lehigh Valley, and just on the region, more broadly? JB:Okay, ask me again. MF:What kind of impact did Le-Hi-Ho have on Bethlehem, on the Lehigh Valley? JB:Okay, I -- MF:What's its legacy? JB:-- said that the educational thing was very important. Okay, you're reaching out to high school students, to college students, giving them good information on a regular basis. They were (inaudible) back to class after they started, then they would be invited back again the next year. That was a very, very important function. They were out to the degree that they advertised constantly in the newspaper. They were open to everybody that would come. There was one time -- there was a meeting in which they -- a person appeared with a fifteen-year-old. Scared the hell out of that meeting. You got very, really scared men who were suddenly sitting with a fifteen-year-old person, realizing that this guy can get us all in big, big, big doo-doo. The next meeting, they voted out, they voted the person who brought him out. You cannot be a member anymore and we will not support NAMBLA, okay? Not support the North American Boy Association , which is -- I supported -- I thought that that is dangerous to all of us. And, as an activist, I always limited myself to not being in the presence of young men, okay? Younger men that I knew weren't of any -- of a certain age or even they looked like they were a certain age because I was not going to risk what I would've risked. And my reputation was everybody's reputation. I was the leader. I would have been known -- if I had been arrested, it would have been bad news and I didn't want that. So, that -- one thing that happened, that they -- was another organization -- they were just conservative. There was an underground newspaper at that time. They would not support the underground newspaper but [Sweich that had?] the underground newspaper supported them quite openly in their publication. They wouldn't support them. Now, Dixie White spoke among other people. I was program chair for a while and so I invited a lot of people that I wanted them to know, to make this networking business. So, she knew what else is around and I invited a lot of women and, again, tried to make them more comfortable. And this organization did not work for me, okay? I was gone in '83, when I went, and by then, there'd only been one other woman who had ever really showed any interest and she was a radical and secretly not very interested in them. She was -- always thought they were not -- she was far more radical than that -- member of the women's commission, as well as the lesbian -- Governor's Council on Sexual Minorities. Professor out of Shippensburg. And [Mary Anne Caroll?] was my co-chair in the Caucus. We were Caucus co-chairs together and she became president of NOW, later on, after the ERA had -- after '83. I think '84 is when she became president. And the ERA, closest possibility in '83, as I recall. They had to have it ratified by then and there was no chance. I forget -- well, I lost my train of thought. Okay, but then, you asked was it very -- powerfully important to the Lehigh Valley because it was that represent-- it was that presence and really did a lot of things in support of that. MF:I want to say, on behalf of Carol and myself, we have been so delighted to talk with you today. Thank you so much! JB:My pleasure. MF:And maybe you'll give us -- opportunity to talk with you again sometime in the future. JB:I'll tell you what: there's another organization that founded in '87. We founded in Allentown with the Allentown -- so, we call ourselves Citizens (inaudible) for Better Community. The reason we did that, there was -- it was a professor at Lehigh, professor at Muhlenberg, Frank -- I'll think of his name after awhile. It's not important or anything but -- who, as soon as we announced that we were going to try for gay rights in Allentown -- organizing organization called Citizens -- COD, Citizens for Decency, something like that. COD, I don't remember how that worked. And he and I and -- so, I called, I wanted us to be the matching -- we found that since we knew he was -- founded -- and we founded right away. Is that right? I think we founded right away, when -- as soon as we knew about him. And then, we, he and I, were kind of competing. Got in the newsletter a lot and there was probably a monthly magazine published (inaudible) that was a different time, as well. And, again, it's Lehigh Valley. And it was unsuccessful. Ultimately, what happened with them, we went for two years. We became -- found the organization, ultimately we started the Gay Line, and I had a lot to do with that. [And mostly?] happened -- is in my apartment, as a matter of fact. I was the -- people came to my apartment and answered the -- and worked the telephone there. Started in '80. MF:Okay. JB:And that was '78 to '80. So, we stayed open till then, to found Le-Hi-Ho -- or to found Gay Line. And there were events involved. A good time. We had a lot of fun playing with that whole idea. And we knew we weren't going to be successful. And that was pretty much against -- and it was unfair because they simply claimed that homosexuality was on the books, was still illegal, and therefore you couldn't have rights and they couldn't go further than the state permitted, which the state organization -- didn't recognize gay rights. So, they wouldn't either. END OF AUDIO FILE Copyright for this oral history recording is held by the interview subject. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source. 0 /render.php?cachefile=
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01:29:35
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Joseph Burns (Part 1), October 12, 2019
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Joseph Burns talks about his experience of being a gay man in Bethlehem, PA in the 1970s and '80s, namely his involvement with Le-Hi-Ho (Lehigh Valley Homophile Movement).
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LGBT-07
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2019-10-12
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Stories from LGBT Older Adults in the Lehigh Valley
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This collection began in 2019 with the initial goal of collecting ten oral histories from older adult LGBT people in the Lehigh Valley. Topics explored include the childhood experiences of LGBT people, experiences within educational and religious institutions, coming out stories, understanding of the gay liberation movement (1960-1980s), experience of the early years of the AIDS epidemic and AIDS activism (1980s-present), and experience with the fight for marriage equality. The project has been a collaborative effort among faculty and librarians from Cedar Crest College, Lehigh University, Moravian College, Muhlenberg College, and members of the local community, under the direction of Dr. Mary Foltz, Associate Professor of English at Lehigh University and Co-Director of the South Side Initiative. <br /><br /><em> The project was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.</em>
Oral History
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Mary Foltz
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Joseph Burns
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5.4 October 13, 2019 Joseph Burns (Part 2), October 13, 2019 LGBT-08 01:53:05 LVLGBT Stories from LGBT Older Adults in the Lehigh Valley Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository This oral history recording was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Joseph Burns Mary Foltz video BurnsJoseph_20191013_Video 1.0:|25(8)|50(9)|69(11)|92(2)|109(9)|122(3)|139(2)|156(2)|177(8)|196(7)|217(3)|238(15)|259(5)|280(5)|299(2)|324(11)|343(13)|364(5)|387(6)|406(10)|427(12)|448(8)|465(19)|482(3)|511(5)|532(6)|555(11)|578(16)|603(11)|626(13)|651(10)|672(16)|693(16)|714(17)|733(14)|754(5)|777(6)|788(12)|809(5)|830(3)|849(12)|870(4)|887(9)|906(12)|929(3)|944(12)|965(11)|986(3)|1005(9)|1026(11)|1043(7)|1066(6)|1087(11)|1110(14)|1131(16)|1158(5)|1183(7)|1208(5)|1229(10)|1250(10)|1271(3)|1294(2)|1317(5)|1338(6)|1359(2)|1384(6)|1405(7)|1430(3)|1455(4)|1474(7)|1501(5)|1520(12)|1543(3)|1566(13)|1587(4)|1604(17)|1623(5)|1646(17)|1669(13)|1694(8)|1715(14)|1734(3)|1751(7)|1772(5)|1789(8)|1814(11)|1837(6)|1856(9)|1875(9)|1898(2)|1917(4)|1934(11)|1959(7)|1978(8)|1999(13)|2020(10)|2039(3)|2060(11)|2083(13)|2104(6)|2119(10)|2144(5)|2169(5)|2188(3)|2209(11)|2232(5)|2255(2)|2276(8)|2303(8)|2328(17)|2351(2)|2378(9)|2399(8)|2402(14) 0 https://youtu.be/zEkvYyfuth8 YouTube video 0 Interview Introduction MARY FOLTZ: My name is Mary Foltz. I’m here with Joseph Burns to talk about his life and experiences in the Lehigh Valley. This is part of the LGBT community oral history project, which has funding from the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium. We’re in Joseph’s home in Boiling Springs today. It’s October 13th, 2019. Carol Moeller is our videographer. And Joseph, I just want to thank you once again for talking with us.
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 ; JOSEPH BURNS: Thank you. 0 32 Stories About Le-Hi-Ho MF: We’re so happy to be here, and we met with you yesterday, and we talked a lot about an organization called Le-Hi-Ho, which you had been really one of the earliest members of that organization, and we wanted to start our conversation today by asking, is there anything else that you wanted to tell us today about Le-Hi-Ho?
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 ; JB: Yes, probably. I was a founding member. I was the first to respond to Ron’s letter about forming the organization. Le-Hi-Ho 0 538 Founding Other LGBT Organizations JB: But they were not city -- Allentown was -- Le-Hi-Ho and the organization that we founded, which was called the Citizens’ Concern for a Better Community, CCBC -- did that because our friend Frank, a professor at Muhlenberg, created an organization as soon as he heard for it, Citizens Organized for Decency, COD. So I just needed a name to respond to that, so we came up with the Citizens Concern for a Better Community as the gay organization. 0 788 Demonstrations / Protests / Activism JB: Every week we would go and have some sort of demonstration. Sometimes there were no people around at all ; sometimes -- I think that person was -- noon-time, I believe, lots of people out looking at us, watching us do this publicity thing about coming out and opening the door on discrimination, never to close again, and so we got our free -- well, that wasn’t true. We had a parade at one point in connection with this, and I think there were twenty-seven people who actually marched that day, maybe a few more than that. Close enough. 0 4033 Relationship MF: Yeah, you met Ricky through Le-Hi-Ho, so how did you meet your second lover? How did that relationship begin?
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 ; JB: Well, I met him again at a New Year’s Eve party -- I think I -- I don’t remember. We might have had a drag party that night. We may have had a Le-Hi-Ho event, drag event on New Year’s Eve of 19-- going into 1970, and he insisted on taking me home, which was our first time together. And after that, we were -- I had him move down here by April, I think, after that. Moved away from his family. 0 5895 Elder Initiative MF: So we’re right at the end of our time, and so may I ask one more question before we end the interview? I’m wondering if you could talk a little bit about the Elder Initiative that you’ve been involved in.
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 ; JB: Okay, I work with a group. I had these papers that I didn’t know what to do with. I had all these papers from forty years ago, forty, then, forty something years ago, forty-three or forty-four, from 1969 on, relating to all the organizations in Pennsylvania that I knew about, that were in existence at that time. 0 MovingImage Joseph Burns shares stories of Le-Hi-Ho, LGBT activism, and personal relationships. MARY FOLTZ:My name is Mary Foltz. I'm here with Joseph Burns to talk about his life and experiences in the Lehigh Valley. This is part of the LGBT community oral history project, which has funding from the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium. We're in Joseph's home in Boiling Springs today. It's October 13th, 2019. Carol Moeller is our videographer. And Joseph, I just want to thank you once again for talking with us. JOSEPH BURNS:Thank you. MF:We're so happy to be here, and we met with you yesterday, and we talked a lot about an organization called Le-Hi-Ho, which you had been really one of the earliest members of that organization, and we wanted to start our conversation today by asking, is there anything else that you wanted to tell us today about Le-Hi-Ho? JB:Yes, probably. I was a founding member. I was the first to respond to Ron's letter about forming the organization. You know, of course, we didn't have a name, we didn't have any place. So we met with several other people ; one of the men was a nurse by the name of Al Ravert, who became the vice president, and Al had a friend with a cabin in the woods somewhere, I think up in Lehighton, I believe, which was appropriate. We weren't sure -- there had been an arrest not very long before that about the Mafia. A group in the Poconos that had -- Mafia leaders had come out from New York, and they went up and raided them and arrested all these people. So we were a little bit paranoid. I thought -- we thought, is that why we're going to the woods, to be out where we can't be arrested? And I don't know who else felt that way, but thirty-one people who came to that first organization, thirteen of us formed the organization, what was -- decided to meet again. And that's how Le-Hi-Ho started, and that was -- it was in April or May of 1969. Now, the two stories I want to tell you about Le-Hi-Ho, while I was thinking of them: one was the first time we met, probably, was Dick Leitsch, we invited Dick Leitsch, we formed in April or May, invited Dick for February, I -- January or February, I'm not sure which ; February, I believe -- to be our speaker. Well, they had that -- a public meeting, we had that at the church. The Presbyterian church in Allentown sponsored us for that particular day. And so we had the day, Dick came, we had -- the gay community was seven people, seven men from our organization. And we were talking about, the first meeting, we were going to blend in to the crowd, okay, we'll just be anonymous. Four ministers and nobody else. Four ministers and us. Now, we're going to hide, right. (laughter) We're going to look anonymous. That's just -- it's just wonderful, as a matter of fact, our first public appearance being publicly identified as gay was certainly -- there was no hiding. And they were as curious about us as we were about them. At the meeting, Dick Leitsch did an excellent job for us. The next story involves Barbara Gittings, who we had I think in June, I believe -- true, it was June -- as a speaker, and that was the (inaudible) meeting at which we had a young minister there who was vociferously -- he was going to preach that night about the evils of homosexuality, and all of us knew all about this, and we were invited to come and hear all about the evils of homosexuality. And quite forthright, and several of the ministers, who I think were a little more open to the idea of us being there than he was. At any rate, we decided we were going to go, we were going to go, okay, and so we had the first public demonstration against homosexuals in 1970, and it consisted of Barbara Giddings, Ron Seeds, myself, and my lover, Paul Forrest -- stood outside the church and waited for these people to come. Nobody ever showed up, okay. So the hour comes, and I hear the music inside going on, so we went up to the door, looked inside, and there's the minister up in the pulpit, his wife, there with his son, and he's preaching all by himself. (laughter) That was the first demonstration in Allentown that we ever had, first public demonstration. Wonderful memory. I just want to get that story out before we get this -- there wasn't another one until we did coming out, and when we did -- the next organization in 1978, and it must have been prior to -- some time prior to the election, I don't know when, exactly. Dixie White, who was then the state president of NOW -- I don't know -- she hadn't been elected yet. This was before the convention, they elected her. It was '77 when Dixie started and we were going to have a convention at the Hotel Traylor, not the Hotel Traylor, Hotel America? Americana? It's on Fifth, is that right? Fifth and Hamilton, I believe. And it was owned by one person -- We wanted to have a convention there, we were going to have a gay convention, we wanted to have our first gay convention, and he says yes, to begin with, and then said no ; it went to the paper and [said it descriminated against us?]ot a lot of publicity about that, and got a lot of controversy, but that was a part of the conversation about discrimination after that, because they had, you know, that was a front-page story -- not a front-page story, but a story that got in the Morning Call and led to the Valley (inaudible). But that had started because the human relations commission, I think -- they may have approached us as we approached them, I'm not sure. But Dixie had wanted to include other causes in the human relations commission, which were gay, lesbian, trans, and bi having rights for anti-discrimination against housing, employment, and public spaces. And the commission was fine with that. There was a fellow by the name of Bob Prince, I believe, was in charge of the commission, very friendly. There was one commissioner who was not friendly at all. He was very forthright about it, too: a young man who had very strong feelings about -- very anti-homosexual. Didn't make a difference. He would've been overruled by the rest of the commission, because the rest of the commission was for us, whoever they were. But we went to City Council on the basis for the first time and talked about the need for gay rights, taking a bunch of us from -- Le-Hi-Ho was very supportive, and people [were?], then, multiple organizations, I mean, we could never represent five or six organizations, just because people were available and sometimes participated in those organizations, so there was a reason to do it ; we weren't just fooling around. But they were not city -- Allentown was -- Le-Hi-Ho and the organization that we founded, which was called the Citizens' Concern for a Better Community, CCBC -- did that because our friend Frank, a professor at Muhlenberg, created an organization as soon as he heard for it, Citizens Organized for Decency, COD. So I just needed a name to respond to that, so we came up with the Citizens Concern for a Better Community as the gay organization. Met at Confront - a number of people came ; I don't -- Carol Bloch was elected as co-chair with me of that organization, and we used to sit for several years ; (inaudible) for three years, actually, from '77, '78, through '80, and '80 -- on New Year's Day in '80, we started the Gay Alliance Service, which was what we did after we tried for gay rights. There were a number of events involved with that. We had public demonstrations at City Hall. One of the first ones was our coming out. I got a door -- my apartment had doors in the basement that they had taken off the building somewhere, and I got one of those, put it in a frame, took it down to City Hall, set it up, and then we came through the door as a way to "come out," come out of the closet symbolically. Made a speech about the history and the fact that we were so oppressed by history or unknown in history in the Dark Ages, we were kept in the Dark Ages unknowing and unable to reach out to each other. And that has been the key to it, the whole thing, I have always said that if you give them support, give them love, it makes all the difference in the world. It's what makes -- what gives them the chance to grow. It's from where they are, and become the people that they will become, and get -- change that unhappiness to joy of a relation -- I remember a young man who was married, I was confronted with them, personally with him, and his wife, and he was very unhappy in marriage. And I liked her a lot, so I was very unhappy, but he wanted to be gay, and I told him about the Stonewall, and what happens when you go in, people will look at you because you're new, and you have to pay a fee, it's a disco, you dance, just a -- and he did. He said, "I was happy. That was the beginning of my happiness." And I really felt bad that she was gorgeous. She was a very lovely woman, short, and he was also kind of short. They made a really attractive couple, but he got divorced, and happily went on with it. Now, I've had that a lot. When you're out like that, you get people come to you, and tell you that they're gay, and "I'll tell you, but don't tell anybody else," sorts of things. So he was one that did that, and that was historic. So Confront was friendly with me, and friendly enough to sponsor and be very open. We met there through the time that we were - the whole organization whole time we met there. We paid them maybe fifteen dollars for the room or something like that. But it was well worth it -- central place, and I lived beside it ; I was next door, literally, to it, at that time, so it was very easy for me to get there. So we had a -- I don't know -- three, or four, or five demonstrations at city hall. Every week we would go and have some sort of demonstration. Sometimes there were no people around at all ; sometimes -- I think that person was -- noon-time, I believe, lots of people out looking at us, watching us do this publicity thing about coming out and opening the door on discrimination, never to close again, and so we got our free -- well, that wasn't true. We had a parade at one point in connection with this, and I think there were twenty-seven people who actually marched that day, maybe a few more than that. Close enough. Not more than thirty-one, who actually marched down Hamilton Street that day. Met at the corner of Ninth and Hamilton, that was -- Rubes was -- I think still in existence then. And we met in front of there. We had a number of people from across the state -- Mary [Antero?] came from Harrisburg, people came from Williamsport, people came from Philadelphia. A friend of mine from Philadelphia brought his peace professor at the University of Pennsylvania, who I enjoyed meeting. I had talked with this person about it for a long time. We're part of a collective down there, a peace collective that he was a part of, and this peace professor was the leader of that collective. Very interesting man, obviously well-educated, and spoke to this -- was one of the speakers along with Mary, and myself, and Dixie White, president of NOW. There was a group protesting us. If you remember the Daddona Park, there's a map there of the Daddona Park down at the end of Walnut Street, and there is an amphitheater on the hill. We were down at the base of it, where we could have the audience in front of us. And there were a number of people there, I said that there were thirty-one -- now, there may have been more at the park, I don't remember that there were or were not. There was (inaudible) number of people -- bunch of protesters up in the top of the hill. A young man again -- oh, I told you about the -- I told you this story, okay. That was Thirteenth Street, that church was Thirteenth Street, and we went into boycott -- still there, still a very small, tiny little church -- you can see it there. Okay, and I don't know where the young man was from, I don't know where this guy was from that did the preaching. I allowed him to speak, and people were mad at me for that, because I figured, let them see that their word of God is not affecting us very much. But we gave them voice -- I gave them a couple minutes, and people were unhappy with that. I doubt -- I've never considered whether I was truly right or wrong with that. I resent them coming into my space, okay. When I find that straight people are appearing in gay movies, it makes me mad, because that's not fair, really. We need our own employment. It happens, and they're good, and I sort of like Frankie and -- Grace and Frankie very much, and I have appreciated actors who did it more now than I was before, but I still resent it, and when subjects are anti-gay, and that happens sometimes without knowing, unless you really look at it and really understand what they're saying -- the message is really anti-gay. And that's invading my space, and I get really, really angry about that. So I think I could understand people's anger when I allowed it to happen, and that particular occasion -- So we went to Sunday counsel a number of times. They ultimately made the decision that we couldn't speak. They'd had enough. After about three or four meetings, they were going to cut us off and not allow -- cut off that debate. So we went the next time with tape in our mouths to show that we were -- demonstrate the fact that we couldn't speak as clearly as we could. I had known that that was the tactic that had been used plenty of times before, but it was effective then. I remember the first time that I spoke to city hall, I was pretty paranoid. I didn't know what was going to happen. I was concerned about my own position ; I was in the telephone book, and I could be found easily, and I thought, I'm going to be the most hated man in the city. Next morning, I was at work, and I heard on the radio -- the radio was on, and I heard my own voice coming across the airway -- they had interviewed me after that night. And that was the first I had appeared that -- no, I think that may not be true. I was probably out on the radio programs. The first time I'd done it in my hometown. But that was also the first time we demonstrated in Allentown, was when we did that march, all twenty-seven of us, and I remember singing a wonderful Quaker hymn about -- the very famous one from Appalachian Spring. I can't remember -- simple, simple what. "Simple Gifts," it's called. Wonderful plain hymn, and the first time I heard it, singing that, and of course, "We Shall Overcome," and then marching up and down the street. We had a sign from -- my lover had made banners for four different organizations: Le-Hi-Ho, Pennsylvania Caucus, the Reading Group, and a group in Northumberland, little town across from Sunbury. We claimed -- Northumberland only four thousand people, so we claimed we had the biggest group in the smallest city, the other gay group was there. Not quite so. Most of the people came from Sunbury. And my good friend of mine was in charge of that. We were friends -- lifelong ; he had married a man before, and they lived together for thirty-six years before he died, and unfortunately not in -- a couple of years ago. Actually, it was more than that, it was more years than that, maybe forty-two or something like that. Now Le-Hi-Ho is fifty, fifty years old ; he met him in '76, so, what -- At any rate, long friendship. The other thing that happened that particular weekend: there was another demonstration in Williamsport. There was a county fair up there, and Anita Bryant was appearing. Now, we had demonstrated against Anita at several points. We went down through Redding one time, and she was appearing at the Masonic temple, and we protested outside there. She was easy to protest. We never saw her, of course, but we did protest, and I remember people came in costume to emphasize the fact that they had to hide their identity -- the first time that ever happened, that I ever saw it happen. And it was a nice demonstration, and that was the first thing we were able to demonstrate. She was there -- appeared then at the Williamsport fair, and I don't remember the county, unfortunately, right off the top of my head. She was to appear at the fair there. So Mary went up. I did not ; we had had our demonstration on Saturday. They were to go on Sunday to the fair, and they did go to the fair. They had a meeting beforehand, they demonstrated beforehand in a park close by. They had about fifty people, I think, or more at this demonstration. Not everybody elected to march. I think -- I'm not sure how many people elected to march, probably less than fifty, I believe. They actually elected to march at the fair itself. They did that, okay, and they went up there and bravely marched around -- frightening, frightening experience. Mary still is marked by it ; says that was the most frightening day she was ever through. When you've got ten thousand people who hate you, and you're marching in front of them. And I got a letter from the person who founded Homophiles of Williamsburg. Name was Gary. He was the -- he followed me in the co-chair. He was the co-chair of the caucus after me. Then he moved away to Williamsport and founded this group called HOW. The rest of the people -- a lot of people went up there from the state. Thank you. Tony Silvestri spoke there at that demonstration, Mary did, Dixie was there, I'm sure. My point about that demonstration was that following that, the -- fellow by the name of Dan Maneval was then chairman of HOW. It was chairman, leader, president, I'm not sure -- doesn't make any difference what his title was. He was the leader of it. And that was like Dan's second or third -- no, it was his first organization, I'm sorry, his first organization. He was interviewed that night ; following that -- it appeared on television, cable television for Wilkes-Barre. Following that, the neighbor kids began to harass him a little bit. We needed to respond to that. We responded several times. In that day, what happened with gay people when you were an activist, you did everything, okay, and you didn't need anybody's permission ; you simply went ahead and did it without -- doing whatever you could make up for a response. And we were often pretty weak about it ; we didn't know what we were doing. We had to invent these things -- effective answers. And I don't know -- I wanted to find out what were effective answers. I wanted to have a meeting to talk about, let's -- what was good about what we did, and what were the failure, so we could be instructive to the next generation. But the next generation doesn't need this anymore. They have the internet, and wonderful, wonderful means, you know -- when we did a newsletter at -- we used to pull the newsletters in our meetings for the aging group in 2000 newsletter -- hell, we had one hundred forty-seven -- we had a lot. We thought, back in those days, by keeping our -- all those people we had been in contact with would never come to the caucus, we sent newsletters as long as they didn't come back to us, and they frequently did, because everybody was young and in transit. But the difference between two-thousand and now -- they, of course, do it by -- they don't send the newsletters out anymore ; everything by email. And those kids take great advantage of that. They are so aware, and I went to a conference -- I'll have to talk about that later -- go back to Le-Hi-Ho, and back to how and why I was talking about it -- and Dan was interviewed, began to harass him -- we went up and went around to the neighbors and said, "Look, this fellow is being harassed in his own home, his parents' home" -- he had inherited it from his parents, who were then dead, and was living there all by himself. We talked to the neighbors, and they didn't -- the cops wouldn't do anything. The cops said, they don't know who it is, and Dan found out later, of course, that the cops had talked to these very people. They had talked to the neighbors and found out, well, yeah, they were talking to the kids. Didn't you know that? No, we didn't know it, and that was very ineffective, and stopped for a bit, started again, around Halloween especially, and it got so intense, so intense, that Dan got really, really scared, because they threw a cinder block through his front door, and attacked his windows, attacked him in his home at night, and it really frightened him to the degree that he actually left home and stayed in an apartment for some time. Ultimately, he sold his home. The cops never did a thing. Our mistake was not to talk to the cops, and not to create this incredible imbroglio over it. We really should have, but I'm not sure that Dan would've been able to stand it, because he was already in danger. He felt -- he was attacked once, but that was some years after that, as a matter of fact. But Dan is still an activist, okay, going on, like, his thirteenth organization right now in Williamsport. He is just incredible, and he's a little trooper. He also got stage three cancer, and he's waiting now to find out the results of his chemo. He'll know about four days, I think the sixteenth. But that was a terrible loss. He was the only one I knew suffered that great a loss, lost his family home over it. Stayed in hiding in a trailer court for a long time, moved back to the city, and lived at the same address for ever since, but thirteenth organization as far as I know. I really lost contact, and I don't know how many -- up to the modern day, keep re-founding it, and re-founding it, and re-founding it -- Howarth for three years did a terrific job, and then it -- I stayed with him until about two-thousand, he decided -- they had to come to me, now, I'm not going to do it again. Well, three or four years passed, and there were suddenly three organization or four organizations in Williamsport of various sorts, liberal organizations, grassroots, that really carried the banner of gay rights, and (inaudible) always been very difficult -- so the city hall, the city paper, would not publish the word "homosexual," would not advertise meetings for any of these groups for many years. I think they finally did, finally made it a change. It was a long time, a hard change. We interfered another time at Bloomsburg. These friends of ours -- the caucus, essentially -- so it was a multi -- people came from different organization -- met at Bloomsburg and talked to a dormitory. Went and talked to kids in the dormitory, and talked tough, and said, you know, again, we're going to -- we shouldn't have -- of course, we were totally nonviolent, as the gay movement has been, by the way, as everybody should be well aware, is that we haven't killed anybody. We had a few demonstrations in which police cars got turned, and that was Harvey Milk. I remember him being -- we were at Echo -- when there was a demonstration happening on the West Coast, I remember hearing about it, because we were very affected by it, cheering and that kind of thing, and Harvey Milk was there. But that's when they had a violent period, the only violence that I really remember outside of -- well, there's been very, very little violence, and no guns, nobody killed, a lot of people -- a lot of gays died, but not any result of our actions, or (inaudible) demonstrations, it didn't happen that way. Except this one occasion, and poor Dan lost his home, and it's so courageous, and I honor him so much. We'll miss him terribly. So there are a bunch of us who remain from those days as good friends, having bonded in that way, in that particular bond, which was deeply bonding, you know, when you're doing that kind of work, and you're -- There just wasn't enough time to talk to each other. We didn't have time to party. We didn't have time to know each other. We just talked, went and talked and talked and talked, because there was so much to say about what was going on, to talk about all the meetings, and all the events, and all -- everything we need to plan, and all that kind (inaudible), that we just had rare times. I think we got caught in a snowstorm at one time and stayed at somebody's cabin. Wonderful party. We all had pot, and if they arrested, they would have arrested the whole rural population ; all those groups would've been leaderless. That was the only time -- that was one of the few times that we ever had times to just be ourselves. Now, in the modern day, we've finally really been -- without the organizations we're getting to know each other again and enjoying it a lot. So back to the demonstrations and CCBC. When Frank organized his organizations, we quickly organized ourselves into this -- what we came to this Citizens Concerned for a Better Community, for lack of -- the first meeting we had, I think we got a committee, and said, "Name it," and that's what we came up with. Kind of a dumb name, really, honestly, but then, it was a dumb thing to do, calling it "cod." I can't think of any more demonstrations we did. We went to City Council ; there was one councilman who was opposed to us entirely, very vociferously, and he was the one who invited Anita Bryant to come to the city, stirred us up tremendously, stirred up quite a lot of controversially, fortunately, gave us -- there was a lot of back and forth in the letters to the editor. We spoke as often as we could, anywhere we could, went on the radio, went to -- churches wouldn't invite us ; several churches invited us, just to understand what we were doing and what we wanted, which was of course just the support for gay rights. Just allow