Tag: Louis

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Cool – Barak Obama, by Louis

Cool as a cucumber, means
people with a calm, unflappable demeanor. Recently, “cool” has been a
colloquial adjective used to describe President Barack Obama. “Cool” can also
mean, “aware of issues and problems that most people are not aware of.” Again
President Obama has been described as having all these “cool” qualities. At one
time, Mr. Obama had these qualities, but he has caved in to the corporatist democratic
tendencies of his party so that he has slowly but surely turned into yet
another unsuccessful president.
It was good he was
against the War in Iraq. But recently he has sent U. S. troops back in and is
renewing a battle the American public is against. Mr. Obama seems perfectly
comfortable with perpetual pointless war in the Middle East despite the
widespread opposition by the American public. He happily continues a pointless
endless war in Afghanistan. Another war the American people are against. I
think that is one reason Senator Rand Paul became rather popular in Colorado.
He spoke out against our unthinking interventionist foreign policy that does
not benefit the American public in the slightest. Somebody is benefitting, who?
 Mr. Obama has supported trade deals that are
designed to disenfranchise American labor unions, to disenfranchise working
people. Many of his liberal allies have told him his disastrous trade policies
such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, will result in millions of Americans
losing their jobs. After a while, Mr. Obama answered that the trade deal will
create many new jobs in the U. S. NAFTA and CAFTA have already decimated
thousands and thousands of towns and small cities in the U. S. TPP will be even
worse.
Mr. Obama does not seem
to care. When the public service employees unions were trying to recall Scott
Walker in Wisconsin, Mr. Obama’s silence was deafening. Somehow, despite some
liberal happy talk, Mr. Obama has turned into a hostile bellicose, pro-Wall
Street, corporatist Democrat indistinguishable from the most obnoxious
Republican right-wingers.
Historically Barack Obama
will be counted as another failure as a U. S. President.
© 9 May 2016 
About
the Author 
 I was born in 1944, I lived most of my life in New York City,
Queens County. I still commute there. I worked for many years as a Caseworker
for New York City Human Resources Administration, dealing with mentally
impaired clients, then as a social work Supervisor dealing with homeless PWA’s.
I have an apartment in Wheat Ridge, CO. I retired in 2002. I have a few
interesting stories to tell. My boyfriend Kevin lives in New York City. I
graduated Queens College, CUNY, in 1967.
Posted on

The First Person I Came Out to, by Louis

A couple of years ago, I
did a story on my unsuccessful transgender friend. He/She had his male organ
removed in a premature sex change operation; he missed his organ so much that
he committed suicide. This was in the 1960’s. His name was “Romain”; well his
given name was Richard. I met him in the 7th grade. Romain was the
first person I was truly honest with. But it was more like he read me – what
they call nowadays “gaydar”.
Romain had an IQ of 160,
he was technically a genius. Geniuses see things, relationships that ordinary
people cannot. He was a year younger than I, but he had developed a significant
number of friends in West Greenwich Village, in poetry clubs and art studios,
that sort of thing. Sometimes I would tag along to meet them. So even in the 7th
grade I had a sort of reasonably gay-positive social life.
For a while I even lived
in an apartment on West 14 Street. In those days, gay men were so “unspeakable”
in the early 1960’s that we sort of did not exist. It was a kind of repression
I guess. But the positive side of not existing is that we had a certain kind of
freedom. We could cruise in Washington Square Park, and no one would notice.
Mostly if cops saw us, they would not put two and two together if two guys
winked at each other. If two men held hands, which happened occasionally, the
public would assume they were cousins from a Hispanic country.
In a word, at an early
age, I learned about the dangers transsexuals face when it comes to the
question of deciding yes or no to the surgery; I appreciated the nascent gay
culture coming alive in Greenwich Village, New York.
© 27 Apr 2016 
About
the Author 

I was born in 1944, I lived most of my life in New York City,
Queens County. I still commute there. I worked for many years as a Caseworker
for New York City Human Resources Administration, dealing with mentally
impaired clients, then as a social work Supervisor dealing with homeless PWA’s.
I have an apartment in Wheat Ridge, CO. I retired in 2002. I have a few
interesting stories to tell. My boyfriend Kevin lives in New York City. I
graduated Queens College, CUNY, in 1967.
Posted on

