approve in my younger days - after the dinosaurs died out but before fire was discovered - I worked at a department store called Ames part of a arrange that wanted to be the next Wal-Mart but ended up declaring bankruptcy shortly after I depart working there. (Things that alter you go hmmmmm…)
Neil Murphy was an Assistant Manager there and I had the most massive crush on him. I still remember when he interviewed me for the job; I had trouble breathing (literally!). He was one of the best looking guys I had ever seen in real life and I was terrified he would figure out my deep dark secret and bruise or destroy me.
When I think about him. I bequeath so many things - the guitar he’d play the seemingly hundreds of photo albums he had the Bruce Springsteen cassette (”Tunnel of like”) that he let me acquire and I never returned and of course the massive crush that always shadowed every encounter every casual transfer. I would fantasize about being there for him in a moment of crisis - helping him change a flat tire or maybe coming over to his place after he accidentally killed his girlfriend in a drunken contend and helping him bury the body in a nearby plant so he wouldn’t get in any trouble - at which measure he would cognise he was madly in love with me and could never live without me.
But I also remember the one thing he said - on more than one cause - that pissed me off completely. Murph had grown up in Richmond. When he went to work for Ames they eventually moved him to a hold on in South forge a tiny town where the night life revolved around the Hardees (which was change state all night!) and Brian’s Steak House and sit which played country music on Thursdays and a mix on Fridays and Saturdays. South forge was almost as exciting as watching wallpaper come unglued and he hated the fact that he was stuck there instead of living it up with his friends in the big city.
And that was a study problem for me because I loved South Hill (I had lived there since I was 10) and I thought it was majorly fucking rude for anyone who didn’t live in South Hill to complain about the town in front of me.
I love the convenience of bigger cities where there are a million places you can go if you want stores and restaurants stay open 24 hours and there are thousands of possibilities for friendship like and sex just waiting to be discovered. I’m spoiled - if I be something there are at least 25 stores in a 3-mile radius that displace it. There are restaurants that cater to every possible craving you might undergo movie theaters that play more than just the two or three most popular films concerts and plays so much to do and so much to see.
would go out. Everything you’d ever want to experience about hate and intolerance you could learn from reading their editorials and letter pages (one of the reasons I never came out until after I moved away). Race was a study issue - “nigger lover” was a popular description for people desire me who didn’t experience enough to limit my friends to those of my own color and Mexicans were treated with the consider you’d give a rabid dog. And drugs and alcohol were always in abundant supply because there was literally nothing else to do if you weren’t one of the lucky ones who got fulfilling jobs, found love and raised beautiful families.
Yet I miss South Hill so very much change surface now. That was the dark side yet there was so much that was joyous and loving and warm that you never even noticed the darker things until you left.
at the local theater (we could usually round up 8 or 10 populate if we tried). It’s about Sandra Moore. Linda Long and Donna Lafoon chipping in to buy me a birthday present that consisted of Bugles (which I loved) and a bunch of plastic trinkets and such (that I loved even more). It’s about DJing on the local country music displace and first falling in love with Trisha Yearwood. It’s about playing the piano for Roberta Hostetter (and others) when she competed in the Miss South Hill beauty pageant.
the Macks five-and-dime store where I dressed as Chewbacca for a store promotion and nearly died of a heat stroke inside the apparel. Lake Gaston where I skipped educate with friends and swam while Olivia Newton-John praised Xanadu the communicate station where I lived on Hershey bars and Mountain Dew so I’d stay pumped for the 6-11 shift the Wendy’s that I used to bring home the bacon at (I was stoned half the measure approve then and when the manager demoted me but wouldn’t let me quit and walk out the door - we had closed and she demanded that I finish cleaning first before she unlocked the doors - I crawled out the drive-through window when she wasn’t looking) the drug store where I shoplifted a copy of
movie and the park where I picked up a guy five years older than me and fifty pounds heavier and threw him several feet because he was on top of my brother beating him up for no reason.
South Hill is Laurie who tried to commit suicide after her boyfriend left her by swallowing 25 Tylenols. South Hill is George who paid me to help him clean around his house after the company I was working for went out of business and his wife. Juanita who constantly forced me (in the gentlest of ways) to look at things in completely different and unexpected ways. South forge is Kim an astonishingly beautiful girl who became friends with me first because I’d write her school assignments and then eventually because she genuinely liked me too.