us to have them, you know, say, "We are for it," instead of against us. And what we're looking for is to just be ourselves, not to bother you, not to be immoral, not do strange things to your children, just to be ourselves. And I really -- I am not a particularly good speaker. I would have preferred that other people had done it than me. But I did it anyway, and some other people did. Somewhere along the way, and this might have been later, we got a chance to talk to Presbyterians -- the Presbytery was meeting, you know. We went to a Presbytery meeting and talked to them. It was a relatively small meeting, because they were just them. It may have been a committee of the Presbytery, I'm not sure. But I did convince them to support gay rights. Now, there were churches -- the Moravian Church was one, the UCC, a number of denominations had actually endorsed gay rights on a national level, and we made a lot of hay with that, put that forward. Le-Hi-Ho was very supportive ; when we formed in Allentown, they came across and became memberships without being a part of leadership. That was what they did. They stayed pretty much with themselves, were very supported, wonderfully, and spoke -- City Hall meetings, organized a great packet of literature, better than I could have, because they had resources, they had the library and all the resources to do that, and organize the packet of information for the City Council. Ultimately, there was a mayoral election, and Joe Daddona was the mayor at that time, and Joe lost by seventeen votes. I couldn't help but say, "Look, you know, I didn't endorsed you -- I disendorsed you, and I want you to know that, so we were the seventeen votes." I'm sure that wasn't true, but it was a cruel thing to do, and a stupid trick to do, and that's no politics at all. That's my most stupid, stupid, stupid -- but I couldn't help it. I had to rub it in a little bit. Seventeen votes. But there never have been -- in that time, the Republicans and Democrats traded administrations every time, and it became a Frank somebody, or -- I don't remember Frank's name, and Joe Daddona was elected again another four years, and there's Joe Daddona Park now down there, and that amphitheater is now called Joe Daddona Park at the end of Walnut Street. When they finally got around to counting on it, to actually voting on it, we lost incredibly. The opposition was there. When we had the tape on our mouths, the opposition stood up to speak, and did speak. The City Council member who favored us said, "Let them speak," and City Council retook the vote then, and said, "Yes, you can speak." So the opposition did speak. We did not. But it was an important occasion that they did, and we applauded and all that kind of jazz, applauding our enemies because they were as fierce as we were as the ability to uphold the Constitution. I always felt that was terribly important. There's one more story I could tell you about that, an instant I thought was really important, that you uphold that right for everybody to do that, speak up, free speech. That was one case we did it. And that was pretty much the end of City Council, whenever they voted that in, and had a letter from the solicitor that they could not do city -- lights in the city, because it exceeded the state, and there was no authority for them to do it. They wouldn't take states that had -- the state commission had not announced -- went on with that and met -- was a nicely integrated group of people. We had some blacks, which was rare. We had men and women. Allentown NOW was founded by Dixie White, president, the state president, because she wanted more people to participate as leaders. You excite new leaders if you have a new organization, and she was very much in favor of that, so she created several. There was a group in Bethlehem, socialists, led by socialists, who were truly socialists. I think there were seven of them. And they didn't have a leadership. They did everything by consensus, no president. We didn't have a president either in the group in Reading, because I was the most eligible person. They didn't want me to do it. They wanted to have a local person do it, and they were right, and I refused -- I wouldn't take the leadership, because it was their organization. But they wanted me to do it. So we didn't have a leader ; it moved by a council that ruled the whole thing. And this socialist group was the same. They did everything by consensus, very difficult to do. And they got -- were very big on the business -- they wanted to be the -- on the discrimination issue at City Hall, and not allowing us to speak, that was a figurative issue that they really jumped on, and the governor's -- candidate for governor, socialist candidate for governor, spoke at that meeting, also, that demonstration we had in Allentown. I don't remember her name anymore, but she came to speak for us. Good people, they were. I like socialists. I wasn't one myself, and I wasn't really a lefty, but I really, certainly learned to respect them and to love them. E. E. Cummings said, "Communists have fine eyes." Great line, great line. Is there anything to say about the organization outside of the fact that it was -- I was not good about -- never good about really integrating organizations with people of color. I just wasn't successful at it. I don't know why. They just didn't respond to me, like the transsexual community's not responded well to me. And I regret that a lot. I can't bridge it, can't be different somehow and bridge that, and I always feel my distance from them. And I've known only a few over the years, until, now, the current -- I know a transvestite comes to the aging group -- no, I'm sorry, a transsexual comes to the aging group, our age. She's seventy, pushing seventy, I believe, and is a former teacher, and got me acquainted with the fact that now there is in Pennsylvania a group that has five-hundred people coming to their conferences, all transsexuals, and that's amazing to me. Not all transsexuals, by no means. Some of our people go. And we're very supportive of her, and she's a good friend of mine, and she and I work with the movies now. There have been other people, but she and I are left to do it. But that's -- I was never successful with it. I met a few over the years, but I was not able to make any breakthroughs with them in terms of really personal friendship. One exception was a transvestite who I knew well, who sang in her own voice. She was an entertainer, and we sponsored her several times for organizational meetings, and when we had an opportunity to present anybody, we presented her, because she sang in her own voice, quite good at that. Still living -- now lives in -- I haven't seen her in many -- since then. She was very forthright, works with women, is a hostess, and went to the police when she was discriminated against, and talked to the police, and said, "You discriminated against me." Very, very forthright. About that business with the CCBC, I was discriminated against once and I didn't even know it. My landlord came to me after I was in the newspaper, sometime after that, and said, "I want to use your apartment ; you have to move out. I'm going to be taking over it." At the time, I was ready to divorce my lover, and we did separate, as a matter of fact, then. I was moving out. I also did the separation. I was also going to Confront at that time for personal therapy. Went to that for several years, enormously, enormously helpful, group therapy was. And my landlord was going to have me move out. That day, we moved out everything except the piano, which I was donating to a woman whose daughter wanted to learn to play the piano. So I gave her the piano. The piano was very, very heavy, and we couldn't move it out the day before, it was the fifteenth, or whatever day I'd promised to get it out. So we went back to collect the panel the next day, and the landlord is there, and he says, "That's my piano." I had to pay one hundred dollars to give the damn piano away. He was such a mean bastard. He never moved in, also, and after that, then he re-rented the apartment. That's when I knew I'd been discriminated against, but I didn't understand it before. I didn't think about -- not realize -- connect the dots, because he didn't present it in any way, like, "You aren't welcome," but he wanted me out of there, and got me out of there as a result of that, right after I'd been in the paper. Rick and I separated after eight years, and he stayed in town ; I loaded him down with my dog and all the furniture, I loaded on him so he'd stay in town, not run home to mother -- he was from Milton, Pennsylvania. Bit of a momma's boy. So I made the choice, stayed in town, it was a big mistake. Ultimately, he -- I met him fifty years ago, yeah, fifty years ago, in '69. In 2007, 2008 -- 2007, in August two-thousand seven, in Allentown. I told you I was going out there to see him once a week. But he was married with this woman for thirty years -- he wasn't married. He lived with a woman for thirty years after that, which astonished me. I mean, clearly it wasn't a sexual relationship, but they grew to be interdependent, so interdependent that they really were pretty tight as a couple, not functioning terribly well, low-level functioning, but able to make it, and leaning together really worked for them. She got him to quit smoking. I never thought he would quit smoking, twenty, thirty years now, twenty, thirty, years before, twenty years -- they were together twenty-eight years, I believe, together, when he died. And that was extraordinary, to have him married to a woman, hard to explain, after he'd been gay entirely, and he continued to be gay. He also got beat up one time in a park, right across the street from where I was then living on Turner Street. If you remember, there's a cemetery there on Turner Street, Ninth and Turner, I believe. And that's where I lived in an apartment there, Dixie White's spouse at that time was Debbie Cedar, and Debbie later became another president of NOW, state president of NOW, I think -- I'm not sure when. Maybe after Bishop Whitley and -- I think after Mary. I'm not sure. That would've been the second (inaudible) of three lesbians, I believe, three or four lesbians in charge of the state organization, you know, in a row. But anyway, I lived in a little apartment there for, like, one hundred dollars a month. They were fixing up. Wonderful -- they gave me the lowest price they could, and I had the whole first floor. And just a good place to live. It had a sun porch on -- loved the sun porch. I could go out there -- it was in March, and I was laid off, go out there and just have my coffee in mornings, enjoy the mornings, warm (inaudible) because the sun was starting right in. A fellow used to go by every morning with his cat on a leash, thirty-foot leash. (Laughter) That cat was all over everybody's porch, went walking way ahead of him, it was the funniest thing I ever saw. I never saw it again, a cat like that. I saw a lot of people travelling with cats ; I never saw one on a leash like that, walking around town. But he was beat up in the park across the street from me. Changed his life. He really became very frightened after that, and all through his going-out pattern, he was never able to cruise the streets as he had. He would go to a bookstore, but he would do it at a building like that, and that's what he did, was adopt a bookstore, the Hamilton and Ninth, Hamilton and Tenth, I think it was. He lived on Hamilton and Eleventh, it was -- I don't remember. That was just a huge change for him, because he had been always promiscuous, even when I first knew him. I hadn't known that for a while, but he just liked anything in pants, he would go with it. He just had anal sex, in particular, once. Never had to have it again, but he had to have it once, with not everybody. You know, I thought it was an act of contempt ; I wasn't quite sure with him, why he did it. He was hard to communicate, difficult, an autistic person, I suspect, ultimately. I was very much in love with him. He was handsome to me. He had some sort of feminine tendencies, which I ignored. To me, he was a virile man ; I treated him as a -- I ignored whatever he might have been. Gorgeous legs ; he would've been a fantastic drag -- truly gorgeous legs to the end of his life. Very supportive of me. Took me everywhere, drove me all over the state. He had a car ; I didn't own a car until I was forty, so we had his. We bought cars together, but they were in his name. I took care of that. And we had a little Subaru, which was then a new car, little tiny thing, yellow. Ah! School bus yellow. We went all over the state. Again, intentionally, we went far distance places, we went out to Pittsburgh a lot, and out to my sister's, and went to the colleges around there, and gay bars where we could find them, just trying to keep contact with what was going on. The caucus itself had people from Pittsburgh come out, not anywhere else, but there was that mutual support among the organizations. They were very helpful to us in Allentown. Le-Hi-Ho was unusually helpful. At one point with the caucus, when we had a crisis of leadership -- as a matter of fact, when I was elected president, when I was elected co-chair, the co-chairs had gotten into trouble because they had done something unauthorized, and as a matter of fact, when we read the by-laws, they were authorized, because in the absence of membership meeting, and being authorized with the meeting, then the co-chairs were legal. But they had done something - I've forgotten what it was -- now, but the woman came by the name of Janet Cooper. I told you about Janet before. She was a professor at [Ship?], and she really was so against them, and really got us to oppose them, and I finally told her that there is an issue, there was a vote of confidence in the English Constitution -- the English use the vote of confidence is what the Parliament rises or falls on, is a vote of confidence, and you can vote them out of office. So she insisted on a vote of confidence after I finally explained to her what it was, and the current president and the current co-chairs lost the vote. Went to the next meeting and there was nobody there, we were there, and Mary and I were there, and a lot of their people, but the co-chairs never showed up, period. So we figured they've taken the vote seriously and they're not coming back. So we elected a new president that summer, and I got to be president, but in the interim I'd written it up in the newsletter. I said, we're at this point of crisis, we've done this thing, which is very controversial, and we need to address it in the next meeting. And Le-Hi-Ho wrote this letter, and said, "Look, if you're going to be this way, we're leaving. We are no longer supporting you at all. We're not giving you any money, we're not sending any people, we aren't allowing (inaudible)." Very important, because it really made the caucus look at the whole issue and get upset about losing the support of the main organization, of one that we really counted on, being as powerful as they were over that many years. They were very successful. And that was Ken Burke, another person that I have forgotten, another wonderful person, and [Lou Railer?] was his lover, and those two were students together, graduate students, I believe, and Ken was interested in politics. I think he might have gone into politics, ultimately. But at the time, he was president of Le-Hi-Ho, and a very good one, very strong, and very forthright, and very honest, and that was an important contribution of Le-Hi-Ho to that organization. And they came to the conferences, gave us a lot of staff for conferences, et cetera, and again, they did it without changing their position. They did not personally come to the caucus meetings, but they were -- supported us in every way. Something was key to support in Allentown, and that was the least we were trying for. The other thing that happened at that particular time that I want to talk about briefly was -- she formed the NOW chapter in Allentown. There were thirteen of us. We're all activists. There were two guys, and all the rest were women. We went everywhere. We went to women's conferences. I went to the women's state conferences. It was the year of the women, and they were having a conference in every city. I went to that conference. Wonderful, wonderful conference. A Quaker conference, I remember, great conference down in Philadelphia. I went to -- fell in love with Quaker meetings. Quaker meetings were unusual because you observe silence, and people are moved to speak. At a Quaker meeting, they have no -- there's no leadership. There were no ministers, no leaders. There are only weighty Quakers. Weighty Quakers are people who are known for their wisdom, and to be a weighty Quaker is a really wonderful thing, if you -- men or women are eligible for it, women can speak as well, because men -- although they do sit on separate sides of the church, women on this side, and men on this side. Long, long tradition, never changed, as far as I know. I don't know what happened in the modern church, in more recent days, but even then, in those days, it was still separated. Went to a Quaker meeting, at -- went on a Sunday that we were there for this Quaker conference, and my expectation was, you were going to get very inward, you're going to meditate, okay, you're going to go into this -- "You all flow out," (inaudible). Had that outflow, and your awareness of everyone else is so intense. For instance, like, there was never a consequence, when you're moved to speak -- I never heard two people try to speak at the same time. I don't know how that works, but collectively, so that you -- and you spoke when you had something to say. When the spirit moved you, then you spoke. And that was revelation, and I really loved that particular form of worship ever since. I think it's just superb, superior to everything I knew. But it's that outflow that you get, and which you're becoming such a part of the hole, and so moved by the whole, and listening, and open to -- we went to the Quakers once for a meeting, I think, at Reading, Reading, yes. We wanted to meet the Quaker church, so we went to the meeting, a Board meeting, I think, it was something, whatever -- wasn't the full -- we didn't go to a meeting ; we went to a -- for the meeting, that was the -- the people who wanted to speak on the issue, and they moved by consensus, and they had -- their whole congregation had to agree, or they couldn't do it. Well, there was one person who didn't agree, and he was pretty forthright, and told us why. I was there at the meeting, and spoke to us directly -- we spoke to him directly, and we didn't get it, but the Quakers and the Unitarians were very, very important to the movement. Unitarians sponsored Le-Hi-Ho membership. The Quakers were often spoken -- in support, were very supportive in terms of congregations and in terms of their actions, whether they -- they were very supportive. We happened to fail on that particular organization ; I'm sorry that we did, because the Quakers were wonderful people, always, and had been great. So NOW, the same thing, NOW had a meeting at that time -- local, state, or national, they talked about gay rights, right from the top, in the presence of any organization, and always talked about it in their meetings. What was happening locally was a part of their agenda. So Lehigh -- the Allentown NOW was a totally active organization. We went to -- we marched on Washington, we went to the '93, '83 march -- no -- We went to the march in, I think it was '79, was the first one, '78, '79, and then there was the first march on Washington. It was the second one in '93, which is also big, and people thought that was the first one, but no, it would've been in '79. Went to Chicago, when we were voting on the ERA, they had a demonstration in Chicago, one hundred-thousand people, as I recall, along the lakefront, enormous event. Washington, DC was an enormous event, the women's march in Washington, DC. NOW marched in the women's march in Washington, DC, was an enormous event ; over one hundred-thousand people marched in Washington that year, one of the largest demonstrations. The first and largest demonstration, I think, that had ever been, was back in -- was in San Francisco, gay pride, three hundred-thousand people, I think, at that time, and we had the record for the largest civil demonstration of anything, it happened to be gay rights. We were that kind of active. We were not -- and didn't spend any money in Chicago at all ; we crossed the border, never spent a cent in Illinois. Marched, wonderful march. First time I was in Chicago -- I moved there about two years later, very happily, happiest thing to be in with my lover. There were probably more conferences than that. I can't remember what they were, but they were always important and everything, well-informed. I was also a co-chair of NOW, and I was the only male that I knew of that held that job, and it was on their insistence ; they wanted to have equality. But there were only two of us available ; and the other was a student, at Kutztown again. It was a great organization, really. Dixie was such a mentor to me, and so politically oriented, and always, always involved, very feminist. My mother was about as strong a feminist as you can get for the forties and fifties, and certainly very aware and very supportive of what she knew -- she was anti-communist like crazy, she was terribly anti-communist. Ran for the state legislature, (inaudible) that she was anti-communist. We had to talk to him all over (inaudible), all over the state. It was really -- I learned to disrespect that. It was the time of the McCarthy era, and -- forty-seven, I think, I think when she was running for -- no, that was school board. I don't remember -- legislature, she ran after that and didn't win. Was (inaudible) anti-communist and talking, and watching McCarthy hearings on television. They were actually on television. House Un-American Commission was one of the first televised events from Congress ever, and Joe McCarthy was leading that pack, and talking about the pinkos, the pinko commies, the gay commies, and all that. I learned later that in political science, and obviously at home, and told my mother off, and said, you're totally wrong, and I do not believe in McCarthyism or anything about it, it's just terrible evil, evil, evil, evil the organization. She got over it, and was fine with me after I came out, and my family has been very supportive, very supportive. I did not have a wedding, however. I wanted to, right when I -- well, I fell in love with Doug, I really wanted to celebrate love with him and have a wedding, and get married, and we didn't ; my sister said that somebody might not come, and I didn't want to know who. I just thought that, I don't want to be hurt, I don't want my family to hurt me now. And I still don't know who might not have come. They've always been supportive to my face, and loved Doug. He was a different person than Ricky was, and they liked him a whole lot more. And Ricky was the kind of person who people did not like, and I had people who'd tell me, "Don't bring him. You come, but don't let me see him," or "keep him away from me." That was tough. But Ricky, as I said, was probably autistic, not autistic, what do you call them -- there's a form of autism -- Asperger's, probably had Asperger's. It was (inaudible) among other things. Had a high fever when he was very young, one hundred and six temperature, sustained for a while, and I think it affected his brain, and he was thereafter not as capable, not as bright as he could have been. Graduated high school at twenty-one, I think, but he finally graduated. His mother got him to do that, insisted, and he stayed in school that long, and participated, even though he was older. But he had his problems, and wasn't kind to people. He was wonderful to me, but he would turn down anybody else for a ride, for instance. He wouldn't take them, and other people, he did take. But friends of mine, he turned them down. And that kind of -- I didn't know about it until later on myself, and it was a problem. He had an intelligence in his hands that was wonderfully good. He could knit, or (inaudible), or anything to do with sewing and threads, great -- did a lot of macramé. My sister has several pieces of that. It was a great skill with them. He just had a mental ability with that. One time, he made a window -- seventy macramé things that he had touched so he could put his plants out there, seventy plants, suspended each one on a string, and he'd take -- lower them and water them. It was crazy. Couldn't see out. He liked the covers when it's three layers on the windows. Couldn't see out. And I love sunlight. I don't put covers on my windows at all, any more covers than are there. These were landlords' -- my landlord wants these because they match his, and so they're his curtains, effectively. But I won't cover them. I have to have the light, all the light I can get. Three covers, good Lord. He lived in a very dark hole. This place is dark enough, as you can tell. I can't tell -- in my bedroom, I don't know whether it's light or day, literally. I don't know whether it's dusk. I'm drawing late, so I don't know, when I get up in the morning, I have to figure, is this morning or evening? What is happening? Is it afternoon? I can't tell. three o'clock in the afternoon, if it's a cloudy day, it's dark as dusk in here, because of that porch. And there used to be a huge elm out there, one hundred and fifty year old elm, that had been there when (inaudible) founded, for God's sake, and -- elm? Maple. It was maple. Dirty old tree, but big. Limbs fell off it twice on my car. (Laughter) It was when they decided to cut the tree down the second time, not because it fell on my car, because they didn't want it happening anymore, and, you know, maple -- everything that falls off a maple tree. So they probably tore it down. They came in and tore it, even the tree, took it down to the roots and (inaudible) that up, so it's completely gone now. It was huge and wonderful, but it's very, very dark. Really made (inaudible). And -- MF:May I ask -- JB:Anything else I can tell you? MF:Yeah, you met Ricky through Le-Hi-Ho, so how did you meet your second lover? How did that relationship begin? JB:Well, I met him again at a New Year's Eve party -- I think I -- I don't remember. We might have had a drag party that night. We may have had a Le-Hi-Ho event, drag event on New Year's Eve of 19-- going into 1970, and he insisted on taking me home, which was our first time together. And after that, we were -- I had him move down here by April, I think, after that. Moved away from his family. He'd been going to Canada, Toronto, Canada, weekly, seven hundred miles, to be gay. Which was a little ridiculous, but he was that kind of person. He loved driving, loved driving. Terrible on cars, hard on cars. I didn't know. I thought he knew something about cars ; he didn't know a damn thing about that. I had to replace the clutch every six months because he was so hard on the clutches. I'll never forget that. I've never had a clutch since then. I thought they (inaudible). I thought clutches -- I thought that was a normal part of having a car, but no. Very expensive part of having a car. Blew out the two gaskets on the damn thing before we got rid of that particular car, and that's expensive. That was thousands of dollars. The whole car was only four thousand dollars. Subarus at that time were nothing. They were the cheapest cars in America. New import then. And Ricky was not a great contributor, but he was very, very supportive of me. He never said a word to me about taking me to all those meetings. Was there with me, and we had -- something (inaudible) supporter. He was also -- didn't have a great deal of integrity. He forged a check at least once or twice. We'd give him rent money, and found out later that the rent wasn't paid, or whatever I'd given the money for wasn't paid, and it wasn't gone. So I thought there was personally too much, and divorced him, sadly. He worked at the Shawnee Penn with me, the furniture factory. He was a sewer, I was the distributing supervisor, and he worked in the -- he didn't sew. He was in the layout room where they laid the clothes out and cut them, cutting room. And that was -- there were two guys, older men, American people, five or six or seven Americans in the place, white Americans -- white people. I'm sorry, I apologize. Puerto Ricans were certainly American, and I was very aware of that. They lived at the top of the hill. There was a -- in Allentown, Hellertown, there's an area up there where it was low-income housing, and they lived up there at the top of the hill, and you can walk down through Saucon Park, which is between Allentown and Bethlehem, and they could walk down the hill to go to work, and I, we used to take the bus out, and when Ricky and I separated, I would take the bus, walk down the hill myself, to that complex down -- They were all Puerto Ricans. Very nice people, wonderful people, but they were very short. I never -- I thought I was tall. I'm only five-eight, and I thought I was tall, because they were truly (inaudible). It took me a long time to figure out that I really wasn't. And I never learned to speak Spanish, either, which I regret. I did learn -- I took it in college, but I never learned -- I missed a great opportunity to speak it. I didn't know them better. And there were -- there was one Mexican that came and didn't like it very much. There was not happiness between the Mexican and the Puerto Rican peoples. They looked down on each other, quite frankly. And I think they -- there was a white guy that came there, young fellow, they told him, don't come back, and he quit in a couple days. They were protecting the jobs for themselves. Which was -- they didn't do that to me ; I was college-educated and was a different line of thing. I got to be a supervisor almost right away, because nobody else in the place was educated, either, and then I got the position. It didn't pay me anything ; it was -- like I said, we were poor as church mice. Ricky lived in Milton, was where he was from, and his grandmother went to see us often. She lived to be ninety-six. I had her cane here for a long time, and it broke, unfortunately ; I was very sad about that, because Ricky had given it to me a couple years ago, before he died. I had kept contact with him all those years ; we were good friends, and -- Doug and I were good friends. It's unique about gay people, that they tend to stay with -- good friends with their exes, and know them, whereas Anne said that's unusual for heterosexuality, that they would divorce, and separate, and not know each other, and stay away from each other, and that just wasn't true of gay people I knew of. We typically maintained our relationships. And I certainly did with Ricky for those forty years, saw him on and off, at least twice a year, once a year at the very least, twice a year if I could, and in the last couple years, when he got -- he got to be about three hundred and fourteen pounds at one time. I had him out here, and I took him to the Y, and I said, I want you to see this. I wanted to take you to The Y specifically so I could take you to see the exercise rooms, through all I do, and know that this is a familiar, friendly place, that you don't have to be embarrassed about being here at three hundred and fourteen pounds and so on. He got so that he couldn't walk down the stairs anymore, and stayed on the second floor for a whole year before he got sick, and then went to bed all by himself, just said, "I won't get out of bed," and he stayed in bed for a year, and I went to see him every weekly, and while he was in bed, feeling terrible for the fact that he had gotten to that bad of shape and he just couldn't get out of bed, lost the use of his legs, almost, could barely stand -- I only saw him standing one time after that, and that was in a nursing home, where they'd taken him out of bed, and they have those lifters that can get people up, and they had taken him for exercises to another place, and I went there and saw him actually standing up, leaning on somebody, practically pushing him over, because his legs could not handle it anymore. That was the last time I saw him stand at all, and that was -- then he fell out of bed on the third of January in 1978. She was out doing groceries, and he made enough of a fuss to get -- enough noise to get -- attract the neighbor, called the police, the emergency people went in, got him downstairs, took him to Bethlehem, which is where they had a mental hospital at St. Luke's in Bethlehem, and they diagnosed him with dementia, and from there he went to a nursing home, and he went to a second nursing home. The first nursing home, he went while it was free, while he could do it under the auspices of Medicare, and then, when he ran out of that, then they changed him to an Alzheimer's home, memory of care home, and that's where he died, got pneumonia, finally, and died. It was a long time -- he was a long time dying, had a long time in dementia. It was hard to deal with, dementia is a very difficult thing -- would go to see him, and he may or may not recognize me, and he got angry with me several times. I think one time -- when the limb fell on my car was the month I couldn't go -- he felt abandoned, terribly abandoned, and it was -- it echoed forty years ago for him, echoed his family (inaudible). So I've got this man who was seventy years old grieving about the abandonment, and the loss, and the separation for him of being the gay individual in a family of three brothers, who were all very male, and his dad, who was beating him up some regular basis. And I liked his father ; I didn't know this was true. She's told me that Ricky complained about having brothers beating up when he was younger, and I don't doubt that that was true. They were quite male, very strong, solid individuals. I remember when his dad died of cancer, going to see him, and we went regularly, just to see him when he had cancer, because he was dying, and the boys would stand around, and just be strong, silent, would never have -- no conversation. Didn't know what to say to him, didn't know how to love him, or say, "I love you, Dad," or whatever. That was very hard. His mother was a good person, a warm person, very pretty, but she also put him on a clothesline when he was a kid, and a harness -- I mean, this was typical in the fifties. They took the kids, and put a harness on them, and then attach it to the clothesline so they couldn't run around, they'd get lost. Now, we happened to live in a place which was a V, two roads, one on each side of the house, and his dog was killed there. He had a dog, a white German Shepherd, that was killed, that he mourned for the rest of his life, loved that dog. We had a dog together that I loved very personally, wonderful dog, that was given to us by a lesbian couple moving to a -- a Reading couple who were moving to Chicago. Now this was an interesting couple, too, talk about somebody else for a moment. They had liberated the mines, Bethlehem Steel mines, were the first women to work, to go down into the mines, because they had sued, and were a lesbian couple, and worked together, went down in the mines together every day until they went to Chicago, and then I lost contact with them, sadly, but they had a dog that I went to see one time, when -- she was away, I think, and the dog was there, put away in another part with another lesbian couple that was either living with them or taking care of the dog. I said, "If you ever want to get rid of the dog" -- so they moved to Chicago and gave me the dog -- wonderful, wonderful animal. Turned out to be a transsexual dog -- trans -- a hermaphrodite. Eight years old, she suddenly began to develop -- lose her hair and develop penile bone, and it turned out that I took her to the vet, and the vet said that they weren't sure what was going on here. Either she's not female, or she's -- honest to God, penile bone going on down here, and she's clearly -- I had known her for maybe her whole life, but she was a female who humped everything. (Laughter) Now I've told you, the dog's -- which must have confused the hell out of them, because she felt like a female, she was a female, genetically, but she had been spayed, or they had gone in to spare, and they didn't do anything ; they didn't take anything out, and the vet told me that, whenever he examined her, that she's been spayed, and whatever they did, they didn't remove anything, and so she began to develop this set of balls and penile bone, and eight years old. And she was a spiritual animal. She was a dog that -- you looked in her eyes, she never looked away. You looked into her -- it could look like you were going to her tail, you know, her eyes were that deep, just these liquid pools, she just looked through -- way, way deep into her soul. And I thought she was Buddha. She was my Buddha dog. Suffered in her own way, became nearly blind, and very deaf, and died at seventeen years old, died in my arms, which I wanted to do. I wanted to give