Meaningful Vacation — Massachusetts, by Louis

I cannot remember the
lady’s first name, although her last name must have been Inman, but, sometime
in the 1970’s, she invited me to stay a week in Bridgewater and North
Chathamsport, Massachusetts. Her house was in Bridgewater and her summer house
was in North Chathamsport. I remember it was early October because we went
swimming in Massachusetts Bay, and the water was still warm. After the swim I
would return to her summer cottage and take an outdoor shower to wash off the
saltwater. The main event of the vacation was the Inman family reunion, which
was very well attended. Whoever these people were, they were my distant
cousins.
We then visited several
17th Century graveyards and found Inman’s, Aldrich, Jenks and
Winthrop gravestones. As time went by, I used to think about the original pilgrims
— what was in their minds? What made them tick? There is the version of their
first arrival in 1620 that we all heard in school, which was presented as a
patriotic story.
Much has been written
about the pilgrims, but the two books that I think best describe what the original
pilgrims believed in are Pilgrim’s
Progress by John Bunyan and The
Protestant Ethic by Max Weber, sociologist.
17th Century
Puritan society of the Massachusetts Bay Colony had its drawbacks. Gay people
were unmentionable. Most Jews and Quakers went to live in Providence, Rhode
Island where tolerance for different people was the order of the day. The
strength of the Puritan society depended largely on killing the native American
population. Religious non-conformity and political dissent were not tolerated. And
then the Salem witch trials came along in 1690. The Puritan neighbors were
constantly going to court and suing each other over small and large plots of
land, and water rights. The plentiful court records indicate why we have such
good genealogical records for that period.
It is true that the
modern version of Puritan society is a world-wide empire called the United
States of America, but does this world-wide empire live up to the standards of
the original Pilgrims? Do its moral drawbacks outweigh its so-called moral
superiority?
Bernie Sanders claims the
U. S. government has been corrupted by Wall Street. I would say that this is
one example of immorality that modern-day Puritans should disapprove of. The U.
S. empire tends to bully third world countries and has not solved the problem
of white people in the U. S. bullying black people and rich people bullying
poor people. Our foreign policy seems much too bellicose. Our whole capitalist
system seems to be based on greed rather than on sincere Judeo-Christian
moral precepts.
Protestant Work Ethic
From Wikipedia,
the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Cover of the
original German edition of The
Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.

The Protestant work ethic (or the Puritan work
ethic) is a concept in theology, sociology, economics and history which
emphasizes that hard work, discipline and frugality[1] are a result of a person’s salvation in the Protestant faith, particularly in Calvinism, in contrast
to the focus upon religious attendance, confession, and ceremonial sacrament in the Catholic tradition.
The Protestant work ethic is often credited with helping to
define the societies of Northern Europe, such as in Britain, Scandinavia, Latvia, Estonia, the Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland. British colonists and later Germanic immigrants brought their work ethic to British North
America and later the United States of America. As such a
person does not need to be religious in order to follow the Protestant work
ethic, as it is a part of certain cultures.
The phrase was initially coined in 1904–05 by Max
Weber in his book The
Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.[2]
The Pilgrim’s Progress from This World to That Which Is
to Come; Delivered under the Similitude of a Dream is a 1678 Christian allegory written by John Bunyan. It is regarded as one of the most significant works of
religious English
literature,[1][2][3][4] has been translated into more than 200 languages, and
has never been out of print.[5][6]
When I read The
Pilgrim’s Progress, I found it extremely entertaining; the bad aspect
of the book was its apparent emphasis on being narrow-minded and humility
meaning self-deprecation. It trivialized many aspects of Christianity such as
the sacraments. But it did explain how 17th century Puritans
thought.
© 21 Apr 2016 
About the Author 

I was born in 1944, I lived most of
my life in New York City, Queens County. I still commute there. I worked for
many years as a Caseworker for New York City Human Resources Administration,
dealing with mentally impaired clients, then as a social work Supervisor
dealing with homeless PWA’s. I have an apartment in Wheat Ridge, CO. I retired
in 2002. I have a few interesting stories to tell. My boyfriend Kevin lives in
New York City. I graduated Queens College, CUNY, in 1967.
Posted on

Thanksgiving Dinner at the Brown House by Louie

(published in this blog previously on June 20, 2014)

When I was around 11 or 12 years old, I remember having Thanksgiving dinner with my parents and brothers in College Point. It was the mid-1950’s. Dwight Eisenhower was the President. I was a child happy with life, but my parents were very poor. I was too young to understand the inconveniences of poverty. We lived in a two-family house, and the upstairs tenant was a mother and daughter, Edna. They were poorer than we were. Edna got herself invited to our Thanksgiving and enjoyed setting up for the feast.

My parents and especially my mother and grandmother wanted us to remember that once upon a time the Brown family and my maternal grandmother’s family, the Wilcoxes, in the 19th century were enormous affluent, influential families. On the wall were a picture of Abraham Lincoln in an oak oval frame and another of my great grandfather Captain Francis Leicester Brown of the Union Army in an oak oval frame. There was a petty point sampler that read “God bless the family in this household,” completed by me on my 15th birthday, May 10, 1819, Hannah Hopkins Hodge.

In the 17th and 18th centuries my ancestors were prominent Puritan ministers. Even back then there were seemingly endless irreconcilable theological battles going on. On the other hand, my mother warned us that, though we should remember our ancestors, we should not be like her great aunt and become ancestor worshipers. It wasn’t wholesome either.

The meal consisted of turkey, creamed onions, turnips, yams, rather traditional. What made it memorable was the chinaware: Limoges and Haviland plates and platters, a Wedgewood chocolate pitcher, Limoges demitasse espresso coffee cups that were works of art. Crystal goblets for the cider, a magnificent Damask table cloth and napkins. Ornate sterling silverware, Victorian style. Our attic was full of these remnants and memorabilia of an affluent comfortable 19th century past. Corny but beautiful oil paintings, more petit point samplers, lavish gowns with the finest French laces. More Victorian extravagance. Edna from a Catholic family really enjoyed our Thanksgiving dinners. For a day we Browns were again important people though the reference point was to another earlier century. For a day we were ancestor worshipers.

Moral: How do poor people become whole happy well-adjusted people in a hostile social environment? I think poor people learning survival skills is probably more important than measuring one’s personal worth by the balance in our checking accounts and the influence we have in our communities.

Catholic Edna for example is happy. She started out poor. She is still poor, but she has a good understanding of why certain politicians say what they say. She has a spiritual dimension to her belief system. She survives, she is well-adjusted. She also proves that Puritans and Catholics can get along just fine, thank you.

