Special Note: Scroll down and see the entries below. The most recent is the first you'll see, and the earlier ones are on down. You are welcome to reply by e-mail to: BettyS@bettyslist.com.
"Characters" mentioned in multiple entries: Miss Louise, Betty's mom now deceased; Pop, father now deceased; Stan, big brother; Liz, daughter; John, son-in-law; Audrey, first partner & Liz's other mommy; Tonda, second partner; Sherrye Garrett, colleague, business partner & friend; Margie Adam, singer/songwriter; Barb Rush, longtime friend and co-founder of the "Party Women"; "Tha Girls," Dixie Chicks: Emily Robison, Martie Mcguire, Natalie Maines; Mary Juanita, childhood best friend; Ed Brownson, tech consultant & confidant; Kathleen McGuire & Tha Guys, Artistic Directory/Conductor San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus and the 200 guys who do what she tells them; David Perry, PR guru; Miss Frances & Louie-the-Great, attack cats guarding this site.
(Photos 1 & 3: Cynthia Lee Katona)
Miss Callie Louise Has a Great Granddaughter
Saturday, March 5th
Miss Callie Louise Has a Great Granddaughter . . . And Her Name is Callie Louise
I haven't written much about becoming a grandmother til now. Early, early on Tuesday morning, January 18th, Callie Louise was born. I was there. It was a remarkable, awe-inspiring experience to see that little head emerging and then an arm and then I just had to turn away because the tension was too much for me.
My concern for Liz was upper most in my mind, as it has been for lo these thirty-two plus years since she was born that frosty day in November of 1978 at the Lafayette Country Hospital in Oxford, Mississippi. That's the town where Ole Miss is located. William Faulkner lived there and wrote there and walked the streets and sat around the town square. My own grandmother, Sarah Elizabeth - known as "Bettie" - knew Mr. Bill Faulkner and spoke with him when he was sitting around on that town square there.
Oxford is also the place where Archie Manning and his son Eli became famous playing football. That's the town where John Grisham, the writer, lives. That's where the first Presidential Debate of 2008 happened on the University's campus and where Liz took a photo of some guys holding up a sign saying "Rednecks for Obama" - the one that was featured in The Huffington Post.
My grandmother Bettie is buried there in the town's cemetery as are numerous other relatives. Oxford is the town where they say the Confederate soldier atop the monument there on the town square will tip his hat to an Ole Miss student when she graduates from college if she is still a virgin. Oh, there is a lot of there there in that town.
Callie Louie, however, did not have the chance to be born in Oxford in that same hospital where her mom "discovered America," as her grandpop Pop used to say. Callie Louise was born at Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta since Liz and John had relocated from Oxford only a few months prior.
Liz's other mommy, Audrey, came over from Memphis to Atlanta for Callie's birth. She was right there helping too and cheering Liz on. We were all cheering Liz on and John did an excellent job of being the attentive dad-to-be and good husband. He and Liz have been together for more than 13 years which gives me pause when I think about it. They are quite a pair and I feel like both of them are my kids.
We were all snapping photos when Callie was born. I have a couple of them taken as she was being placed on the birthing table for clean-up and respiratory assistance in case she had gunk in her lungs. That was a tense time for me as I kept waiting to hear the loud cries of a newborn. I guess it is typical to expect that, but Liz and John had been to so many birthing classes, they knew not to be expecting an immediate burst of noise from Callie upon her arrival.
We were moved to tears by the experience of this new life happening right there in front of us and the marvelous skills of the doctor and nursing teams who took care of every need and coached and smiled and congratulated. The staff was remarkable in its professionalism and expertise. Because of these excellent health care providers, I realized I was quite happy the birth was happening in Piedmont Hospital where it was indeed going on and not back there at Lafayette County Hospital in Oxford where I had been left alone in the labor room.
After some 13 or 14 hours since her labor began the morning of the day before, Liz was exhausted but beaming happy, as was John. I don't recall much of Liz's birth, due to drugs and being totally alone when it happened. But, this was such a different experience as Audrey and John and I were there the entire time. Also, the labor/birthing room was set-up to accommodate the family with a couch and rocking chair and reading lights and it was just so very different in look and feel from what little I do remember about being left alone in the labor room because the hospital staff was in the room next door helping with a C-section birth and no one was there when I did my big push to move Liz into the world.
I do remember a nurse walking by and yelling to the doctor that he'd better get in there because the baby was coming. I don't remember much else. Pretty sad and not happy. I determined it was not an experience I'd care to repeat. What it felt like was trying to pass a watermelon, but that's a euphemism for how I put this when telling the tale.
Liz, on the other hand, was saying even as Callie was born that she would to do it again. When Callie was handed to me, I broke into song spontaneously singing the first verse of "Old Man River." Liz cried watching that. I am not sure why that song was what popped out, no pun intended, but I suppose it was about our roots in the South and that the Mississippi has played such a large role in the culture of my upbringing and that of my entire family.