her her last -- if this was her last trip through life, I wanted to be done that way, and she died naturally in my arms, which I was very grateful for. But she was -- we were -- she and I were so in love. It was really a special relationship. She was always at my feet, always right behind me, the whole time. She would just follow me around and be right there wherever I was. I had to watch, step over her all the time, as long as she lived with me. And Doug fell in love with her, but she was so much my dog. Special relationship. It just worked out, the first time I had her, I remember -- she came in the house, they gave us the dog, I went and took a bath, put a few pieces of candy up here -- they were cream drops, they were called, I think, they were just sugar -- melted -- fondant with chocolate on them, and she ate them. (Laughter) What a bad dog. That was the start. And then she'd lick me. She loved Irish Spring soap. Loved it. She would lick it off me. And I'd let her do it (inaudible) because it didn't hurt me, and she loved -- whatever she was, boy, she loved that stuff. It was crazy. Very, very special animal, but humped my leg a lot. And again, it was natural to her. I mean, I didn't know -- like I tell you, she got persistent -- great leaper, my God, she could leap eight or nine feet, and did it often. She used to love chewies, and would chew them and take them from her, and she would just leap to the bed, incredible leaper -- was a poodle mix that looked like an English sheepdog. She had her fur done over her eyes. I had a picture of her there somewhere, but it's not -- she was cut at that time. We had to cut her because she got such long hair that she was only comfortable -- we had to sheer her like a sheep, literally, because it got so thick and so tangled, there was just no way we could handle it, so she was -- every summer, we'd have to (inaudible). Wonderful having her. Really grateful. Doug came to me -- I was busy at being an activist at that point. '80, we were doing conferences and so on. We did four conferences with the caucus. So we were doing a series of conferences, did them in '78, '79, '80, and '83. '81, perhaps, and three, I don't remember, '80, I guess it was. And that -- in different places across the state -- we did central -- we did east, central, west, back to east again. I think it was my turn for east. I told you about the Americus turning us down. After they had said yes, they turned us down, over at the newspaper. A little place called Howard Johnson's up above the Poconos, in the Poconos, they called us, and said they would do the conference. They did the conference. Very, very successful. We had to have it twice. We had a snowstorm the first time. We were going to have it in January, thirty-six inches, it snowed that day. Guy called me in Pittsburgh and said, "Are you going to head to this conference with snow starting in Pittsburgh?" I said, "Of course we have the conference." thirty-six inches. Believe it or not, there's a protest group out there on the highway leaving the hotel. We weren't there. I mean, we called off the cops. We called everybody we knew that had bought tickets, and said, please don't come, but then there was this protest group out there doing their thing without us. (Laughter) So we didn't have that conference. We had it again in April. Very successful. There were several hundred people, people were crying all over the place, really good conference. Really special. It was the first -- lots of people came and said, "I never saw so many lesbians before." It was just a thrill to see fifty lesbians in a room. And it was just a good, good conference. We were well-organized, I thought we did a terrific job. We did good conferences, quite frankly, in those years, Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, and a place called Rainbow Resort up in the Poconos again. Near that place? Yeah. It was owned by two women ; there was a bar in -- Candida's, they originally owned Candida's, lesbian couple, created it for a gay bar, and then Candida was the waitress at that time, and bought the bar, and took over, and still owns it, as far as I know. Candida's, when I was there, I don't know, two or three years ago, maybe -- I (inaudible) visiting (inaudible) and we decided to go to Candida's. God, I feel like a stranger. I walked in in the middle of the afternoon, seventy-nine years, you know, I'm seventy-eight by that time, seventy-seven, and I was just so out of place. Walked in, (inaudible) looked at me and said, like, "Are you real? You're in my bar?" And I never told him that I had been a frequent consumer once upon a time, although I was always older than anybody else. In gay liberation, I was thirty-five ; everybody else was in their twenties or students. And they accepted me, there was no problem with that, and I was always very grateful that there wasn't a problem. I think I was the only one that thought there should be, but there might be ; never was. We got along extremely well. They were not objects of my affection. I had a lover as long as I was around, and -- so I wasn't concerned, as objects of affection -- that never became a thing. But Doug worked for an airline, and I couldn't get out for a date, so I got a dating service, called a dating service, and Doug responded (inaudible) from Chicago. He worked for an airline, so he flew out, worked for Pan-Am at that time, which was still in existence, and they flew out and saw me, and we were together after that. That was -- although it wasn't true. I told him the first time after about six months, I said, no, I'm sorry, I don't think we're going to be lovers. I proposed to him on New Year's Eve, 1981, and we got together after that, and stayed together for another, actually, eighteen years, altogether. He told me, unfortunately, on the anniversary of our first date, which was the one he met me -- that was one of our two anniversary dates -- the oldest one, because it's when we first met, and then when I proposed to him, was the second anniversary date -- one for each of us, essentially -- but that was important to him. It was quite a relationship. Doug had a -- and he was a warm, friendly, funny person that I needed. That really gave me a lot of space. And he was so supportive in terms of just being who you are, and I thought that that was love. I thought that's what love is all about, it's just being so accepting, and it's really, it's okay. We were fine with what we were. And Doug got a little bit impotent. He got to be diabetic. I got to be diabetic after, I don't know, about fifteen years ago, but it was long after he had, and he got to be impotent, and that was a bit of a barrier, a bit of a difficulty for us. But not enough to end the relationship. It didn't for many years. But I think I ultimately tired of it and our lack of sexuality. When I went to college then, I went to junior college in Texas, and enjoyed that thoroughly, so much that I just kept going, and going, and going. Ultimately ended up at Shippensburg University to graduate, which I hadn't done before. And I never told him I was in college the first time. I just saw -- had three years of Moravian, and never told anybody -- I never told the college that I had this education. And I'd gone to junior college in Northampton and in Lehigh County, both, I was going to schools at the same time at the same year, because my job was ending -- my job at Shawnee Penn was getting worse, and worse, and worse ; they were laying me off more and more times. And I knew that I needed educational background to back me up in terms of shipping, in terms of, what is, transportation, engineering. And they had a degree at Northampton Community College in Bethlehem. So I went there. Met Doug about that time. That was right after all that business with the eighties, when we started the gay line. And he came to me the end of that year, the first time. Happy life. He worked for airlines, he worked first for British airways -- I'm sorry, he worked for Pan Am, which is an international airline, very famous, very famous American, and Pan Am was famous for innovating travel routes for every country in the world, virtually. But they would go anywhere -- they had rights to fly everywhere, as the pioneering international travel agency, especially for the United States, and they just kept furthering on that basis. So it's a big company, but it was also -- when they deregulated the airline industry, it couldn't manage, because it had been regulated all those years, and they had union wages everywhere, and difficulties that they just couldn't overcome because they had been under such regulation, and couldn't make the shift to do it. So he started to work for British Airways, and an interesting story: he had gone there, and the first time, they didn't hire him, so the people -- all the Pan Am people that had gone over there went to the office and protested, and said, "We want to have this guy. He's really good." I mean, Doug was a good agent, was a good reservation agent. So they hired him, and then moved to Texas, then he had to go to Texas, then they moved his job, and ultimately outsourced the entire thing. That's when he retired in 2000 then, because they were getting rid of those reservation agents ; it was cheaper to do it by hiring people in India and so on. And so we were -- he retired after we had sold the house, moved to Plattsburgh, New York, to be with his lover in Canada, in Quebec, Canada, which is fifty miles away from Plattsburgh, and went weekly to see him. They traveled back and forth across the border, never lived together, but were often together, until they weren't anymore. They ceased being lovers per se, although there was still a lot of love between the two of them. And Doug made a very deliberate decision. He told me that, you know, "This is over. I'm sorry, but it's over, never to happen again." And I had to accept that, and did. But I stayed, then, another year and a half, to get the house ready to sell, et cetera. We painted everything, and, you know, did what we could for the house. When we went to Houston, there had been a large gas recession which hit Houston very, very hard. There were a lot of homes on sale ; a lot of homes were in foreclosure. So many people were underwater in terms of their mortgages. This was '80, and it had happened in '78. So they were still in depression, in '80, when -- in '87, and it still was affecting the Houston market heavily by the time we went there in '90, '91. And we finally -- we took a year to find the house. It wasn't foreclosure, but it was in a nice area, nice house, for a very cheap price. In Houston, they never had basements, okay, so everything was built on a slab, much less expensive. You didn't have to deal with winter, you didn't have to deal with cold, so houses were differently constructed ; they were a lot cheaper, since their construction -- And we bought a house, a nice house, for about eighty thousand dollars, four bedroom, in a nice area, which was -- they had sold it -- the house was -- they bought the house for that, thirteen years before, the people had bought the house for the same price that we paid for it, so they did nothing. We made better when we sold it. We sold for a hundred and three, I think, to a nice Hispanic couple. I remember that because the next-door neighbor was a white guy, was on the school board, and I told him I had sold the school to the Hispanics, and he said, "You sold to students? You sold people that have students coming to my school? You dared do that? Hispanic people?" I was incredulous. I really had no idea, but I've always known that they had a lot of -- that the people there in Houston were not very nice to Hispanics. San Jacinto was the main street, they called Jacinto, not Ya-cinto, no changing to Y, they wouldn't do that. It was called Jacinto. Which was just the attitude they had, that everybody was an entrepreneur, everybody -- they had a Spanish grocery store that was looked down upon like crazy, wonderful store. It was practically a Wal-Mart's in a grocery store, and they sold clothes and all kinds of items that would appeal to the Spanish community, and were heavily supported by the Hispanics. Boy, they just looked down on them terribly. Did not do that in San Antonio, where his brother lived, did not do it elsewhere in Texas. But there, they were. They were very, very prejudiced. We had a happy life in Texas. Good place to live for us. Suburban life, we adopted that entirely. Had to drive everywhere in Texas, anywhere you went. Six miles to the grocery store, six miles to everything, and Houston was sixty miles one way and seventy miles the other way. It was huge. Not my favorite place. MF:So we're right at the end of our time, and so may I ask one more question before we end the interview? I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about the Elder Initiative that you've been involved in. JB:Okay, I work with a group. I had these papers that I didn't know what to do with. I had all these papers from forty years ago, forty, then, forty something years ago, forty-three or forty-four, from 1969 on, relating to all the organizations in Pennsylvania that I knew about, that were in existence at that time. And I did cover them as well as Ron could have, because he was -- I told you he was down at the mailbox, and he got all the mail. But I had a lot of papers relating to a lot of groups, and a lot of things to do with conferences, all of the papers, for instance, we had all the -- turned in -- all of the people that had gone to the conference. We knew everybody that had attended, and paid prior to and at the conference itself. We had that entire (inaudible) papers, all the workshops, anything we'd done in workshops, all the programs, all the meetings we'd had in connection with it, et cetera, and all these different groups, and all the caucus notes, often, sometimes the attendance sheets. It was five feet of space. Half of it was newspapers. The Philadelphia Gay News, Pittsburgh Gay News, and some (inaudible) -- Pittsburgh and Philadelphia were owned by Mark Siegel -- and both of them -- and were the same paper, pretty much, and I think he ultimately dropped the Pittsburgh paper, because it was most of the same news, with some local stuff. The group -- I wish -- now I can't think of -- the guy in Lancaster was the newspaper of the gay scene out of Lancaster started out, and one of the members of that group by the name of Dave -- oh, I forget -- took over the newspaper and renamed it. It became the rural newspaper, and it wasn't ours. We did our own newsletter, but he operated a rural newsletter, a rural base, for all of us to state. And it was like the necessary news, you wanted to know what was happening among all the groups, you wanted to know what was happening in the state and local and national news, and you could read this newspaper, because that's what he reported on and made a specialty out of reporting those -- having that knowledge of what was going on in activism. And I had all those from beginning to end -- no, I'm not sure I had them all. I had a few of them, the beginning ones, but I had all the later ones, and turned those over, and that was half the collection. What was also so mad, because (inaudible) way back in the sixties, when that was new, before the Stonewall, and before there was MCC, I had the first advertisements to that. Troy Perry had put in the newspaper and said, "I'm starting this church," and then when he founded the church, and as MCC grew, I was very interested in that. I'm an atheist, personally, but I've always had very strong supporting about people who had to answer that question ; I did, too. And my answer was atheism, but certainly the religious conflict was very strong with me. I thought about becoming a minister, with lack of anything else to do ; I didn't know what the hell I was going to do, if it was teaching, or a minister, or anything, and I was going to Moravian College, which had a seminary connected with it, Moravian Seminary, and I was very strongly tempted, but my answer -- and I had gone in high school to -- the two people I came out to, one was my minister at the Presbyterian church who was quite negative, and a supporter and an advisor to what was called MLA, which was Young Masons, essentially ; it was sponsored by the Masons. They said it was no connection outside of the sponsorship -- you did not automatically become a Mason, and in no way you had to apply the join the Masons ; you had to apply to join the MLA, too, 1421. And I went to an advisor there. I loved MLA, I was quite taken with the whole moral outlook thing about being a good person, a strong value system for me, and I believed in it very strongly. So that was the other first thing I went to, and he was neutral. He was a single man who was the advisor, [Levin's mother?], and I was good friends with another advisor ; I was good friends with his son, and went often with them to Allegheny River, and so on, in high school. Whatever. What was the question while I start this? Are we done? MF:I think we'll just close now, but let us close on tape ; we'll wait for Carol. So I just want to say thank you so much, Joseph, for speaking with us again, a second time, in two days. We're so grateful that you would share your stories. JB:Thank you. I really appreciate it. I wanted to -- I wish I remembered more -- the actual names of people. I just felt very -- I felt they were important in my life, and that supportiveness was important to me, okay, to be able to do what I could, and I knew that we were creating a miracle, and it was clear that we were during a unique time in history, when -- Pennsylvania was its own story. There were fifty stories in fifty states, and how we began to move out from the cities. It had only been in Philadelphia and in Pittsburgh originally. Philadelphia had the Jane's Society, and the Homosexual Law Reform Society. Pittsburgh had a Persad Center, which addressed the health issues, and Le-Hi-Ho, when it was first founded, was very strong on the draft. Vietnam was very important, and the question was, do you check the box. Ron took care of all that. That was his particular forte, do you check the box or do you not. And the organization was formed on, you know, (inaudible) that important issue, as a resource for it, and it was the resource with schools, because there wasn't anything else. We had a library that people were able to use, did a lot, which is, again, the impact of Le-Hi-Ho, that was part of the impact. We had a regular lending library that was very active. Every meeting, they took the books. I ended up with the books in my home before I left for Chicago. I had the books for about a year in my house. I don't remember how I inherited them, but there was nowhere else for them to be housed, and I handed them off to another member, ultimately, before I left. I don't know what happened. That was '83. I don't know when Ron left town. It wasn't then, because in '83, I was still going to Le-Hi-Ho, and he must have been there. He left town after that. (inaudible) why he no longer housed the library. They kept the non-book files. Maybe the books would be too much. There were boxes, and boxes, and boxes of books, about four-hundred or more, four-hundred or five-hundred books. I think there were five- hundred books, about that. I had grown considerably from when I had it, and a lot of people donated a lot of other funds, papers, academic works, I no longer had access for. And I didn't have those papers. MF:Thank you so much again. JB:Thank you, thank you, thank you. I really appreciate it, and again, I'm sorry that I didn't get to name more people, because they were the important -- they were why I wanted to do it, to remember -- their contributions were enormous. So many, so many, so many people, you know, organized and participated in those conference. So many people came to our meetings and did what they could for us in the lobby days when we lobbied the state capitol several times, supported us in every way, you know, gave us money while -- we were creating a miracle. We knew what we were creating, and I saw it when I went to that concert in Chicago. They were singing for us. (inaudible) people. (inaudible) us. MF:Well, I think part of what has made this project so important for us is that we want to honor -- JB:People have asked me, do you think we ever made a difference? Yes, absolutely, we made a difference, and I saw it when I went there. That was -- Chicago was everybody that moved to Chicago, okay, was not native, and I was non-native. But they formed these two -- there were two choirs in Pennsylvania. The one that I saw in the first concert was the show choir that had just started that year, and they did this wonderful theme of Yellow Brick Road. Going into the concert was really special. I wanted to do a choir way back when. I thought that was -- one of the first things I thought of -- Le-Hi-Ho, wouldn't it be wonderful to have this musical group that just got together -- that was (inaudible) days, that was folk song days, and people -- everybody sang folk songs, folk songs were very, very popular all over the airways, and everybody was singing, and playing, and learning songs, and learning those particular songs. So it would've been natural for us to do, but there was no -- I certainly didn't have the ability. But I loved choirs. I thought it would be great to have some sort of event and singers like that. Couldn't do it, so it was done for me, and I really -- that's been a great joy, to watch both the choirs -- Harrisburg fortunately has a men's and women's choir, not combined, separate, and Mary Antero was in charge -- the treasurer of that county, and her lover is the president of the organization. Wonderful choir. Have grown to about thirty, forty voices, and rejuvenated themselves in the last couple years, and have become the better choir, while the men's choir has been going down and now reforming itself into a new group. It had been the stronger for a long time ; now, the women's choir has come up powerfully. Very wonderful concert that I had -- an organization for -- they did -- interspersed people of color and refugees, all refugees from all over the world, and they sang the songs -- their country -- the way they combined, I thought, was genius. They did a combination of singing the songs of those countries first, and then -- in a foreign language -- and so that the chair had to work in a new language, very difficult music, and that they wouldn't have known anything about ; did a superb job. And then they interspersed them with the people who read their stories, who had written out the stories of the countries they had come from and their struggles to get to be refugees acclimating to America and that sort of thing. It was a wonderful program, really, really special, and the right way to do it, and I had no idea how are you going to combine this. It was splendid, really good concert. And so I just printed all the programs I could get and sent them north to everybody that I -- sent to everybody that I could get to, this is how you do this. This is the way to do this concert. Splendid. MF:Well, I think we've taken up enough of your time on a Sunday. JB:Oh, no, no, thank you. Thank you so much, and thank you for the bagel this morning. MF:Oh, thank you. JB:Enjoyed it thoroughly, and I've enjoyed our time together. Thank you. MF:So have we. JB:And I wish I had satisfied more for you in terms of personal -- I don't know if my personal was as interesting as what I wanted to talk about, which was the activities. We were a very active state, and an exciting state, and I was so lucky to be a part of that, inspired by it, totally inspired. My God, we used to go plugged in in New York, once a year ; the first time, there were eleven thousand people, the first march, in 1970. It grew to hundreds and hundreds of thousands. There were one of a million (inaudible) didn't get it for Stonewall Fifty. I don't think that -- I don't know what the population was, but they were going to try for a hundred, I knew. That would've been exciting. And we had -- Danny -- we had tickets to go, and he got sick. I couldn't go, so I sponsored a bus for him to take some people, you know, I had to sponsor a bus. I gave him money for two people, thirty-six or forty bucks, to Central Park. That was a great day, great day. That's when the movement really was born. They combined to one lane of traffic, and we just got longer, and longer, and longer, until it was 11 blocks long. More blocks than eight blocks. I don't remember. There were just blocks and blocks of people coming up this single lane of traffic. Copyright for this oral history recording is held by the interview subject. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source. 0 /render.php?cachefile=
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Joseph Burns (Part 2), October 13, 2019
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Joseph Burns shares stories of Le-Hi-Ho, LGBT activism, and personal relationships.
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LGBT-08
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2019-10-13
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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6d4ec96da023145c0f8d02f81fbf1c17
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Stories of Lehigh Valley LGBTQ+ Community Members (2022 - )
Oral History
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Mary Foltz
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Justan Parker-Fields
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https://trexlerworks.muhlenberg.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=LGBT-35.xml
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5.4 June 23, 2022 Justan Parker-Fields, June 23, 2022 LGBT-35 2:21:05 LVLGBT-2022 Stories of Lehigh Valley LGBTQ+ Community Members (2022 - ) Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository Support for the collection of this interview was provided by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS). trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Justan Parker-Fields Mary Foltz video/mp4 ParkerFieldsJustan_20220623_video_trimmed.mp4 0 https://youtu.be/_HsSmG1HVfM YouTube video English 0 Interview Introductions MARY FOLTZ: My name is Mary Foltz, and I'm here with Justin Parker to talk about his life and experiences in the Lehigh Valley as a part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Oral History Project. This year, our project has funding from ACLS and Justin and I are meeting at Muhlenberg College in their Rare Books room on June 23rd, 2022. And I just want to start by saying thank you so, so much for being here with me today. 
 ; 
 ; JUSTAN FIELDS: Thank you for having me here. I'm excited to do this and looking forward to it. 0 110 Early Years of Life/Relationship with Grandmother MF: Okay. All right. Business out of the way. I would like to start the interview today by asking you to tell me a little bit about the early years of your life. 
 ; 
 ; JF: Yeah. So I was born in Scranton, P.A. We don't pronouce the ‘T’ the Scranton, but I was born there and into a big family. We have a huge part of our family. My great grandfather was one of 12 children and they started from Alabama and made their way up to Scranton P.A., where they finally settled. We moved to Allentown when I was five. My mom got a promotion at the post office and so, you know, moved out of small Scranton over to Allentown. And yeah, that's where I grew up. I went through the Allentown School District, Central Elementary School, Raub Middle School. I'm a 2002 Canary. But yeah, we grew up with that. My two sisters in Allentown, my mom was a homeowner, a single mom. And, you know, it was -- she was strict, but she left us. You know, we have rules. We had a curfew. 0 453 Relationship with Mother MF: You also mentioned your mom. What kinds of characteristics of your mom did you want to emulate? 
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 ; JF: My mom didn't take any mess. She was a strong willed, single Black mother raising her three children in Allentown, and was a homeowner. And that wasn't really like a normal thing. You know, it was, you know, she did it without assistance, you know, and she knew what she wanted to do and she didn't take no for an answer. And, you know, she was somebody who had -- she's an entrepreneur. You know, she eventually, you know, retired and left the post office. But she's always somebody who is like, you have to just be your own boss. Because she just knew her path that she was going to pave. 0 574 School Days in Harrisburg & ; Allentown MF: Well, tell me a little bit about going to school in Allentown after your family moved here. You said you were a Canary. 
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 ; JF: Yeah. 
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 ; MF: Tell me a little bit about what it was like to go to school in Allentown. 
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 ; JF: So I always loved school. I was a big nerd. And I think that I would sometimes, like, you know, be a class clown, probably because I was bored right on the surface of life, you know. But I went to Central Elementary School and my first grade teacher’s was Mrs. Shankwell. I know, like all my teachers’ names. That's how much of a nerd I was in school. But I just love school. I loved, you know, reading and learning. 0 1270 Safe Space in Church/Art's Alive MF: Okay. Thank you so much for sharing that story. I was really struck by you talking about how safe spaces were so important for navigating microaggressions, even if you couldn't name them at the time. And you talk about two different safe spaces, your friends. But also, I mean, those elders at the church that came to stand for you. Was that also a safe space that maybe you could just talk a little bit more about the spaces that fueled you and supported you? 
 ; 
 ; JF: Yeah, definitely. So the Black church was always part of my identity growing up. And, you know, even now, the Pastor was looked at as, you know, the head of the church. The old church ladies, you know, who you know, you couldn't talk back to, whatever they say goes, you know, and then just all of us church kids who are just funny as adults, we share funny church stories as church kids that we went to and whatnot. But that was always a safe space because, you know, we go to church every Sunday. You know, the church family was your extended family. 0 1438 Relationship with Stepfather MF: You mentioned your stepfather a few times. Do you want to talk about the relationship with your with your stepfather? 
 ; 
 ; JF: Yeah I can. So my relationship then and now, two different things. So my relationship with my stepfather. When I -- it was always abusive. Since I was very young and it was abusive to the point where like, you know, my mom – it would happen when my mom was at work. And it would be anything like whether it's my fault or not my fault, I'll would get beat, you know. I would -- And it's not just like a regular spanking, I would get beat and then sent to bed. Now me and my two sisters, we have different fathers, so they have the same father, my sister, [Cherise and Maria?]. 0 1763 Time at Allen High School MF: And that made think about what else was happening besides school when you returned to Allen High School. You're living with your mom. What's happening in your school life? Are you dating? Like what -- what's happening around your education and family? 
 ; 
 ; JF: So I dated a lot in middle school, but I didn’t date in high school. And I think it's because I was so busy like I -- when I was in Scranton in ninth grade, I started working at McDonald's at 14. So I transferred to McDonalds when I came back to Allentown, 11th and 12th grade. 0 1976 Life After High School
 ; JF: And so work -- you know, to get that offer from management, I was just like, okay, forget college I'm liking in the fast money now and I didn't have any kids at the time. Like, let's just do it. And that's kind of how I put school on hold, and became a manager McDonald's, but if I didn’t continue to work there, I wouldn’t have, you know, met the mother of Samir and Sheileen and I kind of -- how that worked out. 
 ; 
 ; MF: Tell me that story. 0 2366 Co-Parenting MF: How did you figure out that co-parenting in the beginning? Because you're in your early twenties. 
 ; 
 ; JF: Yeah. 
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 ; MF: You're being a parent to her first child. Your first child, she gets pregnant. How did you navigate what parenting together would look like? 
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 ; JF: So even before Shamir, we learned so much with Sheileen. I was excited, you know, just to take on that role of responsibility, because I love her so much and I love your daughter and I want us to be a family. 0 2581 Post-Break Up / Living Unsheltered MF: Can you tell me a little bit about the time around the breakup and then what happened after that as you were coming to terms with your identity? 
 ; 
 ; JF: Yeah. So around the time of the breakup, I became unsheltered because, you know, I wasn't really welcome in the house anymore and I didn't really have anywhere to go. So I was kind of couch surfing and, you know, not realizing that I was really like, a statistic LGBTQ who was homeless or sheltered, you know, that was kind of the way it went. I didn’t really have a support system that much. 0 2787 First Boyfriend / Work Life MF: How did you meet John? 
 ; 
 ; JF: I met John on a dating app. So before there was, like, Grindr or stuff like that, there's an app called Adam for Adam. I can’t believe I‘m talking about this. But I met John on Adam for Adam. And it's funny because, you know, we started talking and we didn't really even exchange, pictures, but we're like, oh, you know, let's go, let's hang out. And I remember I went to go, I went to go meet him. But of course, you know, we didn't know each other – what we looked like at the time and he thought I was somebody else and he almost like retreated was like, I'm not going to meet you because like, I’m not attracted to you. 0 3098 Coming Out JF: So I told Jahmira at work. I was like, yeah, I got to tell you something, because, you know, me and you are cool. And I really consider you as friend, not just coworker. John, is not my best friend, he's my boyfriend. She said I knew it. What do you mean? She was like, I knew it I was waiting for you to say something, you know? And then I was like, oh, my gosh. Like, I was so -- I felt so comfortable to be able to talk about John as my boyfriend at work, still not out or open, you know, but I was able to confide in and my friend Jahmira, who I always, you know. Just like, if it wasn't for her, you know, or me, you know, even coming out to her, you know, how long would I still be closeted for? It was just felt -- it was like. It was such a sigh of relief. 0 3645 Community Organizing / Black Lives Matter Lehigh Valley MF: So I want to make sure that -- I want to kind of turn a corner to…You're working full time, but you're also when do you start to get involved in organizing, community organizing? I want to definitely talk about your city council run, but we're not quite there yet. Tell me when that started to become really important for you in your life? 
 ; 
 ; JF: I thought that it was always important because I grew up in Allentown. So when you're Allentown, we always say, you know, we are Allentown, you know? But I was just always -- just was like a member of community, like I didn't do organizing, I didn't do any of that. All of that happened by accident, happened with the Black Lives Matter protest. I didn't plan on it, on doing anything with community organizing until Kevin put the idea in my head, really. Prior to the Black Lives Matter of protest, two years prior to that, I put on Facebook that I was going to do a silent protest for Philando Castile, who was murdered by police officers. 0 4588 Chain of Nonviolent Protests
 ; MF: So BLM Lehigh Valley started. You had the meeting with the police. You made the -- you suggested. And then at your suggestion, they made their use of force policy publicly. What happened next for the organization? 
 ; 
 ; JF: So, there was this group formed. It was like this, Lehigh Valley coalition right, and it was a group of like minded individuals who got together like a cohort. And that's when the chain of protest started. Cause a lot of protest -- some of the protests were like BLM protests, but other ones like it was BLM and other protests. But it was all of us together as a collective. It was myself, Darian Colbert, it was Rodney Ibene, who was Pastor A. Edwards’ son, Ashley Strange, Yamelisa Taveras, who's head of Lehigh Valley -- Ashley Strange, Lehigh Valley Stands Up, Yamelisa Taveras from Unidos, Arthur. It was just a group of us and it was so grassroots, organic and we’re just like okay we’re just going to meet. And we're going to just start planning out, you know, things in in protest. It was a big leap away. And from there, you know. We showed up in protest in meetings with different organizations like groups wanted to talk to us.