Personally, I am still a “mal-content”. I am dissatisfied with church-sponsored homophobia, and the establishment’s irrational hostility to poor people, but I am on the mend.

Our best teachers in the current environment are Occupy Wall Street and the Radical Faeries. I heard clearly what they have to say. They are convincing. We Americans should object to Wall Street giving orders to our elected leaders about how they should victimize the public for the sake of increasing profits for billionaires. The Radical Faeries in their presentations at the Lesbian and Gay Center in New York City pointed out the need for Lesgay people to develop a spiritual side to their personalities, to revere their sexual orientation rather than skulking around hating ourselves for the convenience of homophobes. We are an international “tribe”. Guess what, there are gay people in Morocco and Australia.

In her personal search to find meaning in life outside of material success, Edna feels that she should boast about her family, her two children. In general, since Lesgay people are banished from traditional families, we have to devise another system that suits our communal interests.

What do we tell Lesbian and gay homeless teenagers who have been tossed out of their fundamentalist parents’ homes because of their sexual orientation? In other words, empower the out-groups. Amen.

© 31 March 2014  




About the Author



I was born in 1944, I lived most of my life in New York City, Queens County. I still commute there. I worked for many years as a Caseworker for New York City Human Resources Administration, dealing with mentally impaired clients, then as a social work Supervisor dealing with homeless PWA’s. I have an apartment in Wheat Ridge, CO. I retired in 2002. I have a few interesting stories to tell. My boyfriend Kevin lives in New York City. I graduated Queens College, CUNY, in 1967.

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Where I Was in the 60’s by Louis

If you ask young people
today what they know about the 1960’s, some say the Beatles. Most are not aware
what a traumatic decade that was. As the war in Vietnam raged on and on and on,
pacifism and isolationism became more and more popular. The main problem with
the 60’s was the American people went left while the government went right.
There was a sort of  blow-up. The 1960’s
saw the blacks standing up and demanding their rights, and then there were the
riots. And then there were our riots that went on 3 days, the Stonewall riots,
that started on June 28, 1969. We must not forget either the assassination of
President Kennedy. (You were John Kennedy Jr.’s neighbor).
The only other
traumatic event that compares with the assassination of President Kennedy was
the blowing up of the Twin Towers. In both events, I think it is safe to say we
all felt personally threatened. I was an eye-witness to the blowing up of the
twin towers. I was on my way to work. I had to take a bus to get to the Long
Island Railroad stop that I took to get to work. On the bus route is a swampy
area with very low buildings that would enable the bus passenger to get a good
view of the twin towers. I saw smoke billowing out of the towers, and I
wondered what that was all about. When I got to the Long Island Railroad stop
in Flushing, I was told there was no service into Manhattan. Later I would know
why. So I tried the subway. I went a few stops to 61st Street. The
train stopped and the conductor said the train was not going any further since
the train was not permitted to enter Manhattan.
Where
were you when President John F. Kennedy was shot? I
remember I was on my way to swimming class in the Queens College gym. I never
got as far as the gym. A fellow student told me the President had been shot.
Next to the Queens College gym, that resembled an airplane hangar, was a
parking lot. The students with the cars turned on their car radios and let
passers-by listen. I listened and was horrified. Jack Kennedy was handsome,
well-educated, intelligent, well-spoken. Jacqueline Kennedy was beautiful,
soft-spoken, pretty much a perfect first lady. Remember how she remodeled the
White House? The whole world was dazzled. I was dazzled, and John Kennedy
convinced me that the USA would lead the world into a better place, that human
progress was going to continue. Our nasty right-wing neighbors in Dallas, Texas
had other ideas. Then Nixon got elected, and hope died, and it has been
downhill ever since, let’s face it.  
My
visit to the draft-board in lower Manhattan, on Whitehall Street:
I had to go for my physical. When the army doctor examined me, I told him I was
a homosexual, and I was pretty sure the U. S. military, for their reasons, did
not want homosexual men, I guess. So I asked to be excused on that basis though
I requested they do not write that down in my record. Whether they wrote that
down or not, I do not know. I did not show up in a gown, and I did not paint my
fingernails red, nothing like that. I got a 1-Y classification because I wore
glasses. My brother went through a long drawn-out rigmarole application process
as a conscientious objector. They ultimately denied his application for status
as a conscientious objector but they gave him a 1-Y classification. Much has
been made of student deferments in those days. Both I and my wannabe
conscientious objector brother were attending college, but we never received a
student deferment. Go figure. 1-Y meant we would not be drafted unless there
was a national emergency. I guess the Vietnam War was not considered a national
emergency for some unfathomable reason. Two of my other brothers got 1-Y
classifications. My oldest brother was in the Air Force, a major or something;
he got out when the Vietnam War was getting a little too hot.
© 19 May 2014
About the Author  
I was born in 1944, I lived most of my life in New York City, Queens County. I still commute there. I worked for many years as a Caseworker for New York City Human Resources Administration, dealing with mentally impaired clients, then as a social work Supervisor dealing with homeless PWA’s. I have an apartment in Wheat Ridge, CO. I retired in 2002. I have a few interesting stories to tell. My boyfriend Kevin lives in New York City. I graduated Queens College, CUNY, in 1967.
Posted on

Thanksgiving Dinner at the Brown House (A Meal to Remember) by Louis

When I was around 11 or 12 years old, I remember having Thanksgiving dinner with my parents and brothers in College Point. It was the mid-1950’s. Dwight Eisenhower was the President. I was a child happy with life, but my parents were very poor. I was too young to understand the inconveniences of poverty. We lived in a two-family house, and the upstairs tenant was a mother and daughter, Edna. They were poorer than we were. Edna got herself invited to our Thanksgiving and enjoyed setting up for the feast. 