Liz's father and I, for several years, frequented the horseshoe lakes, canals and main river channel too of the mighty Mississippi near Vicksburg, our hometown. He drove the powerboat and I skied behind it, pulling up into the wake of the Delta Queen as she was leaving after making a port-of-call stop at the waterfront so passengers could visit the city. That seems like a long time ago, way back then in the early 1970s while we were still college students visiting Vicksburg having come down home from Oxford.
When I finished singing that verse of Ole Man River, I said a few words to Callie saying that her great grandmother would have been "very proud of you."
Together Liz and John had talked much about what they would name their daughter. Various combinations of family names in our matriarchal chain were considered. Callie Louise was my mom's name, so there was nothing I could do but be happy about that since my mom, Callie Louise "Senior," was my champion and a much-loved character in our family.
She was much-loved too by her students as a career teacher, school librarian and senior class sponsor and director of the annual senior class play and graduation ceremonies. Callie's namesake was a wonderful woman with a great mind who loved nature, transcendentalism, literature, rules of grammar, reading all sorts of fiction, cross-word puzzles, Shakespeare and Chaucer and Beowulf and such. She was a gentle spirit who hardly ever got angry. If she did, though, beware as a burst of verbiage and justification was likely to spew forth, as was the case when she stood up for me on occasion. She was also known as a fine teacher of writing, and I have memories of watching her mark up student papers with her red ink pen or pencil. The red ink was like blood spilled all over a poor writer's text and the efficiency with which she made those marks was impressive. I determined I'd mark my own students' papers with green, although perhaps at some point I faltered on this.
One of the most remarkable things about Callie's great grandmother was that she was able to control her classroom with her eyes. Just that look was enough to instill the fear of god and cause a room to go silent. My guess is that she conveyed to her class at the beginning of the school year that these expressions and eye movements were key signals to be watched out for. I never have had that, having been prone to great displays of verbosity and distress as Liz's grandfather William Chapman "Pop" Sullivan would do. And, I recall that Liz's grandmother could convey her displeasure with a raised eyebrow but would often follow up with a sweet smile and her understated laugh, as if to say it was okay.
Callie's great grandmother Callie Louise was also quite a good cook, although she denied it and claimed she preferred for Pop to run the kitchen. Her specialty was pie crusts, which turned out flaky and tasty every time. Lemon meringue and chocolate pies and berry cobblers were her best, although she was quite good with cakes, candy and homemade biscuits too. Never was Bisquick acceptable. She loved making spaghetti and stuffed green peppers, meatloaf and chicken & dumplings with "real" dumplings made from strips of dough she rolled out with the same pride as if making a pie crust or biscuits for breakfast. She very much enjoyed making casseroles, especially the fabulous broccoli one for Thanksgiving and her baked beans were stellar. I make that casserole and those beans myself. And she took much pride in her skills turning out most excellent divinity and chocolate fudge too.
Now, why am I writing about Callie's great grandmother here? Probably cause what I can say thus far about Callie is that she is very beautiful and a sweet, sweet baby, as Liz reports. There is much to say about her great grandmother and I suppose 'tis my job to do the saying.
I have looked up the name Callie and find that it is usually noted as a nickname for Calliope {kal-eye-oh-pee} or Caroline. Callie Louise was my mom's actual name, though, just as my name is actually Betty Louise. Liz's name is Elizabeth Louise, and I have no memory of any Calliopes or Carolines in our family. Any way you slice it, though, the name Louise is getting a lot of play in the chain.
What else's to say about Callie Louise other than that she is a beautiful baby who looks like Liz and therefore looks like me. Blue eyes. Blond eyebrows. Red-tented hair. Very fair. She has John's chin, I think. She probably will have freckles.
Every day Liz takes at least one photo of Callie with her i-phone and posts it on facebook. We have an on-going high-tech sharing happening here. I am collecting the photos in an album on my facebook page too. Callie has started smiling and Liz says she is reaching to play with things. Her personality is beginning to emerge. Liz says she is such a good baby. She's different in that from Liz who could at times be a fussy, stubborn child making her opinions known from early on. Still is, come to think of it.
So, I have to say that a birthing is a remarkable thing. I am not particularly fond of babies or birthing or even parenting, myself, but about every thirty years or so an exception comes along. When that occurs, it is interesting to note that I can enjoy the spirit of what it's like and what it means to have a baby around. Especially if it looks like me. This one I am moved by because my little girl did it, with the help, of course, of "John-son" as I am want to call him ever so often.
Many times I've been asked what I would like for my grandchild to call me. "GrandBetty" with no space, is my reply, but I suspect she'll say in reference to me whatever she very well pleases and that's okay. I suppose, in my view, it certainly should be.
Miss Callie Louise has a daughter Miss Callie Louise has a daughter Miss Callie Louise has a daughter And her name is Betty Louise
Miss Callie Louise has a granddaughter Miss Callie Louise has a granddaughter Miss Callie Louise has a granddaughter And her name is Elizabeth Louise
Miss Callie Louise has a great granddaughter Miss Callie Louise has a great granddaughter Miss Callie Louise has a great granddaughter And her name is Callie Louise
Yes, indeed and indeed and indeed Her name is Callie Louise
Photo by Elizabeth Herren Entered 3/5/11
Of Security, Preparedness & Wingwomen I Love
April 3, 2010
Of
Security, Preparedness and Wingwomen!