 ; 0 4865 Election Season / BLM Endorsements MF: What happened after that summer? Did you continue through the fall? And how? Tell me a little bit about that process. After an incredible period of energy, what occurs after? 
 ; 
 ; JF: Yeah. So we started brainstorming because, we’re like election season is coming and we have to start putting people in positions of power. People haven't seen the table or voting for candidates that are already out there, you know, supporting them and backing them. At the height of the Black Lives Matter movement in the Lehigh Valley, especially in Allentown, we were big supporters of Ce-Ce Gerlach and Josh Siegel and even Cynthia Mota, you know, because they were their allies, they understood it. 0 5284 Becoming a City Council Candidate MF: So how did you become a candidate, if you weren’t supposed to do be? How did that happen? 
 ; 
 ; JF: So we were meeting, the cohort was meeting one night and they had threw the idea out that, you know, -- it was supposed to be Arthur, Arthur Benson was going to run for city council and Rodney was going to run for school board. And so we sort of started plotting a plan, like we're going to start like infiltrating city council and the school board, and, you know, we Lehigh County. And, you know, we thought that time, you know, we had Amy Zanelli, and Zakiya Smalls, and you know, Geoff Brace. So they were like, okay, county’s good, like, you know, we can show up and assist and help them. It's the city level that we really need to get, the school board. 0 6155 Change Now MF: I will -- I know -- I want to acknowledge that. But you also have this incredible nonprofit that is something that you and Kevin have been working on. So could you tell me a little bit about Change Now and how you're putting your energy toward that organization in just 1/2? Okay. So could you tell me a little bit about change now? 
 ; 
 ; JF: Yeah. So we had co-founded Change Now, me and Kevin, because we knew that Black Lives Matter Lehigh Valley was like our group, but it wasn't ours. It was already like a national group. We had no ownership to it. It was just something that we did locally and had a huge following. Like, remember, we have like five or 4000 followers and we were like, wow, like this is something. 0 6617 Doreen's Christmas Baskets / Kevin Jefferson's Mother KJ: And so then we put the groups of presents together and we were have a Post-it note with the mom's name and the kid's name and their ages. And so then when -- we would be messaging the families back, hey, you're your order number this. This is -- your number 15, your number 16, or if they forgot the number, we look up their name and they're like, okay, you know, so-and-so's here, okay, that's number 12. And then we get the Post-it note and take the presents downstairs. And that's how we did our Christmas toy giveaway. We did Doreen's Christmas Baskets ; Kevin's mom passed away -- in memory of her five children.
 ; 
 ; And to keep her memory alive, we wanted to do that cause she was such a big supporter and Kevin was the only, you know, he’s the only son out of all – he has four sisters, he’s the only son. And he had a really – like he was super close to his mom. He was a mama's boy, you know. And, you know, she passed away a week before Christmas and it was hard for him. And I just remember, like, I remember just – and even people say to him, but like, wow. 0 6828 Meeting Kevin Jefferson / Relationship with Kevin MF: Do you want to share that your -- how you met Kevin, who has been your partner with Change Now and your partner in [inaudible]. 
 ; 
 ; JF: Yeah. So, I met Kevin on a dating app called Badoo and really, I wasn't even sure Kevin was gay because on Badoo, you get -- when you look at someone’s profile it says that they're interested in men or women or nothing at all. And Kevin's, either said nothing or it said women. And I was just like, I’d never been on the app before, maybe people want this app to find friends. I make I mean, as an adult, how do you make friends? 0 7749 The Color Purple at the Civic Theater MF: We didn't talk about the Color Purple. 
 ; 
 ; JF: Oh, my gosh. We didn't. Wow. 
 ; 
 ; MF: Do you want to talk about…? 
 ; 
 ; JF: Life changing? Can we real quick? 0 8443 Closing Remarks MF: I just want to close by saying I am just so grateful that you took the time to sit down today and to share some of your life story. And I'm also just grateful to live in a community with you and to know you. So thank you so much. 0 MovingImage Justan Parker Fields describes his early years of life in Scranton, Harrisburg, and the Lehigh Valley, personal relationships, and work with the organization Change Now and in the play The Color Purple. Copyright for this oral history recording is held by the interview subject. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source. 0 /render.php?cachefile=
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02:21:06
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Justan Parker-Fields, June 23, 2022
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Justan Parker Fields describes his early years of life in Scranton, Harrisburg, and the Lehigh Valley, personal relationships, and work with the organization Change Now and in the play The Color Purple.
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LGBT-35
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2022-06-23
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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d8069c926408849702c5d27095069cab
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Stories of Lehigh Valley LGBTQ+ Community Members (2022 - )
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Mary Foltz
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Kevin Jefferson
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https://trexlerworks.muhlenberg.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=LGBT-34.xml
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5.4 June 21, 2022 Kevin Jefferson, June 21, 2022 LGBT-34 1:14:17 LVLGBT-2022 Stories of Lehigh Valley LGBTQ+ Community Members (2022 - ) Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository Support for the collection of this interview was provided by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS). trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg Kevin Jefferson Mary Foltz video/mp4 JeffersonKevin_20220621_video_trimmed.mp4 1.0:|27(9)|64(10)|81(14)|102(4)|125(14)|148(6)|169(4)|192(4)|213(10)|234(13)|253(16)|276(3)|301(4)|322(2)|347(13)|368(10)|393(5)|414(17)|435(2)|456(14)|479(7)|498(17)|519(10)|540(16)|565(6)|582(7)|607(11)|632(4)|653(13)|674(2)|695(19)|718(7)|739(7)|758(2)|781(3)|800(8)|827(6)|844(10)|861(13)|884(10)|907(5)|928(8)|949(8)|966(15)|989(4)|1010(2)|1029(16)|1050(10)|1069(4)|1088(14)|1107(12)|1130(12)|1151(11)|1176(14)|1197(5)|1216(10)|1233(14)|1254(15)|1277(3)|1296(11)|1319(9)|1340(10)|1361(10)|1380(6)|1399(16)|1420(8)|1439(10)|1456(6)|1475(14)|1494(19)|1515(2)|1534(13)|1553(3)|1572(14)|1581(12) 0 https://youtu.be/AT-zqO7LZxQ YouTube video English 0 Interview Introductions MF: Well, my name is Mary Foltz, and I'm here with Kevin Jefferson to talk about his life and experiences in LGBTQ organizations in the Lehigh Valley. And this is a part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Oral History Project. This year our project has funding from ACLS, and Kevin and I are meeting at Muhlenberg College today is June 21st, 2022. And I want to just start by saying thank you so much for meeting with us today.
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 ; KJ: I'm humble. Humble to be here.
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 ; MF: I'm just thrilled that you're here. And to start, could you please state your full name and spell it for me?
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 ; KJ: My name is Kevin James Jefferson. That's K-E-V-I-N, J-A-M-E-S, J-E-F-F-E-R-S-O-N. 0 117 Upbringing
 ; KJ: Um, I grew up, there was five of us, I had four sisters, only boy. I was spoiled. Definitely. My, um, my mother. My mother really spoiled me. She did. A lot of my drive and motivation actually comes from her, and just our upbringing. My mom was a single mom. She definitely did her best. But there were times where we lived in shelters and things of that sort. 0 243 Growing up in Whitehall, PA
 ; MF: Describe the community where you grew up, was that..? 
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 ; KJ: I grew up, when I was a kid, about until I was about five. We lived in Florida till I was about five. Did move to Allentown for a little bit. But I can say, like when I was around six or seven, we moved to Whitehall and that's where I actually say I grew up because really, once we moved to Whitehall, the house that we lived in, we stayed in until graduation. So now I always say I'm from here. I lived here the most. Yeah. 0 508 Relationship with Mother KJ: And my mom was really good at those machine games where you put the quarter in and it drops down and picks-- the claw machine. And I think honestly, we spent like $15, but she made sure she got me that doll and like she never treated me different out there. I wanted the doll, [snaps] she got me the doll. So I just, I didn't know I was different. I didn’t. And she didn’t make me feel that way.
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 ; I even have an older sister, who's a lesbian, and she came out to my mom, and my mom was doing the dishes when she came out to her. And my mom was just like “Yeah okay”, and like Deanna was like, “I'm serious, mom, I’m gay”. And my mom was like, “Yeah, I know. I like, I know these things”. So, I just remember her being really accepting. Even when I had to educate her on things like even… My mom was a white woman from New York. She had blue eyes, blond hair, a New York accent. You couldn’t tell she had mixed kids unless you met them. 0 769 Going to School in Whitehall / Friendships little bit about the Whitehall community. What was what was school like for you in Whitehall?
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 ; KJ: I was my mom's star child. They would say, they would say in their own words, they would just -- stop. My sister – My sisters they weren’t rough and stuff. It's just, I would say I'm more laid back, in a sense. Everyone knew Kevin for good reasons, and I never fought or anything like that. And I just remember the teachers would pull me aside and say, you know, you're your mom's star child. And anyone that knew Kevin, and I don't say this to gas me up. But they would smile because they had a funny story about Kevin. 0 1070 Coming to Terms with Sexuality MF: You said it was a long process to come into your gayness. Can you describe that process? 
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 ; KJ: Which is sad because I shared a room with my older sister. Well, first she tricked my mom into giving my room to pay rent, and I think she paid rent once. But whatever, I shared with my older sister, eventually. She's a lesbian stud. And there was a gay flag on the wall and stuff. I had a girlfriend for about five years, and at the time ; I don't know if this is TMI, but at the time, that's all I knew. So of course, I was, like, faithful and I really cared for her. I really did. 0 1282 Dating in Early 20s MF: You talk about -- so you kind of made this decision. Well then what? Where did you go in the Lehigh Valley to meet people or was there a process for you sort of like, I'm going to the Stonewall or I'm going…
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 ; KJ: You know what's sad and I hate to say this cause I was supposed to go there like when they were about to close, but I never been to Stonewall. I've been to, I've been to other gay bars in the Lehigh Valley, but I never experience like Diamonz or Stonewall, never got to experience that. But I've gone to Philly to gay clubs and stuff. And when I first came out of the closet and I knew, like, this is what I want, I don't know who I want and when, but this is what I want. I went into a gay bar and it did take some adjustment of like getting hit on. I was always the one like doing that. That was me and initiating and stuff and it took you used to but one once I got out there and I met the community and stuff, I actually got to see how beautiful our gay community is. 0 1565 Meeting Justan
 ; KJ: [...] But I met some good guys and stuff, but little did I know the love of my life lived in the same town as me, it just took a little while.
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 ; MF: How did you meet? 
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 ; KJ: Oh, we met on an app called Badoo. I don't even know if the app still works now. And, I mean I’ll let him tell you what --, I can tell you from my perspective, he like, he didn't know if I -- because there were straight people on there, as well as lesbian, gay, and transgender. 0 1719 Work Life MF: We talked a little bit about -- I mean, I'm sure we'll talk more about Justan in quite a bit. But we talked about education. What happens to you sort of after you’re sort of moving through school? What is your work life like? We talked a little bit about your dating life, like what's happening in terms of your work life. And then I'm hoping we could kind of move towards your organizational...
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 ; KJ: Oh, yes. Okay. So my work life started when I was 16. I would help my mom, as well as my older sister, as we would all help with the bills and stuff. And I had a under-the-table, full time job, and then I had a part time job and I worked my butt off. I was 17, 16, turned 17, and I felt like working and stuff that helped ground me. 0 2130 Change Now KJ: And I think -- and I know we don't speak about it yet, but I think that's why we went official with Change Now. Instead of “Hey, we're going to go do a Thanksgiving meal at the men's shelter and stuff or we're going to drop [presents] off at the shelter”. We started something I feel that is beautiful, Change Now, and it's just the beginning and I see us doing really big things with that. We have an awesome team and I see the change that we're making in the community. It may be small to other people, but those accomplishments are big to us. Really big. 
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 ; MF: Tell me the story of Change Now. I mean, it's so clear that your mother is an inspiration. 0 2376 Change Now's Programs/Mission of Change Now KJ: Yeah, Justan can quote me on that, but I want to say we had it officially for two years. Now, our last event that we just did was Humankind Day last month. And where we provide it like toys, summer toys and stuff to the community, they didn't even have to get out their cars. You literally just stayed in your car and went stations and station and you were provided with -- We would just ask how many kids? And we had buckets, bubbles, chalk, games. And I love doing that -- working on Change Now, is something that I can do around the clock, and I feel like I kind of never get tired from it because it's honestly something I enjoy doing. And at these events with speaking with members of the community and stuff, or even one of our programs. 0 2739 Goals of Change Now MF: When you and Justan were talking about that, is that what you were imagining in that original conversation, this kind of organization with these wonderful, incredible gifts to our community, or has it passed, surpassed? 
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 ; KJ: Surpassed by far. I honestly couldn't imagine like it -- us accomplishing so much with Change Now, and just the friends that we've made with Change Now and stuff. I couldn't imagine not knowing them though. Anita and Luna come to mind, they're the one that's run SELF! Women's Reentry and they’re our sisters we have gone to Puerto Rico with them. We have cried with them. We failed with them, we've succeeded with them and stuff. And I just couldn't imagine my life without them. 0 3003 Structure of Change Now MF: Can I ask you a little bit about the structure Change Now, because I know you work a full time job and Justan works a full time job. How does the organization operate? Is it all volunteer or how do you keep it so successful, even when you're working full time?
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 ; KJ: We have -- and I have to thank our team, we have a tight circle. A lot of our volunteers are actually people that I've been personally work with. 0 3213 Black Lives Matter Lehigh Valley MF: Can I ask -- so what is the relationship or is there a relationship between Change Now and then your work with Black Lives Matter Lehigh Valley, putting up the page…?
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 ; KJ: We kept that separate, just because with nonprofits, you really don't want to get into politics and stuff and so we separated the two, but that didn't change our focus with the two. With the Black Lives Matters Lehigh Valley page, that page, like we do have a Change Now Facebook page, but the Black Lives Matter Lehigh Valley page is the page that is really active. There are families in the community reaching out, whether it be question for assistance or, hey, did you see this article and stuff, and you want to stay on top of it. You don't want to keep these people leaving this page. 0 3553 Importance of Black Lives Matter Lehigh Valley MF: I know you've passed the baton on, but I have a question about that origin story for Black Lives Matter, Lehigh Valley. I guess my question comes from, you know, it's a national movement. I mean, we can hear about organizations in different sort of major cities. Why was it important to start Black Lives Matter in Lehigh Valley here in Allentown? Like, you know, what is the important for you of having a local organization that's also sort of connected to the national conversation? 0 3844 Engagement to Justan/Visions for the Future 0 4179 Co-Parenting MF: So can I ask you, what's it like to be, as you are right now, a dad with Justan and with….
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 ; KJ:. And I will say, our son, even though is a small case, he has autism. And I think when I first met him, I was like 21, 22, 22, became a stepdad and he had autism. And I only asked that question like, “do you have kids?” just to make conversation, I didn’t expect him to say yes. But honestly, being a step-parent I felt like is what I was meant to do and stuff. That -- just as Justan's my best friend, my partner, the person I trust, it's the same for his daughter and son. That's my family right there, I give them my heart. 0 4312 Closing Remarks MF: Well, we're nearing the end of the interviews, but I want to ask you, is there anything that we missed that you thought, oh, I really want to talk about that. Anything that you wanted to sort of talk about at the end? 
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 ; KJ: I would just say, let's -- it's nice that we talked how Black Lives Matter, I'm a Black man. But let's talk about more LGBTQ issues going on in the community and let's just talk more about it. 0 MovingImage Kevin Jefferson describes their early life in the Lehigh Valley, personal relationships and coming to terms with their sexuality, and their pivotal non-profit work with Black Lives Matter Lehigh Valley and Change Now. MF: Well, my name is Mary Foltz, and I'm here with Kevin Jefferson to talk about his life and experiences in LGBTQ organizations in the Lehigh Valley. And this is a part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Oral History Project. This year our project has funding from ACLS, and Kevin and I are meeting at Muhlenberg College today is June 21st, 2022. And I want to just start by saying thank you so much for meeting with us today. KJ: I'm humble. Humble to be here. MF: I'm just thrilled that you're here. And to start, could you please state your full name and spell it for me? KJ: My name is Kevin James Jefferson. That's K-E-V-I-N, J-A-M-E-S, J-E-F-F-E-R-S-O-N. MF: And would you be willing to share your birthday? KJ: Yeah. October 25th, ′91. MF: And before we started the interview, you and I went over a consent form. But I just want to go back through those questions. Do you consent to an interview today? KJ: Yes. Definitely. MF: And do you consent to having the interview transcribed and digitized and made publicly available online? KJ: Yes. Yes, I do. MF: And do you consent to the LGBT archive using your interview for educational purposes or in other formats like articles or on the website or presentations? KJ: Yes, I would love that MF: Thank you. And then we talked about after the interview is transcribed, I will send it to you, and you'll have 30 days after the electronic delivery of the transcript to review the interview. You can identify our parts that you want to delete, or you could withdraw the interview from the project. Was that clear to you? Did I make that clear? KJ: Yep. MF: Okay, great. So I think we can just go ahead and get started. KJ: Awesome. MF: So my first question for you would be just tell me a little bit about the early years of your life. KJ: Um, I grew up, there was five of us, I had four sisters, only boy. I was spoiled. Definitely. My, um, my mother. My mother really spoiled me. She did. A lot of my drive and motivation actually comes from her, and just our upbringing. My mom was a single mom. She definitely did her best. But there were times where we lived in shelters and things of that sort. So and I think that is why I started and my partner started doing what we do, to try to give back, especially in her honor. My mother passed away in 2020, but before that, she would even help me. I would go and get gifts and donate them for like a boy and a girl, donate them to the shelters each year and stuff, just to give back. Because I was that child. She let us make mistakes and she was really accepting, you know, like I never had the conversation with my mom, like, "Oh, I'm gay". I just came home with a boyfriend, and she just was like, "Okay". [laughs] I mean, she teased me. She teased me before then, when we were just friends, but, moms know. So, she wasn't really shocked. What else-- I just. I just remember being a kid and playing and just playing in the streets with my sisters and my friends. I have cerebral palsy, but never used it as like a disadvantage. And I was in the streets, climbing trees, all of that. So that never stopped me. What else, I'm trying to think here. MF: Describe the community where you grew up, was that..? . KJ: I grew up, when I was a kid, about until I was about five. We lived in Florida till I was about five. Did move to Allentown for a little bit. But I can say, like when I was around six or seven, we moved to Whitehall and that's where I actually say I grew up because really, once we moved to Whitehall, the house that we lived in, we stayed in until graduation. So now I always say I'm from here. I lived here the most. Yeah. MF: What was Whitehall like? KJ: Whitehall was...I feel like kids nowadays are different than the kids that we were. I mean, bike riding, manhunt in the neighborhood. Everyone knew when the streetlights came on. Get your butt home and stuff. It was a beautiful upbringing and a good time. There's a lot of stuff that I see today, that maybe shouldn't happen, even though I'm what was a brown boy, with a limp. For some reason, I always met the description in Whitehall, and I never understood that. And I honestly never knew that it was a bad thing until I got older. It was just something I was used to. I didn't really have my father around to educate me about being a black man, you know? And these things can happen. Definitely things my mom mentioned to me, but it was nothing that was instilled in me. Oh, yeah. I got to take a little breather once I, once I think about that, because I have to say, it happened about like three times. And the youngest, I was ten years old and how does a ten-year-old meet the description? It's crazy. But besides all that, I grew up Fullerton, Fullerton Park in Whitehall. I played football for two years, baseball for one year. You can even say I was a cheerleader. [laughs] Like because my sister was a cheerleading coach, so I never missed a practice there either. But a really active kid and we're a tight family, so, so we would support one another and stuff. So I can't complain my upbringing. There is not one thing that I would take back. I wouldn't even say, like when we were at our brokest. I feel like those were my happiest times growing up in the shelter with my sisters. We always made the best of it. So it was home, it was what I knew. Yeah. MF: You said that being in the shelters had of some of your best memories, do you remember specific memories that you might want to share? KJ: Yeah. So one time my sister Daina, she's the second, the second oldest. And I tell you, my mom, she always just let us fly and let us learn. Daina wanted to make Christmas cookies the one year that we were there, and she made these Christmas cookies and she had to use half a bottle of salt. I mean, when I tell you, they were so salty, they were so salty. But you can see like the displeasure on her face because she knew they were salty. So we would eat them, and lie to her like "Oh they're so good, they're so good". But then everyone's running to the bathroom to get a drink of water. Because they don't want to hurt Daina's feelings. And that is one memory I always go back to, living in a shelter. I remember my mom taking us on a surprise trip, and the surprise trip was going to the movies to see the Rugrat movie. And that always brings me back. One of my favorite memories is going to see the Rugrat movie, and I'm telling you, my mom had to know that I was gay, because there was this doll in the machine and I had to have the doll. And my mom was really good at those machine games where you put the quarter in and it drops down and picks-- the claw machine. And I think honestly, we spent like $15, but she made sure she got me that doll and like she never treated me different out there. I wanted the doll, [snaps] she got me the doll. So I just, I didn't know I was different. I didn't. And she didn't make me feel that way. I even have an older sister, who's a lesbian, and she came out to my mom, and my mom was doing the dishes when she came out to her. And my mom was just like "Yeah okay", and like Deanna was like, "I'm serious, mom, I'm gay". And my mom was like, "Yeah, I know. I like, I know these things". So, I just remember her being really accepting. Even when I had to educate her on things like even-- My mom was a white woman from New York. She had blue eyes, blond hair, a New York accent. You couldn't tell she had mixed kids unless you met them. But my mom, she always let us -- even when, and I don't mean to jump ahead, but like when the Black Lives Matter movement came and stuff, my mom, instead of saying, like, "All lives matter", she, she let us educate her on, when we say Black Lives Matter, what we're truly trying to say. And it's not that all lives don't matter, it's just right now our Black lives are the ones hurting. And she understood and she asked questions and stuff, and she respected my point of view and stuff. Even if she felt -- Even if she didn't say it and she thought I was being extra, she still made it seem like "I understand, I care," and I appreciate her for that.I really do. I remember she always kept a garden, so we always grew tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers. I remember one time she made pickles. She tried to make homemade pickles. And they came out nasty from the pickles that she grew -- the cucumbers. So what she did was, she threw them out, and she bought pickles and put them in a Mason jar and everyone was just so amazed at her cooking skills, "You made these pickles", like "We never need to buy pickles". And later on it came out that she went to the store. So she was always a trickster like that and stuff. Just a wonderful person, honestly. I just I can't stop talking about her, because she's the reason why I do what I do now and stuff. She raised me to be a man, a woman raised me to be a man. And I don't think that me having four sisters and a single mom turned me out to gay. And it's sad, I even have to say that. But a lot of people in society feel that way. And it's, it's sad. But I had girlfriends, I just like guys more. Yeah, but what else can I think of from my upbringing? I remember being in the kitchen a lot. I learned how to cook at an early age. I went to say like ten, ten, 11. I know people who cooked before that, but that's really when I learned how to cook. And my mom was just big on cooking, and cooking, brought the family together and stuff and getting the meals prepared and stuff. That was family time in the kitchen. So I was always one of those, one of those boys tied to their mom's hip in the kitchen cooking. And now I could cook anything, I could cook anything. Yeah, I'm trying to think of other stuff, they'll come to mind as we go on. MF: Well, you talked a lot about your beloved and wonderful mother and your siblings, a little bit about the Whitehall community. What was what was school like for you in Whitehall? KJ: I was my mom's star child. They would say, they would say in their own words, they would just -- stop. My sister -- My sisters they weren't rough and stuff. It's just, I would say I'm more laid back, in a sense. Everyone knew Kevin for good reasons, and I never fought or anything like that. And I just remember the teachers would pull me aside and say, you know, you're your mom's star child. And anyone that knew Kevin, and I don't say this to gas me up. But they would smile because they had a funny story about Kevin. So I appreciated my time in Whitehall, and my teachers and stuff, and I felt like I was cared about by my teachers and staff. So I can't say nothing but good things about the staff out in Whitehall and stuff. I never felt different, whether it was being black or being black with a disability. I never felt different. I honestly didn't realize, I had a -- I walked with a limp until I was like maybe like in seventh, eighth grade and stuff. That's when I was just like, I really do have a limp. No one ever treated me different. So I wanted to play sports, I got to play sports and I just appreciated that even at Fullerton. Like it wasn't like, they didn't treat me any different. I got to -- I got to play in and stuff. I was a linebacker and they just let me do my thing. And it was great times. Great times. MF: Well, tell me about some of those great time. What was your circle of friends like? KJ: My circle of friends are my neighborhood kids. I lived in the townhouses and then there was a apartment building in Maryland Circle down the street and everyone just knew everyone. And I was a kid who had a pool in their backyard. So, so we all at night swimming and stuff would get together then. And we weren't -- We weren't ad kids. I mean, we were kids. We drank when we weren't supposed to. I remember getting caught doing that, and my mom was extremely upset, but we played manhunt, and kickball was a big one. And football, we used to play the townhouses versus Maryland Circle. Maryland Circle always won because they had the best players. They always had the best players. But we still did it, and it was still fun. And even today, a lot of those people that I hung out with as a kid, we're still friends to this day. Actually, the one, my one friend Dashawn, he's actually going to be my best man at my wedding. And so, yeah, like my, my best friend. And my best friend Diamond and stuff. She, I literally -- She was always the friend who did everything first. She used to. She used to make me upset about that, like, "Can I do something first"? She got her driver's license first. I mean, the permit first, the car first, the job first. And I seen her grow up to an independent woman. She's a single mom, but she has three beautiful girls, just bought a house and, and she's doing it. And I'm proud to see my friend succeed. Even my friend Dashawn, he runs a successful YouTube channel and stuff. And I just love to see my friends doing great and that that honestly helps motivate me to do more like maybe I'm slacking a little bit, but we keep each other on our toes. And to look back on another great time, we're always like Halloween trick or treating nights when we would all go trick or treating. God knows till like, we were like 15, 16 still going trick or treating but then we would all go to someone's house and watch a scary movie and stuff. And again, none of my friends ever treated me different. So, it was just a -- it was just a long process to realize, "Hey, you like guys", it was a long process that "Hey you got a limp". But I wouldn't change any of it. I felt like I was respected by the ones who loved me straight, and I felt like I was respected by them gay. Yeah. And there were some friends who dropped throughout the years and stuff, but it's the ones who are still there that matter. So I don't really focus on who's not here. MF: You said it was a long process to come into your gayness. Can you describe that process? KJ: Which is sad because I shared a room with my older sister. Well, first she tricked my mom into giving my room to pay rent, and I think she paid rent once. But whatever, I shared with my older sister, eventually. She's a lesbian stud. And there was a gay flag on the wall and stuff. I had a girlfriend for about five years, and at the time ; I don't know if this is TMI, but at the time, that's all I knew. So of course, I was, like, faithful and I really cared for her. I really did. I mean, I'm glad to know now, like, I like guys now, but I feel like because I was always in a relationship when I was a kid, I never really got to experiment and see until I was actually single a year. And like, "Hey, he's kind of cute," so. But when you think that, you have to know it's for sure, that's what you want. Because once you've gone down that route, which is sad, society labels you as gay or like you can never just be experimenting. So I just wanted to make sure that once I started talking to the same sex,.I just wanted to make sure that it was something that I wanted, and it was. I'm engaged -- I'm engaged now. So it's definitely something that I wanted. And I just felt like, "Man Kevin", and he just was like, if you just knew back then, cause there was just so many opportunities. No I'm joking, but I just feel like it took me a slower process. Like my sister, she knew from the beginning, like "I like girls, I like to dress up masculine. This is what I'm comfortable in" and stuff. Whereas it took Kevin, like 12 years. I think I finally realized that I liked guys in 2011, I want to say, and that's when I actually like took that step into going down that path and like, "Hey, let me see what this is like". And so in that sense, when I say, like a long process, it was just a long process for me to decide, like, is this what you want? I'm really an indecisive person to begin with. But once my mom started making jokes like she would always call my partner now Justan. She would always call him my boyfriend, even when we were friends. Like they don't believe that we were friends at one point. But we were, we were best friends. I remember even hooking him up with guys. I was talking to another guy at the time. But I'm definitely happy I found him. We met at a young age, so it took us a little bit of growing up and stuff. But we did it. We're definitely not who we were four years ago, not even a year ago and stuff. And I wouldn't trade him for anyone. And I'm gay and I'm a proud gay black man, you know. MF: You talk about -- so you kind of made this decision. Well then what? Where did you go in the Lehigh Valley to meet people or was there a process for you sort of like, I'm going to the Stonewall or I'm going-- KJ: You know what's sad and I hate to say this cause I was supposed to go there like when they were about to close, but I never been to Stonewall. I've been to, I've been to other gay bars in the Lehigh Valley, but I never experience like Diamonz or Stonewall, never got to experience that. But I've gone to Philly to gay clubs and stuff. And when I first came out of the closet and I knew, like, this is what I want, I don't know who I want and when, but this is what I want. I went into a gay bar and it did take some adjustment of like getting hit on. I was always the one like doing that. That was me and initiating and stuff and it took you used to but one once I got out there and I met the community and stuff, I actually got to see how beautiful our gay community is. And people, some people don't they don't feel like it exists out here and stuff. But if you open up your eyes and go places, it does and you'll meet great friends. You'll be great friends. I met Justan's best friend. He's who I think of his name as all the world's great, great, great talent. And he was actually part of our nonprofit Change Now team, and he passed away last year. But before he passed away, I do think God, because we were we were just at the pride in New York. It was my first time out there, as well as I believe it was his first time out there and out of all of Justan's friends, like I'll tell you, I told him like that. That is that's a friend right there. And he was just free spirited. And you could just always call on him. And I just remember him being there for me when my mom passed away and stuff. He would literally just come in and sit on the couch, say if like Justan wasn't there and stuff just to make sure someone was in the house with me during