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| Me, tall guy in the back second form the left, hanging out at the Service Club at Ft. George G. Meade, Maryland 1960. This occasion was my friend Sal's birthday party. What were the women doing there? Every Wednesday night the Service Club had dances which local women could attend. Ironically, most of my friends were gay but that didn't seem to bother the girls because we always had a good time at those weekly dances. In fact, Sal's girl friend ("Pat") took this picture which explains why she wasn't in the picture. |
4:32 AM Saturday morning.
Yep, you read that time right. I'm up very early this Saturday morning because after my usual nocturnal bathroom visit, I couldn't get back to sleep.
This has been happening every now and then the past year or so. I don't know what the explanation is other than I do get a lot of sleep what with my daily afternoon nap of an hour or more. Yesterday I think I slept for over two hours.
On my Bose radio right now "Our Day Will Come" is the music that is playing. This song has special significance for me. It was one of the first songs I heard when I moved to Pittsburgh after I was discharged from my three year Army tour of duty at Ft. George G. Meade, Maryland.
Why did I move to Pittsburgh and not my family home when I got out of the Army? Easy answer. I wanted to come out after being in the closet at the National Security Agency two and a half years and surviving all the gay witch hunts that was a constant threat. I couldn't come out (as a gay man) at home in my small hometown of Downingtown, Pennsylvania but I could come out in a big city like Pittsburgh.
Again, why Pittsburgh? I had a friend who lived right outside the city who I was friends with at Ft. Meade. His name was Sal De Rosa and he was in the Air Force.
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| My friend Sal DeRosa in the Army barracks near my locker, I surprised him by taking his photo in 1961. Sal lived in the Air Force barracks which were right next to the Army barracks where I lived. I think he came over for me and we were going to go to the nearby Service Club which is where we usually hung out with our friends after a day of work at the NSA headquarters building. |
When I was stationed at Ft. Meade all branches of the service (Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines) all had adjoining barracks nearby the huge NSA headquarters building. Sal had completed his tour of duty with the Air Force a few months earlier than I did with my three year Army stint. Sal lived in Elizabeth with his family (mother, father and brother), right outside Pittsburgh. Sal was going to be my contact with the gay world, which back in January of 1963 was a lot different than it is today.
Sal and his friends took me to my first gay bar in the nearby town of Clairton, Pennsylvania, a small, rough steel town right outside Pittsburgh.
Clairton, PA (exactly as I remember it from 1963)
Oh I remember that bar well. Just a local neighborhood bar in an old ramshackle two-story building. The ground floor with the omnipresent flashing neon sign outside was for the local straight population. That was NOT where gays went. Instead we went up the steps up back that went to the second level of that building. I followed Sal and his friends Howard and someone else whose name I can't remember now, led me up those stairs to the door on the small landing outside. I could hear music playing softly on the other side of that door. To say I was nervous would be a gross understatement. Butterflies were flying in my stomach. Sal or one of his friends knocked on the door to be let in. Yes, this is how one went to gay bars back in the early Sixties. Speakeasy type entry. The guy who opened the door recognized Sal and his friends and let us in.
What I saw simply amazed me. I had literally stepped into another world. What I saw were men slow dancing together to the slow dancing music coming from the juke box.
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| Not my photo but similar to what I saw when I walked into my first gay bar in Clairton, PA. Men in suits dancing together, like this. YES! I had arrived, I LOVED IT! |
Many of the men had suits on and looked like "regular" men. I don't know what I had expected, men dressed like women? Well, I didn't see that, I saw men like me........dancing together. It is hard to describe the feeling that flowed through my body when I saw the incredible sight of two men dancing together. I do know though that it was an incredible feeling of acceptance.
We walked towards the bar with the lights behind the multiple booze bottles reflected in the back mirrors in the dimly lit room with the small dance floor with those men slow dancing cheek to cheek. I didn't know it at the time but I was the "new face" in the bar. If you know anything about the "gay lifestyle", being the new face in town, especially a gay bar, is something to behold and experience.
We ordered our drinks and settled in. Being the new face in town, it was only a few minutes before a man in his early thirties, crew cut, horn rimmed glasses, suited, well built man drifted over to our group and asked me if I would like to dance. WOULD I LIKE TO DANCE? OMG! I THINK SO!
I put my drink down as my friends smiled knowingly to each other as I accepted this man's hand as he led me to the dance floor where all those MEN were still slow dancing TOGETHER. Remember, this was before the disco invasion that was launched by gay bars. This was Forties style nightclubbing albeit it in much more modest circumstances.
As my dance partner enveloped me in his arms, (he was about six feet in height, a little shorter than my then 6'4" height), we merged in with the other slow dancing all male couples on that minuscule dance floor. First thing I realized he was leading. Oh wow, I'm dancing backwards, just like a girl. Hey folks, that wasn't easy. I'm telling you! But I quickly got the hang of it and I didn't even have to contend with high heels.
So how was it dancing with a man Ron? Well, it was great! Now I understood why dancing was so popular, especially slow, cuddly dancing. I felt so at home. I felt like I belonged. For the first time in my twenty-one years of life I felt like I belonged. And what a wonderful feeling that was. The sexual tension, you could cut it with a knife. And something else I immediately noticed although at first I was a little confused. Well, not really. But initially when he pulled me closer to him my right leg felt this "ruler" in his pocked. "What's he doing with a ruler in his pocket?" I thought. Of course it only took me about five seconds to realize that what was in his pocket wasn't a "ruler" but an indication he was very glad to be dancing with me as I was him because it turned out I had developed a "ruler" too! During our dance he asked me if I would like to go to the bathroom. How solicitous and kind of him! I told him I didn't need to go and continued to dance. Again he asked me if I would like to go to the bathroom, again I declined. After our dance ended, I returned to my Chesire Cat smiling friends at the bar. They asked me "Well, how was it?" I told them I thoroughly enjoyed dancing with Mr. Crew Cut, black horn rimmed glasses, nice build, ruler in his pocket dance partner. I also told them I thought it was unusual that he kept asking me if I wanted to go to the bathroom. My friends immediately responded "Well, you did go didn't you?" I said "Of course not, I didn't have to go." They laughed which I didn't understand. I didn't get IT. Then they explained to me why he kept asking me if I wanted to go to the bathroom. OH NO! Man oh man, was I ever naive. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. They told me WHY he wanted me to go to the bathroom. Of course he would go with me and, well you can figure that out for yourselves. Well, back then, as naive as I was I would never engage in anonymous sexual activity with a stranger, no matter how butch and attractive, in public bathroom. But I have to say I was flattered.
When we left the bar for downtown Pittsburgh and the after hours bar the A.V.A. (another whole experience which I will write about later), they told me who the man was who asked me to dance and then go to the bathroom. He was the local police chief of the township. And no, it wasn't a trap to ensnare homosexuals frequenting that bar, this guy was serious. He was gay.
And that my friends is a little bit of my gay history early this Saturday morning. And what does this have to do with the sone "Our Day Will Come." That was the song that was playing in another gay bar my friends took me to during my stay in Pittsburgh. That was the song that was playing when I met my first boyfriend, Joseph Labriola. And that story I may tell the next time I wake up very early on a Saturday morning and I can't get back to sleep.