My parents and especially my mother and grandmother wanted us to remember that once upon a time the Brown family and my maternal grandmother’s family, the Wilcoxes, in the 19th century were enormous affluent, influential families. On the wall were a picture of Abraham Lincoln in an oak oval frame and another of my great grandfather Captain Francis Leicester Brown of the Union Army in an oak oval frame. There was a petty point sampler that read “God bless the family in this household,” completed by me on my 15th birthday, May 10, 1819, Hannah Hopkins Hodge. 
In the 17th and 18th centuries my ancestors were prominent Puritan ministers. Even back then there were seemingly endless irreconcilable theological battles going on. On the other hand, my mother warned us that, though we should remember our ancestors, we should not be like her great aunt and become ancestor worshipers. It wasn’t wholesome either. 
The meal consisted of turkey, creamed onions, turnips, yams, rather traditional. What made it memorable was the chinaware: Limoges and Haviland plates and platters, a Wedgewood chocolate pitcher, Limoges demitasse espresso coffee cups that were works of art. Crystal goblets for the cider, a magnificent Damask table cloth and napkins. Ornate sterling silverware, Victorian style. Our attic was full of these remnants and memorabilia of an affluent comfortable 19th century past. Corny but beautiful oil paintings, more petit point samplers, lavish gowns with the finest French laces. More Victorian extravagance. Edna from a Catholic family really enjoyed our Thanksgiving dinners. For a day we Browns were again important people though the reference point was to another earlier century. For a day we were ancestor worshipers. 
Moral: How do poor people become whole happy well-adjusted people in a hostile social environment? I think poor people learning survival skills is probably more important than measuring one’s personal worth by the balance in our checking accounts and the influence we have in our communities. 
Catholic Edna for example is happy. She started out poor. She is still poor, but she has a good understanding of why certain politicians say what they say. She has a spiritual dimension to her belief system. She survives, she is well-adjusted. She also proves that Puritans and Catholics can get along just fine, thank you. 
Personally, I am still a “mal-content”. I am dissatisfied with church-sponsored homophobia, and the establishment’s irrational hostility to poor people, but I am on the mend. 
Our best teachers in the current environment are Occupy Wall Street and the Radical Faeries. I heard clearly what they have to say. They are convincing. We Americans should object to Wall Street giving orders to our elected leaders about how they should victimize the public for the sake of increasing profits for billionaires. The Radical Faeries in their presentations at the Lesbian and Gay Center in New York City pointed out the need for Lesgay people to develop a spiritual side to their personalities, to revere their sexual orientation rather than skulking around hating ourselves for the convenience of homophobes. We are an international “tribe”. Guess what, there are gay people in Morocco and Australia. 

In her personal search to find meaning in life outside of material success, Edna feels that she should boast about her family, her two children. In general, since Lesgay people are banished from traditional families, we have to devise another system that suits our communal interests.
What do we tell Lesbian and gay homeless teenagers who have been tossed out of their fundamentalist parents’ homes because of their sexual orientation? In other words, empower the out-groups. Amen.

© 31 March 2014 



About
the Author 


I was born in 1944, I lived most of my life in New York City, Queens County. I still commute there. I worked for many years as a Caseworker for New York City Human Resources Administration, dealing with mentally impaired clients, then as a social work Supervisor dealing with homeless PWA’s. I have an apartment in Wheat Ridge, CO. I retired in 2002. I have a few interesting stories to tell. My boyfriend Kevin lives in New York City. I graduated Queens College, CUNY, in 1967.

Posted on

Summary of Sycamore Row by Louis

Prompt: April 14, Great Performance

My version of going to the theater is reading novels that will probably become movies. One of these is John Grisham’s latest novel, Sycamore Row (2013). John Grisham is the creator of the new literary genre, the “legal thriller.” I will start outlining the plot of this novel by giving away the surprise ending, because, by doing this, I am putting the events of the novel in chronological order. The plot’s easier to understand that way.

In 1930 Cleon Hubbard, a white Mississippi landowner, arranges the lynching of his black neighbor, Sylvester Rinds. Sylvester has 80 acres of land and his family lives on the farm, including brothers and sisters, and nephews and nieces. Cleon Hubbard also has 80 acres. After Sylvester Rinds is murdered, Cleon goes to his wife, Esther Rinds, shotgun in hand, and forces her to sign over the 80 acres to him. He annexes the Rinds property through violence.

Cleon Hubbard has two sons, Harry Seth and Ancil F. Hubbard. Seth was 12 years old and his brother Ancil F. was 7 years old, and, crouching in the nearby bushes, the two boys witnessed both of these events. Seth and Ancil enjoyed playing with the Rinds kids, especially 7 year old Toby Rinds. Father Cleon Hubbard, with a sort of posse, chased all the Rinds family off of the land. Needless to say, Seth and Ancil hated their father. When Seth was 18 years old, he left and joined the Navy and wanted to escape Mississippi, which he despised with a passion.