that rough time and stuff. And I'll cherish his relationship forever. And I was he was truly, truly one of the most beautiful people you would ever meet from our community, I feel like. And he just comes to mind when I think about jumping out into the gay scene and stuff. And he would be shade -- he would be shady, but it was like a good sh -- His nickname with us was NeNe, we called him NeNe and he wasn't judgmental and stuff. Like he was one of Justan's friends that actually let me take the steps with Justan to see if I actually liked him, where his other friends -- I can always tell when Justan was hanging out with his friends cause whenever I saw him again he would have an attitude it's like "Well yeah you don't, you don't want to show me around". And I'm like "Oh, I you were with your friends" and stuff. Whereas Greg said, "Boy let him take his time cause he's a keeper". And I just remember him saying that, and he was just a great friend and never chose sides, even though he was Justan's best friend. He was just the best. And I could call him for anything. Anything. He comes to mind when I think about stepping out into the gay scene back then. I believe I was 21, 21, 22 around that time. Before then, I would always talk to guys on like dating apps and stuff not Grindr. I wasn't aware of the history of Grindr at that time, but just like Facebook, Instagram and a lot of the guys who I actually talked to, they were all like in New York, New Jersey, but I just had to make sure that it was what I wanted. And I just felt more secure with talking to someone who didn't live around me at the time. Maybe that was just so that I wasn't a labeled gay just right away. But I met some good guys and stuff, but little did I know the love of my life lived in the same town as me, it just took a little while. MF: How did you meet? KJ: Oh, we met on an app called Badoo. I don't even know if the app still works now. And, I mean I'll let him tell you what --, I can tell you from my perspective, he like, he didn't know if I -- because there were straight people on there, as well as lesbian, gay, and transgender. So he never knew what it was about. So you could always see who checks your profile every day. He would check my profile like multiple times a day. And I finally messaged him one day and I was like, "Are you even gonna say hi," and that's how it started. And we met. We met up one time to get to know each other in person and at the time he had a little situation, I had a situation. So we were like, honestly, best friends. You can say, I wasn't looking for a relationship. I guess I was looking more for a friend at that time, but it slowly developed into a relationship. And I hate to say this cause, it sounds prude of me and stuff, but he did ask me out about three times and I said no. And what made me finally say "Yes let me do this. Before I lose it", was he asked me out on Valentine's Day and I was like, "Oh, I don't know, I don't want to mess up our friendship". So he's like, "All right, I'm in than Valentine's Day with this guy in New York". I even took him to the bus stop to go. But I will say I was supposed to pick him up the end of that week, and I didn't do it because I was mad. He really went to New York. But it was like I delivered you. I took you to the thing. But, boy, did I make him walk home in the cold. It was so cold that night. And I literally he got off that bus and walked home. And then later on I saw him that night and he was like, "Well, what do you want to do"? And I was like, "Okay, we, we can try this out". And we then made it official. So yeah. And that's how that started, off a dating app. Uh huh, yeah. I'm trying to think what else? MF: We talked a little bit about -- I mean, I'm sure we'll talk more about Justan in quite a bit. But we talked about education. What happens to you sort of after you're sort of moving through school? What is your work life like? We talked a little bit about your dating life, like what's happening in terms of your work life. And then I'm hoping we could kind of move towards your organizational... KJ: Oh, yes. Okay. So my work life started when I was 16. I would help my mom, as well as my older sister, as we would all help with the bills and stuff. And I had a under-the-table, full time job, and then I had a part time job and I worked my butt off. I was 17, 16, turned 17, and I felt like working and stuff that helped ground me. I had to work for everything that I wanted down to like my car, my clothes on, my back and stuff. My mom did her best and she would make it happen, but it just felt better. Achieving it myself. So once I started working, I never stopped working. And honestly, I think the job that I'm currently at now, I just started there about almost seven years ago. That was like the first job where I only had one job. Because I was always working two jobs and I just always want to make sure my mom was good and she had a lot of health problems. Medicine's expensive. So if there was a way I can help, I helped. Until she was ready to sell the house, move into something smaller and stuff. And then that's when I moved on and got my own and stuff. But I always liked to make sure she was okay first. So I did -- I worked a lot. And then one of my jobs I'm thinking about, is it was actually with the school, well it was with Career Force? But what we would do is we would go up to the high school and do a lot and paint the walls and things of that sort. So it got me, it got me into realizing, "Hey, I really do like to garden," even though I grew up with a garden and all this is I really do eventually hope to have a big garden and stuff. And I learned lessons. I have a scar right here from a box cutter. And I remember telling my mom, she thought I was so weird, I wanted this to scar up. And I was just like, "I hope this scars up, I hope it scars". So when it did, it was awesome. Now I tell the kids, I got cut by a pirate and stuff. She came up the story, and I just ran with it. So but I would say I was a hard worker. Definitely a hard worker. And she instilled that in me. She was a hard worker. She worked until she shouldn't have been working and stuff. My mom was a hard worker. MF: So you worked at Career Force. But you had multiple jobs. KJ: Career Force. I worked for a carnival business. So I was one of those people who tried to get you to the play, their games and stuff. So I did that the summer going into my junior year. And now that I think about it, they were both full time jobs. I'm like, now that I think about it. Yeah. They were both full time jobs because it was everywhere in Pennsylvania. We would travel and do shows and stuff. And after that, after graduation, I had gotten a part time job at McDonald's and then a full time job at Sodexo in the hospital. And I did I did both of those jobs for a long time. A long time. I was just used to working, I guess. So it really didn't bother me. Plus, you got paid every week, so, even better. But usually any job that I start, I'm there for a good while. I would love to grow, and eventually. Once I left McDonald's, it's because I was moving up at Sodexo and stuff and then I just try and keep growing until there's no more growth. And then I try to just find more and try to find just -- I like to stay busy, I love to learn, I love to read. I just don't take that for granted. Stuff like that. I lost my train of thought. MF: I have a question. Did you move from Sodexo to the Hartford? Yes. KJ: Okay. Yeah. So how that worked was I was going for a promotion for supervisor at Sodexo, and they graciously gave it to someone else. But like the reasons for it, like, I didn't agree with it. It wasn't more towards like, work ethic and stuff, it was more towards like this person went for the position more times than you. So we're just going to give it to them, and we're gonna change their duties because they don't know how to work a computer. And I just --, well, one thing my mom always taught me was my worth, and I was just like, "I'm going to find another job". And they didn't believe me at first. But when I put that two weeks in, they were upset. But I learned a lot from them. I learned my customer service from them. I know I learned how to have a conversation with different people. I saw different people throughout the day. I walked all around the hospital and stuff. So I definitely and I make sure that each place that I go, I really don't have anything bad to say about them because they taught me something and I appreciate Sodexo for that time. And then I moved on to the Hartford doing auto insurance. And that's a great it's a great job. It's rewarding and stuff. I do see myself eventually going other places and stuff, but I'm happy with my life. I'm definitely happy with my life now. It took me a second to realize that, especially after losing my mom, Losing my mom just taught me because it was like so sudden. It just taught me that not, everything's promised and just be happy. And I think -- and I know we don't speak about it yet, but I think that's why we went official with Change Now. Instead of "Hey, we're going to go do a Thanksgiving meal at the men's shelter and stuff or we're going to drop [presents] off at the shelter". We started something I feel that is beautiful, Change Now, and it's just the beginning and I see us doing really big things with that. We have an awesome team and I see the change that we're making in the community. It may be small to other people, but those accomplishments are big to us. Really big. MF: Tell me the story of Change Now. I mean, it's so clear that your mother is an inspiration. KJ: Yes. MF: You know, for that work. But tell me how it came to be. What is its origin story? KJ: So with Change Now it just made sense after Justan did the protest -- And I'm probably jumping around here, but after Justan to the protests in June of 2020, about because of George Floyd. Later that night, it was like, "What are you going to do now?" Like, "Yeah, we can go on the streets, we can do these peaceful protests and stuff, but what's next?" And that's how we came about with the Black Lives Matter to Lehigh Valley page and then and then from that like to two weeks later we went official with Change Now and stuff because it was like we're already doing it out of our own pocket. Let's see if we can get help from the city to help us help these people. And it's just amazing what we accomplished so far with our team again. They're great. There's about eight of us. But we all work together. We have weekly meetings and stuff. We feed off of ideas and stuff. Everyone has a voice in our team. My partner and I like, yeah, we're the executive director and stuff. But that's a really -- that's just the title like we're a team. We can only keep this going and it's just about we and but with Change Now it seemed a little -- it feels sometimes a little competitive because there's a lot of other nonprofits in this community and a lot of great nonprofits in this community. But when -- or at least I feel, with great work sometimes comes drama and unnecessary drama. So I don't feel -- I really don't feel-- I'm trying to say this in a nice way. I don't feel like we're appreciated by other nonprofits besides the ones we collaborated with, like SELF!, they're a women's reentry program. And I just like, we're here to help people. That's what it's about. It's not about who's doing what or whose name or whose names. We're like, -- excuse my language, but I can give a damn if you know about Kevin Jefferson. Just know about Change and all of that. That's what I love. You don't have to put my name, just see my work. And but Change Now is our baby now. We had Change Now for about two years, I want to say. Yeah, Justan can quote me on that, but I want to say we had it officially for two years. Now, our last event that we just did was Humankind Day last month. And where we provide it like toys, summer toys and stuff to the community, they didn't even have to get out their cars. You literally just stayed in your car and went stations and station and you were provided with -- We would just ask how many kids? And we had buckets, bubbles, chalk, games. And I love doing that -- working on Change Now, is something that I can do around the clock, and I feel like I kind of never get tired from it because it's honestly something I enjoy doing. And at these events with speaking with members of the community and stuff, or even one of our programs. One of our big programs that we do is our Mercy Hotel stay, whether it be a domestic violence situation or someone homeless on the street, and it's going to snow and stuff. When 2020 happened, there was like maybe one warming station open. There wasn't a lot of places for homeless people to go. And we saw all that and we wanted to do something about it. And I would say that main program is one of our successful programs and it's still going to this day. We get calls when we're on vacation and stuff. Our job is never done. And we don't mind. We don't mind. I want to say, just in March, as we were driving to Atlanta for our sister's graduation, there was a situation of domestic violence situation. And we had to get that person into a room and stuff. And luckily everything can be done electronically. So even though we weren't here, we were still able to help. MF: Not everyone who will listen to this will know, like the mission of Change Now. So beyond that kind of origin story, could you say like what your primary mission is like? KJ: Yeah, right now, I would say I would say a big mission that we've been focusing on and have been and still are, are the unsheltered and getting them off the street and getting them into a program. So it's not like, "Hey, we're providing you with this three day room stay, but then you have to go out on the street". It's like, "No, let's try and get you into a shelter. And then from the shelter gets you into a program. I mean, I lived -- I lived there. So it can be done. It's just, it's something that you can't make people do. They have to want to do it. And it's sad. We have those cases where they're just looking for that stay for the three days and they're okay with going back on the street and stuff. But we want to -- our mission is to stop that and get as much people we can into shelters and then eventually some stable living. We also do resumé prep and job prep and stuff, where we meet with people and we help them work on their resumé and interview prep and stuff and down to even a thing, clothes. Even if we had to come out of our pocket and -- I wouldn't mind -- you're paying it forward, you're helping your neighbor, your community and stuff. it's just with having a united community and stuff. You have you have a family outside of family. And it's like when one struggles, we all struggle. And when I think about Change Now, I think about our mission and stuff. I, I just. I just want -- If it's just if it's just two people. Three people. It doesn't have to be a bunch, but just a handful of people to know that we actually helped get off the streets and changed their life. One girl I can think of right now, we got her into a hotel room, and she overheard the staff talking about hiring. So, she put it an application at just the hotel that she was staying at, she found down with her working for the hotel, they provided free room stay. So she works for the for the hotel doing the front desk, and her husband does maintenance. And literally, like when I go into the hotel, to get other people a room and stuff and I run into them and stuff. Just seeing how great they look, their spirit, their eyes, they're vibe. You can tell -- you can feel when someone's really down and out, and just to see how great they look, that lets me know like, "Hey, Change Now is really doing something," and I just appreciate moments like that. But as of our mission, it's just to get people off the streets right now, just to give people jobs right now. Let them know like, "Hey, yeah, you did these things in your past, but that's your past. Let's move forward. Let's change now". So that's just the mission that -- the legacy I hope to leave for my kids and stuff. MF: When you and Justan were talking about that, is that what you were imagining in that original conversation, this kind of organization with these wonderful, incredible gifts to our community, or has it passed, surpassed? KJ: Surpassed by far. I honestly couldn't imagine like it -- us accomplishing so much with Change Now, and just the friends that we've made with Change Now and stuff. I couldn't imagine not knowing them though. Enid and Luna come to mind, they're the one that's run SELF! Women's Reentry and they're our sisters we have gone to Puerto Rico with them. We have cried with them. We failed with them, we've succeeded with them and stuff. And I just couldn't imagine my life without them. And I couldn't imagine my life without Change Now. Even though my mom has humbled me, Change Now, also keeps me humble because it's like, you know, you don't see right away the things that are actually going on in the community until you actually get out there, day or night, and actually see what's really going on in the community and Change Now has helped humble me, my family, my sisters. My family, they're blown away with how much we have accomplished with Change Now, down to our toy drives. Before, I think I can only afford a present for a boy, a present for a girl, and I would give that to a shelter every year, whereas now it's -- my living room looks like Santa just threw up everywhere and stuff, everywhere. So it's just amazing to see that. And then to just have people who are like you, who run nonprofits, even if they don't run it, they're still in the community. It's nice to see people just like you still doing the work. It lets you know, like, hey, there are still decent people out here. And that just keeps us going. But I couldn't imagine, I -- it's not that I couldn't I just wouldn't have thought Change Now would be even as big as it is today. But it just makes me more excited to see how big it will be later down the line. Because these are just the job prep, the resume building, the Mercy Hotel stay. Those are just our programs right now. Eventually, I want to start a grant project where we provide grants to LGBTQ students, brown students, Latino students, white students. I just I would love to do that. Help these students out with these grants. And so that's a program that eventually down the line I would like to start as well as, like awareness, awareness to addiction. I have lost a lot of people to addiction, a lot of close family members ; my mom's best friends she's like my aunt, her son, he overdosed and passed away and that was about two years ago and still that phone call of her crying plays in my head and stuff. And she's going to retreat, she's going to program, she's getting better. But I just wish there were more programs out here that was more acknowledged that, hey, you have an addiction, hey, it's unhealthy, but let's get ypu healthy. Let's don't just forget about you, or knock you, or not trust you, because of your past actions. Let's get you better. And I just hope to have -- when I say all of this, I just hope to have more programs, more programs out there and stuff. And we'll all keep working for it. We won't stop. We won't stop. MF: Can I ask you a little bit about the structure Change Now, because I know you work a full time job and Justan works a full time job. How does the organization operate? Is it all volunteer or how do you keep it so successful, even when you're working full time? KJ: We have -- and I have to thank our team, we have a tight circle. A lot of our volunteers are actually people that I've been personally work with. So sometimes that's a hard time because it's like, you're working when I'm working, so I can't really utilize you. But I would say my partner, Justan, he's definitely, or has been way more flexible. Whereas he can jump on these phone calls and schedule these rooms, help these people and stuff. But we all work together and stuff. Where someone can't be, someone will be and stuff. And I even remember when I lost my mom, that was unexpected and stuff. And I wasn't in my right mind, but I still went out and delivered the Christmas presents to the kids. And I remember me and Justan crying because he's thinking about his grandma through this time. Because that was like his mother and all. I'm crying about my mom and stuff, but then we start laughing because they're like, Wow, we're delivering these presents and we're crying and stuff. But I remember my team through all of that, they picked up where I left off after I got that news and they got the job done. And it's challenging. It definitely is. There are times where I'm working and I'm talking with the customer and my cell phone's blowing up. The Change Now line is blowing up because someone needs help and stuff, but we make it work. Whether if I have to step away for like 5 minutes or, Justan has to take a quick run to the hotel or even to pick them up. We'll get it done. We get it done. And I'm not going to say it's easy, but it's definitely something that we get done. This is Change -- Chane Now is our baby, one of our babies. So yeah, it's a challenge. But having a great team who believes in the work that you're doing, they see -- sometimes I feel like they see more of the success than we do. But just having them by our side and just helping us with our baby and stuff, we're trusting them with our baby and stuff. And I couldn't ask for any anyone else. And the fact that like they're volunteers, like they're not looking for -- none of us, but they're not looking for a payment or nothing. They just see it. They just see our passion and they just help us with it. I couldn't ask for a better team. I couldn't. MF: Well, your baby is beautiful KJ: Thank you, but. MF: Can I ask -- so what is the relationship or is there a relationship between Change Now and then your work with Black Lives Matter Lehigh Valley, putting up the page--? KJ: We kept that separate, just because with nonprofits, you really don't want to get into politics and stuff and so we separated the two, but that didn't change our focus with the two. With the Black Lives Matters Lehigh Valley page, that page, like we do have a Change Now Facebook page, but the Black Lives Matter Lehigh Valley page is the page that is really active. There are families in the community reaching out, whether it be question for assistance or, hey, did you see this article and stuff, and you want to stay on top of it. You don't want to keep these people leaving this page. The page was developed to let our brown and Black community members know like, you're not alone, your voices do matter. We would deftly make sure to respond to every message just so whether they liked it or not and just so that they got a response like we hear you, and stuff. I will say with Black Lives Matter page, it was a little challenging at first, but you just gotta look past the arrogance of people. My partner has got death threats and stuff. People talking about his family. I mean, I've been called a cripple n****r and stuff, and. But we're not -- we don't have that page for that stuff. So I'm not even going to focus on what you're saying, I'm going to make sure that these articles go out. What's not in the news, what are -- what's going on in our community that's not talked about. That's why we developed the Black Lives Matter to Lehigh Valley page, and to let people know that like -- I feel like with the Black Lives Matter page, a lot of people get confused with the like, it gets decided like Justan is the black voice in the community and when he's actually not, we are all our voices matter. And it took a little while for some leaders in the community to understand that. But I still feel like they don't understand that. But, I will say, the Black Lives Matter page -- I don't know if you're aware of this, but we don't actually run that page anymore. Ashleigh Strange has been running the page for us and it didn't have to do with giving up. I have seen people write on Facebook about my partner Justan giving up on the page and stuff. And it wasn't that he gave up. He passed it along to the next generation, to our next young people who have more time, who's now running a full time job in a nonprofit and stuff. And we still do check in and stuff like hey, like, how's it going and stuff? But it gives us more free time of working with Change Now and just and just being a family at the same time. Juggling Change Now and Black Lives Matter was getting tough, even when we were in Allentown. There were like protest going on about Black lives and stuff and people just getting upset that Justan wasn't at these protests and stuff and they feel like because he ran the Black Lives Matter page, he should be there. And I could see where they're coming from when they're saying, but I want people to know that there are more Black people out here than the Black leaders who are known. And Justan will even say that, too. It's humbling to see he's honored for these things and stuff, but we're not the only black gay people out here. And I feel like it's more -- it's really important not only to get like Justan's view, my view, but get other people's view on these topics and stuff. Let's stop being scared, scared to say other people's names. Let's stop being scared to say what we want to say. But, Black Lives Matter Lehigh Valley, that was our baby. And that will always be our baby and stuff. But it was time to pass the baton, and I feel confident with the person who has been controlling it and she has been doing a wonderful job with it. And I know it's being taken care of and it's not turning into a for-profit page or something like that. MF: I know you've passed the baton on, but I have a question about that origin story for Black Lives Matter, Lehigh Valley. I guess my question comes from, you know, it's a national movement. I mean, we can hear about organizations in different sort of major cities. Why was it important to start Black Lives Matter in Lehigh Valley here in Allentown? Like, you know, what is the important for you of having a local organization that's also sort of connected to the national conversation? KJ: I feel like to better answer that question. I would say, to make sure that we're heard. I feel like there wasn't a place for us to really go to, whether as a Black man, let alone a Black gay man and stuff. There were these things happened in our community. I mean, like I told you earlier, I always fit the description starting at ten years old and stuff and I wasn't educated that that was wrong and stuff. I just knew. Just sit on the curb and listen to those and answer those questions that those police officers were asking me and stuff, whereas that's not okay. And there was nowhere, there was really nowhere to go like a website or a hall or something to go to and talk with people who were like minded just like you, who look like you and go through the same struggles and stuff and say like that, that's not right, that's not cool. There was another time -- and I always think about this time because this happened when I was an adult. But I'm -- and I'm gonna say their name, but I went to Ross over on Airport Road one time, me and my partner, and I like to wear jewelry and stuff. And I had this watch on. And I remember when we walked in the store, the cashiers and the security guards were looking at us and the security guard comes up to me and he's like, "Oh, I like your watch". So you're not thinking. I'm like, "Oh, yeah". So I show it to him and then he bring it here. He talks about how someone stole a watch from Ross, and they feel I met the description. And it was just like, if I had a Black Lives Matter page to bring that to, I think I would have got more stories that were like mine, something I can relate to. Hey, that shouldn't have been handled like that. They need to be educated and stuff, that not all black people look alike. And I just always -- that was one situation where it was like, I really wish I said something. Like, I didn't think about it when I was going through it. Once we got out of the store, it was like, no, that wasn't right, that that shouldn't have happened. And I feel with bringing Black Lives Matter to Lehigh Valley to their valley, that really taught some store owners and a lot of people, "Let me watch what I say," because we were getting messages where people were exposing -- A dentist got exposed, the doctor in the Lehigh Valley got exposed and we're getting messages from these doctors and stuff, these dentists, to please take this down because this is affecting their job. And it's like, well, maybe you shouldn't be racist. Maybe this would teach you. And I felt like the Black Lives Matter to the Lehigh Valley page gave us that voice, that courage to know that that's not okay. And I just I just hope down the line, that even after Ashleigh Strange, I just hope that it gets taken care of. And it's used for what it's for. It's not used to collect any money from anybody. It's mainly used to just let our brown and Black families know, like, you're not alone. Voice your opinion here. Tell us what happened here. And I just feel like taught a lot of people, especially in 2020, "Let me watch what I say, because words do matter". MF: Thank you for sharing about those two babies that you and Justan bore together. Can I ask, so you're working full time, you're building two organizations, you're in love. Are you engaged yet, when does the engagement happen? KJ: Yeah, I got engaged officially, last year in Puerto Rico -- in April of, we're in 20 --, in '21. We went to a rainforest -- now, when we were young, I'm not gonna lie, when we were younger, we did get engaged. But I'll tell you, we were young. I wasn't thinking about marriage at that time. So it kinda didn't feel right, if you ask me. Whereas when he proposed last year, we were in a rain forest, and it just felt right then. Like it was like, okay, I'm going to get married. So we're engaged. We hope to be married after buying a house at the end of this year, fingers crossed. And the wedding, you should see an invitation in October of next year. So kind of save the date for me. But yes, so we have been planning that. I'm realizing that opposites do attract, because I can have a small wedding and be fine with that. Whereas my partner, he looks like acrobats falling from the ceiling and stuff. And I'm just like I'd rather keep the money and save it for a travel trailer. I'm like, but I have to wait till we buy the house and after the wedding to get the travel trailer. So I'm waiting patiently, patiently. But I love to travel, and I want to do it while I'm still young. And I don't want to wait until I'm old to travel around the States and stuff. I want to do it now while I'm young. So yeah. MF: Do you have visions for the future? You have the marriage, the house, but are there other things that you're imagining, you know, for your life? KJ: For our life? I definitely imagine to eventually -- and I pray that one day Change Now is something so big that I can dedicate all of my time to.Instead of working a full time job and running a nonprofit. I would one day want to just focus on my nonprofit. But I know there's a lot of work to do before even that happens. But I hope we have an office one day, and I hope -- I would love a community center for kids to come to and play sports, learn how to swim, learn. Let's get some reading programs in here and stuff. That's one thing I feel like you don't see a lot, is these kids out here reading and stuff and even -- you don't even have to be a kid, you can be an adult. We'll teach you how to read. I just -- I want a lot and I know it's going to take time, but I hope within a few years Change Now has an office, a little community center and all of my attention. And like anyone else, to have the big, beautiful house, the marriage, I don't know -- we do go back and forth about either adopting or having another child. But right now, we have one going into 10th grade and we just had a graduate. So it's just like, okay, we're almost there, then it's us time. So we do go back and forth with it, but it's not something that I wouldn't say no to. I love family, and I had a big family, so I wouldn't mind adding another addition later down the line. I just want to make sure it feels right and it is right. This is someone who would look up to me as their protector, their teacher and stuff. And I definitely feel like my partner today would be the best father. And there's things that even he teaches me and it's just like, Wow. Did you just say that, it was so sexy? Can you say it again? But all jokes aside, I just -- he's a great father. And him and his children's mother, they're great at parenting, she's the best. I call her my baby mom. And she -- it's just a nice blended family, a nice, blended, educated family and even our kids they were, I feel like they were more excited that we got engaged than I was. And so it definitely felt right when we got engaged. MF: So can I ask you, what's it like to be, as you are right now, a dad with Justan and with--. KJ:. And I will say, our son, even though is a small case, he has autism. And I think when I first met him, I was like 21, 22, 22, became a stepdad and he had autism. And I only asked that question like, "do you have kids?" just to make conversation, I didn't expect him to say yes. But honestly, being a step-parent I felt like is what I was meant to do and stuff. That -- just as Justan's my best friend, my partner, the person I trust, it's the same for his daughter and son. That's my family right there, I give them my heart. They're always there to pick us up, even when they know that we're not 100%. It's nice that we can come home to them and stuff and them tell us their crazy stories, and they'll bring me back to when I was 18. And honestly, I honestly think that they're kind of better. At least what I know, like my step-daughter, she's really good at hiding things, I guess. But from what I've seen, though, they're great kids. My stepdaughter is -- she's going to go to college this upcoming year. She's going to be a freshman. And even their mom, their mom, she dropped out at early age because she had she was pregnant. I want to say it was 15. But she got her G.E.D. She moved up in her career and she bought a house. Just to see her do that and to see that is possible, you just, you just kind of want to -- you just got to work for it. I wouldn't trade them for the world. I wouldn't -- even my baby mom, I wouldn't trade her for the world. MF: Well, we're nearing the end of the interviews, but I want to ask you, is there anything that we missed that you thought, oh, I really want to talk about that. Anything that you wanted to sort of talk about at the end? KJ: I would just say, let's -- it's nice that we talked how Black Lives Matter, I'm a Black man. But let's talk about more LGBTQ issues going on in the community and let's just talk more about it. I feel like in our community, especially in the Black community, I really don't feel like our community is accepted. I feel like we're frowned upon in a lot of situations. It's like, if you're not a LGBTQ leader speaking about it, then it's not being spoke about, and you don't have to be gay, and transgender, or lesbian to stick up for someone in our community. So let's stop being afraid of having these conversations and let's just help one another. We have of a lot of transgenders even last year -- and I'm just going to say and I know that it was more than 20, but I can think of off of my head in 20 transgenders. It was even more than that died last year, and it wasn't really discussed. And that's also something that I want to bring to Change Now, just more just ways of helping those issues more and in our queer community and stuff. And another thing too is respecting pronouns. I think it's just not a conversation, it'ss just not for fun. It's for 2022, let's respect people's pronouns. And that's just what I would say. MF: I feel so grateful to have had the opportunity to talk with you. Thank you so much Kevin for taking the time. KJ: Thank you for having me. It was a pleasure. Honestly, I was excited. I could talk to you all day. Honestly. MF: Okay. All right. Let's do another around. Thank you again. Copyright for this oral history recording is held by the interview subject. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source. 0 /render.php?cachefile=
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01:14:17
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Kevin Jefferson, June 21, 2022
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Kevin Jefferson describes their early life in the Lehigh Valley, personal relationships and coming to terms with their sexuality, and their pivotal non-profit work with Black Lives Matter Lehigh Valley and Change Now.
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LGBT-34
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2022-06-21
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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40 Years of Public Health Experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community: HIV/AIDS
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In the spring of 2020, the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center and the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive received a grant to collect oral histories and written stories for 40 Years of Public Health in the Lehigh Valley’s LGBT Community: Collecting and Curating Local LGBT Health Experiences from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19.