Some of my
stuff tries to sneak away sometimes. Last time, it was the sunglasses. They
escaped at Nordstrom when we had that fashion show, and I had to spend more than
$300 for a replacement. Prescription ones, you know. A couple of years ago,
a favorite pair of shoes escaped at Nordstrom on fashion show day. Same thing.
Today it was
my wallet . . . creeping way, way back in the back of my desk drawer and about to sneak out the back and down into the cabinet space below. But I won, this time. Thanks to the Goddess, from me, one who just hates admitting to DMV, the bank and such when something gets lost or put in a safe place.
Recently, I
realized that creative thinking could help control some of this stuff that
tries to sneak off. Tie that powerful little flashlight into my infamous black
bag that accompanies me on most outings, so it can't go sneaking off and get lost in the bag. That helps. Into the light, when the little flashlight comes on and things hiding are suddenly
illuminated. Probably the "tie down" method would help with more sneak-away items, too, especially my keys.
Not long
ago, we had the locks changed here on the front door. Security was what it was about. How many lost girlfriends still have a key or think they do? It doesn’t matter. Matters not, not now.
Taking care
of self. Staying away from, as my daughter would say, “toxic personalities.” Doing things one needs to do to love
yourself.
Yet, I know
I am so blessed. Someone told me with sarcasm, not too long ago, that I had my posse protecting me at
Orson. She was right about that, actually, 'though frequently so wrong about so much other. There are places, there are times,
there are occasions when one is wise to bring along her wingwoman or even two or three. I love my wingwoman.
I love all the wingwomen who so enrich my life. They don’t get drunk - or act like a drunk even if they're not - and
yell and accuse and make no sense, just bring me down. Well, my wingwomen do enjoy a cocktail, but rather than turn mean and impulsive, they just love me up, build me up and are the wind beneath my wings. "Up" and "down" and "wings" . . . the metaphors we live by. I have so had it with anyone acting out and hurtful things said in disregard.
Wingwomen give me permission to keep trying, to put one foot in front of the other and step out into the fray. Wingwomen give friendship and grace and caring. They say they believe in me and that's just 'bout all I need hear to launch another volley of great work, fun and magic to do, just for you and miracle games to play . . . We all need to be believed in and to believe in others.
"Thank you!" . . . I say . . . all you wise wingwomen, hear! That's "Thank you!" coming from me very loud, very clear, sitting in my favorite spot right now,
right here in the Castro where San Francisco is happening and happening every
minute of every day. I am so blessed to live in this place and to have you
in my life, looking out for me and laughing all the while and having that twinkle in your eye. We've got miracle games to play, parts to perform . . . as we go along our way.
Salute!
(Photo Courtesy of Debra Walker
for Supervisor District 6 Campaign)
Entered 4/3/10, 6:45 PM
How I Understand My Work . . .
Wednesday, February 10th
How I Understand My Work . . .
Or
What Is "Betty's
List" Anyway?
“Betty’s List” –
as I
understand it anyway – is a community education program that
provides
an Internet-based information service (via e-mail and website), and also produces several
types of events. A primary purpose is to serve as a connector helping LGBT community members, mostly for women
but
sometimes for men too, find each other. We also serve an information
and referral service since never a day goes by that we aren't asked for
advice, suggestions, facts and referrals.
The primary
"dynamics" or
categories in our work are: (1) Social Networking, (2) Business
Networking, (3)
Recreational Networking, and (4) Health Issues. Everything we do can be
understood in terms of these four areas. Usually an activity we are
involved
in or a service we provide will have it’s “prevailing dynamic” which informs and shapes
the
format and content of the activity, but the other dynamics are present
and demonstrated as well.
On any given day
“Betty’s
List” may do one or more of the following:
- Send one or more
e-mail announcements that reach 10,000 – 15,000
contacts in single or multi-person households;
- Add new content to
the website
(www.bettyslist.com) that may vary from Calendar or Directory listings
to
photographs, graphics and links to additional pages or resources;
- Conduct an
event that may be attended by anywhere from 20 to 150 or more
participants, depending
on the type and purpose;
- Serve as an information and referral
service for
one-to-one contacts via e-mail, phone or in-person consultations.
* What Types of
Events Are
Included -
Examples include
the
following:
Weekly Ladies Night with Betty on Thursdays
(currently held at Medjool, 525 Mission Street, San Francisco);
Smart Women Business Network, held at three
locations
per month (East Bay, South Bay and San Francisco;
Outdoor Adventures, such as kayaking, whitewater
rafting,
walks or hikes, sailing, biking; etc;
Events for Singles (guided activity
sessions, cooking
classes / demonstrations, dances, theater night outs, dinner functions,
etc);
Literary Salon / Book Club with monthly
Book &
Author evenings and seven Reading Groups functioning in East Bay, South
Bay and
SF locations;
“Wine Time!” Women In Wine Series wine
pairing
evenings with optional dinner offered;
Special Events, such as New Year’s Eve
Celebration,
Academy Awards Party Benefit, SF Gay Men’s Chorus ”Applause!” Section,
Nordstrom Fashion Shows and others;
Travel options are occasionally offered
through AAA
Travel, Olivia Travel, joie de vivre Hotels and others.