The lynching took place from a sycamore tree that was in a straight row of sycamores, which explains the novel’s title. Seth Hubbard grew up and inherited a good deal of money and property that his father bequeathed him when he, Cleon, died. But in the divorce settlement, his second wife, Sybil, got most of his property, leaving Seth virtually penniless. Seth still had a house near Clanton, Mississippi, where most of the plot of the novel takes place. He mortgaged this house and went first to Palmyra, MI and bought a lumber yard and prayed for a hurricane so that there would be a good demand for lumber. The hurricane came, and elderly Seth Hubbard was making money again. He then went to Alabama and bought more lumber yards, then to Georgia same thing. He bought large tracts of land in South Carolina. 10 years of this risk-taking, and Seth wound up with a fortune of $24 million.

On the negative side, he had lung cancer though he could not stop smoking cigarettes. He was in constant pain, the cancer from his lung metastasized to his ribs and spinal column. He knew his death was not far off. So he went to a law firm in Jackson, MI, and drew up a will, leaving most of his wealth to his two children, Ramona Dafoe and Herschel Hubbard. A year passed, and he changed his mind. Then Seth Hubbard hung himself from a sycamore tree on his property. 

Three years previously he hired a black maid, Lettie Lang. Either at the time he hired her or later he realized that Lettie Lang was actually the granddaughter of Sylvester Rinds. Lettie Lang’s maiden name was Tayber, but she wasn’t a Tayber, she had been adopted by Clyde and Cypress Tayber after her real mother, Lois Rinds, had to disappear, thanks to Seth’s white father, Cleon Hubbard. 


To compensate for the heinous crime of his father, Seth Hubbard left the bulk of his fortune to her, Lettie Lang, actually a Rinds. Seth also left 5% of his fortune to his church, the Irish Road Christian Church and 5% to his long lost brother, Ancil F’ Hubbard. Seth did this in a holographic, i.e. a handwritten will, that he sent to Jake Brigance, Esq. of Clanton, Mississippi. He wrote this second will which stipulated he was renouncing all the provisions of the previous will of a year earlier that he had drawn up with the Rush Law Firm of Jackson, MI. In the second holographic hand-written will, he stipulates specifically that he is disinheriting both of his children who, he felt, did not love or respect him.

With the permission of the Judge, Reuben Atlee, who presided over the trial gave him permission to spend some of the fortune to hire an expensive company that specialized in locating missing persons. They finally located Ancil Hubbard in Juneau, Alaska, where he was working as a bartender under an alias, Lonny Clark. Jake Brigance had an associate lawyer, Lucien Wilbanks, although technically, because of past improprieties, he had been disbarred. Lucien Wilbanks was an alcoholic. Nevertheless, JB sent LW to Juneau, Alaska, to locate and speak with Ancil F. Hubbard, alias Lonny Clark. Lonny Clark was in the hospitalized since he had suffered brain injury in a brawl in the bar where he worked. LW went to the hospital, and at first pseudo-Lonny Clark denied ever hearing the name, Ancil F. Hubbard, once LW told him Ancil Hubbard might inherit a million dollars from his deceased brother, Ancil Hubbard admitted he was Ancil Hubbard. LW went to a local lawyer in Juneau, Alaska, and arranged to videotape Ancil Hubbard’s deposition or testimony.

Once understanding that they were going to be disinherited, Ramona Hubbard Dafoe and Herschel Hubbard, Seth’s two children, hired Wade Lanier, Esq. to challenge the holographic will, claiming that their father Harry Seth Hubbard did not have “testamentary capacity” to make a new will. Remember, the two children inherited most everything in the will of a year earlier. Once Jake Brigance “probated” the more recent holographic will, the Clanton, Mississippi, knew there was going to be a long, probably drawn-out battle over who gets Seth Hubbard’s millions. And a battle there was. Wade Lanier was a very good lawyer, and he had his investigator turn up another holographic will, written up by one of Lettie Lang’s previous employers, that she LL had failed to mention in her initial deposition, in which an elderly white woman, Irene Pickering, the previous employer, left her $50 thousand. Irene Pickering’s son managed (apparently unfairly) to have this holographic will annulled, and Lettie Lang got nothing out of it. Nevertheless, Wade Lanier planned to argue that Lettie Lang had a history of exerting undue influence on her elderly dying employers.

Though unstated, Wade Lanier planned to argue that Lettie Lang became Seth Hubbard’s illicit girl friend in order to access his millions. Wade Lanier’s investigator found a beautiful black woman , Julina Kidd, in southern Georgia who stated she had filed a sexual harassment case against Seth Hubbard a few years earlier. The case was settled out of court, but there was a record of her allegations, which would tend to establish that Seth Hubbard had a propensity to take sexual advantage of his female employees.

Things seemed to be going Wade Lanier’s way. Lettie Lang’s credibility was questioned. Did she exert undue influence over the very elderly and sickly Seth Hubbard to get herself named in last will and testament? It sort of looked that way.

Then Ancil Hubbard’s video testimony arrived and was shown to the jury on a VCR. Ancil Hubbard explained the lynching he and his brother had witnessed when they were children. Though Seth Hubbard did not say so in his second holographic will, it became clear that SH knew that Lettie Lang was the granddaughter of Sylvester Rinds and he was compensating for his father’s crime, the lynching of Sylvester Rinds and Cleon’s grossly illegal seizure of SR’s 80 acres. Of course, the jury decided Seth Hubbard did know what he was doing at the time he wrote the later second holographic will.

