Mothers and Sons -- When it's time to say goodbye.

I've a friend whose mother-in-law passed away today. Now, most people wouldn't think so much about this. These things happen, especially when your parents have an illness, and the best you can hope for is to be there for your spouse. But in my friend's experience, his husband's mother became a second mother after his mother passed away some time before.

Losing your mother is incredibly traumatic and takes your breath away. It's a singular tragedy that you *know* is coming, even expected...but you are never prepared for it to come; the day when you become an orphan. It feels like you are completely and utterly alone. As Bob mourns the passing of his mom, it will be the responsibility of Dan to help support and guide him through this dark, sad time. There will be oceans of tears and heartache in the next few days and weeks now. And that is all there is to it. There is no place to hide and nowhere to run from it. It's a sad fact of life that we are meant to bury our parents, and we can only hope we can do this with a clear conscience and sound hope that every thing we meant to say was said before the end.

It sounds like I know what I'm talking about, doesn't it? It's because I've experienced exactly the same thing in my own life. My ex's mother passed away not even a year before I ended our relationship. I was extremely close to Frances, and she to me. We had a very good relationship, even when my ex and I did not. She was also there for me when my mother died...in fact, Frances was the only one there when I walked into my mother's hospital room to find that she was no longer showing brain function. I left the room too stunned to cry, too crushed to think. I sat alone in the waiting room of Regional Medical Center in Madisonville, Ky. completely lost in my own thoughts; that is, until the phone rang in the waiting room sitting next to me. Mind you, I hadn't called anyone or even had a chance to think...I was in a state of shock.

I picked up the phone and Frances was on the other line. She recognized my voice immediately. She asked me how mom was, and she was the first person I had told she had died. My voice started shaking and I was about to lose it when she said the following:

"Noah, I know this is hard for you, knowing that you two had a strained relationship. But your mother knew you loved her. She's known you all your life, and there's nothing between you that was left unsaid. She's gone on to her reward now, and she knows that God will look after her children as she joins Him in Heaven. It's ok, son. It's going to be ok."

We talked for a few minutes more as I waited for my brother and sister to arrive. I barely remember any of that next week; it was all so surreal. But I will never forget Frances and how loving she was. I will never forget our conversation on that waiting room phone, surrounded by strangers, but filled with love by my second mom as my first mother breathed her last on this Earth.

So for Dan and Bob, I would love to tell you that the pain goes away, It does not. It simply doesn't. But it does change over time into a sense of reverence, a realization that we have a precious gift given us, mother to son. Dan, as you had a second mom, I know you know what I'm talking about. Hold onto Bob and know that it's going to be ok, just as Frances said it would be. In time, I realized she was right. I know you will, too.

Much love to all.

Noah

Who You Are: Why Coming Out Day Should Be Every Day

Straight friends, neighbors, and allies: 

Many of you may know that today is a very special day for those of us in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities. Today is National Coming Out Day and for some of us it’s a day of celebration, others a day of reflection, and for most all of us, a day of solidarity. 



I wish you a Happy Coming Out Day!

I also want to give just a few suggestions in case you’re lucky enough to have someone come out to YOU today. You see, aside from just remembering and celebrating our coming out stories, today is a day when many #LGBT people begin to come out of the closet, and I want them to come out to YOU!

First, congratulations. If you’re someone that a person feels that they can come out to, you've clearly done your job of letting those around you know that you've got strong convictions and solid values and that those include support - or at least consideration - for LGBT people. Thank you!

Secondly, you’re not expected to know anything more about LGBT people than you did before this person came out to you. In fact, you may even learn that what you did know wasn't exactly correct either. 

It’s okay! Really. 

Just take it slow, ask some questions, and keep in mind that none of us was immune to bullying, peer pressure, or insecurity. So be prepared to help a friend when they may need you most.

It’s a good thing!

And to those of you who are considering coming out today, or in the days ahead. The rewards of being who you are and who you were always meant to be far outweigh any pitfalls and setbacks you've imagined. There is a huge community of people out here, waiting for you to help you find your way. We love you. We've been where you are; and we know it's hard to open that door. But the best things in life aren't things, they are people. You deserve to live your best life. We are waiting for you to be true to WHO YOU ARE. You won't regret it, I promise you. 

