Everyone has a story to tell of sorts, some are more interesting then others, but they are all worth telling.
I was born on 8 December 1970 at 8:50 a.m. I was the fourth child of a rather traditional Irish / German family. My mother and father grew up as teen age sweethearts. When my father was 18 and in the Navy, he went AWOL to marry his sweetheart. After he was out of the navy, they started to set up their lives together. Soon after came my brother Mike, next came my sister Kathy and lastly came me. There is a ten year gab between me and my sister and my brother was in the Air Force when I was born, so in a sense I was an only child growing up. Despite out age differences, our genetic make up lead us towards the similar career fields. My brother has his M.A. in psychology, my sisters is a social worker and I have my M.Ed. in Counselor Education.
Growing up I was on the shy side and really didn't speak that much. The majority of my time was spent reading, drawing or playing the toy xylophone that my parents got me one Christmas. The world that I constructed for myself was full of music, mythical creatures that I read about and every colour from my Crayolas. Art and Music were my favorite classes in grade school. My Art teacher always commented to my mother at parent teacher nights on how "inspired" my artistic sense was. Looking back I think she was commenting on the fact that I always had to do something little different then what she wanted us to create. This would be a trait I would carry through into my college and grad school days. I always had a different way of doing things.
Some of the most vivid memories that I have from grade school were those horrible aptitude tests they made us take. I was never a great test takers, but for some reason I always did well on those damn tests. According to my tests, my aptitudes where in history, science, English and reading. I always wondered why they never test for art and music. I guess my "art" was the way I expressed myself since I didn't talk that much.
I remained pretty shy and quiet until late in high school, my Junior year. I don't really know what changed but something did. Maybe it was the fact that I was a founding member of "Cooperation for Graduation". The "Cooperation" was a means of "helping" those not so academically gifted in the areas that they needed help in. "Study sessions" were held in the morning before homeroom. Most of the members of this society were all of the "in crowd" jocks {which for the record I was not a jock}. I was not in any advanced classes despite my test scores, I never really wanted to be in them. So I was always one of the "brains" in my classes. It all stared when I "helped" Ron Peterman on a history test. He was the Captain of the soccer team and one of the major heart throbs in school. Poor guy never had a head for history, let alone school in general. That help sparked a friendship. I was still on the outside of the in-crowd, but that is where I wanted to be. I was more comfortable behind the scenes.
Junior year also brought the Junior / Senior Prom, the first real formal that we could attend. I volunteered my time for the decorating committee. {yeah I should have know I was gay by now, but that comes later}. I got up the courage to ask this girl that I really did like and that kinda started us "dating". For some reason a lot of people were happy that we were dating, her friends, my friends and even the teachers. The night of the Prom I was excited and nervous and ended up getting into a fender bender on the way to dinner. I should have taken it as a sign from the gods that I should not be dating women. Needless to say the relationship ended that night. I never went to another school dance with a woman again. Junior year ended and I was ready to be a senior.
Senior year started out much better. Knowing that this was the last season that I would be in marching band made that season important to me. I played the trombone for seven years by this time. I was good, but I always had a case of the nerves when it came to playing solos. I always passed on them whenever they were offered to me.
Being a senior in the band had it's privileges. Besides being able to order around the freshmen, we got the choice of seats on the buses. Looking back, how puerile we were, fighting over seats on the bus. The further back you were the more "important" you were. I had the last seat on the left side of the bus on bus #2. Even the buses were broken down. Bus #1 was the bus no one wanted to ride on so we made the freshmen ride that one. Bus #2 was for the kick line and the "top 40 kids". Normally boys were not allowed on that bus because the girls often dressed on he bus. They said they always felt comfortable with me around. {Gee I wonder why, could it be that I often helped them with their makeup?}. Bus #3 was the Drum line bus. God only knows what they did on it. Bus #4 was the "cool" bus. I have fond memories of kicking a group of freshmen out of my seat on the back of the bus for a few weeks. Great fun!