In the epilogue to the story, Lettie Tayber Rinds Lang divorced her husband, Simeon Lang but stated that she did not want the whole fortune, she just wanted her own house, the 80 acres, so that she did not have to be a maid any more.

She also did not want Seth Hubbard’s two children, as unsympathetic as they were, to be completely disinherited. So she agreed that Ramona Hubbard Dafoe and Herschel Hubbard receive a few million each for themselves and their children, i.e. Seth Hubbard’s grandchildren. The bulk of the money, however, would be put into a scholarship trust for needy black students who wanted to go to college. Judge Reuben Atlee presides over the final disposition of this case.

The End

Three other novels that John Grisham wrote that were made into films were A Time to Kill, The Pelican Brief and The Firm. They are all very high quality.

© 8 April 2014



About
the Author

I was born in 1944, I lived most of my life in New York City, Queens County. I still commute there. I worked for many years as a Caseworker for New York City Human Resources Administration, dealing with mentally impaired clients, then as a social work Supervisor dealing with homeless PWA’s. I have an apartment in Wheat Ridge, CO. I retired in 2002. I have a few interesting stories to tell. My boyfriend Kevin lives in New York City. I graduated Queens College, CUNY, in 1967.

Posted on

Queens, Lesbians, and Gay Pride Committee by Louis

Geographical Note: Jackson Heights is located in Queens County in New York City. The big pride parade takes place in Manhattan. Jackson Heights is the second biggest lesbian and gay neighborhood in NYC outside of Greenwich Village. The population is primarily Hispanic and Hindu. 3 major subway lines converge in Jackson Heights so it is easily accessible from anywhere in Queens and Manhattan.

I was the recording secretary of the Queens Lesbian and Gay Pride Committee from 1986 to 1988, for 3 years. It was hard work. At the monthly meetings I had to record pretty much what all the committees had to report. The march in Jackson Heights, Queens, took place and still takes place on the 4th Sunday of June every year. There were the Treasurer’s report, the advertising-promotion committee report, the lawyer’s report, the President’s report, the mass mailing committee report. The promo-advertising-committee had a sub-committee, the fundraising committee that had its own separate report, the website maintenance committee.

The lawyer usually reported on the status of his application to the IRS of the 501.c status of our not-for-profit corporation, QLGPC. For some reason this was an on-going process as opposed to a one-time settled issue.

Of course, the fundraising sub-committee had to report directly to the treasurer, and the treasurer told the General Meeting where the money was being kept, in what bank account. The treasurer had to report to the (rather expensive) CPA of the corporation. The treasurer also reported on the payment of the expensive liability insurance premiums. The officers of the corporation, including myself, had to sign the certificate of incorporation. The fundraising sub-committee was no joke; they received large donations both from gay bar owners and large corporations such as Citibank. Then of course QLGPC sold advertising to businesses that wanted to purchase ads in QLGPC brochures and other promotional material. Naturally, wherever there is a large accumulation of cash, there are going to be embezzlers. But QLGPC was quite successful in finding out and getting rid of its embezzlers. Some of them were jailed.

Then there were more reports from the liaisons to the elected officials, the liaison to the Mayor’s Office (referring to the Mayor of New York City), the liaison to the department of sanitation, the liaison to the police department. And finally there was the liaison committee to the civic organizations, both gay lib type civic organizations and other groups. Among all of these, the most important was

P-FLAG that became a major sponsor of the Queens March. Another important group was ACQC, or the Aids Center of Queens County. In this case the liaisons were also officers of their own organizations, and they would report back to their organizations what they heard at our monthly general meeting. I should qualify this and state that as June approached, the monthly meetings turned into weekly meetings.

Then there were the reports from the liaisons to the vendors of which there were two categories: regular vendors, food vendors, beer vendors (selling beer required another special permit from the City) and the civic groups, such as HRCF, the NLGTF, the New York Imperial Court and on and on and on. They all had to rent their space. If the civic groups could not afford the fee, if applicable the fee was waived. Then there were the Lesbian and gay ethnic groups, e.g. the gay and Lesbian Bolivians. In other words, these groups set up their tents for the festival and rally following the 15-block march down 35th Avenue.

This whole parade committee had been founded and originally promoted by City Council Member, Danny Dromm. Mr. Dromm was also the founder of the Progressive Caucus in the New York City Council. His biography is quite interesting.

Then there was the Hospitality Committee with a sub-committee liaison to the NYC Dept of Parks. The Hospitality Committee was responsible for setting up what went on at the main tent of the Festival where Danny Dromm presented himself to the public to announce important legal victories or setbacks over the previous years. The Hospitality Committee also had to arrange the catering for the guests of honor at the main stage of the Festival. Yours truly was one of the guests of honor. In general, they did a very good job. The entertainment was really sensational and inclusive. And any VIP, such as a member of Congress or an elected official from New York State General Assembly or the Senate, could depend on getting his or her five minutes or so on the stage, once he or she was approved by the QLGPC steering committee. Special mention should be made of NY State Senator, Tom Duane, a long-time gay lib agitator.

Another issue that required planning was the choosing the Grand Marshall of the Parade, which usually was the Borough President. The BP would usually be expected to hold a Lesbian and gay pride reception in the Boro Hall, to which Danny Dromm was usually invited. The ACQC liaison committee also had an outreach team to local hospitals. The most responsive but certainly not the only local hospital was Elmhurst General Hospital that was interested in promoting its own Health Fairs. One of the officers of Elmhurst General Hospital was a particularly good friend of QLGPC.