Love,
Noah
For more resources, check out PFLAG here: http://community.pflag.org/

Our Teddy Pocket Bear turns 49 today. Dave and I have been friends for a good bit now. We’ve spent many an hour chatting and commiserating over life and its ever movable feast. We’ve seen the river wash us both out to sea, sometimes at the same time, and he has always had a life preserver to toss my way. What’s special and fine about Dave? Only everything. He truly is a flesh and blood Pooh Bear, filled with the wisdom and kindness that brings his faithful back to him. Yes, he doesn’t suffer fools gladly; and he sometimes hails more from Tasmania than the 100 Acre Wood. But he is as solid as an iron girder in his friendship – once you’re in, you are in, and you don’t have to worry about it. My husband always says that a friend is a gift you give yourself. That’s true enough, and I made out like a bandit in the true blue pal department with a certain Dave Patrick.

One of the things I always try to impress upon him is that he is perfect as-is. He writes like a Nobel laureate; razors could be sharpened to a fine edge on his acerbic wit; and he is quite easy on the eyes. But the best attribute of Dave is his steadfastness as a friend. If I need anything, anything at all, I know I can depend on him, even if it’s just a shoulder to cry on, a chest to bounce ideas off of, or a place to let my hair down; he has a way that has always made me feel so much better after our chats over the years.

I’ve taken several stabs at writing this missive; not out of laziness, mind you – but how do you translate the feelings in a friendship successfully? Where do you find the glossary of terms? It’s hard to imagine a life without Dave in it. I’ve lived more years without you, Daveyboy, than I’ve had with you in my world, and that part of our friendship sucks. I can only wish we live long enough to balance the scales of missed opportunities.

I would love to have written a poem for you Dave. And rest assured, something will eventually fall out of the twisted treetops of my imagination for you, like emotional acorns and leaves of utter sentiment.

But today, I leave you with a poem written about another teddy bear; it’s a story about a creature who only sees his imagined shortcomings and self-perceived failings, only to find out that he is as regal and precious, as royal and special than any blueblood. Great things come in small packages, and never is that more true than in Teddy Edward Bear’s case.

In the case of Dave Patrick Merrick, great men come once in a lifetime.

Happy Birthday Dave. I love you.

Noah

Teddy Bear

By AA Milne

A bear, however hard he tries,
Grows tubby without exercise.
Our Teddy Bear is short and fat,
Which is not to be wondered at;
He gets what exercise he can
By falling off the ottoman,
But generally seems to lack
The energy to clamber back.

Now tubbiness is just the thing
Which gets a fellow wondering;
And Teddy worried lots about
The fact that he was rather stout.
He thought: "If only I were thin!
But how does anyone begin?"
He thought: "It really isn't fair
To grudge me exercise and air."

For many weeks he pressed in vain
His nose against the window-pane,
And envied those who walked about
Reducing their unwanted stout.
None of the people he could see
"Is quite" (he said) "as fat as me!"
Then with a still more moving sigh,
"I mean" (he said) "as fat as I!"

Now Teddy, as was only right,
Slept in the ottoman at night,
And with him crowded in as well
More animals than I can tell;
Not only these, but books and things,
Such as a kind relation brings -
Old tales of "Once upon a time",
And history retold in rhyme.

One night it happened that he took
A peep at an old picture-book,
Wherein he came across by chance
The picture of a King of France
(A stoutish man) and, down below,
These words: "King Louis So and So,
Nicknamed 'The Handsome!' " There he sat,
And (think of it) the man was fat!

Our bear rejoiced like anything
To read about this famous King,
Nicknamed the "Handsome." Not a doubt
The man was definitely stout.
Why then, a bear (for all his tub)
Might yet be named "The Handsome Cub!"

"Might yet be named." Or did he mean
That years ago he "might have been"?
For now he felt a slight misgiving:
"Is Louis So and So still living?
Fashions in beauty have a way
Of altering from day to day.
Is 'Handsome Louis' with us yet?
Unfortunately I forget."