The collection consists of oral histories from individuals who experienced the worst of the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s, as well as oral histories from members of the local community as they lived through 2020's summer of Covid-19. Running through both are the themes of dealing with the fear of an emerging health crisis, loneliness and isolation, and coming together as a community in support and activism.
The project was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Oral History
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Liz Bradbury
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Larry Kleppinger
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https://trexlerworks.muhlenberg.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=PH40_02.xml
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5.4 June 18, 2020 Larry Kleppinger, June 18, 2020 PH40_02 01:30:55 LVLGBT40 40 Years of Public Health Experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository This oral history recording was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg AIDS (Disease) Larry Kleppinger Liz Bradbury video/mpeg LarryKleppinger_20200618_video.mp4 1.0:|25(5)|58(2)|93(2)|120(2)|145(5)|170(7)|199(16)|232(9)|269(13)|296(9)|333(2)|356(15)|385(7)|422(14)|451(13)|482(6)|513(4)|534(15)|567(3)|602(3)|627(11)|660(4)|687(8)|726(12)|759(8)|800(8)|835(8)|866(5)|899(6)|914(17)|941(4)|968(8)|997(15)|1018(6)|1041(13)|1078(3)|1113(3)|1138(15)|1163(15)|1204(12)|1229(3)|1256(12)|1285(3)|1306(8)|1343(5)|1366(14)|1391(5)|1418(14)|1445(11)|1476(10)|1499(14)|1528(9)|1559(12)|1588(5)|1613(3)|1636(6)|1659(5)|1696(9)|1725(5)|1754(5)|1787(3)|1812(12)|1849(2)|1880(10)|1907(3)|1926(4)|1949(4)|1978(3)|1999(4)|2022(5)|2055(13)|2092(13)|2129(7)|2164(5)|2197(12)|2222(3)|2247(2)|2272(18)|2297(3)|2324(13)|2351(7)|2380(12)|2409(10)|2446(3)|2469(7)|2496(16)|2535(4)|2562(12)|2595(7)|2628(7)|2663(5) 0 https://youtu.be/Lp28TrvOJX0 YouTube video 0 Interview Introduction LIZ BRADBURY: So, there we go, and then I’m going to do that. Good. So, I need to say with this project, Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center and Trexler Library at Muhlenberg College, will collaborate on 40 years of public health experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT community, collecting and curating local LGBT health experiences from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19. 0 133 First time becoming aware of HIV/AIDS LB: Okay! So, we’re all ready to go. The very first thing I always -- supposed to say, in the midst of this current public health crisis we’re experiencing, we want to take this opportunity to look back and reflect, to capture the stories of those who lived through the worst of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the nineteen eighties and the nineteen nineties. This starts out with a question that says, “Do you remember the first time you became aware of the disease?” So, I’m going to tell you that and then you’re going to just say -- go ahead and go. Say whatever you want.
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 ; LK: Are you ready? (laughs) 0 207 People disappearing and speculation about who was ill LK: And once it did, then it just took off. I mean, there was a lot of fear, there was a lot of stigma. And I never really saw any of the ostracization that took place, which -- there was plenty of that later on, especially. But I noticed that people disappeared on us. They would just vanish. And people would be talking to one another and saying, “What happened to” so-and-so, you know? “Do you think they have the gay cancer?” And there was just rumor and speculation. So, that’s basically what transpired at the very beginning of that, yeah. 0 342 Fear turning into anger/ ACT UP forming LK: I remember there’s -- a lot of that fear turned into anger because, basically, there was nothing being stated by our government on any level, really, about AIDS at the time. I mean, we were on our own. And I know that we looked to ACT UP in New York, which was formed later on in the eighties. And they were quite instrumental in giving everybody a voice and setting the tone and making inroads in all kinds of ways. And so, all the cities in the country, I guess, picked up on that and there was this movement, basically. And so, that was inspiring. 0 391 Bar wars between Candida's and the Stonewall becoming a sporting event to benefit AIDS LK: I didn’t really participate in the activism. What we did in Allentown at a certain point, there was a stupid, silly bar wars thing going on between Candida’s and the Stonewall at the time and we were just doing silly things back and forth, just as we were trying to have some fun with life. And so, at a certain point, we decided that we would turn this into a sporting event to finish this off so we wouldn’t have to keep doing this back and forth thing. (laughter) And we decided to do an AIDS benefit. And that was nineteen eighty-five that took place. 0 467 Giving money from the Bar Olympics to the AIDS Services Center in Allentown LK: And then, we had to decide what we wanted to do with that, you know? Who we going to give this to? And we had come to discover that the AIDS Services Center at the time was serving a client roster -- I believe in nineteen eighty-five, there were fifty-three cases that they were serving.
 ; 0 518 Starting FACT, an organization to fund HIV/AIDS patient needs LK: And he also did theater productions and all -- he was involved in all kinds of things in life. What a spirit he was. He came to us and said, “You know, you guys did a really good thing here. You should create an organization to do fundraising.” And I was, like, “We don’t know anything about organizations for fundraising.” And he said, “Don’t worry, you’ll learn.” And he was right. So, he actually helped to spearhead that effort. We arranged to have meetings every week with a group of people and we pulled more people in. There were people like Micky Katz from the 13th Street Pub, Candida from Candida’s, Marky Cummings, Billy Leh from the Leh department store fortune, Larry Roth, Georgeann and Laura, Matthew [Stitzer?], Robin [Cook?]. I’m probably missing many other names at this point because it’s been thirty-five years now. 0 686 Saying goodbye to friends with AIDS LK: And the hardest part was when we had to say goodbye because I got the call and -- saying, “You should come over and say goodbye.” And I hadn’t done this before. And I walked into his bedroom and I sat down and I’m thinking to myself: what am I going to say? What do I say to him? And he couldn’t speak, he couldn’t move, and he was definitely -- he had the wasting and he was so thin. 
 ; 
 ; LB: Yeah. 0 849 Bars becoming the community's family / People rallying to help LB: When people -- you know, I was talking to a couple of other people because really, in those days, bars were so essential because there wasn’t much else and -- because Le-Hi-Ho had become AIDS Services Center, so it was really not a social place anymore. And in the bars, I think, in some ways, because of ostracization of family, they were replacing people’s families.
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 ; LK: Oh, yeah, definitely. Most definitely. 0 1133 Anger at federal government for lack of investment LK: Until we had more information. I was personally quite upset with the federal government, especially Ronald Reagan at that time, because he didn’t mention anything for at least the first six or seven years of his term. I think it was nineteen eighty-seven when he finally actually mentioned the word AIDS. So, that, there was a lot of anger at the time for that. And so, we just used all that fear and all that anger and channeled that into: let’s just take care of people. Let’s do what we can do for people. Let’s do what we do best: throw some parties and make some money for people.
 ; 0 1164 People investing their time in volunteering to help LB: Yeah. Did you know people that were -- I mean, I would guess that people were coming in and saying, “What can we do?” I mean, [I was?] doing that in nineteen ninety-two or ninety-one, saying, [you know?], “What can we do?” and that kind of stuff.
 ; 
 ; LK: There were some key players in that. I mean, the board members, of course, really were invested as far as utilizing every contact that they had to pull in. And if they heard of anybody -- say, “What can I do?” they would immediately pull them in and say, “Hey, you can be on this committee, you can help us set up for this event, you could sell tickets for this.” 0 1304 Events at the Summer Games LB: -- at Rainbow Mountain when they had the Rainbow Mountain stuff? What did you do there, what were you involved in?
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 ; LK: No, I didn’t work at Rainbow Mountain, I worked at the Stonewall. But --
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 ; LB: No, I mean --
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 ; LK: -- at Rainbow --
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 ; LB: -- for the Summer Games.
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 ; LK: Oh, (laughs) well, it was actually quite a large set of -- we needed all those volunteers for that because the -- I remember Larry Roth had gotten a band shell for the opening and closing ceremonies and we had to set up the different areas for the games. 0 1553 The Stonewall as community gathering space LB: Who owned the Stonewall then?
 ; 
 ; LK: Back then, it was David Bischoff. And, yeah, he was the sole owner at that time. And he was right behind us, which was -- he was actually a very supportive owner and I liked that about him because we actually had a victory party at the Stonewall when we won and we invited the other bars to come and we would buy cocktails for the other bar reps and things like that. So, he was definitely onboard with all of that, which was great. Good man. 0 1690 AIDS Services Center LB: Who was the person who was running AIDS Services Center then? Who was the first -- was that Dixie White that was the first person that was the leadership at -- was she the first AIDS Services person?
 ; 
 ; LK: I don’t recall her. I do know Ed Verba was there at the time that we had -- [was from?] --
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 ; LB: [Ed Verba?]? Oh, okay, yeah.
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 ; LK: Yeah. Is he still around?
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 ; LB: Yeah, he is, yeah. He’s on Facebook, so I see him now and then, sure. 0 1747 Side effects from medications LB: Were you aware of things that were happening with -- we’re talking to some people about medications that people had to take and how that influenced their lives and that they (inaudible) were aware of it and stuff.
 ; 
 ; LK: I heard a lot about side effects, whether it was diarrhea, constantly being tired. Like I said, most of the people that actually did admit to having AIDS were -- they put on one of their best faces. They were strong people. They were the fighters. The ones that disappeared, that’s not to say that they weren’t strong, they just disappeared. 0 1850 Having conversations about safe sex and putting out condoms LB: It’s true. In terms of, you know, encouraging people, what kind of stuff did the bar do to encourage people to have safe sex? I mean, was there anything that -- I mean, I know that that happened because I was around. But I think there was a lot of (inaudible) information through (inaudible) people couldn’t get any [of the pamphlets?].
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 ; LK: There was definitely -- I know there was conversations about using condoms. Some bars would put out condoms and eventually that became a mainstay, actually, you know? Condoms were there, period. 0 1944 Feeling energized to fight and be involved LB: So, talk about, like, how -- I mean, I would guess that things would -- like, how that was nuanced, the nuances of how that changed your life, I mean, just sort of the awareness of it and stuff --
 ; 
 ; LK: What? The awareness of what?
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 ; LB: Just that this was happening and people you knew might have gotten it or things like that. I mean, how did that -- just sort of an open-ended question to let you talk about anything you want.
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 ; LK: Well, it pretty much galvanized me and many others, many others, to do something about it and to be useful in this fight because no one was doing it for us, like I said. And I just -- it energized me. It gave me the energy that -- and, like I said, we used that fear and anger to fuel that so that we actually could spend that second job doing this benefit experience to pull it through. 0 2222 FACT emergency contingency fund / Where funding was going to benefit patients LB: So, when people were concerned about healthcare and circumstances like that, because I know that that must have been -- I had friends that couldn’t get healthcare because they were HIV-positive. Like, a doctor wouldn’t see them. Was FACT doing any kind of thing like that where they [would?] (inaudible) [for people?] or hooking up doctors? I mean, some of the doctors were really involved.
 ; 
 ; LK: We were helping to pay for doctor’s visits but we didn’t know anything about getting hooked up with doctors and things like that. That may have come later on, as well. Like I said, the first two years were pretty much the set-up years as far as getting the events in place and adding to that one single event the first year, then we had three events the next year, and the next year was that many more. So, that’s where the focus was in the very beginning. 0 2410 Celebrities coming out with their positive HIV status / Celebrity support LB: Well, so, let me think now. Oh, so, I was going to say -- so, I asked about that kind of stuff. So, when you were hearing about HIV and AIDS [and how?] -- before, I mean, people didn’t know anything about it. Then, you started to hear about the gay cancer thing, because I certainly remembered that. Did you start to hear about, you know, famous people talking about it or, you know, the sort of breakthroughs, when Reagan finally said something about it, was that something that people were sharing and people talking about that? What do you think about that?
 ; 
 ; LK: Wow. I don’t recall any famous people back at that time, back in the early to mid eighties or even beyond that that were coming out. I don’t recall that there were any because that would have been a career destroyer for them, let alone being gay. I mean, you saw what happened when Magic Johnson made his admission. I think that was in the nineties. 0 2523 Parallels between HIV/AIDS and COVID-19 LB: How do you see this, when you think about this stuff, it’s really hard not to think about this in relation to what’s happening now with the pandemic. And some of the things are very, very similar and some of the things are totally different, you know? Completely different. Do you have any insights on that? Have you thought about that and how that has a relationship and stuff?
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 ; LK: I would agree there’s, like, a parallel there. And unfortunately, it seems that this administration doesn’t seem to be taking this pandemic quite seriously enough. And yet, it’s not as deadly as AIDS was. I mean, with AIDS, it was pretty much a death sentence at that time, before they came up with cocktail therapy. 0 2714 Stigma of being gay LB: Did you have other people in your family around you that were, you know, straight people, whether they were family or other people that you knew that just, like, that were becoming aware of AIDS and you were educating them or you would talk to them about it or something like that, like (inaudible)
 ; 
 ; LK: Well, actually, no. At that time, I -- because there was the other stigma of just being gay, itself. And some families just didn’t react well with that. And that’s not to say that my family disowned me or anything. But some were religious, so I knew where they stood. And so, there was not a close bond there at that time. I stayed away because I knew that they were not really all that accepting. And it’s funny because over time, you see various things that do change. 0 2851 Le-Hi-Ho Newsletters LB: Yeah, it’s interesting. So, when Le-Hi-Ho was producing this newspaper and had information in it, you were talking about reading that stuff, were they talking about HIV during that time in that newspaper or --
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 ; LK: There were articles on it, yes, and then there was also -- I mean, it was pretty much a lot of different things. They also would report on the Summer Games, you know, how much money was brought in, the events and all that. There were all the bar advertisements in there, of course. There was a gossip column, which was run by Rob St. Mary, another character (laughter) who also we lost -- yes, we lost him, as well, I think in the nineties. 0 3070 The Stonewall as a safe space LK: But, yeah, I know at the Stonewall, I remember there were some straight people coming in and we put up with nothing. (laughs) It’s, like, you will come in here and you will behave properly, you will not insult anybody, you will not bring up anything as far as, you know, AIDS and -- there were two guys, actually, they called us butt pirates, which was an odd phrase. And they were basically ejected from the club, you know? We didn’t put up with -- we brooked no disrespect whatsoever from anybody. That was our safe place. This is our last safe place. You’re not going to take that from us. 0 3469 Comparisons of COVID-19 to HIV/AIDS LB: So, in terms of seeing sort of parallels to the -- I mean, one of the things about COVID, the big difference about COVID-19 compared to HIV/AIDS is that, although lots of people had HIV and lots of people were getting it, particularly when people didn’t know how you got it, COVID is -- you know, you can just walk by somebody and get it, so it’s a totally different circumstance and situation. And I think that the other big glaring difference is what you were saying about, you know, the president not saying anything about it for seven years, whereas because this is affecting straight people, COVID’s --
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 ; LK: Yes. 0 3781 Going to funerals LK: No, it was different places, it was different towns. But, yeah, lot of funerals. In fact, there were two on the same day and I was, like, oh, my God, how am I going to make both? They were both at the same time, too, so it was, like, impossible to make both, which was really bad, you know? And I worked with both guys but their families had set things up and we tried to, like, tell them, “Look, we want to be there for both of them,” you know? So, how horrible it is to have to make a choice, you know? It’s, like, jeez all mighty! Not only did we lose them, now we can’t get together for the funeral. Or one of them. That was a mess. 0 3851 Who volunteered to help with FACT LB: Yeah. Did you see, through FACT, family members that were coming forward to help with FACT?
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 ; LK: No, not in the beginning. That, I think that was an eventuality. There was definitely -- I think there was more of that, but not in the beginning, no. That was more just people that we knew and people that volunteered from the bars, friends of people that worked in the bars, friends of people that were helping us. It was a whole community effort on that. But, no, it wasn’t -- I didn’t see a lot of family members reaching out. I think eventually they did. 0 3929 Stigma around those with AIDS/ Being there for friends with AIDS LK: And people didn’t want to touch them. So, I don’t know how people do that.
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 ; LB: Yeah. Had you actually found information that it was okay? I mean, was it pretty clear to everybody that it was okay to touch people and be around people and, you know, stuff--
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 ; LK: Yeah, I think so. But at, you know, with Joe, I didn’t care. I didn’t care. I loved him and I didn’t want him to feel like he was being shunned. And I know that some people were shunning him. And I didn’t want him to have any more of that than he had to, you know? 
 ; 0 4099 Going to see the AIDS Memorial Quilt in Washington, DC LB: Yeah. Life was rough.
 ; 
 ; LK: [Yeah, I?] -- (laughter) it was, truly, you know? And so, I can only imagine how all those -- the persons with AIDS felt at that time. I can only imagine how difficult a time that was for them to -- I mean, we were stressing out, to have no idea about resources and to have to actually talk to strangers to get information and reveal yourself. I mean, I -- Joe was pretty good-natured about it, though. He was a tough cookie. (laughs) Later on, when I was at Woody’s -- (laughs) I lost about five or six people there while I was there but they’d already lost, like, nineteen people. We’d gone to see the AIDS quilt in Washington for the last time, when it was on full display. 0 4354 Discussing current HIV/AIDS medication, PrEP LB: Yeah. Are you familiar with -- I was talking to somebody else about PrEP. Are you familiar with PrEP? You know?
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 ; LK: Crap?
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 ; LB: PrEP. PrEP (inaudible) (laughter) 
 ; 
 ; LK: Okay.
 ; 
 ; LB: (inaudible)
 ; 
 ; LK: I have a hearing aid, too. (laughter) 
 ; 
 ; LB: No, I was talking about -- I was talking to Dave Moyer about PrEP and [said?] (overlapping dialogue ; inaudible) ask him what he thought about how that was going to help people, the [pill?] -- 0 4480 Educational campaigns regarding medications LK: Something like that. So, you hear about that and then they’re -- they’ve developed other drugs for it, so there’s other PrEP drugs, so that’s great. But I still think there needs -- there’s no real education about that. If this government was truly serious about eradicating AIDs like President Trump has said he wants to do --
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 ; LB: Yeah.
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 ; LK: -- well, then you would have this massive educational campaign and stop being such prudes in high school because, to me, knowledge is power. That gives you the power to make the great decisions in your life -- and actually good decisions so that you can live. I’m appalled that we don’t have more of an effort in that direction as far as prevention. 0 4676 Violence against the gay community LB: Well, we’re coming to the -- almost to the end but we still have some -- several minutes and the concept of this archived thing is [support?] people to ultimately look back at this -- you know, twenty, thirty years from now, people can look at this and say, you know, some of [the things you’re?] saying, people will never imagine that that was the way things were. And so, I was wondering if you had any other things that you might want to be sure that are covered that you sort of think, like, people wouldn’t believe that this actually happened or that this is still happening. But then, things happened that -- you look back and you think I can’t believe that happened.
 ; 
 ; LK: The thing that immediately comes to mind is just the violence against gays and whether that was because they were afraid of AIDS or they were afraid of us or they -- which, a lot of that is fear but also, I think, closet cases will act out in anger because they feel something inside and then -- but society’s saying that’s not okay. 0 4859 FACT as an active organization at a time when there few LB: (inaudible) [off of this?]. And I love that we’re talking about the work that FACT did because what an organization to rise to the occasion. Because a lot of places didn’t [have that. I mean?], we can look around at other towns around the Lehigh Valley and they didn’t do that. There wasn’t any organization like that in Reading, there wasn’t organizations like that in Scranton. So, you know, and those are big cities, good size cities, too. So, it really happened, I think, in the Lehigh Valley. 0 5008 Recounting of pranks between Candida's and the Stonewall / Stealing of the bar mascots LB: What were some other things that were happening between the bars?
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 ; LK: Oh, my God. Well --
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 ; LB: The silly things?
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 ; LK: -- for example, one night, the Candida’s crew raided the Stonewall. The front doors burst open and I was behind the bar and Rob St. Mary was there. And he’s looking at me and all of a sudden, [yeah?], boom-boom-boom-boom-boom, all these water balloons. 0 5195 Stealing the "Candida" record from Candida's LB: I think I remember Dina saying something about people stealing the “Candida” record out of the jukebox.
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 ; LK: Yes! We tied up her bartender and we actually left her tied up, with the business open. I mean, we did things that I can’t believe -- to say that we did, you know? But we tied her up, we made her give us the key to the jukebox, we stole -- and I had gone to all the stores in the Lehigh Valley and bought out every copy of “Candida.” (laughter) Little did I know that Candida was an egomaniac and she had twenty copies upstairs. (laughter) 0 MovingImage Larry Kleppinger talks about the early days of the AIDS epidemic in the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania. He focuses on working at Allentown's Stonewall Bar ; the formation of Fighting AIDS Continuously Together (FACT) and his participation as the president of FACT ; the FACT Summer Games ; and people working together to create support and funding during years of government inaction. LARRY KLEPPINGER LIZ BRADBURY: So, there we go, and then I'm going to do that. Good. So, I need to say with this project, Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center and Trexler Library at Muhlenberg College, will collaborate on 40 years of public health experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT community, collecting and curating local LGBT health experiences from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19. My name is Liz Bradbury and I'm here with Larry Kleppinger to talk about his experiences in the Lehigh Valley community during this time of COVID epidemic as part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive. We're meeting on Zoom and today is June eighteenth, right? June eighteenth, twenty-twenty. LARRY KLEPPINGER: Yep. LB: So, I need to -- let's see. Thank you so much for being willing to share and speak with us today. I need to ask you to state your full name and to spell it for me. LK: My name is Larry Kleppinger. It's L-A-R-R-Y and it's K-L-E-P-P-I-N-G-E-R. LB: Okay. And will you please share your birth date? LK: Yes, June fifth, nineteen fifty-nine. LB: Okay. So, now, this is the consent part. So, I just have to ask you these questions. Do you consent to this interview today? LK: I do. LB: Okay. Do you consent to having this interview being transcribed, digitalized, and made publicly available online in searchable formats? LK: I do. LB: Do you consent to the LGBT archive using your interview for educational purposes in other formats including films, archives, articles, websites, presentations, and other formats? LK: I absolutely do. LB: (laughs) Great! Do you understand that you will thirty days after the electronic delivery of the transcript to review your interview and identify any parts you'd like to delete and/or withdraw from your interview from the project? LK: Yes. LB: Okay! So, we're all ready to go. The very first thing I always -- supposed to say, in the midst of this current public health crisis we're experiencing, we want to take this opportunity to look back and reflect, to capture the stories of those who lived through the worst of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the nineteen eighties and the nineteen nineties. This starts out with a question that says, "Do you remember the first time you became aware of the disease?" So, I'm going to tell you that and then you're going to just say -- go ahead and go. Say whatever you want. LK: Are you ready? (laughs) LB: Great (inaudible) yeah, yeah. LK: The first time that I heard of AIDS was back, I believe, in nineteen eighty-one and it was through The New York Times. They had published a small article about the gay cancer. LB: [I know?]. LK: And I saw that and I was, like, wow, what's that? I didn't know why they were calling it a gay cancer. I was, like, why is it gay? And coming to find out that basically gay people were affected by it at that time, I guess. So, people started to talk about it. I worked in the Stonewall nightclub in Allentown at the time. And people were concerned but it wasn't, like, it wasn't a big thing until it actually did become a big thing. LB: Yeah. LK: And once it did, then it just took off. I mean, there was a lot of fear, there was a lot of stigma. And I never really saw any of the ostracization that took place, which -- there was plenty of that later on, especially. But I noticed that people disappeared on us. They would just vanish. And people would be talking to one another and saying, "What happened to" so-and-so, you know? "Do you think they have the gay cancer?" And there was just rumor and speculation. So, that's basically what transpired at the very beginning of that, yeah. LB: When that happened and people were disappearing, did you figure out later what had happened? Were they just afraid or were they dying or sick or what do you think? LK: I think that because of the symptoms that came along with developing AIDS, they didn't want to show themselves in public, whether it was Kaposi sarcoma, the wasting syndrome, all of that. It didn't really show up in Allentown at the Stonewall until probably around nineteen eighty-five or so. There were some people -- actually were brave enough to admit that they had it and -- but even then, people were still, like, a little antsy because nobody really knew how this was, still, contracted at the time and they weren't sure. So, people were, like, mm, you know? In the gay community, it was definitely much more accepting, of course. But, yeah. LB: Yeah. You think that -- were you surrounded by -- I mean, like, did anybody you know have it or [some?] -- LK: Yes, yes. And after a while, it became quite a few that we knew because at a certain point, people were definitely much more willing to admit it. In the very beginning, it was a secret because people would disappear. They'd -- or either ostracized by their families we later found out or they couldn't work for jobs anymore, that type of thing. There were some good friends, I guess, of some of them that took care of them. But it was definitely a difficult time at that time. LB: Yeah. LK: I remember there's -- a lot of that fear turned into anger because, basically, there was nothing being stated by our government on any level, really, about AIDS at the time. I mean, we were on our own. And I know that we looked to ACT UP in New York, which was formed later on in the eighties. And they were quite instrumental in giving everybody a voice and setting the tone and making inroads in all kinds of ways. And so, all the cities in the country, I guess, picked up on that and there was this movement, basically. And so, that was inspiring. LB: Did you go to New York? Did you go to any of the ACT UP things? LK: No, I actually never went to the ACT UP things. I had seen things on the news about them but I never went to them. LB: Yeah. LK: I didn't really participate in the activism. What we did in Allentown at a certain point, there was a stupid, silly bar wars thing going on between Candida's and the Stonewall at the time and we were just doing silly things back and forth, just as we were trying to have some fun with life. And so, at a certain point, we decided that we would turn this into a sporting event to finish this off so we wouldn't have to keep doing this back and forth thing. (laughter) And we decided to do an AIDS benefit. And that was nineteen eighty-five that took place. We called it the Bar Olympics and it was crazy events that were -- and Laura and Georgeann, who owned Rainbow Mountain Resort in the Poconos, the gay resort, allowed us to be on their premises for that event and they put a buffet together. They didn't realize, though, the scope that we were thinking of as far as doing this. LB: Yeah. LK: And so, we promoted this only in-house, basically, in Stonewall and Candida's. We sold over four hundred tickets at ten dollars apiece and then we had raffle tickets and we had businesses donate things for a raffle, that kind of thing. We sold t-shirts. So, there was this whole, like, collaborative effort between the two bars to put this together. That first event raised over six thousand dollars, I believe. LB: Yeah. LK: And then, we had to decide what we wanted to do with that, you know? Who we going to give this to? And we had come to discover that the AIDS services center at the time was serving a client roster -- I believe in nineteen eighty-five, there were fifty-three cases that they were serving. LB: Wow. LK: Persons with AIDS at the time, in Allentown. And so, we decided to give them the money. And their annual budget at the time was ten-thousand dollars. So, the six-thousand dollars went quite a long way for them. So, that was really amazing. LB: That was a separate organization, right? It wasn't -- because, [the ultimate?] -- LK: It was separate. LB: (inaudible) [hospital?] but, yeah, right. LK: Yeah, it was definitely separate. It was run by Ed Verba at the time, and I think he was pretty grateful for that. And then, one of the community elders came to us, Larry Roth of Lawrence Roth's -- he had a hair salon. LB: Yeah. LK: And he also did theater productions and all -- he was involved in all kinds of things in life. What a spirit he was. He came to us and said, "You know, you guys did a really good thing here. You should create an organization to do fundraising." And I was, like, "We don't know anything about organizations for fundraising." And he said, "Don't worry, you'll learn." And he was right. So, he actually helped to spearhead that effort. We arranged to have meetings every week with a group of people and we pulled more people in. There were people like [Micki?] Katz from the 13th Street Pub, Candida from Candida's, [Markie Cummings?], Billy Leh from the Leh department store fortune, Larry Roth, Georgeann and Laura, Matthew [Stitzer?], Robin [Cook?]