After the first 3 or 4 years of holding the Queens Lesbian and Gay Pride parade, certain people wanted to start a Lesbian and gay Pride Committee for the borough of Brooklyn. So it happened, and QLGPC formed another liaison committee. So now Brooklyn has its own Lesbian and gay annual pride march and festival, and, for the sake of variety, holds their festivities at night.

An off-shoot of the Hospitality Committee was a sub-committee charged with the responsibility of setting up the Winterpride Dinner. If you wanted to attend, the ticket cost $60.00, less if you couldn’t afford it. So every year there is an elaborate catered affair at one of the rather lavish catering halls in Queens. The one I remember is Dante’s in Jackson Heights. But there were others, when attendance at the Winterpride Dinner got too large, Dante’s could not handle it. At the dinner, you could expect a Baroque quartet, lots of booze and very gourmet appetizers. Again part of the entertainment of the main stage at Winterpride were the necessarily brief presentations of the local politicians who pointed out what they did and are doing for our community.

After 3 years of being recording secretary, I got burned out. Someone succeeded me, I think it was a Mr. Siciliano. After 3 years of this, I said to myself that what gay liberation means to me is not so much political organizing, as important as this is. Gay liberation means to me the status of Lesbian gay people in the Church community. So I ran around to various churches, etc. I told you that story already. Besides the people I was dealing with all had some real political power, they were middle class. I did not really identify with them. I used to frequent the Lesbian and Gay Center on West 13th Street in NYC. I kept track of the groups that formed there. Two groups that intrigued me were COOL – Committee of Outraged Lesbians and Bronx Lesbians from a Lower Class Background. Whoever the founders of these groups were, I say “bravo.” Middle class gay people are not the only people interested in gay liberation. And there is more than one way of being disenfranchised.

Moral: We should all be thankful to the organizers of our annual Denver Gay and Lesbian Pride March. It involves a crushing amount of legal work to keep everything on track.

April 7, 2014

About the Author

I was born in 1944, I lived most of my life in New York City, Queens County. I still commute there. I worked for many years as a Caseworker for New York City Human Resources Administration, dealing with mentally impaired clients, then as a social work Supervisor dealing with homeless PWA’s. I have an apartment in Wheat Ridge, CO. I retired in 2002. I have a few interesting stories to tell. My boyfriend Kevin lives in New York City. I graduated Queens College, CUNY, in 1967.

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Male Dancing — Same Sex Dancing by Louis

CNN International presented a news report on developing new trends in ballet.

They asserted that there is a “masculine ballet.” The viewer gets a sample.

Another new genre is androgynous ballet. Viewer gets a sample. The sample ballet skits are performed by members of the Royal Ballet in Covent Gardens in London.

I agree with the wholesome experimental side of the Royal Ballet, but, in my opinion, ballet itself is basically feminine. The beloved spot-lighted ballerina is surrounded by masculine subordinate helpers. Ballet is fine for what it is.

However, I have seen other genres of artistic dancing in which the male anatomy, especially the muscular system, are sort of “analyzed” by a vigorous athletic dance routine accompanied by an intense loud rhythmic music. One of the few examples of “masculine dancing” I have seen in the past is the Russian sabre dance.

Many years ago I saw a dance presentation on a VHS tape put out by a gay male porn film company. The dance routines themselves were not porno-graphic although they were certainly erotic. There were two dance routines, both performed by a solo male dancer. One wore a G-string. He strutted and stretched and stomped and showed off his muscles. For me it suggested a completely new genre of artistic dancing. The accompanying music was pounding and pulsating.

The other dancer wore nothing but cowboy chaps and a Stetson hat. Both dancers were quite erotic but tasteful enough that they could have been presented to the general adult public as artistic dancing.

The CNN report on expanding the boundaries of the ballet also reminded me that until recently almost all kinds of art presented to the public are based on an exclusively heterosexual model. Boy falls in love with girl, girl plays hard to get, boy proves himself worthy perhaps by becoming a military hero. Boy wins girl. There is perhaps an epilogue, boy becomes a man, marries woman, they have children (make babies) and live happily ever after. This is how it is in literature (novels, poetry, short stories), in painting, sculpture, decorative arts, music, cinema. There is nothing else.

Of course, we know this leaves out tens of millions of people. This general presentation of art to the public from the powers that be was a dishonest, skewed presentation of what it means to be human. Fake-art.

The androgynous ballet routine as presented by the CNN report is a giant step forward. It acknowledges there are millions of androgynous people in the world, the intersexes. Effeminate men (and yet to be considered masculine women).

The scenario that would appeal to me is a hairy macho man, falls in love with another hairy macho man, and, after a proper courting ritual, they become a couple and live happily ever after. They are successful personally. If somehow they wind up taking care of a bunch of kids, that would be another big plus. Up to now we have been virtually invisible, non-existent.

There should be an honest artistic expression acknowledging us, who we are, what we are and what we really feel.

© 8 March 2014

About
the Author

I was born in 1944, I lived most of my life in New York City, Queens County. I still commute there. I worked for many years as a Caseworker for New York City Human Resources Administration, dealing with mentally impaired clients, then as a social work Supervisor dealing with homeless PWA’s. I have an apartment in Wheat Ridge, CO. I retired in 2002. I have a few interesting stories to tell. My boyfriend Kevin lives in New York City. I graduated Queens College, CUNY, in 1967.