Next morning (nose to window-pane)
The doubt occurred to him again.
One question hammered in his head:
"Is he alive or is he dead?"
Thus, nose to pane, he pondered; but
The lattice window, loosely shut,
Swung open. With one startled "Oh!"
Our Teddy disappeared below.

There happened to be passing by
A plump man with a twinkling eye,
Who, seeing Teddy in the street,
Raised him politely on his feet,
And murmured kindly in his ear
Soft words of comfort and of cheer:
"Well, well!" "Allow me!" "Not at all."
"Tut-tut!" A very nasty fall."

Our Teddy answered not a word;
It's doubtful if he even heard.
Our bear could only look and look:
The stout man in the picture-book!
That "handsome" King - could this be he,
This man of adiposity?
"Impossible," he thought. "But still,
No harm in asking. Yes, I will!"

"Are you," he said, "by any chance
His Majesty the King of France?"
The other answered, "I am that,"
Bowed stiffly, and removed his hat;
Then said, "Excuse me," with an air
"But is it Mr. Edward Bear?"
And Teddy, bending very low,
Replied politely, "Even so!"

They stood beneath the window there,
The King and Mr. Edward Bear,
And, handsome, if a trifle fat,
Talked carelessly of this and that ...
Then said His Majesty, "Well, well,
I must get on," and rang the bell.
"Your bear, I think," he smiled. "Good-day!"
And turned, and went upon his way.

A bear, however hard he tries,
Grows tubby without exercise.
Our Teddy Bear is short and fat,
Which is not to be wondered at.
But do you think it worries him
To know that he is far from slim?
No, just the other way about -
He's proud of being short and stout.

n  AA Milne

Five Years from Fifty -- What I've Learned In 45 Years On The Third Rock From The Sun

I will be turning 45 years old tomorrow at 6:40 a,m. It's hard to believe how much things have changed in my life in the last half decade since my fortieth birthday. Had someone told me on my fortieth birthday I'd be married, retired from one job and be in college on the dean's list before I turned forty-five, I'd have told them they were crazy. Sometimes I can't believe how lucky and blessed I am. Lucky and blessed -- words I probably wouldn't have used to describe a large portion of my existence here on Earth ten or so years ago. Lots of stuff that I used to dwell on, obsess about and allow mental dominion over my thoughts and actions seem meaningless now. The thought of getting older and the ideas of what that might look like used to terrify me. Facing old age alone. Old fears of not being good enough. Old thoughts of being trapped in a life that wasn't mine. All of that crusty baggage given to me to carry and I used to carry it with me. Everywhere. It got so hard to see who I really was. Lost and not sure what was going to happen to me.

I've come a long long way from August 2009, sitting outside of the East side Walmart with three suitcases of my belongings and maybe $30 to my name. I'd walked away from a monster. I had had enough of being used and abused. I didn't know what in the hell I was going to do, or where I would end up. But my relationship to my ex was poisonous, as toxic as cyanide, and I finally had my fill of it. All of it. Two decades plus of allowing someone else to reap the benefits of my life while I begged for scraps of happiness. It was a sick way to live. I was sick with a disease called lack of self-worth. Dying of cancer of my self-confidence. Sounds crazy, but it was true. Do I sound melodramatic? Maybe, but it is quite an accurate description of what was wrong with me. Something deep inside me blossomed once I got away from all of my ex's crazy, batshit life. I got my life back.

Today I'm happy. Really happy. Lucky and blessed really are the perfect words to describe me now. How I got so happy was accepting three simple truths that I would like to share now with you.

Simple Truth #1 -- You are responsible for your own happiness.
Simple Truth #2 -- Nine-tenths of your problems and heartaches have only your fingerprints on them.
Simple Truth #3 -- Love yourself first so you can love someone else best.

I wish I hadn't taken so long to figure these truths out, but I probably had to figure this out in my own way. For someone so allegedly intelligent, I seem to enjoy the long road to wisdom called mistakes. I've made tons of them. But if it weren't for those mistakes I wouldn't have grown into who I am.