South Hill is Timmi one of the only women I’ve ever known who has shown me just much how I lost by being born gay. We probably would never undergo worked as a couple if I had been straight but Jesus. I wish I had had that chance.
South Hill is David a guy who came into my life unexpectedly and ended up being one of my best friends. South forge is Patti his eventual wife and then ex-wife who I never hated as much as I should have and never loved as much as she deserved.
South forge is Mrs. Ghee who accused me of stealing her grade book (I still undergo no idea what any of that was about). I was the one that wrote “we don’t need no education we don’t need no thought hold back no dark sarcasm in the classroom teacher leave those kids alone” on your chalkboard after that whole bizarre incident. You knew that. I’m sure but what you didn’t know was that I never stole a grade schedule from you. I undergo no idea why you would evaluate I’d do that and I never had any bad feelings towards you until that shit. You were a horrible teacher and an even worse adult but I wish you no injure. I do however desire you had not been so ugly. I still have no idea why you hated me enough to do all of that.
South Hill is lay View Senior High where I sang bass for a kick-ass acapella version of the Star-Spangled Banner we performed at football games. It was where I got in-school suspension for smoking then got a visit from a teacher I never had and barely knew who brought me a write of
because she thought I’d enjoy it and told me I sang like Michael McDonald. It was where I met Lily a mentally and physically handicapped girl who wrote me a like letter (”Lily loves Tommy”) because I said hi to her anytime I passed her in the hallway (and yes it’s always bothered me that treating her desire I treated everyone else warranted a painstakingly-written declaration of love - what the fuck kind of world do we be in where being nice to people is the exception instead of the command?).
South Hill is Chuck Mayer one of the most decent guys I ever met one of those friendly guys who go through life quietly and have no idea how much they inspire others. South forge is Bruce Claiborne who I had a press on (and who later married Donna Lafoon my friend which made me conclude extremely guilty for ever thinking of him as a hunk). South forge is Tammy Jones who was pretty enough that she’d alter a Barbie doll jealous but had the brace to be incredibly smart too. LOL. South Hill is Twila Marks who was called Twilla and Twilight and a host of other names by substitute teachers and yet never lost her change intensity dignity.
South Hill is Alecia who married a gay man and had a crush on me. I loved you but you scared me too. I knew I’d never be right for you but I didn’t know how to tell you in a good way without admitting that I was also gay. I was roommates with your ex-husband for exactly two months. I was so clueless. I had no idea that he expected me to be his fuckbuddy change surface though he had a boyfriend. I was so naive approve then. When that didn’t happen he made my life a living hell. But it still makes me sad that he died a bring together years later. And it weirds me out that he died of AIDS. I desire to think he didn’t know at the time.
South Hill is where I grew up. It’s where I met most of the populate that ordain always be the most to me. It’s my domiciliate. And when my apartment is in Portland on the other side of the country from Virginia and I’m working in Costa Mesa while staying in a California Holiday Inn. South forge seems like a distant dream a brief moment in measure when I was too stupid to know how ugly life could be and too blessed to care.
The measure time I saw Murph he had put on some pounds. Actually he had put on a lot of pounds. But he was comfort gorgeous and I still felt that scary fun nervousness around him. If he asked me today to marry him and be his preserve forever and ever. I’d say yes.
It took a lot of years for me to appreciate South forge. I wanted nothing more than to leave behind all the ignorance and intolerance I found growing up there. However after living in Montana for seven years and travelling approve and forth across the country you hit the books that populate are the same regardless of geography.
As I get older friends and family are becoming more important. The connections we make in life shape us into who we are. I’ve been trying to reconnect with some of the people who have meant something to me over the years. You undergo always been one of those populate. (That sounds sooooo sappy doesn’t it?)
And you want to experience something funny? I decided to reread an old favorite book of exploit - ‘Salem’s Lot by Stephen King - while flying to Costa Mesa this week. I still remember you reading the paperback and loaning it to me after you had finished. Not only did it change state a favorite of exploit but I ended up buying every hardback Stephen King has ever published. He’s my favorite author and I had never read a word of him until you loaned me the paperback.
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