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Queens Community House for Gay Seniors and SAGE Manhattan by Louis

For the sake of experimentation, I decided that, while I was last in New York City, I would try and visit Queens Community Center for Gay Seniors, formerly SAGE Queens. Their offices are right down the street from the Queens Pride House. I would also visit SAGE Manhattan, located on the 15th floor of 305 7th Avenue (Fashion Avenue, I think). SAGE Manhattan had a nice Halloween Party, but the refreshments were rather Spartan. One presentation at QCC for Gay Seniors was a NYC police captain who gave a lecture on walking safely through Queens’ neighborhoods. That was okay but mostly it was common sense stuff.

The other presentation was by an orthopedic surgeon from Long Island Jewish Hospital, who gave an update on what is possible when it comes to hip and knee replacements. The lecture was quite informative. After the presentation I asked the surgeion what he thought of Glucosamine as a treatment for osteoporosis in the knees, He said Glucosamine was overpriced and that, to relieve symptoms of osteoporosis or arthritis in the knees, the senior’s best bet would be bicycling. I said that occasionally I use Glucosamine, and unless the price went up recently, I did not think it was too expensive. Since I do a lot of biking, weather permitting, I was glad to hear it was a good therapy for osteoporosis in the knees.

At SAGE New York, the Director named Burtiss, was rather aggressive asking the guests what kind of groups they wanted. I said that, since I heard that many of the returning veterans were getting short-changed on their benefits, it would be good if there were a gay and Lesbian veterans club. Abracadabra, there was the first meeting of the Veterans Club. I attended the first meeting and listened to various veterans. Some said they stayed in the closet to survive; others said they were out of the closet and no one bothered them. I think homophobia went bananas during the 60’s, but before that, it was not much of an issue.

Of course, that whole session reminded me of the Vietnam War. I was against it from the beginning mainly because the administration’s justification for military intervention over there just did not have that ring of authenticity. I also remember that the peace marches got so large that you could not even get to them because the number of people jammed up the subway system. They were as big as the Lesbian and Gay Pride marches.

One veteran whose name was Tom said that, when there was still an East Germany, he was assigned the task of transcribing everything on the East German radio stations. He did that for two years. Previously, when he was still in the United States, the U. S. Army sent him to California to a foreign language school where he learned German, then he went to Austria and took psychology courses in German and more German language studies. So Tom requested SAGE New York set up a German Club. At the first meeting it was pretty much he and yours truly. And then I had to come back to Colorado. I hope the German Club survives, but who knows? I have a minor obsession with the German Language although my first love is French. There seems to be a nice French Conversation Club that meets every Friday evening for an hour. That is a lot of fun. One fellow I knew from past Gay French Clubs was Don Ventura who is teaching French, Spanish and Italian every Saturday. Sounds wonderful. Last but not least is the Italian Club. I attended one meeting. It is run by an elderly Lesbian named Itala (what else?) and her partner. I would rename these groups Le Cercle Français, the Italian group, Il Circolo Italiano and the German group the Deutschverein. Why not?

Every time I see Burtiss or his assistant, Margaret, I suggest some more clubs. I suggested he get a retired gay lawyer to explain all the changes in the marriage laws and gay civil rights in the United States. These types of meetings at the Lesbian and Gay Center 30 or so years were very popular. Another retired lawyer could give a course on paralegal studies. Burtiss said he knew a lot of retired lawyers and he wanted to use their services and that he liked my ideas.

I also suggested a Spanish conversation club which as of now does not exist. I am pretty sure that would work. New York City has a large number of gay and Lesbian Hispanic ethnic clubs, and they are quite popular. But then there are also a large number of non-hispanic gay and Lesbian people who are interested in the language itself. For example, moi.

Finally, I suggested a Rachel Maddow fan club. Rachel Maddow is an out of the closet Jewish Lesbian news anchor on MSNBC on cable TV. I think she is the best. Burtiss said he knew about Rachel Maddow. He said that was a good idea and that he knew the women would especially like a club of her fans. By the way, Rachel Maddow recently reported that, at the Air Force Academy near Colorado Springs, there is a so-called “coaching” program, which is actually a psychological guidance program. It is headed by a reparative therapy “expert” named George Rosebush. He is in a word a right-wing quack doctor. Rachel believes the Air Force should not have hired him for his dubious psychological expertise. She asked on her newscast that the Air Force explain why they hired such a person with expertise in a discredited and in some states an illegal psychological procedure called reparative therapy. Near the acreage of the Air Force lies the acreage of the spread for the Focus on the Family. George Rosebush is of course on very good terms with this group, unfortunately. As a result, “Dr.” (in quotes) Rosebush gives them ample opportunity to proselytize the Air Force Cadets. As a result, the gay and I believe even the Lesbian Air Force cadets are being harassed by a bunch of religious fanatics.

I wonder if the Colorado lesgay lib groups picked up on her story.

© 14 December 2013

About
the Author  


I was born in 1944, I lived most of my life in New York City, Queens County. I still commute there. I worked for many years as a Caseworker for New York City Human Resources Administration, dealing with mentally impaired clients, then as a social work Supervisor dealing with homeless PWA’s. I have an apartment in Wheat Ridge, CO. I retired in 2002. I have a few interesting stories to tell. My boyfriend Kevin lives in New York City. I graduated Queens College, CUNY, in 1967.