* Commitment to
Diversity -
An on-going
interest for “Betty’s
List” is creating settings that are welcoming and inclusive. Women of
all ages,
interests, ethnicities, backgrounds, geographic experience, etc are
sought and
encouraged. “Separatism” is always discouraged and most events are
designed for
“women and their friends.” Men are not turned away unless the event is
specifically designed as for women only.
* What's This Doing in The Betty Blog?
This overview of our work could very easily be included in the About Us section of the "Betty's List" website. The urge to write it, however, occurred in a moment of blog-thought, so why not put it in the blog. In the end, the editor gets to decide.
Recently I was chided by editorializing. That set me off on a First Amendment rant about being able to say what I want to say where ever I choose. And, in the final sum, it's worth saying again that the editor gets to decide . . .
Ladies Night - 1st Thurdays
Thursday, February 4th
Thoughts on Ladies Night, Singles Programs . . . and 1st Thursdays
Here's a nod to shorter blog entries. Tonight Stacy Poulos, Sharon Van Loon and I sat around the bar at Orson and solved the problems of the world. Stacy told me about the video of Finding Stella she has created that's on YouTube, so I posted a link to it on our homepage. Chris Snyder is definitely hot, and I do not know what hot really means! But, she is . . .
"The Original" Ladies Night with Betty on the 1st Thursday each month now includes a hosted "Singles Section." Tonight Missy Morgan co-hosted with me and we had a relatively small but nice group. We built a fort using the modular furniture in the small lounge on the right side of the bar at Orson. Sometimes the best things happen when the group isn't so big that it's hard to focus and have a good conversation!
(Photo Courtesy Finding Stella)
Entered by BettyS 1:00 AM
Welcoming the New Year, the New Decade
May My Stars All Come Out . . . Welcoming 2010, the New Year and New Decade!
Near ‘bout impossible. Tis the likelihood that I might overstate, from this vantage point, just how weird a year 2009 has been.
From its strange beginnings with a botched effort to enjoy a curtain call party at MECCA on New Year’s Eve a year ago . . . when the girlfriend literally walked out and left me sitting there . . . to colleagues who have disappeared overnight or ignored invoices or wallowed in indecision . . . to complaints worthy of a Baptist from the Midwest made by an SF club manager about our “too go-go” star dancer and “too loud” music, to being told “get out of my life” to one unexpected turn of events after another all the way to losing a suitemate while cruising the Caribbean Sea, to losing my favorite ring to . . . What more need I say, and there is a lot more . . . but . . . ouch!
What’s worked, however, has worked oh so well . . . outstanding outdoor adventures, the launch of new venues for Ladies Night, a birthday bash I won’t soon forget, outstanding Smart Women business networking evenings all over the Bay Area, and terrific events for Singles led by Chef Amy Shaw . . . there you have it! There were some bright spots amidst the dim and grim.
And I think the year’s highlight may be happening this very night at Ondine in Sausalito where our sold out crowd is set to enjoy an elegant New Year’s Eve Dinner, Dance & Celebration with our featured guests: Twilight Vixen Revue burlesque, jazz artist Shelley Kutilek and DJ Tina Silano from New York City. Olivia’s Tisha Floratos who will moderate the evening wearing her boa, while I hope to sit back and enjoy . . .
My resolution? Once again, hit the treadmill. I discovered yesterday there were none of those peel and stick stars in my desk drawer to reward myself with by affixing one to each date on my calendar when I’ve done a workout of any sort. What? No stars!? But, not to worry as the supply is now replenished and away go I to the land of exercise once more . . . long walks, Gold’s Gym, treadmill, more. One potato, two potato, three potato, four.
Goodbye and good riddance to 2009 . . . an odd, odd-numbered year was she! Hail the New Year lads and lasses, fa la la la la, la la la laaaaaaa!
Graphic Source: Unknown
Entered by BettyS 1:55 AM
At Least on Some Days, It Is Good To Be from Mississippi
November 21, 2009
Of Red Satin, Southern Pride, Parenting and The First Amendment or . . . At Least On Some Days, It Is Good To Be from Mississippi
My mom dressed me in a handmade red satin outfit for the Holiday Pageant at Culkin School near Vicksburg. My six-year-old heart filled with pride about the shiny red satin and the fur trim too. I stood on the school auditorium stage with classmates from Mrs. Beasley’s First Grade, and we gave our best for that song about the famous reindeer and the red nose.