Mistakes can only hurt you if you allow them to define you. If you can learn from them, they will become the scaffolding that will elevate you to where you want in life. But forgiveness of self is the only way to do that. Forgiveness of self is the only way to handle your mistakes, otherwise they will drag you down, without exception.

Five years from fifty and I am the happiest I've ever been. I have so many reasons why that is, but the biggest reason for my bliss is asleep in our bed. Michael, I love you so much. You have no idea how much you mean to me and how much our love has given me wings to fly. You are my lucky star, the constant source of love and light in my night sky. To the Moon and back, my love.

Noah

All The Stars In The Sky
by Noah Moore-Goad

There are a million reasons why

My love is my gift to you

Like all the stars in the sky

Like a comet trail sailing by

Across my telescope lens view

Among all the stars in the sky

Waited a lifetime oh me,oh my

To bathe in starlight so true

You, my favorite star in the sky

All the love to me you supply

Brighter than sunlight or moonlight blue

Glowing more than all the stars in the sky

Oh wish I may, Oh wish I might

My wishes for us will see us through

The only star I wish to see tonight

So on this birthday,just us two

My love, my gift I give to you

For so many million reasons why

Like all the stars in the sky

Seeking Whom To Devour -- A Story About Rumors

The Bible says the Devil roams the Earth like a lion, seeking whom to devour. Rumors can be like that too. Someone’s loose talk spirals out of control and take out people’s lives and happiness like a vicious tornado; and much like a twister, gossip doesn’t much care about the carnage left in its wake. This is a story of how rumors swept a family out of town, and left a friendship crushed under the weight of innuendo and salacious gossip.

Loose lips do more than sink ships; they can take the captain and all hands down with them to a watery grave. No one died in this story, but then again, no one really was the same afterward either. I’ve changed the names of people and places out of respect of my old friend’s privacy and what little shards of our friendship that might still exist, the precious few pieces I was able to sweep up after thirty years. I feel I owe it to my memory of the childhood friends we used to be, to the friendship that never got the chance to live past two semesters of grade school. Our friendship was devoured by a rumor; one that still lives on even to this very day.

It was the beginning of another semester at Bronson Elementary in Perryville, Kentucky. The school sits atop a tall slope facing Broadway Street like a large castle. Outside the school is a replica of the Liberty Bell, created by the Truman administration and given to all of the fifty states back in the 1950’s. Today the bell sits inside a glass-lined atrium, but when I went to school there, it sat outside in front of the school on a brick pillar with a bronze placard.

That was where I first met John. John was the new kid in school, and he stood out head and shoulders over the tallest of us. He was pushing 6 foot tall and only in the sixth grade. He had bright blonde hair; the kind most women pay big bucks for in a salon, he had naturally. He was gangly and uncoordinated however, as if puberty had just started pulling his marionette strings to maneuver him towards adulthood and he hadn’t packed for the journey. He was dressed in his Sunday best for our first day of sixth grade. In fact, his Sunday best carried over into the other five school days his entire time at Broadway. He was also the only sixth grader I’d ever seen who carried a briefcase. He looked like a businessman on his way to the office. Yet this kid was the epitome of scared new meat on the first day of school; looking like a tie wearing alien in a sea of blue denim and T-shirts. He had a look on his face that seemed to say, “I’m scared, but I’m not going to let them know,” which only telegraphed his fear. I knew that look all too well.

I remembered my first day experience at Bronson Elementary that morning, and I could tell this kid was headed for a rough patch, the same one I hit literally on my first day of school at Bronson four years prior. I had started school there in the second grade, since moving to Perryville from Indiana. I was smaller than most of the kids, and my mother and I were poor as the proverbial church mice. I had second hand clothing and cheap shoes from the Dollar Store in town on my first day. Combined with my small size and my lack of sartorial splendor, I was a prime target for being teased by bigger and richer kids.
The teasing and bullying was epic for me, almost from the start. I was taking John’s measure and comparing myself to him, and I knew I had to at least find out why the newbie would court disaster dressing like that. As I look back at the time with a man’s hindsight, I realize now I had a kindred spirit in the making with John. I was a pariah at school, and John wasn’t going to fare much better, even with his nice clothes and his polished shoes.

