Tag: Reputation

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Changing Images, by Gillian

Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving.

                                           William Shakespeare

As most often, I completely agree with you, Will.

A reputation is a dangerous thing; good or bad, yours or someone else’s.

I guess the essence of their threat lies in the fact that we all tend to become sucked in by them, rather than by the reality of a person’s character. And, again, this is as true of our own as of others’. Being fooled by another person’s reputation, or image, is dangerous. Being led astray from your real self by your own, can be disastrous.

Reputations, and the images they create of us, can stay pretty stable throughout a lifetime, but for many of us they are fluid, changing as we grow. Who doesn’t know that wild child with the dreadful reputation in high school, who grew up to be a boringly conventional pillar of the community? Nevertheless that past reputation can hang around. Who has completely forgotten Chappaquiddick? It followed Ted Kennedy to his grave and beyond into the history books. The same for Monica Lewinsky, who will forever haunt Clinton’s reputation.

I’m not sure whether reputations have become more insidious in our modern word, or less.

In the days when most of us lived in small communities where everyone knew everyone else, it was hard for anyone to escape their established reputation and build a new one. You aren’t going to employ Bob to put in your new windows. He got caught shop-lifting at the dime store when he was ten. Probably rips off all his glass from some place. And as for letting Mary baby-sit. Remember how she knocked her baby sister off the chair that time? Well, yes, probably was an accident but still ……

These days, we tend not to know that the woman selling us insurance used to beat her children, or that the man fixing our car is a longtime alcoholic. On the other hand, anything you do or say can swoop around the world in a nanosecond, and if whatever it is goes viral, God help you!

I believe a lot of what Facebook is about is changing reputations, your own and others’, which is surely much easier to do these days than back in the small town where you were the town drunk for life no matter that you had been on the wagon for half of your life.

Winston Churchill was a perfect example of changing reputations. Come to that, he still is.

His youthful military escapades were a mixed bag, but, never lacking in ego, by the age of 26 he had published five books about them. His reputation was mixed, but he was made Lord of the Admiralty at at the ridiculously young age of 37. Sadly for him, and alas much sadder for the 250,000 casualties, his poorly-conceived Siege of the Dardanelles during WW1 was a total disaster and he was forced to resign, with his reputation in tatters. He immediately redeemed much of it by consigning himself to trench warfare, where he reportedly fought with vigor and valor.

Between the wars, his constant warnings of impending and inevitable war with Germany again diminished his reputation. No-one wanted to hear it. The Boer War was not so long over, and the British were not up for another. But when Germany broke its promises and invaded Poland, Churchill was proven right and his reputation soared. Almost instantaneously he was made Prime Minister and, with his reputation as that British Bulldog thundering around him, proclaimed by most as Britain’s savior. His very reputation, along with endless stirring speeches, did much to keep spirits high under desperate conditions, and to keep most Britons determined to go on fighting.

But that reputation, as a supreme fighter who would never give up, lost all appeal the moment the war ended. Churchill’s hawkish reputation coupled with his endless warnings over the new threat from the Soviets, were too scary for peace-time. Two months later Winston Churchill was defeated soundly at the polls.

His ego, however, remained undaunted. He had no fear for his reputation.

“History,” he pronounced, “Will be kind to me for I intend to write it.”

Which he did. Over his lifetime he wrote 43 books in 72 volumes.

But still he was unable completely to preserve a positive reputation.

Although for many years it was considered akin to blasphemy to criticize such a great hero, that is no longer the case. There is much discussion these days as to whether Churchill was, to quote Dr. Andrew Roberts, “Brilliant Statesman or Brutal Demagogue.” Just from his own quotations, he was clearly misogynistic and racist, but in his day that was not condemned as it is today. So reputations change not only as a person changes, and events change, but as attitudes change.

And so we re-write history.