Fifty years hence, my daughter is pointing out just now the report in today's Huffington Post of the KKK Rally at Ole Miss. It happened as alumni gathered for the annual football game against archrival LSU. The Mississippi Chapter of the Ku Klux Klan was on campus to protest the banning of a song called “From Dixie with Love.”
For several years, the fans at football games tacked on a chant - “The South will rise again!”- at the close of each performance by the marching band. This tune has thus joined Confederate flags and Colonel Reb mascots among game day elements no longer welcome in the stadium.
Now, here am I half a continent away, answering the call from my daughter who’s with my son-in-law at their home in Oxford near the campus. She guides me patiently to her facebook commentary on free speech, divergent opinions and the right to protest, and she points out the link she’s placed there to the HuffPost online coverage.
She speaks to me with pride of fellow alumni from this school known for tailgateing and high rankings on Newsweek’s list of top party schools. Perched at my screen in the hub of San Francisco’s very gay Castro district, I am listening and reading words she wrote on her facebook page: "Today we said no to hate."
We view photos and YouTube videos of Klansmen in bright costumes standing on the steps of an old chapel building where her granddad and grandmom, her uncle, her father and I, each in our own time, once attended lectures. She is adamant I must pay attention to the part in the videos and adjacent AP story about the counter protesters reading the University’s creed – students, faculty, staff and alumni reading in unison.
She points out to me where the designated free speech zone was on campus today and where it was also on the day of the first Presidential Debate between Obama and McCain. She reminds me of a photo she took of a poster declaring “Rednecks for Obama.”
I am preoccupied, though, peering at my screen. I am preoccupied with shiny satin Klan robes appearing digitally before me. The red one is trimmed in green. I see myself on stage in red satin with fur for the Holiday Pageant fifty years ago.
And, I see myself, a high school student, looking out the front door to see the KKK cross burning outside our home that night in the 1960s, during the era of desegregation. My father, her granddad, a Mississippi public school administrator, had refused to meet local Klan demands.
And it occurs to me that I, too, might be prideful on this day, during this phone and online visit with my child who's come to be an adult. It occurs to me that I, too, can have pride in being among Ole Miss alums nationwide who watch as this teapot tempest unfolds peacefully. And I am thankful it is exactly and no more than that.
And I enjoy the thought that there’s no need for me to speak of First Amendment rights on this phone call. No need, indeed, for in this conversation those rights have already been spoken of to me.
And I feel pride in being a parent deemed worthy of alerts from half a continent away, and that I have done my job and so can daydream about red satin memories of long ago.
And, finally, I feel pride that I may be ready, at last, to assume my own grand role in the audience applauding the next generation of singers who cheer for reindeer on a school stage somewhere, should that, in fact, be what comes to be.
Photos: Huffington Post Blog
Added 11:00 PM, 11/21/09
Pumpkins Are at the Safeway . ..
September 23, 2009
Pumpkins at Our Lady of the Safeway Or . . . What Fall Season Means to Me
Methinks my most very favorite month is just around the corner! October, October, October! The heat would finally break in Greenwood, the self-proclaimed Cotton Capital of the World, down in the Delta during October, during those years I lived there and taught school . . . taught . . . or tried to teach English to speakers of a local dialect . . . and how that led me into the field of linguistics I would pursue later at Columbia University in New York.
I have always loved the Fall season. Using Crayola crayons in the 1st and 2nd and 3rd and 4th grades to color up images of the season - leaves turning to show their xanthophylls and carotenes - pumpkins and witches and black cats and scarecrows - turkeys and the horn of plenty - footballs and cheerleaders - mistletoe, angels and Santa Claus by the tree and fireplace. I loved the intoxicating smell of fresh purple ink from the ditto machine, predecessor to what we now call a photocopier.
How I loved the sound of my father's voice on the loud speaker at school or from the press box above the bleachers at the first football game, and I loved seeing him crown the homecoming queen. How I loved my mom's confidence and enthusiasm for Beowulf, The Wife of Bath, Macbeth and also the Dart Throwing Booth she oversaw with her Senior Class students at the annual Halloween Carnival in that classic school gymnasium where one could always count on winning at the cakewalk.
How I love those memories of heading up the way from Vicksburg toward Water Valley and on to Taylor, the tiny town where Miss Louise was born in the house her father built there by the railroad, and driving across the wooden bridge over the creek where folks knew there was a swimming hole and the other one over the Yocona River, Yocona . . . root word for the fictional county in Sartoris and so many more that Mr. Bill wrote stream-of-consciousness. Do you know stream-of-consciousness when you see it?
How I love some of those memories of Fall with Liz's father when we made out in the backseat of his cousin's car on the way home from a game, or in his room in the men's dorm over by the old cafeteria at Ole Miss where I spent the night with him more times than can be counted on two hands. And the time we stayed over in Gatlinburg after going to a game against the Tennessee Vols where we said Hotty Toddy and some similar such about "nothing sucks like the Big Orange sucks." Am I really writing about him? What's this world coming to? Passing health care reform is more likely.