 So I walked right up to John there as he was reading the plaque on the Liberty Bell replica and I asked, “Hey, are you going to school, or to church dressed like that??” John was startled out of his reverie, not hearing me approach. “Oh, man you scared the crap outta me!” he stated, “I didn’t know you was there. I was checkin’ out this bell… this is pretty neat. I’m new here. My name is John Davis.” He put his briefcase down and put his hand out to shake mine. I was surprised by the deep reediness of his young man’s voice; it had fluctuations that I hadn’t heard before but I know now as the beginnings of the maturation of male vocal chords. His voice was very pleasant and he had an easy, practiced smile; as if he was used to smiling in a professional setting and not out of any real emotional place. As I found out more about him, John was used to greeting new people all the time because of his parents standing in the community, didn’t like it much, but he didn’t want you to know it. His eyes were his calling card, though. His eyes were the brightest of blue skies. They were crisp and sharp like the air on a winter’s day where no clouds lived at all, but his eyes also had the promise the Caribbean Sea hidden behind the cold, a promise of summer just behind his irises.

 I took his hand to shake it, and I noticed he had sweaty palms, maybe from carrying a briefcase from his house down the street, or maybe from the nervousness of first day jitters. I wasn’t sure then, but I would quickly learn his size belied a gentleness and kindness that I was glad to know, and still am, even after all that happened later. “I’m Sam Moreland. I’m in the sixth grade this year. What year are you in?” “I’m in the sixth grade too, Sam. I just moved here from Lexington with my parents. We moved here ‘cause my dad is the new pastor of First Avenue Baptist Church. We live just down the street.” He said all that so fast; I could tell he was nervous about volunteering information about himself and his family. I told him that my mom and I moved here four years ago, and she worked at JJ’s Café just at the bottom of the hill. She was a waitress and sometimes a short order cook there.

He grinned with perfectly aligned teeth that would probably never need braces, a dentist’s dream. “Cool. Do you go there and eat sometimes for lunch?” “No,” I said, “we can’t leave school grounds without a parent or guardian until we go to high school. You’ll learn that and other things during your first week here. But what’s with the tie and dressy clothes? Are you going to a funeral or something today?” “Nope! I like to dress like this. I think guys look great all dressed up, ‘specially for their first day of school. You have to make a good first impression.” I thought to myself, “Oh you’ll make an impression alright. One of these clowns around here is going to have a field day picking on you.” But I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. I also felt like we could be friends, and I had none. Oh… there were a few guys, some comic book nerds with whom I traded comic books from time to time, but they would turn on me in a second if social survival dictated it, and I knew it. The survival of the fittest theory was never proven truer than in grade school, I believe.

Yet John was different. He was like me, a transplant into this foreign soil; houseplants whose roots would not find proper nourishment here in small town Perryville. In John’s case, he would get yanked out of this particular pot much sooner than I. Little did I know that I was going to be used as a tool to cause him much pain and humiliation and cause his family to leave their home and jobs behind. Such is small town life; a rumor gets bigger and more virulent whenever there’s even a hint of truth to it, to hell with who it hurts. If I had only known then what I know now, I probably wouldn’t have approached John and struck up that first conversation, made that fateful connection. I should have known better. But sixth grade kids don’t know about things like collateral damage and rumor control. They only know what it means to grow up. Sometimes the process of growing up hurts. Losing a good friend to grist for the rumor mill is even worse.

As our time together began to develop, we realized we had much in common, but I felt he had a better situation than I did. He had both a mother and father at home. They loved John passionately like parents are supposed to do. He was their only child, while I was the youngest and only child left at home, with no siblings near my age. We were only a few months apart in age, but John was more childlike than I, less “street-smart”. Being a preacher’s kid he knew how to behave himself, but I could sense he wished he could relax and be just like everyone else. I found out the dress clothes regimen was from his father – his father thought that his son would follow his feet to the pulpit someday and expected him to dress up to prepare him for what he called “the straight and narrow path.” But he was still a kid.
He had the most impressive Star Wars toy collection I had ever seen, the beneficiary of two sets of grandparents with good incomes and a mother who doted on her only son. His house was huge compared to the small apartment I shared with my mom. I walked by his house a million times to and from school for years before he had moved to town. It was a two story parsonage that was built right on the other side of the parking lot of the church his dad gave his sermons. It was meant to house a larger family, with at maybe three kids roaming around; but John had two rooms of his own. His bedroom took up one room and another for all his toys and other memorabilia. It was an embarrassment of riches to me but John wasn’t one to lord it over me, in fact he was quite a generous person as befitted his standing as a preacher’s son. 