. I'm probably missing many other names at this point because it's been thirty-five years now. (laughter) And so, we actually formed this organization, which was an empowering event for us. I mean, it felt so good to be doing something for people. And one of the biggest, I think, achievements of that organization was not just the growth through the years but the fact that we decided that fifty percent of our money that we brought in was going to be given to an emergency contingency fund that the board would vote on every week for people requesting money for rent, for food, for utilities, because they had no jobs, they couldn't work, they couldn't get up to work. LB: Yeah. LK: So, we thought that that was a real important part of the work. LB: Did you have people coming in and sort of outlining what their situations were or did they just -- did somebody bring, like, someone on the board bring it to you or -- LK: Somebody on the board would bring it to us. I think a lot of things came through the AIDS Services Center if I remember correctly, so -- and that was funneled through us, right straight through to us and we were -- and we bought air conditioners, things like that, things that people needed because they just didn't have any money. LB: Yeah, yeah. LK: Yeah. LB: So, did you have specific instances where you were talking to people that, like, you had to help them take care of somebody or you knew somebody that was sick or anything like that? LK: At that same time, there was one individual who had admitted that he had AIDS and he was -- wonderful, another wonderful spirit. And I know that Candida was instrumental in taking care of him. She hired him at the bar because I guess he couldn't work his other job anymore. And that allowed him to be able to work when he could. And she actually, I believe, had some in-house bar benefits for him for money, as well. And I didn't really get to take care of him. I spent time with him, a lot of time with him. LB: Yeah. LK: And the hardest part was when we had to say goodbye because I got the call and -- saying, "You should come over and say goodbye." And I hadn't done this before. And I walked into his bedroom and I sat down and I'm thinking to myself: what am I going to say? What do I say to him? And he couldn't speak, he couldn't move, and he was definitely -- he had the wasting and he was so thin. LB: Yeah. LK: And I just looked him in the eye and I said, "I'm here." And I said, "Everybody's here to support you and it's okay to go. It's okay." And so, that's one of the closest things that I got to with it. But over the years, we've met many people and there were people that were grateful for what we were doing. And we were just throwing parties and that's what we did, you know? And then, with the guidance of some other people that -- like, Joseph Simonetta was another person who actually helped us formulate the 501(c)(3) so that could actually be a non-profit. And the other thing that I loved about the organization was that it was completely volunteer. There were no paid positions. LB: Sure. LK: So, every dollar that came in went right back out to people that needed it. LB: Yeah. When was that, when you were talking about people that were passing away? When was that in the epidemic? Was it near the beginning or -- LK: I remember the second annual Bar Olympics that we did, that person I just described to you that I said goodbye to was at those games and we actually did a balloon release that year to symbolize the people that have left us. LB: Yeah. LK: And we let the balloons go, and that was before we knew that balloons were bad for the environment. (laughs) LB: Yeah, I know, [right?]. LK: And so, I remember watching the balloons. I looked up and the sky was a bright blue and he looked up at the sky at the balloons, as well, and he looked at me and he said, "I might be a balloon next year." LB: Wow. LK: And I just -- LB: Yeah. LK: -- that was -- and then, a couple other friends were there and they heard it and so we're all a mess. And it's just -- LB: (inaudible) LK: -- okay, let's pull it together, we've got to pull this whole event off for today. So, let's just do this. And I think he died the next year. So, that would have been nineteen eighty-seven that he passed away. But there were plenty of others that just, like I said, have disappeared. LB: Yeah. LK: Oh. Excuse me. LB: When people -- you know, I was talking to a couple of other people because really, in those days, bars were so essential because there wasn't much else and -- because Le-Hi-Ho had become AIDS Services Center, so it was really not a social place anymore. And in the bars, I think, in some ways, because of ostracization of family, they were replacing people's families. LK: Oh, yeah, definitely. Most definitely. LB: (inaudible) seeing, like, people were coming in and stuff? LK: It was just an incredible experience to watch people rally and to join in that fight and to want to do things and to contribute money, to contribute prizes, and just time and energy, sit on committees, and all the work that it took. And believe me, I know, it was like having another full-time job. And I had actually worked with FACT for two years. They actually -- I was the president. And I had never done any of this before. I think second year, we raised over thirty-three thousand dollars and we had three events that year. There were two balls, two dinner balls that we did, which were pretty fantastic. And then, Billy Leh, I think, took it over the third year. And that year, I think he -- well, he had so many community connections, he brought in well over, I think, one-hundred thousand dollars that year. I was, like, oh, my God! This is amazing! Oh, my God! LB: Yeah. LK: So, it was definitely, like I said, empowering. It was a very positive thing amidst all the tragedy that we were going through at the same time. So, propelled us forward. LB: I know there was a lot of funerals and you were talking about that on the phone, I think. And people have told me about it. I haven't been able to talk to anybody directly about this, but about planting trees down in the park? Did you know about that, when people were planting trees? They planted the trees because they couldn't get -- people didn't want to have headstones because they didn't want the stigma or the relationship of people thinking that it was a negative thing. They didn't want to [deal with?] that, so -- [and there?] -- LK: And there were people who didn't want to have open caskets, either, because it was just they didn't want to -- they wanted to remember them as they were, not as they ended. LB: Yeah, yeah. LK: Yeah. LB: What kind of stuff was the -- let me think what I'm going to say. You were living in the Lehigh Valley the whole time. Are you from here? LK: I'm originally from Lehigh Valley, yes. I left the Lehigh Valley in nineteen ninety-two to come to Philadelphia. So, I was there, I actually was at the Stonewall from, like, nineteen seventy-eight through nineteen ninety-two. So, I saw a lot in that whole time period. LB: Yeah. So, do you think that there was a -- times that were frustrating because of education? Like, people just (inaudible) to take the extra steps to take care of themselves? Do you think people were afraid to be out, to be around other people or they changed their behaviors significantly? Did you see any of that? LK: I think that people were talking about changing their sexual behaviors because once it was discovered what the main mode of transmission was, people would basically refrain from that behavior. And then, when people were told to use condoms, then condoms were a part of our lives and there were just things that we didn't do. And, I mean, yeah, absolutely, people did talk about it. LB: Yeah, yeah. Did you have anybody tell you that they had instances where they [were just falling through the gaps?] because people found out that they were HIV positive [or anything or things about?] -- LK: [I couldn't?] -- LB: -- [they?] -- or anything -- LK: There were families that shunned them. You know, if anybody did -- I think that most people tried to keep this a secret because of the reactions that they would get. I mean, whether you were drinking out of a glass, you know? I mean, there was actually a little bit of fear in the very beginning, even in the bars, as far as drinking out of the same glasses, you know? Did you wash that good enough, you know? That kind of thing. So, there was all kinds of -- a greater fear that, because of a lack of knowledge, that people would just, you know, freak out about anything. So, it was definitely a tough time and -- until we found our footing. LB: Yeah. LK: Until we had more information. I was personally quite upset with the federal government, especially Ronald Reagan at that time, because he didn't mention anything for at least the first six or seven years of his term. I think it was nineteen eighty-seven when he finally actually mentioned the word AIDS. So, that, there was a lot of anger at the time for that. And so, we just used all that fear and all that anger and channeled that into: let's just take care of people. Let's do what we can do for people. Let's do what we do best: throw some parties and make some money for people. LB: Yeah, yeah. LK: Yeah. LB: Yeah. Did you know people that were -- I mean, I would guess that people were coming in and saying, "What can we do?" I mean, [I was?] doing that in nineteen ninety-two or ninety-one, saying, [you know?], "What can we do?" and that kind of stuff. LK: There were some key players in that. I mean, the board members, of course, really were invested as far as utilizing every contact that they had to pull in. And if they heard of anybody -- say, "What can I do?" they would immediately pull them in and say, "Hey, you can be on this committee, you can help us set up for this event, you could sell tickets for this." There are all different kinds of (inaudible) people and it was just they all felt good to do that. They all wanted to do their part. So, it was an amazing outpouring from the community. And I always wondered, you know, jeez, if we can do this for AIDS, what else could we do on this planet? (laughter) LB: (inaudible) Tell me who some of those people were and some, like, something that you remember about them. LK: You mean, the people that actually volunteered? LB: Yeah. LK: It would be hard to really pick out just individuals because there were so many. Their willingness, their spirit, their joy, their energy, it was just inspiring to see all these people coming together for a common cause. It just blew me away. And, you know, today, in twenty-twenty, to feel what we've been going through for the last three or four months now and three-and-a-half years, you know, the spirit kind of feels a bit weakened at this point. And I draw on that experience, I carry that with me all the time. And those people all contributed to that. And that will buoy you the rest of your life. It's amazing. But, yeah, I mean, they were just regular folks that would just help and do anything. They would pitch in and do anything. LB: So, when people started FACT, did you think that -- was there some specific thing that made people -- it was the bar games that made people do that, right? Did you used to work --LK: Yeah. LB: -- at Rainbow Mountain when they had the Rainbow Mountain stuff? What did you do there, what were you involved in? LK: No, I didn't work at Rainbow Mountain, I worked at the Stonewall. But -- LB: No, I mean -- LK: -- at Rainbow -- LB: -- for the Summer Games. LK: Oh, (laughs) well, it was actually quite a large set of -- we needed all those volunteers for that because the -- I remember Larry Roth had gotten a band shell for the opening and closing ceremonies and we had to set up the different areas for the games. We actually, the very first game, we had actually had a softball game. And the lesbians were so much better at softball, (laughter) let me tell you. All I remember of that softball game, because I actually participated in the games for the Stonewall, was running into the woods when they were hitting the balls to go get the balls because they were just socking 'em out of the park. I was, like, oh, jeez all mighty, come on! But there was a drag relay race, there was a tug of war, there was an uphill race, there was pool volleyball. There was an inner tube relay race, which actually was kind of bar-themed because basically the one person had to sit in the inner tube, another person propelled them across the pool, and they had to drink their beer before they got out of the tube for the next person to get in and do it. So, it was crazy, stupid, silly, funny events and -- but people were prepped for this only because of all -- like I said earlier, the stupid bar wars that we had going between the two bars earlier, the people, the customers actually got involved in that, you know? They were, like, "Oh, my God, what's going on? This is great!" You know? I mean, they were enjoying the show. So, we thought, okay, let's take this show on the road. (laughs) LB: Yeah, yeah. LK: And we did. So, those were some of the games that we did and it was [a lot of fun?]. And then, of course, you had -- we had, like I said, four hundred people show up for the first event, which Rainbow Mountain was unprepared for. They thought it was just going to be us and a couple friends. LB: Yeah! LK: But it was four hundred people. And they had a buffet and then they ran out of food, so people were a little upset because there wasn't any food. But thankfully, they had a restaurant, so [people ordered?] -- restaurant and they realized it was for a good cause, so everybody left okay, I guess. So, it was definitely a Herculean task, though, to set that up. LB: Yeah. LK: And then, the second year, we got rained out and that was unfortunate because we had pulled other bars in. I mean, we had 13th Street Pub, we had Candida's, Stonewall, we had Woody's from Philadelphia -- actually came out because I had a contact with them. But unfortunately, they couldn't participate and they couldn't make our rain date, so that was a shame. LB: Yeah. LK: And then, Rumors, there was Rumors and there were, like, oh, at least -- probably, like, eight bars at the time that participated in, like, the SummerGames. So, it was a lot of fun. It took forever to do it, though. (laughs) All the [events?]. LB: How was that, when you had the money? Did you just funnel that money directly into AIDS Services Center or what was it, A-- was that what it was? LK: No, once -- the first year we did. I think we apportioned some money to the AIDS Services Center after that but it depended on what other things came up as far as what the board would appropriate. So, I don't have all the records and I don't remember everything that we did. But like I said, we still had the fifty percent that went to the emergency contingency fund. That was a given and that was never changed. LB: Right. LK: And then, the other fifty percent went to various organizations. And then, later on, actually, there was a chapter that was developed in Bucks County, in New Hope. LB: Right, yeah, was familiar with that, yeah. LK: Yeah, so it was fascinating. And then, they actually went off on their own, which was probably a bit better for them. LB: Yeah. Were you involved with Le-Hi-Ho? LK: I was not, no. The only thing that I, the only involvement that I really had with them was reading their publication, the Lambda Valley Monthly -- LB: Yeah, [I just?] -- LK: -- which I told you about. Yeah, I have to give you this copies. LB: Great, that's good. LK: Yeah, and that was one of the only sources of news that we had at the time, too. LB: Yeah, yeah. LK: So, local people would do, like, articles and editorials and Bobby Sweeney from Candida's would do -- actually, he was one of the editors, I believe, yeah. LB: Who owned the Stonewall then? LK: Back then, it was David Bischoff. And, yeah, he was the sole owner at that time. And he was right behind us, which was -- he was actually a very supportive owner and I liked that about him because we actually had a victory party at the Stonewall when we won and we invited the other bars to come and we would buy cocktails for the other bar reps and things like that. So, he was definitely onboard with all of that, which was great. Good man. LB: You think that the bar itself was a great place where you could congregate and get people involved? LK: The bar was a hub. LB: [You must really?] (inaudible) LK: That was the hub of -- LB: -- everything else, you know -- LK: Yeah. LB: -- [with the?] bar LK: It was definitely our island of freedom, first of all, and it was a hub of activity. It was our community activity place, yes. And everything pretty much happened from there, you know? Yeah, that was amazing. LB: Yeah, when you were working with FACT, did you have any outreach to, like, government officials or anything for information or to share information with them? LK: That didn't happen in the beginning. That may have happened under the leadership of Billy Leh. But not in the beginning, no. We were just basically trying to get everything together, get -- because we were creating events as we were going along. So, I mean, the only event that we started out with was the Bar Olympics and which turned into the Summer Games because I guess we weren't allowed to use their Olympics thing, term, whatever, [I was?] -- LB: Right, that's right, yeah. LK: So, it was summer games at the third one. And so, I forgot where I was. (laughs) You have to excuse me. I just turned sixty-one. Memory's going. LB: [We are old?]. LK: (laughs) Yeah, I don't believe there was that much government outreach in the very beginning, no. It was just a matter of putting events together. And then, there were people who actually volunteered their homes and they would do picnics and bingo and there -- so, people from all over, just, you know, adding to the mix and just creating a larger pot of money for everybody, which is great. LB: Yeah. LK: Yeah. LB: Who was the person who was running AIDS Services Center then? Who was the first -- was that Dixie White that was the first person that was the leadership at -- was she the first AIDS Services person? LK: I don't recall her. I do know Ed Verba was there at the time that we had -- [was from?] -- LB: [Ed Verba?]? Oh, okay, yeah. LK: Yeah. Is he still around? LB: Yeah, he is, yeah. He's on Facebook, so I see him now and then, sure. LK: Okay. I didn't know he was still around. I don't know if he moved away. LB: No, he's still around. because most of those people you mentioned, I know them. A couple of them I didn't know but then most of them are still in this area. It's good, because a lot of people aren't still around, so that's one of the things. I mean, people died, was one of the things that was -- happened, too. LK: Yeah (inaudible) LB: Were you aware of things that were happening with -- we're talking to some people about medications that people had to take and how that influenced their lives and that they (inaudible) were aware of it and stuff. LK: I heard a lot about side effects, whether it was diarrhea, constantly being tired. Like I said, most of the people that actually did admit to having AIDS were -- they put on one of their best faces. They were strong people. They were the fighters. The ones that disappeared, that's not to say that they weren't strong, they just disappeared. We didn't know what happened. So, yeah, the efficacy of the drug was not really that great because I think that Joe [Keppel?] found out that he had AIDS in, I think in eighty-five, probably eighty-four, eighty-five, and he died three years later. So, it wasn't like there was a long lifespan after that diagnosis. LB: Who was Joe Keppel? He was part of the -- LK: He was the person I told you about earlier that Candida'd hired and she actually did the bar benefits for. A lovely man. I actually have a picture of him still in my bedroom. A character and a half. Witty, funny, sarcastic. (laughs) But a lovely man. LB: Yeah, yeah. LK: Yeah, we carry them with us all around, all the time now at this point, yeah. LB: It's true. In terms of, you know, encouraging people, what kind of stuff did the bar do to encourage people to have safe sex? I mean, was there anything that -- I mean, I know that that happened because I was around. But I think there was a lot of (inaudible) information through (inaudible) people couldn't get any [of the pamphlets?]. LK: There was definitely -- I know there was conversations about using condoms. Some bars would put out condoms and eventually that became a mainstay, actually, you know? Condoms were there, period. Use these, you know? And then, the large cities would put together kits, you know, with lubricant, the condom, instructions, you know, things like that. But there were educational materials. But people were definitely alerted to it. LB: Yeah. LK: Yeah, and so that was your information center, as well, the bar, yeah. It was your activity center, your fundraising center, your island of freedom to have fun. It was an interesting time. LB: Were you working there every day? LK: I was. LB: That was a regular thing, [your work there at the bar?]? LK: Yeah, pretty much. We were open six days a week at the time. We were closed on Sundays. So, yeah, I was there pretty much -- at least five days a week, yeah. LB: So, talk about, like, how -- I mean, I would guess that things would -- like, how that was nuanced, the nuances of how that changed your life, I mean, just sort of the awareness of it and stuff -- LK: What? The awareness of what? LB: Just that this was happening and people you knew might have gotten it or things like that. I mean, how did that -- just sort of an open-ended question to let you talk about anything you want. LK: Well, it pretty much galvanized me and many others, many others, to do something about it and to be useful in this fight because no one was doing it for us, like I said. And I just -- it energized me. It gave me the energy that -- and, like I said, we used that fear and anger to fuel that so that we actually could spend that second job doing this benefit experience to pull it through. Because I sat on every committee, you know, because I wanted to know what was going on and what people were doing and I wanted to encourage people and I wanted to make sure that things were going in the right direction and that if anybody had any questions, I could find out answers for them if I didn't have the answers. So, it was definitely, you know, one of those types of things. But the remarkable thing is is all the core people that were involved at the time were of that same mindset. And that energy was just incredible. I mean, to know that you could -- you don't really have to say anything to anybody. You can count on them to do their part and to do everything that they need to do, whether it's pulling people in and beefing up other committees. And so, there was communication going on but you didn't have to do much of it because these people just were of a mindset, like, we're going to get this done. We've got this. And then, as you enjoyed the events that took place and you saw the funds coming in at each event, it was, like, that much more of a reward. So, it's, like, yeah, let's do more! Come on, we can do this. We've got this now. So, it was definitely exciting. I also had an eye on the cities, as well. Like, Philly was doing their own thing. I know that Woody's was doing a [Roll-AIDS?] benefit -- was a roller skating party, which was a lot of fun. And I'd never gone to it but I had talked to them about it because he would come up to Allentown every year to visit us and -- because he had a college reunion at the time, once a year. So, we would talk to him about that and I saw the advertisements for that. And he would tell stories about what was going on down in Philly. And so, we would share stories. It was interesting to hear what was going on in the big city, as well, yeah. LB: Did you -- LK: [So, we got, like?] -- LB: (inaudible) LK: Go ahead, I'm sorry. LB: Go on. LK: I was just going to say we -- there were a lot of great mentors for me at the time. That was inspiring, as well. People that, you know, knew that I needed help in this area or whatev-- it was just such a concerted effort. It was -- I can't say anything other than inspiring. LB: Yeah. LK: Even to this day. I treasure that time. LB: Yeah. So, it was interesting when -- because I hadn't heard this before but I'm not surprised that when Billy Leh was involved that there was a different fundraising, you know, capability. And I [have?] that that also came out of Ardath Rodale being involved with David Rodale and [inaudible] Rodale. So, was he around then? Was he -- LK: Yes. LB: (inaudible) LK: Yeah, I believe so. LB: Yeah. LK: I believe so. But he was quite instrumental, though, in pulling in all these community members, you know? Yeah, the straight community. And it was, like, yes, we've got some more help. Yay! And he just took it to another level. So, that was truly amazing to me and it was amazing to watch him in action, yeah. LB: He's still around isn't he? Billy? LK: He's actually in Florida now. LB: Oh, okay. LK: I saw him last year. I actually stopped down to visit him and he's doing well. He's retired ; he's amazing. (laughs) LB: So, when people were concerned about healthcare and circumstances like that, because I know that that must have been -- I had friends that couldn't get healthcare because they were HIV-positive. Like, a doctor wouldn't see them. Was FACT doing any kind of thing like that where they [would?] (inaudible) [for people?] or hooking up doctors? I mean, some of the doctors were really involved. LK: We were helping to pay for doctor's visits but we didn't know anything about getting hooked up with doctors and things like that. That may have come later on, as well. Like I said, the first two years were pretty much the set-up years as far as getting the events in place and adding to that one single event the first year, then we had three events the next year, and the next year was that many more. So, that's where the focus was in the very beginning. And then, there may have been more outreach as far as trying to hook people up with various resources within the community. But I do know that we definitely helped pay medical bills. That was another thing -- from the emergency contingency fund, that people couldn't afford their prescriptions, you know, all different kinds of things. So, that's where a lot of that went, yeah. LB: So, who was it that helped you set up the 501(c)(3), the not-for-profit thing? Did you say somebody helped? LK: His name is Joseph Simonetta. He was actually living in New Hope at the time back in that day. And they called him the senator of New Hope because he was quite the impresario. He also was a lobbyist in Washington. Very, very smart man. And he saw the potential in what we were doing, so he wanted to help, as well. So, it was just -- all these gifts came [forward?] and I was, like, oh, my God, this is kind of overwhelming, you know? And so, he was definitely a boost. I remember him also describing to me about ACT UP. Because I remember at the time, there were some members of the gay community -- were kind of turned off by ACT UP because they thought they were too aggressive. And, of course, the general public at large thought they were way too aggressive. LB: Yeah. LK: But he described it to me like this: he said, "You know what?" He said, "ACT UP is performing a vital mission. What they're doing is they are creating all this mayhem and noise and then people like me get to walk in the door with the politicians and say, 'We're not like that. But this is what we're looking to do.' And you bring in the reasonable voices. So, that way, you scare the bejesus out of them and you get them to do what you want, what should be done." LB: Yeah. LK: So, I loved that description. It was, like, God, he's good. (laughs) LB: Yeah. LK: Yeah. LB: And he was out of New Hope? He was living -- LK: Yeah. LB: (inaudible) yeah. LK: Yeah, he still actually has a house in New Hope. He lives in Philadelphia, as well. And I think he has a house in Florida. He's done well with his lobbying. He's done very well. I've had many, many conversations over the years, I still see him here in Philly every once in a while. Yeah, great man. LB: Well, so, let me think now. Oh, so, I was going to say -- so, I asked about that kind of stuff. So, when you were hearing about HIV and AIDS [and how?] -- before, I mean, people didn't know anything about it. Then, you started to hear about the gay cancer thing, because I certainly remembered that. Did you start to hear about, you know, famous people talking about it or, you know, the sort of breakthroughs, when Reagan finally said something about it, was that something that people were sharing and people talking about that? What do you think about that? LK: Wow. I don't recall any famous people back at that time, back in the early to mid eighties or even beyond that that were coming out. I don't recall that there were any because that would have been a career destroyer for them, let alone being gay. I mean, you saw what happened when Magic Johnson made his admission. I think that was in the nineties. LB: Yeah. LK: And that sent some shock waves through the nation, unfortunately. I don't know why. But, no, I don't know of any celebrities back then that were -- I think there was -- jeez, I don't actually even remember the celebrity support, except Elizabeth Taylor. LB: Yeah. LK: Yeah, she was one of the big advocates. But even she was later, I think. LB: Yeah, she was (inaudible) LK: It was later eighties? LB: -- it related to Rock Hudson and that was later (inaudible) so, certainly that was true. What, let's see, what kind of -- so, how do you see this, when you think about this stuff, it's really hard not to think about this in relation to what's happening now with the pandemic. And some of the things are very, very similar and some of the things are totally different, you know? Completely different. Do you have any insights on that? Have you thought about that and how that has a relationship and stuff? LK: I would agree there's, like, a parallel there. And unfortunately, it seems that this administration doesn't seem to be taking this pandemic quite seriously enough. And yet, it's not as deadly as AIDS was. I mean, with AIDS, it was pretty much a death sentence at that time, before they came up with cocktail therapy. LB: Yeah. LK: So, but I mean there's still -- I'd say it's a pretty high death rate with this, as well, and it's unfortunate that we don't have that leadership today, once again, which is -- strikes me as odd that that parallel's there because we could probably be saving that many more lives if he was setting an example for people and wearing a mask and telling people to wear a mask as opposed to this macho bravado that he puts off. I don't quite understand that at all, you know? I think you're much more macho when you have information that you give to people and that you actually care about your people. And that was the same thing with Reagan, really. I mean, he -- there was nothing said, nothing done, really, on his behalf. So, there's definitely that parallel as far as the leadership goes. As far as the diseases, not exactly, no. But I'm also struck by the indifference by, seemingly, a large amount of people, by not wearing a mask and being considerate of others, and a lack of kindness, a lack of consideration for others, especially for elderly, who are much more at risk. LB: Yeah. LK: And since we know that, though, I'm surprised once again -- I shouldn't be, I guess -- that this administration also can't say, "Okay, here's our national plan," which -- we need one, actually. We do need that kind of leadership. LB: Right. LK: "We're going to take care of the seniors. All the nursing homes and all the nursing care facilities, all the elderly, all the people with preexisting conditions, and all the people that are generally affected by COVID-19, we are going to take special care for them, okay? Young people, you definitely still need to wear masks. You're going to get it and some of you will die, as well." And, I mean, that message is not even out there because, I mean, how do you rate a person's life versus the economy? And they're saying you have to open the economy. I don't know. LB: Yeah. LK: You know? And I think that back in the eighties, you know, there was also some argument, oh, you know, do we have enough money for AIDS? You know, there's always a budgetary concern. And I was, like, how do you sleep at night making that statement? How do you sleep at night, not wanting to take care of people. I don't understand that. That's foreign to me. LB: Did you have other people in your family around you that were, you know, straight people, whether they were family or other people that you knew that just, like, that were becoming aware of AIDS and you were educating them or you would talk to them about it or something like that, like (inaudible) LK: Well, actually, no. At that time, I -- because there was the other stigma of just being gay, itself. And some families just didn't react well with that. And that's not to say that my family disowned me or anything. But some were religious, so I knew where they stood. And so, there was not a close bond there at that time. I stayed away because I knew that they were not really all that accepting. And it's funny because over time, you see various things that do change. I know that my one sister who is very religious, it turned out that her son is gay. And so, that, she did a one-eighty on that. I was, like, wow! And I figured that she would and I thought her husband would have more of a hard time with it. But he actually -- they're both advocates now for gay people and for their son and I'm so proud of them. In fact, I actually worry about them because they're in an area that is very conservative and they're very outspoken. And I said, "You have to be careful." I said, "There are people who will hurt you for what you say." And I said, "I know this for a fact. I've seen it for decades. So, please, listen to me." I am concerned about her. But I applaud her vim and energy and want to support that son every which way. So, there are positives that come out of it. But that's one of the things that I was fighting back then. So, no, there was no real exchange with my family because there was also some ignorance. Yeah, in fact, a fair amount of ignorance. And some of those people just can't be reached. You can try. (laughs) Facebook's also a teller of that. (laughs) LB: Yeah. LK: That'll tell you a lot about your family. (laughter) So, yeah, so, I -- no, I -- it wasn't really that I shared a whole of information with them. That was more for our community. LB: Yeah, it's interesting. So, when Le-Hi-Ho was producing this newspaper and had information in it, you were talking about reading that stuff, were they talking about HIV during that time in that newspaper or -- LK: There were articles on it, yes, and then there was also -- I mean, it was pretty much a lot of different things. They also would report on the Summer Games, you know, how much money was brought in, the events and all that. There were all the bar advertisements in there, of course. There was a gossip column, which was run by Rob St. Mary, another character (laughter) who also we lost -- yes, we lost him, as well, I think in the nineties. LB: Yeah. LK: He was more of a long-term survivor. But, yeah, he wrote the gossip column and it was funny as hell. He went under the surname, the pseudonym of Myrna Louise. (laughter) So, yeah, so there were a lot of different things in there. But there were some AIDS articles but it wasn't like, you know, any kind of medical go-to. You know, like, this is what you got to do. There were just, yeah, things that were happening, basically, whether it was governmentally or not governmentally and statewide and things like that. LB: Did people have a sense of where they could get any kind of medical help? I mean, could they go -- hospitals were letting people in? because you're really -- I've been talking to different people and they were sort of at different times of the epidemic. So, like, I was talking to Dave Moyer and he was later in this thing and then he was involved in some of the testing and some of the stuff. But I was also talking to a couple people and you're really talking about right at the beginning, when they didn't know anything and things, like, they wouldn't -- like you were saying, that, you know, is this glass clean enough or could you go into the hospital room? My Trisha's -- is a very good friend whose brother was -- so, at the very beginning, [yeah, then?], and he was in New York and they wouldn't bring the food into his room. They'd leave the tray out on the sidewalk, you know, out in the hallway. LK: Yeah. LB: And did you see any of that kind of stuff here where -- LK: I, no, I never had the chance to visit anybody in the hospital. Like I said, a lot of those people just disappeared. So, there was no information really given, I mean, to know what the resources were. And I would imagine they went to a doctor and they were perhaps referred to somebody who was much more up on AIDS in the very beginning. And I don't know that there were that many. So, yeah, that was probably a bare bones kind of time for gay people that had AIDS because -- I can't imagine that. I mean, just the fear that you had this, alone, knowing that it's a death sentence, and then having to just climb through everything, every obstacle, every obstacle to get the things that you need, you know, whether it's basic medical care, money, housing, support, I can't imagine. But no, I didn't get to see any of that. I heard stories, once again, because, I mean, people would come -- the Stonewall was more of a regional bar, so people come in from Reading, they would come in from Scranton, Wilkes-Barre area, from Philadelphia. So, it was really like a whole melting pot of just southeast Pennsylvania. And so, when you'd talk to different people, you would hear some of these stories. But I never got to see it firsthand, unfortunately. But I heard about it. LB: Yeah. LK: But, yeah, I know at the Stonewall, I remember there were some straight people coming in and we put up with nothing. (laughs) It's, like, you will come in here and you will behave properly, you will not insult anybody, you will not bring up anything as far as, you know, AIDS and -- there were two guys, actually, they called us butt pirates, which was an odd phrase. And they were basically ejected from the club, you know? We didn't put up with -- we brooked no disrespect whatsoever from anybody. That was our safe place. This is our last safe place. You're not going to take that from us. LB: Right, right. I remember that sign in the lobby that said, you know, "This is a gay establishment. If you don't like it, don't come in." I liked it. I remember Steve Black saying he didn't like that that sign was there and I thought it was great. (laughs) [Made me feel comfortable?]