And I loved those drives toward home down through the Delta, looking out across the cotton fields and seeing smoke going up from the chimney of a sharecropper's house along the way, wondering what they were cooking, and how Miss Louise and Pop would welcome me when I got there, sometimes with bar-b-qued chicken, baked beans and lemon or pecan pie.
And there were the years we all drove school buses for the Oxford Municipal School District to make some extra cash for our final years in college and then first years of graduate school. How much I liked the kids on my St. Andrew's Circle route, many of them youngsters whose parents were professors there at the University where William Faulkner's words are immortalized on the side of a wall at the big library and the annual Yoknapatawpha Conference is held and we laughed at the graffiti in the elevator that said "Jesus Saves" and under it was written "At the Bank of Oxford."
And that Fall season I was teaching in Holly Springs in the latter months of pregnancy with Liz, climbing up those stairs in the Holly High building that's now gone, and how the following year I was in the Homecoming Parade with my students going around the courthouse square where the infamous Marshall County Sheriff's Office was located and the Dollar Store.
How I love the memories of Basketball Season finally starting and marching in the Viking Band with my snare drum and the time we marched up Washington Street in the annual Christmas Parade, our drum section playing our new cadence with all our hearts - Claudia, Alan and me along with that boy with a special name, Happy, who died a few years later in a car wreck.
How I love the memories of the Fall season activities in Memphis during my coming out years when we played volleyball at a Memphis NOW retreat at Shelby Forest or when Audrey and I were first dating and she took me to see the Rocky Horror Picture Show and told me what the toast and newspapers, lighters and squirt guns were all about, and together we took my students to see the traveling company of the Broadway show Chicago at the Orpheum, the first ever Broadway show either my students or I had ever seen . . . but not so for Audrey who grew up visiting aunts in New Youk and going to college in the Ivy League. I was so excited and optimistic about life back then.
And that Fall season when three friends of mine took me to New York to visit the campus at Columbia and we left the car at Newark Airport and rode a bus into the Port Authority Terminal because none of us had the nerve to drive through the Lincoln Tunnel and into Manhattan. I remember that very moment of seeing the skyline for my first time, and then looking back at it for one last look as we headed back down the New Jersey Turnpike a few days later.
There were four subsequent Fall seasons in New York, and oh yes, Halloween times in Bancroft Hall when I was a witch at the door. We spent Thanksgivings watching the big parade out the window of the building where Audrey's cousins lived on Central Park West. In December, Audrey made a wreath by stringing up bagels and she hung it outside on our door.
Then there are those memories of Fall season living in Washington, DC and northern Virginia where the colors of leaves are pronounced and one year I boxed up a bunch of them with a pumpkin and shipped it off to Liz who was living in New Orleans and they have no leaves to speak of, and mowing the lawn for the last time before Winter at the home Tonda and I shared there by Nottingham Street where Miss Frances, as a tiny runt kitten, first came to live with us and she ran so fast around the backyard it looked like she was levitating above the grass.
That backyard where I found out about bird-feeders and wars with squirrels and the suburban possum that climbed up the walnut tree and hid out under the deck behind our house. The deck where Tonda's dog Jessie cornered that possum more than once and woke us up in the middle of the night sounding off barking for all she was worth. And the possum just bared its teeth at the dog and sneered like saying "You wouldn't dare!"
I have so many memories about Fall, about going hiking in the Marin Headlands during my first season here in the Bay Area and looking out over the Pacific Ocean and thinking what a place this is, and memories of setting up booths for one group or another year after year at the Castro Street Fair and having been there under a canopy in all kinds of weather.
And this year, well, I do sequester here in my hermitage, nursing aches and pains from foolishness, and it is good to see during this time an accomplished New York Yankees team has this very day clinched a playoff spot, the Ole Miss football team is ranked #5 in the nation, and the Giants and Colts where Archie Manning's boys are quarterbacks, both have won their first two games in the new season. Archie was quarterback at Ole Miss when I was there and saw him walk the campus with a pretty girl who is now wife and mom of NFL stars. It works for some, I guess.
I welcome this Fall as a time of recovery and re-connection with my heritage and thoughts of what kind of legacy there might be for the work I've been devoted to the past decade and almost a half and thoughts of the more immediate time to come and what needs to be done. And though I fancy myself a gentle soul like Miss Louise, the part of me Pop influenced has risen, so there's a sign hung on my door just now saying "Beware! She's finally angry and suffers no fool!" Miss Louise was like that too, quiet and sweet until she was finally angry or fed up once in a while.
Yes, pumpkins are at the Castro Safeway now, so I must go once more to retrieve one, maybe two. I like tending pumpkins. I like seeing the church, St Francis Luthean, across the street from my grocery store, the church where the PFLAG Chapter meets. Funny, it is that church that 'tis referred to by some locals as they smile and say: "Our Lady of the Safeway."
(Vintage Postcard Image - Source Unkown)
Entered 7:30 PM
Of Culkin Wildcats . . .
