After a very strange year and because of it, I arrived in a place that was never on my Radar beyond a musical.
I knew nothing of the place, absolutely nothing, when the driver heading from California back to New Jersey after a failed attempt to get custody of his son and needed someone to talk to, dropped me off at one of the highway-exits to downtown Oklahoma City after having picked me up thumbing on the interstate somewhere near Grants, New Mexico. He needed to talk to someone, and that turned out to be me from there until the drop off.
A friend in California had a grandmother there, and, as I needed a place to stay for a minute and, as I had helped her grandson when he had needed it, I figured I could get pay back by proxy.
The school district in Los Angeles is so spread out with departments all over the city each of which needs to hold the original of various professional documents of each teacher, which means, as in my case and others, there was a possibility one or more documents could be misplaced and if asked for and not found could have the system declare you can no longer teach.
On some minor matter, I had gone to one of those repositories and had asked to add something to my file relative to that department, which was found not to exist. The file there was gone and so was I.
I was heading home to Massachusetts where I intended to teach, but without some necessary original papers I would not be able to do that. OKC is halfway between both coasts. I wasn’t in any hurry, there was the possibility of a place to stay, and, hoping it would not take too long, I could get help from the state’s education department in procuring documents from L.A. that would get more immediate attention from a state’s department of education than the request of a mere teacher, as mine had been.
After the previous year I needed a total rebuild and some self-discovery in a place where no one knew me, and I could be me without any preconceived expectations. I was free to be me, and, having fought for and won Gay rights in Los Angeles and having worked with some of the Los Angeles Gay rights greats, I wasn’t going back in time, so I was my Long Beach California Gay me in the Buckle of the Bible Belt. With no one telling me that what I thought, said, and did was just not me according to their expectations and assessment of how my life should be, I was free to be who I was and, perhaps, without any such influence, I could find the real me. Up to this point, anything I did, consciously or not, it was always related to others in my life and any of those actions would have had some relation to other people who decided who I was and what my life should be.
Here, I could not hurt, offend, or let down those who, even with the best intentions had more control over my life than I did, and were the benchmark against which all actions, words, or deeds would be measured to determine if they were rebellious, revolutionary, good, bad, or not what expectations allowed of me.
Getting back to the East Coast was not an immediate need. I intended to get back into teaching, but having the time, I went to the state Board of education to see if being in a state like Oklahoma with a rather small population as states go there was any way one state department of education could get a better response from Los Angeles, and being less likely to be dismissed might have the right amount of authority to get my old school district to actively look for what they considered non-existent papers. If I was going to reenter teaching on the In the year viagra samples in canada 1843, it was officially called Lepidium Meyenii Walp. Branded drugs were only affordable by the high class rich people and referred as the standard drugs, whereas common man was unable to buy the branded drugs because of the high cost.Previously when Caverta came to the market, they were considered as inferior quality drugs in comparison cialis online shop to properties and effects of the respective branded drugs. Stem Cell Therapy to Treat ED Erectile Dysfunction, the condition is commonly referred as ‘impotence’, is the repeated inability to get or keep an erection firm enough to have acquisition de viagra lovemaking episode. Also we need to make it sure that your information is absolutely secure with us. from uk viagra is the exact function of this medicine Kamagra? The exact function is developing the blood flow in the reproductive organs increases. coast, I at least wanted to arrive with all proper paperwork. To expedite the process, the person with whom I spoke suggested that I take a job as a substitute which would add a little pressure to get one state to work with the other.
The short cut was to substitute teach while the paperwork came in, and when I had everything, move on. This led me to be part of the OKC Gay Community when the temporary stop-over landed me at a school with a very progressive faculty and a principal who allowed teachers to try innovative things, at a time of great activity.
There were people at the time in the gay Community who to me where the Old Guard, the Gays and Lesbians going way back to a time before political activism began to gel. There were those whose political activism was bringing equality to the Gay Community and those getting into activism were increasing power. There were those who spoke out in a place where, doing so, was dangerous to safety, home, and employment. There were those who owned the bars and those who performed in them to supply a safe gathering place.
I got there when the Old Guard, while still involved in their areas began to pass the batons on as progress was made regarding all things Gay, no matter which letter in our alphabet applied, when, rather than an explosive night at the Stonewall Inn, in light of location, there were a series of quiet and some very loud push backs to the City’s treatment of the Gay Community, and although it may not have been seen clearly at the time, each one was a win for us.
Bar raids severely curtailed; targeted and creative use of anti-lewdness laws were challenged; inroads were made with politicians and community organizations; court cases were being won; banners on Classen Boulevard, once removed so as not to make visiting Baptist ministers uncomfortable went back up; a court case, sadly ignored by many Gay teachers had established in the 80s that a teacher could not be fired for being Gay, they would have to have done something egregious in that regard as would straight teachers; the placement of “Homosexual Themed” books in a “special” section for books so no one would know they were there was defeated; Religious-conservative politicians were no longer free to spread their lies and pass laws based on them; Parades and festivals grew; Students were protected from bullying, harassment, and discrimination in school policies, and a Gay man whose positive contributions in the area of politics had his funeral held under the rotunda of the state capitol.
Gay and Lesbian couples danced at a governor’s inaugural ball, and a band made up of locals participated at the second inaugural of President Clinton joining with Gay bands from around the country. Two representatives of the OKC Pride Parade and Festival Committee went to Key West for the celebration there where the original 8 striped Rainbow Flag was unfurled from one side of the island to the other, and when that flag was cut up for people present to take back to their home states’ Gay Communities, because of the recent record of successes in OKC as seen by other places, were given the first large piece cut from the flag which unfortunately later was tossed out of a storage unit because the person who was in charge of it did not know what it was and threw it out without asking about it.
The OKC Gay Community was being watched by the rest of the country.
Whatever is happening now in the OKC Gay Community is only because of what was done back in the mists of time.
After a twelve-year convoluted bigotry- laced battle, the Oklahoma City Public School district added “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” to its student policies on bullying, harassment, and discrimination, and a few years later started participating in the annual Pride Parade.
What is Pride. For me it is my having been able to work alongside some unknown giants in Gay rights, first in L.A. and then the 18 year temporary stop over in OKC.
Pride Month is ending, but Pride must not.
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