rage notes
TIME MARCHES ON . . .
Well, here we are again, it’s the end of another season and I find myself thinking about things ending and beginning. Time passes and sometimes the speed at which it moves is a little alarming. When I pause to think about the
fact that I have lived in California for 16 years, it amazes me. When I think of how much has changed in that 16 years in comparison to the way things were even before then—I am staggered. I remember when they landed on the moon, because we watched it happen on the black and white TV in our classroom. I remember the first LP I bought, then the first 8-track tape, the first cassette, then CD, the first computer I was exposed to, and my first cell phone, ending with the one I have now that contains enough music to last weeks—so many beginnings, and so many ends. The great thing about aging (am I really saying that?) is that you gain perspective on the continuity of life and, that it progresses and moves forward no matter what you do and generally in a positive manner. Freedoms that we take for granted today, were not so free yesterday. Growing up in the ‘60s in a small town that
was uncannily like Mayberry from the Andy Griffith Show mentioned on page 32, was no picnic for a very young, very green, and very frightened kid. Small towns have their comforts (and yes advantages) as far as familiarity is concerned, you know everybody and everybody knows you. You see them on the street, in the grocery store or in the post office and greet and chat about what’s happening and in those communities you must depend on each other for survival—it creates a strong bond. Being different in a town of 200 people can be very isolating too, because there are no common references to grab a hold of—at least good ones. I can still remember vividly, the first time I ran across a positive image of who I would come to eventually be— it
was a book titled The Best Little Boy In the World, it changed my outlook because it was a story about a gay man growing up and coming into his own. It tells of his first fleeting physical experiments, first loves and his escape to a community within a large city that was filled with people just like him—ironically another small neighborhood, another Mayberry. We are so changed today because we found a voice as a group and fought for the right to exist in a country
that supposedly values equality and freedom above all else. It is hard to keep that in perspective when you have persons of the fundamentalist bent, screaming loudly about how they know god is pissed about our “evil ways” because he’s sending hurricanes and earthquakes to prove how badly we are behaving. I have to believe that most Americans see that this is somebody blowing the smoke of fear, playing on insecurities and not a reasoned conversation. The defeat of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” (read about it onpages 52 through 54) is another shining example of what
we are accomplishing, even thought the war is not over. I was so proud and moved when the active-duty military members marched this year in the San Diego Pride Parade, something even last year we couldn’t have imagined. I know as a kid in northern Wisconsin, I couldn’t even have conceived of such a day. Charlie David’s interview onpage 38 through 40, has a question about whether or not he’d go back an change
a decision or choice he’d made and his response was basically, that there is no such thing as a wrong choice if you look at everything as an opportunity for growth. I like that, everything is an opportunity for betterment, even the set-backs—time may be moving fast, but it is moving forward and it is getting better. Oh, and earthquakes and hurricanes are just what they are, nature doing it’s thing—sad, scary, yes, but just a part of the cycle.
Joel Martens, Interim Editor
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RAGE monthly | SEPTEMBER 2011
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