We started becoming good friends, I would come over to their house and play, and his mom would bake cookies and we’d watch TV or play Sorry or Aggravation. His dad was tall and very handsome and charismatic, rugged and very much a macho guy; he loved his sports and hunting. His mother was tall too, but very kind. She played piano at the church and taught John piano lessons every day, determined to make a pianist out of her son. He hated it, but would never tell his mother that, he confessed to me once as we were playing in his room of “once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away.”
This kind of life was a stark contrast of my personal experience, as I saw a fortunate kid with two parents and a moderately wealthy family. His father worked at the mines as well as preached, so his mom could stay home. My mom, however, worked all the time. There were times I went most of the day without seeing her until late in the evening. We were poor, and I knew it… but I wasn’t jealous of John. I admired his family and all they had, but I always coveted my space and my freedom much more than most kids my age. Most of that stemmed from being bullied mercilessly, but even now, I still love my times of solitude. But even I had to have a friend… and John was ready made for the job. It’s too bad people couldn’t respect what we were and what we were not to one another. But once you set some wheels in motion, no one can stop some lies from taking on a grotesque life of its own.

About halfway into the school semester, kids started to notice that John and I were friends. John became a target for the bullies, just as I feared. He was labeled the stuck up rich kid who dressed like a preacher and walked like a fag. He really caught hell over being my friend, but he didn’t back down from them in the beginning, not like I did. His dad taught him to stand up for those who couldn’t stand up for themselves. But he had to have had second thoughts about our friendship. I know I did. It was around the time that I was beaten up so badly that I ended up having surgery that I realized these kids meant business.

John would never know about what happened exactly, but then again… he had a support system. I had a secret and a shame no level of friendship could begin to bridge the gap between what I could share and what I kept to my own thoughts. It didn’t matter much to my adversaries, however. I was a fag in their estimation and I was going to burn, and they were happy to supply the kindling. I didn’t know how badly John would end up burned right along with me, with the conflagration consuming our friendship. How could he? We had no idea how much a rumor could become its own entity and crowd out the truth with its vile little voice.

It started out that John and I were spotted kissing in the hall. Then the rumor mill got even more productive and reduced us to some sordid love affair. Girls started singing to us in the halls, “John and Sam, sitting in a tree, K-i-s-s-i-n-g!” Boys on the basketball team would shove us up against the walls in the hall and call us faggot and queer. It was all of the previous hazing I had experienced but multiplied by two. John was bigger than I, but not big enough to shield himself from the blitzkrieg of humiliation and harassment I had been experiencing for so long, and his portion if it was so undeserved. John was straight as an arrow. He and I were friends, and that was all there was to it.

I hadn’t kissed him, or he me… but that bit of truth didn’t have a shot in hell of being listened to. This lie did become the truth in most people’s eyes back then. It was awful. I felt so terrible about it.
The ultimate humiliation for John came one day when kids started calling his home at all hours telling them what a fag he was, with other parents calling and asking them to keep their kid away from that “Moreland boy if they cared about their reputation in this town.” I apparently had a rep that got its start from some stupid kids and now this damned kissing rumor. It ended up becoming such a nightmare my mother was called by John’s parents and asked if she would keep me away from John.
It was beyond heartbreaking to have to listen to my mother’s conversation on the phone with his parents and knowing I was the fulcrum of the whole damned mess. The pivot that would end up with John and our friendship ended, and within a few months, their family moving out of town; eventually his dad left the church and the parsonage behind. I walked by that house for years afterwards, never daring a backwards glance for fear of the rumors and the stories to start up again. The loss of John’s friendship taught me a terrible lesson about rumors and how quickly they can burn through a community, though people’s lives. The embers from that blaze still smolder, even now after three decades.
I never heard from John again. When our parents decided we wouldn’t see each other, we knew there was no going back, no way to keep our camaraderie alive. We avoided each other in the lunchroom; in the halls… it became a dance of avoidance in the rooms of our lives in a small town we both knew we both had to escape. He got lucky. He got away relatively unscathed compared to me. I envision he went on to become the preacher his dad wanted him to be. He had that image of how his life would be, while I would take a much longer, harder road to develop my own self-image; free of the distortion and haze of the rumor that decimated our friendship and shook up our families lives. 