Saturday, August 29th
Of Culkin Wildcats, Warren Central Vikings and the Fort Hill Bicycle Gang
facebook is changing things. My grade school, junior high and high school classmates are finding me out here on the edge of the continent in the Land of Fruit and Nuts. I haven't seen or heard tell of most of them since 2001 when I dared go with Dr. Leon back to Vicksburg for our 30th High School Class Reunion.
They voted and awarded me their "The Most Changed" declaration, which set off an essay back to them about how happy I was to have changed and about how I wished some of that for some of them. Shortly, I noticed the e-mails stopped coming and I figured they had dropped me from the list . . .
Some of them are finding me now, and I don't know if they really know who I am or what I am these days. Do I care? Well, yes, I suppose I do. Some of them are "way cool" southern folk free thinkers who could give a hoot about sexual or gender identification or what anybody does about anything so long as they are good to others. Some of them, I suspect, hardly know the meaning of gender or sexuality-related terms, and some of them claim in their profiles to be very conservative and religious.
Perhaps I shall become their conduit to a friend-of-queers sensibility, such as my children have, or maybe PFLAG gets new members. I think some of those girls in our class were among the first I ever fell in love with . . . and they are still beautiful . . . and some have memories of my playhouse.
I'll invite them to come visit out here, and we'll drive across the Golden Gate with the top down and sing Beach Boys songs and yell at the top of our lungs about pushing our bicycles all the way up Fort Hill in the Vicksburg National Military Park on a hot and humid Mississippi day way back when we were . . . well, we were probably about in Mrs. Wilkinson's Class or some where there 'bouts. Kathy and I chat about that sometimes.
Do they really want to be friends with me on facebook?
I typed "Culkin Wildcats" in and Google searched. The thing spun and spun and spun . . . and I thought I'd have to refresh and start over. Then comes the list and it's all about that child actor Macaulay. Somehow, I found my way to the Culkin alumni website Annie Douglas keeps and found they've written there about Miss Louise and her English teaching.
What popped up on my desktop here, as I searched for a place to copy and paste their words to keep and read again sometime, . . . what popped up was something about Conde Nast declaring Infusion to be one of the Top 35 hottest new clubs in the world. Tomorrow I'll go back to writing about Infusion, Orson and gay life here in The Castro. Not the Baptist Church, as my cousins write about.
I wonder what Miss Louise might have said about my writings on that phenomenon we call "Ladies Night." Probably she'd say something she said so many times and I hated it: "Do the best you can. That's all a mule can do." Admitting I too say it now . . . she was cutting me a break but at the same time urging me on and inspiring me too. A friend I told about that recently asked if Miss Louise might have been comparing me to a jackass.
Well, there you have it! Her students wrote that she had a wicked dry sense of humor. She spoke from the grave when my friend said the jackass part, since I'd never even thought of it that way in all these years. I think, too, that my friend, who is a California girl, probably doesn't have a clue about the difference between a jackass and a mule.
I think Miss Louise also would most likely have found it funny what Pop said to me the last time I saw him before he died: "Go on out now and get your brother." In other words, get the hell out of my hospital room . . . But, hey, I had the last word anyway in his . . . his what's called a eulogy . . . and I spoke right at him too from up there at the funeral home podium, looking down upon the flowers and his casket, the casket my brother had picked out before I got there. My brother was always there before I got there.
Sometimes lately I've missed ole Pop and wished he were here to cook up something with me late at night like we used to do when I went home. He'd stuff some leftover cornbread with a teaspoon into a glass of cold milk, finish it off and then have a link of pork sausage from Bryan's packing company in Jackson . . . He'd say nothing and cook one for me, too, just because he knew I loved them wrapped in a slice of Wonder bread. But, I never have understood why he liked so much having cornbread soaked in cold milk.
Where I live now there are so many varieties of fancy baked fresh bread with special stuff inside, like olives or cherry 'n chocolate or more grains than anyone can count. So many to choose from, it's hard to say, but none of it here smells as good to me as Koestler's Bakery did when we rode by there on Clay Street headed to what we called downtown Vicksburg. I have come to know that Vickburg really has no downtown or uptown either.
So, when someone asks me that question: When did you know you were gay? I used to say I knew in first grade when my best friend Mary and I got locked in our classroom's restroom one time. I've realized, though, that it was even earlier. As a toddler, I had a favorite babysitter, one of Miss Louise's students. Her name was NonaVee and she was indeed my very first dreamgirl. On some level Miss Louise knew it too, because she'd always ask NonaVee first if she was available to come over, if she could, and take care of me. When NonaVee did come, I was then just sure - even though I could not explain why - that all was good in this world.
(Entered 12:45 AM)
(Vicksburg National Military Park Photo)
Barefootin'
April 1, 2009
Barefootin’
'Tis April Fool’s when the St. Stupid’s Day Parade happens every year in San Francisco’s Financial District – another reason, perhaps, why we do live here . . .
But . . . I do not love April, not anything like October. April is my Birthday Month, nonetheless, and time has come to plan at least a week of birthday celebrations.
Miss Louise, when best friend Mary and I were kids, would give us her green light so we could go barefoot on April 1st. ‘Twas thus then and shall ever be. April 1st. Barefoot.