. LK: Yeah, it was crazy back then. I mean, there was actually -- somebody shot something through our door. It was a wooden door in the very beginning, when I first started there. And that actually pierced the door -- I don't know if it was, like, a pellet gun, but it actually came through the door and it hit various customers. Some got hit in the neck. And it came back, actually, pretty far in the club. And that's why we actually put, like, a metal coating over the doors at that point because, like, this is ridiculous. So, yeah, there was all kinds of crazy things happening back then. LB: Yeah. LK: We had to hire off-duty police officers to protect us. That was a whole 'nother added expense to -- so people would feel safe, because people were getting beat up in the back parking lot. Yeah, that was the other thing: the religion, the religious right was -- that was another thing that fueled our anger. I mean, telling us way back then that this was God's cure against homosexuals, you know? I was, like, whoa, whoa, the vitriol, the hate, the lack of empathy, that didn't seem very religious to me. So, that, basically, that -- disintegrate any respect I had for religion at that point. I'm spiritual but I'm not religious. LB: Did you have -- were there instances where people directly -- brought that kind of information to the bar? You know (inaudible) made letters to the editor -- LK: Yeah. LB: (inaudible) LK: No, we had a pretty secure team at the front door. If there was anything, I was never even aware of it, you know? And I actually worked at the back bar at the Stonewall and then later on, I was deejaying. So, I was more towards the back. So, anything that went on, I found about at the end of the night. And most things were not even worth commenting about because they had everything under control at that front door. That was like Fort Knox. And that was Markie Cummings and Barry Eastwood. They were amazing together. (laughs) Nothing got by them. Nothing, yeah. LB: They were the bouncers? LK: Markie actually was the person -- took the money at the door and Barry was the bouncer. But they were extremely protective, observant, and they could spot trouble in a heartbeat. I know that one person actually came in and for some reason, she wasn't letting them in. I forget what it was. And the person said, "You're prejudiced, that's why you're not letting me in." And she said, "I'm prejudiced against assholes." So, that's where that stood. He didn't get in. (laughs) But I've just -- my heart breaks still to this day for all those people that, A, disappeared and never really had a chance to live their lives or to enjoy the life or to enjoy those islands of freedom. And I fantasize sometimes what it'd be like today to have more -- those people around, if they were still around. Because my age group was pretty much decimated, you know, which made dating really hard. (laughs) But I do fantasize about that every once in a while, thinking about that. I think there was -- actually, in one of the movies, where somebody had that fantasy scene towards the end of the movie where everybody was alive again. And that was powerful. LB: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, in fact, doing any kind of -- because of that, I mean, you know, sometimes, when I think through our Pride festivals or stuff like that -- I mean, MCC has always been there -- it's been around almost as long as FACT, Metropolitan Community Church, you know? There was a link, I think, through the Pride festival there where people had some kind of spiritual support and (inaudible) were you seeing any kind of outreach? I mean, I remember way back in, well, it was, like, nineteen ninety-three when we were trying to [insert?] laws and stuff. And there were a couple of ministers that were working with us, directly working with us. And that was really good because it was hard to -- I feel the same way as you do. It's hard to be enthusiastic about religion and people using it to [say negative things you?] -- not really getting anything on the other side, so -- but I think there's a big variety of people that used to go to the Stonewall. I think one of the things that would frustrate me in (inaudible) years of when I went to bars when I was younger -- that there were people that were so closeted -- that they could've really helped but they were really just there to hang out and then leave, who weren't there for the community. And -- LK: Yeah, and that's another reason why a lot of people disappeared, though, too, because they were closeted. They did not want that to be known. They didn't want anybody to know. And that's quite the statement, you know, when you have to hide your life. LB: Yeah. LK: And actually, for me, it's always been a matter of: it's none of your business what I do in my bedroom and you shouldn't be concerned about it. And why are you so concerned about it, you know? So, it is what it is. Or it was what it was and it still is what it is to some degree today. LB: Well (inaudible) LK: It's definitely better. LB: Yeah. LK: We have a lot of work to do, still. LB: True. It's true. LK: Lot of work to do still. LB: So, in terms of seeing sort of parallels to the -- I mean, one of the things about COVID, the big difference about COVID-19 compared to HIV/AIDS is that, although lots of people had HIV and lots of people were getting it, particularly when people didn't know how you got it, COVID is -- you know, you can just walk by somebody and get it, so it's a totally different circumstance and situation. And I think that the other big glaring difference is what you were saying about, you know, the president not saying anything about it for seven years, whereas because this is affecting straight people, COVID's -- LK: Yes. LB: -- straight people, they're [allied?] all over the place. And even if the president isn't saying stuff about it, everybody else is. They're talking about it every -- constantly. The similar-- LK: I believe that that's -- [you?] -- that was one of the beliefs of the government at that time. It was, like, oh, it's just affecting the gays, you know? So, you know, let's just make them go away. I really believe that because I -- to me, it's just inexcusable that for seven years and with the mounting toll of deaths that you do nothing, you say nothing. You could have used that bully pulpit to educate people. You could have used that to save lives. To me, that's just inexcusable. I still haven't forgiven Ronald Reagan for that. And I know you're not supposed to speak ill of the dead but I intensely dislike that man, bordering on hate. And I don't like to hate. LB: Yeah. Makes you angry that you have to feel [like that?]. LK: That wells right back up. It doesn't go away. LB: Yeah. LK: And I've come to terms with it but it's still there and it's still kind of fresh. And so, it's amazing. And I can draw on that to motivate myself to do things once in a while, you know? But, yeah, that was -- and once again, though, it's -- that parallel makes me a little crazy and it definitely reminds me and brings that feeling back where we have a leader who's not really doing what he should be doing, although there has been some response. But also, the fear. LB: Right. LK: People, there was definitely a fear out there. There still is, to a large degree. I mean, you have some people going around, you know, "Give my liberty back," all that kind of crap, whatever. The reality is that there is still a lot of fear out there in the population. So, they're pretty much where we were back in the eighties. So, that's another kind of parallel. Kind of. LB: Yeah, yeah. The interesting thing was that when we were dealing with HIV/AIDS, we were in the middle of the epidemic, people our age, because we're about the same age, is -- a little older than -- but the big similarity or interesting thing is we are the same group of people. We Baby Boomers who are moving into senior citizen land and who are at higher risk for COVID are the ones that were fighting the HIV/AIDS (inaudible) LK: Interesting. LB: -- we were kids. LK: Yeah. LB: We were twenty-three -- LK: Yeah, that's right. LB: -- and it's a big difference about life then. LK: Yeah, yeah. It's weird to kind of be under attack again, though. It's, like, wow, okay, here we go. That's kind of weird. Not quite the same, though, but still -- LB: Yeah, it feels different, yeah. One of the things that we had during the AIDS epidemic, we found, is these chosen families that came to help people who were HIV-positive, that came to help people who were alone, who came to help people that had been ostracized. The bad thing is that people presume that these chosen families are something that will continue to take care of us into our eighties. The reality is, we were the age of the people that we were taking care of, yeah. When lesbians were taking care of their gay male friends, when I was doing that, I was twenty-five and they were twenty-five. LK: Yeah. LB: Now I'm sixty-three and they're sixty-three. LK: Sixty-one here, yeah. Yeah, I get you. LB: And when we get to be eighty, we can't go, well, our chosen family -- we're all going to be eighty! And it's a -- LK: Yeah. LB: -- that, in a way, we did such a great job coming together, helping each other during the AIDS epidemic and -- LK: Yeah. LB: -- the presumption is we can all do it in our eighties and we can't. LK: No. LB: It's not the same. LK: No, it's not, you know? And, you know, as we get older and we lose the people that are still with us, thankfully, but we lose them now and so you do lose your chosen family. So, you are much more alone now. It's, like, oh, okay. Now what do I do next? I just remember going to too many funerals, though. LB: Yeah. LK: Yeah. LB: What was that -- LK: Hmm? LB: Was it usually the same place? LK: No, it was different places, it was different towns. But, yeah, lot of funerals. In fact, there were two on the same day and I was, like, oh, my God, how am I going to make both? They were both at the same time, too, so it was, like, impossible to make both, which was really bad, you know? And I worked with both guys but their families had set things up and we tried to, like, tell them, "Look, we want to be there for both of them," you know? So, how horrible it is to have to make a choice, you know? It's, like, jeez all mighty! Not only did we lose them, now we can't get together for the funeral. Or one of them. That was a mess. LB: Yeah, yeah. LK: Interesting, though, because, like, some families just -- it was very small representation of family and it was much more chosen family, though the chosen families were the ones that were there to actually support them and to be there to memorialize them. LB: Yeah. Did you see, through FACT, family members that were coming forward to help with FACT? LK: No, not in the beginning. That, I think that was an eventuality. There was definitely -- I think there was more of that, but not in the beginning, no. That was more just people that we knew and people that volunteered from the bars, friends of people that worked in the bars, friends of people that were helping us. It was a whole community effort on that. But, no, it wasn't -- I didn't see a lot of family members reaching out. I think eventually they did. But, like I said, that was all way back in the beginning when everything was still so stigmatized, so heavily stigmatized that people were definitely ostracized from their families or the families couldn't be bothered with them. It was, like, "I don't want to catch that," you know? I don't know how you do that. I don't know how you sleep at night. Because I -- you know, Joe [Keppel?] was one of the first people that I actually got to make sure that he got his hugs and kisses and that he felt that love because a lot of them felt like they couldn't be touched anymore. LB: Yeah. LK: And people didn't want to touch them. So, I don't know how people do that. LB: Yeah. Had you actually found information that it was okay? I mean, was it pretty clear to everybody that it was okay to touch people and be around people and, you know, stuff-- LK: Yeah, I think so. But at, you know, with Joe, I didn't care. I didn't care. I loved him and I didn't want him to feel like he was being shunned. And I know that some people were shunning him. And I didn't want him to have any more of that than he had to, you know? And so, I know that Candida was there for him. I know that [Cathy Kaiser?] was there for him. She used to work at Candida's, she -- another character, whoa. And she actually took him into her home and he stayed there with her. And, yeah, and I remember I stayed overnight there a couple times and, yeah, those people needed love just like everybody else, especially then, at that time. Oh, my God. They had enough to deal with. LB: Yeah, yeah. Did you have, like, a routine to see people like that if you, you know, [call 'em up?] and -- LK: I'm sorry? LB: Did you have a routine where you [had?] people that you were calling and checking on and stuff like that? Or was that something that people just shared with each other [and?] -- to go and see these people? LK: Oh, yeah. I mean, definitely. I mean, there had to be a comfort level, I think, for the persons that had AIDS for that. But, I mean, Joe was definitely in that whole thing. (laughs) And Katie would call me and say, "Hey, you know, let's do something with Joe," whatever, and I'm, "Sure, okay. I'm not doing anything. Let's go." So, it was just one of those types of things where it was just a family kind of thing, yeah. And that chosen family, wow, that got me through life. All of those people. I mean, whether it was just an acquaintance with a great conversation or the core group of friends that I still carry with me today, amazing, amazing people. But they're my -- they were my chosen family because, like I said, I left my family because I knew that most of them would not understand what I was about. And I was not about to subject myself to that, no. LB: Yeah. Life was rough. LK: [Yeah, I?] -- (laughter) it was, truly, you know? And so, I can only imagine how all those -- the persons with AIDS felt at that time. I can only imagine how difficult a time that was for them to -- I mean, we were stressing out, to have no idea about resources and to have to actually talk to strangers to get information and reveal yourself. I mean, I -- Joe was pretty good-natured about it, though. He was a tough cookie. (laughs) Later on, when I was at Woody's -- (laughs) I lost about five or six people there while I was there but they'd already lost, like, nineteen people. We'd gone to see the AIDS quilt in Washington for the last time, when it was on full display. LB: Yeah. LK: And that was overwhelming. And we got to see the -- Woody's quilt with all the names of all the Woody's employees that had passed. And I went by a number of the quilts and there was one panel that struck me. And there was, like, a butterfly on it and there was a sun and the words were sewn on it, "Not a day goes by." And that just hit me, the feeling, because it was so true that not a day went by that you wouldn't think about these people, that you didn't -- they made you smile, they made you cry, made you mad. But not a day that went by that you wouldn't think about them. So, that panel, particularly, struck me hard. And I treasure that memory, too. LB: Yeah. LK: Yeah. LB: Was that in the March on Washington or just when they had the AIDS quilt there? Do you remember when that was? LK: It was just when they had the AIDS quilt and I -- it was the last time they were having the whole thing in its entirety on display. LB: Yeah. LK: So, we had organized a bus trip from Woody's to go down and see it. That was the early nineties. And, yeah, that was powerful. LB: Yeah. LK: That was powerful because you imagined that each one of those panels was a person. And so, that just filled the entire -- I think it was on the Mall. LB: Yeah. LK: And it was incredible. It was an incredible sight. Overwhelming. LB: Yeah. Well, I know that FACT brought the quilt to Lehigh Valley several times as [a program?]. It was part of the Summer Games and other events, too. But, yeah, seeing the whole thing, I think that was nineteen ninety-three when that -- when it was there, when I was there for that. LK: Yeah, that's after I had left. LB: Yeah. LK: Right after. LB: Yeah. LK: I was just so glad to see that organization continue on, though, and to this day, you know? LB: Yeah. LK: And kudos to the people that are still there today: Carl Mancino, Brian Marx, just that whole cast. I mean, they've been fighting the good fight for a long time. And I told them, when -- I was living in Allentown once again from two thousand, two thousand thirteen and actually asked me to be part of the board members again. And I said, "No, I don't really have the time to do that," I said, "but what you do need to do is get some younger blood in -- (laughter) we need to recruit some new people because you guys need a break, first of all. And secondly, we got to get the next generation going here and show them what to do." So, I don't know if they took [the pep talk?] but -- so, that what was where they needed to be -- LB: It's hard. I think it's hard. They've had some younger people but I think it's hard to do. LK: Well, it's because everything's changed, too, you know? I mean, you have the medications now, you know? It's one pill a day. And so, I guess that makes a whole difference in life for people. But there are still people who need help. I don't know exactly what those numbers are but -- yeah. LB: Yeah. Are you familiar with -- I was talking to somebody else about PrEP. Are you familiar with PrEP? You know? LK: Crap? LB: PrEP. PrEP (inaudible) (laughter) LK: Okay. LB: (inaudible) LK: I have a hearing aid, too. (laughter) LB: No, I was talking about -- I was talking to Dave Moyer about PrEP and [said?] (overlapping dialogue ; inaudible) ask him what he thought about how that was going to help people, the [pill?] -- LK: I just wish there was more education about that because there are people that are afraid of that or were afraid of that because they didn't know the efficacy of it. LB: Yeah. LK: And also, the cost, does your -- can you afford it, will your prescription plan cover it? So, healthcare in this country still, to this day, is still a major issue. LB: Yeah. LK: I think that Obama had the right idea with Obamacare but he didn't get everything that he wanted in that bill, you know? He had (inaudible) the pharmaceutical industry, the lawyers, the healthcare lobby. So, we lost out on a lot of things as far as -- eventually, it's going to have to go single payer. There's no way that we can afford to keep going in this direction for that. So, yeah, that's paramount at this point, you know, as far as the healthcare end of that. But PrEP, yeah, I mean, I even have my own doubts about it and it wasn't -- you know, you can actually Google things but -- anymore, who knows what's real and what's not any-- so, we've been thrown into a whole different dimension, it seems. I'm, like, what is going on anymore as far as information goes? It used to be you look things up, there's your information, that's the way it is. Well, not necessarily anymore, you know? So, I think there's a lot of people out there that had doubts about it and some still do. And then, we come up with, then -- I think PrEP has been -- or Truvada. Truvada is the one that was canceled because -- LB: Truvada's the company that produces PrEP.LK: -- bone problems. They had bone problems. LB: Yeah. LK: Something like that. So, you hear about that and then they're -- they've developed other drugs for it, so there's other PrEP drugs, so that's great. But I still think there needs -- there's no real education about that. If this government was truly serious about eradicating AIDs like President Trump has said he wants to do -- LB: Yeah. LK: -- well, then you would have this massive educational campaign and stop being such prudes in high school because, to me, knowledge is power. That gives you the power to make the great decisions in your life -- and actually good decisions so that you can live. I'm appalled that we don't have more of an effort in that direction as far as prevention. LB: Right, yeah. LK: I mean, you have the information, so -- and you have the medication. So, what are you doing? Back in the eighties, we didn't have education in the very beginning. We had nothing to go on. We had rumor, innuendo, fear, that's it, you know? So, just don't have sex. Okay, all right. That's all we had to deal with. At least now, you have the permission -- get the information out there, dammit! LB: Yeah, yeah. LK: I think in your larger cities, you have definitely good resources for that. But even that, I mean, the -- that should be supplemented with a national campaign to actually -- you could eradicate [this?]. I mean, you see the effort that we're putting into a vaccine for COVID-19, hello. LB: Right. LK: We still don't have a vaccine for AIDS. LB: Right, yeah, yeah. LK: Do you wonder sometimes that maybe that's because they don't want to have a cure for it? I don't know. Call me old-fashioned, call me suspicious, call me a conspiracy theorist, which I try not to be, because I can't stand that. But I, you know, when it comes to gays, we seem to have been on the lowest part of the totem pole along with minorities. And so, therefore, there's a lot less care given our way, a lot less though given our way. It's true. So, I don't trust them. (laughs) Still. LB: Well, you go through, you know, an epidemic like HIV/AIDS where you have the kinds of information that was kept from our community for seven or eight years and still (inaudible) [ways?], it's hard not to be suspicious [that every?] (inaudible) LK: Yeah. LB: Yeah. LK: Yeah, which, you know, I mean, in the current environment, also, not to get off the topic, but -- I mean, but with minorities -- I mean, with black people, you know, I can understand their mistrust of the system, completely. So, I identify with that and I'm sure that that's magnified probably tenfold for them. I mean, God! But, yeah, education would be definitely a place to start to try and put your money where your mouth is. LB: Well, we're coming to the -- almost to the end but we still have some -- several minutes and the concept of this archived thing is [support?] people to ultimately look back at this -- you know, twenty, thirty years from now, people can look at this and say, you know, some of [the things you're?] saying, people will never imagine that that was the way things were. And so, I was wondering if you had any other things that you might want to be sure that are covered that you sort of think, like, people wouldn't believe that this actually happened or that this is still happening. But then, things happened that -- you look back and you think I can't believe that happened. LK: The thing that immediately comes to mind is just the violence against gays and whether that was because they were afraid of AIDS or they were afraid of us or they -- which, a lot of that is fear but also, I think, closet cases will act out in anger because they feel something inside and then -- but society's saying that's not okay. So, they will lash out because they have that anger and conflict inside themselves. So, they have to try and get -- let some of that out. So, they would take it out on the gays. I was amazed at the amount of violence. You know, just senseless violence and the fact that it would take two, three, four, five guys to beat up one guy. That just -- what? Why? It was also senseless, you know? LB: Yeah. LK: And I like things like this because I think that people do need to have that time capsule, look back and say, oh, can you believe this? Oh, my, I don't believe this at all! Because I know that -- I had spoken to one of my coworkers who has now left us all. So, he was eighty-three when he passed a couple years ago. And he had told me a story back in the day in Philadelphia in, like, the fifties and what it was like to be gay then. And at one of the bars here, I'm not sure if it was Raffles or if it was Drury Lane, but they had a system where, if the police were coming into bust them or to check on them, you know, they had -- the front door man had, like, a light switch and he would flip the light switch in the bar. And so, the lesbians were dancing with the lesbians, the gays with the gays. They would switch and dance with each other, man and woman, so that when the cops came in, everything looked okay. So, it blows my mind to have that story told to me about the fifties, so I can only imagine thirty years from now what it would be like for someone to hear about the '80s and how we survived the disease and how we were treated in the beginning with this disease. Yeah, I think this is really important. LB: Yeah, it's good to get this information. I think it's very important and I really, really -- LK: Yeah. LB: (inaudible) [off of this?]. And I love that we're talking about the work that FACT did because what an organization to rise to the occasion. Because a lot of places didn't [have that. I mean?], we can look around at other towns around the Lehigh Valley and they didn't do that. There wasn't any organization like that in Reading, there wasn't organizations like that in Scranton. So, you know, and those are big cities, good size cities, too. So, it really happened, I think, in the Lehigh Valley. LK: Liz, it gives me chills to this day thinking about it because it just seemed like magic to me. It was an experience, like I said, that I will always treasure, I will cherish, I will never forget. I carry it with me and it propels me forward. Those people propel me forward. They were an inspiration. LB: Right. LK: So, yeah, I mean, we were very lucky to have that. And it was just the right timing of it, just seems, I guess, that sometimes it happens. And we had the right mix of people and then there were others that just glommed onto that and added to that critical mass. That just made the whole thing just explode out, work. It was truly an amazing time, though. Frightening time, amazing time. And we actually tried to take that fear and turn it into something else because that's what it was really about, I think, for us because we were tired of this. No one was doing anything, no one was taking care of us, no one was saying anything, there was no information. Okay, let's just take care of our own, then. The hell with it. And that inspiration came from, like we talked earlier, the group ACT UP. And I forget the Philly groups that were back then. I think there was an ACT UP chapter in Philly but there were other groups. So, yeah, yeah, that was an amazing feat, I think, for that to take place at that time. LB: Do you think [all?] -- LK: And all -- go ahead. LB: -- sometimes, I think when there is nobody doing anything, there's a whole statistic that shows, like, that if nobody does anything, then somebody will come forward [but people are going?] -- if there had been some, like, [even straight?] half-assed organization, then maybe other people wouldn't have come out to take care of ourselves and -- LK: Yeah, yeah, maybe. LB: -- but, yeah, you know? LK: I just get thrilled thinking about that it all started with something really silly. (laughs) I mean, just a silly little rivalry between two bars that turned into this whole thing. I'm -- wow. LB: What were some other things that were happening between the bars? LK: Oh, my God. Well -- LB: The silly things? LK: -- for example, one night, the Candida's crew raided the Stonewall. The front doors burst open and I was behind the bar and Rob St. Mary was there. And he's looking at me and all of a sudden, [yeah?], boom-boom-boom-boom-boom, all these water balloons. And they go -- and they're traveling out the back door and they're gone! (laughter) And all the customers are laughing at us because we got pummeled with water balloons. And I'm, like, soaking wet. I'm, like, those sons of -- hmm. (laughter) So, we would plot the next thing, you know? So, they also, one night, came and stole our door person, while he was working. They lured him outside, someone grabbed him, threw him in the back of a station wagon, took him to Candida's. And they called us and the doorman, his name was Dana, and he said, "I feel like Patty Hearst! I feel like Patty Hearst! Get me out of here!" (laughter) So, we had to go over and sign surrender conditions to get our doorman back. And actually, the whole thing -- actually, the very beginning of it was we stole a mascot. We stole their parrot. The parrot was Candida's mascot and we had the moose [home?], which -- we had this giant moose. So, we stole their parrot and they stole our moose. (laughter) So, that's how the whole thing really basically started. But we ended it all, though. We wanted to make sure that they were, like, sufficiently taken care of. So, the final event was: I have to get two getaway cars and five people dressed in face paint and fatigues. And so, the two getaway cars would arrive at Candida's, out would come two innocent civilians, they'd go in and order a cocktail with canned farts tucked down their pants. (laughter) Two other people went to the back door with twenty pounds of rice. The five silly stringers, five came in the front door spraying silly string and screaming. The two innocent civilians went to the back door, opened that, let the twenty pounds of rice in. We would start throwing the rice around. They'd take the canned farts out and spray that. The place stank, it was a mess, and the bartender was Pat Gibson and she had her -- [came out of the?] bar. She was just -- (laughter) so, it was a mess. So, Dina actually called me. She said, "Okay. We got to do something." She -- "have rice on my pool table, you got rice in my cocktails. I had to make all new cocktails for my customers." She said, "We need to do" -- and that's when we started the Summer Games, the Bar Olympics, yeah. LB: Great alternative to that, too, because you could see that escalating to the point where maybe it would be problematic. So, it's really so smart that you moved into something like the Summer Games and -- LK: Yeah. LB: -- [then it ended up?] really helping people for years -- LK: Yeah. LB: -- and years, still, thirty -- more than thirty years later. What a success, (laughter) that silliness can grow to that level. It's pretty great. LK: Yeah, yeah. If you want any more of the stories, call me, I'll tell you the rest of them, because there were a lot. (laughter) because it was a tit-for-tat and it had to be bigger and better. (laughs) LB: I think I remember Dina saying something about people stealing the "Candida" record out of the jukebox. LK: Yes! We tied up her bartender and we actually left her tied up, with the business open. I mean, we did things that I can't believe -- to say that we did, you know? But we tied her up, we made her give us the key to the jukebox, we stole -- and I had gone to all the stores in the Lehigh Valley and bought out every copy of "Candida." (laughter) Little did I know that Candida was an egomaniac and she had twenty copies upstairs. (laughter) LB: Ah! LK: Oh, my God. And then, my other favorite thing was she had put Candida stickers on all of our glassware at the Stonewall. Someone had snuck in, someone let them in. All of our glasses had Candida stickers on them. (laughter) So, I called the staff and I said, "Okay, help me." We gingerly peeled off all the labels, put them on a piece of paper that said -- on the back, it said, "Good for one free drink at Candida's." (laughter) Well, they started taking them over and redeeming them. (laughter) That was one of the best ones. Dina liked that one. (laughs) Yeah. LB: Oh, man. And FACT's been going on for thirty-fiveyears and she's a city councilwoman now. LK: Yes. (laughs) Oh, I got more stories about her. Woof! (laughs) LB: Right, I've known her for a long time. LK: (laughs) You should ask her about when she got escorted home by the police one night because they actually had come to the Stonewall to raid us, more of the silly stuff. And so, there was, like, a water battle ensued inside the Stonewall. There was, like, an inch of water all over the place. It was a mess. And so, I remember, the last thing I remember is all of us on top of her station wagon and she's pulling away. There's, like, ten of us on top of her station wagon. (laughter) She drives us up to Chuck [Woodbury?], the manager's house, where they had shaving creamed his windows, all right? And we get off at that corner. And so, they're laughing and they have a bullhorn and the whole nine yards. And so, they drive up the street and all of a sudden, wham, surrounded by all the police. LB: Oh! LK: And we're down on the corner going -- (laughs) so, the police knew Dina and they said, "Dina, do you have a bullhorn?" And she said, "Yes." And [Denny Cara?] in the backseat said, "No." So, he said, "Were you using the bullhorn?" And Dina said, "Yes." And he said, "What were you saying [to me?]? Were you saying fire?" She said, "No." He said, "What did you say, Candida?" She said, "Rub-a-dub-dub, three queens in a tub." (laughter) Now the other officers had moseyed over and they heard this and they started to, like, snicker. (laugher) And he said, "Dina, don't you think it's time you take this party home?" This is, like, three, four o'clock in the morning. (laughter) And she goes, "Yes, officer." And they actually escorted her home. LB: Oh, my. LK: Another one of the greats. So, yeah, so there's wonderful stories in that. She loves to tell those stories. She's good at -- she's a good raconteur, yeah. LB: Yeah. (laughter) Well, this has been terrific, Larry. I'm really glad to -- and I love to end on a big laugh, bunch of big laughs. (laughter) That was terrific. So, I really appreciate you talking to me. Thank you so much for doing that. And -- LK: Well, thank you. LB: -- I'm supposed to remind you that what happens now is that once I get this done and I upload the video file, then they send it to someone that transcribes it and then they'll bring it -- and they'll mail it through email to you -- LK: Okay. LB: -- as a written document (inaudible) (laughs) LK: I fell down! LB: That was dramatic! (laughter) That was amaz-- LK: Oh, boy. LB: -- [flying?] sensation! (laughs) LK: At least it waited till the end. (laughter) LB: So, and I love that Maxfield Parrish that you have on the wall [next to?] -- LK: Oh, my God, I love Maxfield Parrish! I'm glad you noticed it, thank you. LB: Yeah, [that's?] -- no, I like [it?]. So, and he's got some -- I did a whole art history thing about Maxfield Parrish because he was -- he had some interesting -- yeah, so, we have to have -- LK: Oh, we have to talk. (laughs) LB: -- the recorder's off -- let me see, where do I do that? I'm going to stop it. END OF AUDIO FILE Copyright for this oral history recording is held by the interview subject. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source 0 /render.php?cachefile=
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01:30:56
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Larry Kleppinger, June 18, 2020
Description
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Larry Kleppinger talks about the early days of the AIDS epidemic in the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania. He focuses on working at Allentown's Stonewall Bar; the formation of Fighting AIDS Continuously Together (FACT) and his participation as the president of FACT; the FACT Summer Games; and people working together to create support and funding during years of government inaction.
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PH40_02
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AIDS (Disease)
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2020-06-18
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video
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Copyright remains with the interview subject and their heirs.