I grew up gay in this hellish town, and I swore to myself I wouldn’t take another down with me for as long as I lived there. I never had another friend like John as a kid. I learned that lesson well, and any others that were around learned it too. Social pariahs like me were as radioactive as weapons grade plutonium. I never gave anyone else that opportunity to become irradiated by the fallout those nasty rumors created; I learned to live in my own hazmat suit of armor to keep everyone at bay. It was in everyone’s best interest, I told myself. I didn’t need another victim to mourn. My own burden I could carry. But I was unwilling to foist that yoke onto anyone else. 
Do you know what the worst part about all of this for me? Even to this day, I never got a chance to apologize to John or to thank him for our brief but very wonderful friendship. After that fateful phone conversation we broke off all contact out of fear of reprisals and of breaking our promise to our parents to stay clear of each other. Now I wish I could tell him and his family how grateful I was of their kindness and generosity, short-lived though it was. Maybe someday they will come across this story and realize there were and are no hard feelings on my part. I don’t blame John in the least for what happened, and after all this time, I no longer blame myself either.
It was a terribly unfortunate series of events that all started with a vicious rumor and had gotten so far out of hand. Even though I was gay, nothing funny ever happened or would have happened between us, unless you’d call his secret stash of Superman and Star Wars comics that I gave to him which he kept hidden under his mattress queer. I take comfort in the fact that we hopefully still share our love of heroism and all things Jedi. Those small simple things I hope is something we still can cling to; a fond memory impervious to all the rumor mills of the world. 


It is ironic as I type this last paragraph that I remember how fond he was of the original Star Wars movie, before all those retched cash grabs were created after the fact. We grew our friendship out of our mutual love of Star Wars: A New Hope. I hope he remembers our friendship in the same way. May the Force be with you, John, like it was when we shared the sixth grade experience as friends.

Mobile Retail Units... Remembering Larry Marschel

Larry came to our store after our two previous store managers were replaced. He came to our little corner of Wallyworld during a time of low morale and some pretty nasty scandal.  The "cat" incident as it came to be referred brought our store unwanted notoriety. I remember feeling disgusted with the people involved in the incident, and I wondered if we as a store would overcome the stigma. We needn't have worried. After all of the hoopla, we got exactly what, or rather, who we needed to get us back to the business of being The Beast.

Larry Marschel died yesterday. I get a little glitch in my gears typing that last sentence; mainly because he seemed invincible. He was athletic, a dynamo that worked so hard at the business of running one of the busiest Walmart stores in the entire country that I used to think he was crazy.

I had NEVER seen a store manager work the way he did. He rarely was in his office; in fact, other managers and the district manager spent more time there. Larry was everywhere - one minute he would be on a fork lift bringing in skids to unload that night's truck, the next giving the best cashiers in the district a run for their money with his Items Per Hour percentage at the register. He would work sometimes morning, noon, go home for a bit, then work late during third shift, all to make our store the best it could be. To say he was dedicated to his job would be the grossest of understatements. He was exemplary, and everybody knew it.

But Larry wasn't just exemplary at his job, he was also kind, even when he didn't have to be. He could be firm, but never cruel. He was fair, and made you want to be as fair as he was. In short, he wanted you to be better than you were the day before, and he did that by striving for that same excellence in his professional and personal life. He was the exception that proved the rule, that life is a marathon, not a sprint.