By mid-summer, Mary and I could and did run across the rocks up the gravel road with no need for shoes. But not on the 1st day of April. We were reminded every year . . . we were just tenderfoots with tender feet. No hope of running on the gravel in early Spring, yet hope still springs eternal this day every year. Miss Louise is turning over about typos and grammar . . . I know this to be true.
Dr. Leon has gifted me a CD of himself singing gospel tunes. I listened to it yesterday. I listened to it all the way through while driving down to San Jose. His voice is a melodious and mature one now. I like it better than I did when he sang for us in high school. I have not heard him sing for . . . well, shall we say, several decades, but I’ve always loved that he is by, for and about music.
Dr. Leon begins his CD with a spoken essay about “home” and what it means going back to Rawhide, his family’s ranch there in central Mississippi where we grew up. He talks about going home or coming home as a source of solace and recalls his peaceful walks in the woods.
Among all the tunes in the collection on the CD, that perennial favorite “How Great Thou Art” struck me as most familiar and one I could sing along with, passing the Menlo Park and Palo Alto exits on California Highway 101, going on down the peninsula freeway in LaLa Land. Yes, I confess to singing gospel tunes once more here in LaLa Land.
I have learned the difference between freeway and expressway, the former being in California and the latter in New York. Both, however, can be extended parking lots. I have also learned the difference between singing gospel songs because you are serious and singing gospel songs for the pure joy of the musicology, the lore, regionalisms and culture . . . dare I say "southern culchah" or the appreciation thereof.
Dr. Leon might come to visit this year to check out the boys in the Castro. He complains with vigor when I do not write here about my memories of growing up. Perhaps this entry will sufficeat least a while. There are no pumpkins to speak of this month, however, so I shall recount that today I learned while watching Matha Stewart on TV that the birthstone for April, the diamond, is a symbol for . . . innocence. I believe I have lost mine. Diamonds and innocence alike, that is. Martha's lost hers too, you say?
Dr. Leon is the man, my first grade sweetheart, I should have married him - after Liz’s father, of course but only because he is her father. I should have had Dr. Leon's children. It is too late now.
Thus, I am just waiting to be "Grand Betty" when I can reaffirm Miss Louise's grand tradition. I, too, shall then be telling kids it is okay. Go barefoot today. Feel the cool of young grass blades between your feet. So tender and new they are now, before becoming dusty, dry and hot with Summer heat there in the rich Delta cotton country.
Photo Source Unknown
Entered 10:30 PM
January's Come In with a Bang Thus Far . . .
January 27, 2009
January’s Come In with a Bang Thus Far . . . And We've Five More Days Yet to Happen!
New Year’s Day found me battling severe laryngitis and a sore throat. Then, a round of antibiotics later, we’re on the go! Speaking of "go," those young women from GoGetYourGirlOn.com have joined "Betty's List" supporters and friends for so much fun . . . They have caused the fun. No, it wouldn't do to tell. My linguistics professor once smiled broadly telling us that the word "go" in English translated to Japanese means "come." Think on that for a while, will ya?
One week to the day into 2009 and we celebrated the first Ladies Night at Orson. Yes, Orson is the new home of our signature weekly event for women and their friends. This move was not one that I decided on quickly or easily given that MECCA has been a second home for six years. But year seven finds us joining Chef Elizabeth Falkner and her life/business partner Sabrina Riddle at their dynamite new restaurant Orson. The first two Ladies Nights at Orson have been outstanding and all bodes well for more, more, more! Yes, someday I will write my story of MECCA . . . and it will have to be one of those they call a "tell all." Geez . . . how I've love the good times there, now all gone.
Liz, my daughter, and her “other mommy” Audrey called at 3:00 AM (PST) on Tuesday morning, January 20th to let me know they were sitting on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial awaiting the Inaugural of President Barack Obama. What a day for me - lover of historic events and live media coverage - watching the scenes on multiple TVs and web streaming too, direct from Washington, DC. The evening found me with friends at The Green Room on Van Ness Avenue at the War Memorial Building for the SF Democratic Party’s official Inaugural Party.
Two days later found me at Orson and then on to Ruby Skye for the annual Curve L-Word Premiere Issue Party where L-Word star rose Rollins (Tasha) and DJ Pat Pat from Miami plus go-go dancing girls got the crowd – including me –going, going, going . . . gone! A fun time was had by all! Yeah, we had fun in that festive atmosphere.
In other news, my boots are made for walking once more heading down to the Ferry Building and around about the Castro neighborhood too. One of those outings found me finding and claiming my first ever serious grown-up desk at the Under One Roof Sale at the old Tower Records store just up the street a bit and across Market. Todd, Cheryl and a good neighbor came to my rescue for the move and installation up a flight of San Francisco stairs. The damn thing is heavy. Let’s rephrase that. My lovely new elegant desk is quite well made and not easy to move around, especially not up a flight of San Francisco stairs!
And January has five more days to go yet! Go get your girl on . . .!