Homecoming that year really marked the being of my gayness I think. Again I was on the planning committee. The theme had something to do with the orient. We planned on turning the room in the a high school version of the Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park. We worked our asses off to make this a great night. A few weeks into the planning, I wanted to add something real different. So I decided to build a fish pond in the lobby. I was there until 2:00 a.m. Friday night after the game to get the dame thing done. It was about four feet across and a foot deep. The bottom was red and clear rock crystal, live plant and about 2 dozen of the largest exotic looking gold fish that I could find in the city. We actually made money off the pond! Soon after that the moment of my realization of being gay came to be. The band director was trying to add some fun and festive choreography to our "Mexican Hat Dance" routine by adding some bright yellow scarves that the entire band was going to use. He started to pass out cloth to people. I walked in late and he said "Pat, here doing something with with this ... you always seem to have some flair with stuff like this." That was the moment I knew that I was gay.
So I was a fag. Now what. A few weeks before graduation, in gym class, Ron was checked into the wall while we were playing floor hockey. He was hit pretty hard and needed to go to the nurse. So, being the responsible one in the class, I was given the task of getting him down there. He wanted to change out of his sweaty clothes first. So we went back to the locker room and started to change. He got dizzy and fell into the lockers trying to take off his shirt. He asked me to help him get undressed. My pulse started to race. I guess I had a crush of some sort on him. So I helped him with his shirt and then his shorts ... all kinds of things were going through my head. But this was a good friend, so I just rushed through getting him dressed and to the nurse.
Graduation came and went. I elected to start summer session at college just to get my bearings. Ron also started in the summer. The night before our orientation Ron called me and asked me if I was nervous about tomorrow. Surprisingly I wasn't too nervous. He was. He asked if I wanted to go up together in the morning. So we went up that morning and sent the day together. It was a a great way to end a high school friendship and being another one. We didn't have any classes together, but we tried to get together from time to time. By the beginning of the spring semester the friendship faded. He transferred and I have not seen him since.
Fall semester brought about the beginning of another friendship. I signed on for the pep band at college figuring that it would be a good way to make some quick friends. I was sitting there waiting for class to start and in walked in the cockiest guy that I have ever seen. I knew he had to be the precisionist. I was right. After a few weeks he and I started talking. His name was Mike and he went to my rival high school. It was the beginning of an interesting friendship. He was a mechanical engineering major and was the biggest motorhead metal head that I ever met. We just clicked for some reason. He introduced me to a side of myself that I had forgotten. There was a fun and adventurous side to me that I have not seen since I was a kid. We spent many winter nights playing "spin the nova" {he had a 76 nova} on icy parking lots. It was a lot of fun. We spent many summer nights cruising the dock in that car. {not cruising in a sexual sense, but driving around the dock and checking out the other people and their cars}. When you are 19 or 20 in Erie, Pennsylvania and it's 10:30 at night there is NOTHING else to do. So each weekend we would check out the mall, get a burger and then head down to the dock until one or two in the morning.
I was the first in my group of friends to turn 21. I thought I was going to spend my 21st birthday at home doing nothing. A guy from my German class, Jim, found out my intentions and said that was no way to spend your 21st. So he told me he'd take me out with his friends. Jim was about 23, frat baseball jock, and really knew how to party. I didn't know what I was getting into. So my sister dropped me off at the bar he worked at and got the bartender to give me my first legal drink. I ordered a vodka and cranberry. So I waited until he got off work and then we had a few more drinks there and then we headed out to meet up with his friends. He took me to the seediest bar in town. Punk music was playing and leather clad bikers were everywhere. Cigar and cigarette smoke filled the room. We ordered a couple of beers and this large biker came over to talk to Jim. He explained that it was my birthday and this was my first night on the town. The guy wanted to buy me a drink so I stumbled up to the bar with him. He ordered two shots of Wild Turkey. Wild Turkey was the one thing that I was told to stay away from. The bartender slammed down the shot glasses and poured out the shots. He asked me if it was my first time. I mumbled "yeah" and they he got me a huge glass of water, just in case he said. We picked up the glasses, he made some obscure toast and down they went. I gently placed the glass back on the bar, sighed and then gulped the water.