When I heard that Larry was diagnosed with cancer a few years ago, I was sure that if anyone could beat the aggressive form that he had, it would be Larry. He did not quit. It was not in his vocabulary.
He fought. He struggled. Even with chemotherapy and surgery that would drag most people down, he was working.

I remember the last time I saw Larry, at the Newburgh Walmart. He was stocking in infants, his walkie earpiece in place, box knife in his right hand, flying through boxes of formula and diapers like a machine. He told me that he was going to go for some experimental treatments soon, and would be off for a little while, but he felt good at the moment. And he did look good. I had hope.

Hope. We all live and breathe for that four letter word. Larry did more than just hope for a better outcome, or for a better life. He worked for it. Hope was the engine that fired that talented, kind, hard working guy. He knew that hope was essential to succeed, but that hope was just  pie-eyed pipe dreams without action. Larry was a man of hope and action.

Larry always used to say, "proper planning prevents poor performance". He was more than a businessman, however- he was a competitor and he was a winner. He won the hearts and minds of a group of people who were upset and disillusioned about the previous management debacle, brought us together, and made us winners again, too.

Larry was a winner to the very end. The world never forgets winners, and I will never forget his smile, his competitive nature, or the time I came in to thirty or so carts, full of stuff from my stationery department that he had drastically marked down for me; items that, before he came to our store had never seen the light of day, much less the bottom of a cart.

I had an ally in Larry. He knew that if I was to be a success, I had to be proactive and not reactive, make things happen, and work harder than the next guy. Break a few rules sometimes (his Mobile Retail Units, aka shopping carts full of markdown crap from two or three years ago were forbidden per policy) to get rid of the things holding you back.

 But his biggest impact on me was when he promoted me to Zone Merchandise Supervisor. Little did he know that that little promotion would set wheels in motion in my life that are still turning, long after I have retired from Walmart. My new job was not popular in my old relationship. So much so that I think that was the final straw that sent that particular house of cards tumbling down.

I was changing, and my ex didn't appreciate or expect that within a month of being promoted to ZMS, I would not only be single, but on my own for the first time since, well... ever.  I would have never had the confidence and will to leave him if certain things hadn't happened; and one of them was Larry's belief that I was the right man for the job.

So, in a very real way, I have Larry to thank for helping me to realize my full potential, even when I had no idea what that would look like. Sometimes things have to change, and sometimes that means *you* have to change. He was the change for me, and I will never forget it, or him.

Larry, wherever you are right now, know that you were a force for change in my life. You were an ally, a good example, a great boss, a good father and husband, a good friend...but above all,  you were a good man. For all of those good and fine things, I thank you.

Noah

Summer Breeze, and I'm Feeling...Good.

It was a wonderful night for a moondance.

Michael and I went to see Michael Bublè last night. To say it was a great concert would be a disservice. It was fantastic; Mr. Bublè was in great form; full of energy and fire, a romantic and very entertaining performer who for over two hours kept everyone in the arena clapping and singing along to most of his hits.

But before Michael began his croonfest, his opening act, Naturally 7 got everybody up on their feet. They began the party with an acapella version of Summer Breeze. These seven men from New York didn't need any stinkin' instruments to make the most beautiful music.

I am not the most enthusiastic of Bublè fans. I do like his music, but he's not what I considered to be a superstar...that is, until I saw him live. He really put on one hell of a show last night. He strutted and danced on stage-giving the crowd his biggest hit songs with abandon. He even brought Naturally 7 back to perform Daft Punk's "Get Lucky" to great fanfare.

His most touching songs are ballads; "Home" is a favorite of mine and he really brought the emotion out, dedicating the performance to the troops overseas and their families. But the most emotionally charged performance of the night was at the end. For an encore he came out and killed the crowd with "Cry Me A River" and ended the concert with Time to Say Goodbye, through which he barely kept his composure- he announced that his grandmother had just passed away that day.

How he got through that song last night, heaven only knows. But if you are wanting to see a fantastic concert with incredible heart, humor and of course, talent, do yourself a favor and go see Michael Bublè. He is truly one of the greats.