It’s hard to be sure what one’s own reputation is. Probably, in many cases, not exactly what we think it is or would like it to be. I do know that when I was married the first time, to a man, we were considered a really strong, stable couple. I know that because our friends were so utterly shocked when we split up. And, in so many ways, that reputation was valid. Except for one teensy weensy detail which no-one knew. In one way our reputation as a married couple was true. In another, it was as far off as it could be. But I was the only one who knew that; and I played my part so well.

When I came out, I became a bit confused. I wasn’t at all sure what the archetypal lesbian would be; but whatever it was, that’s what I would become. I observed carefully in this new world, and acted accordingly to create a new reputation, a new version of myself. Thankfully, this stage did not last long.

You’re doing it again! I said to myself. Your entire life you have created a false reputation for yourself, and now you’re finally free, you’re doing it again! STOP!

So I did.

And for over 30 years now, I have simply been me. I don’t know what kind of reputation I have.

I don’t care. A reputation is simply others’ visions, versions, of me. It may or may not be anywhere near the truth. It simply doesn’t matter.

Free at last!

© October 2014

About the Author

I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have been with my wonderful partner Betsy for thirty years. We have been married since 2013.

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Reputation, by Gillian

Reputation is an idle
and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving. –
William Shakespeare
As most often,
I completely agree with you, Will.  A
reputation is a dangerous thing; good or bad, yours or someone else’s.  I guess the essence of their threat lies in
the fact that we all tend to become sucked in by them, rather than by the
reality of a person’s character. And, again, this is as true of our own as of
others’. Being fooled by another person’s reputation, or image, is dangerous.
Being led astray from your real self by your own, can be disastrous.
Reputations,
and the images they create of us, can stay pretty stable throughout a lifetime,
but for many of us they are fluid, changing as we grow. Who doesn’t know that
wild child with the dreadful reputation in high school, who grew up to be a
boringly conventional pillar of the community? Nevertheless that past
reputation can hang around. Who has completely forgotten Chappaquiddick? It
followed Ted Kennedy to his grave and beyond into the history books. The same
for Monica Lewinsky, who will forever haunt Clinton’s reputation.
I’m not sure
whether reputations have become more insidious in our modern word, or less.
In the days
when most of us lived in small communities where everyone knew everyone else,
it was hard for anyone to escape their established reputation and build a new
one. You aren’t going to employ Bob to put in your new windows. He got caught
shop-lifting at the dime store when he was ten. Probably rips off all his glass
from some place. And as for letting Mary baby-sit. Remember how she knocked her
baby sister off the chair that time? Well, yes, probably was an accident but
still ……   
These days, we
tend not to know that the woman selling us insurance used to beat her children,
or that the man fixing our car is a longtime alcoholic. On the other hand,
anything you do or say can swoop around the world in a nanosecond, and if
whatever it is goes viral, God help you!
I believe a
lot of what Facebook is about is changing reputations, your own and others’,
which is surely much easier to do these days than back in the small town where
you were the town drunk for life no matter that you had been on the wagon for
half of your life.
Winston
Churchill was a perfect example of changing reputations. Come to that, he still
is.  His youthful military escapades were
a mixed bag, but, never lacking in ego, by the age of 26 he had published five
books about them. His reputation was mixed, but he was made Lord of the Admiralty
at the ridiculously young age of 37. Sadly for him, and alas much sadder for
the 250,000 casualties, his poorly-conceived Siege of the Dardanelles during
WW1 was a total disaster and he was forced to resign, with his reputation in
tatters. He immediately redeemed much of it by consigning himself to trench
warfare, where he reportedly fought with vigor and valor.
Between the
wars, his constant warnings of impending and inevitable war with Germany again
diminished his reputation. No-one wanted to hear it. The Boer War was not so
long over, and the British were not up for another. But when Germany broke its
promises and invaded Poland, Churchill was proven right and his reputation
soared. Almost instantaneously he was made Prime Minister and, with his reputation
as that British Bulldog thundering around him, proclaimed by most as Britain’s
savior. His very reputation, along with endless stirring speeches, did much to
keep spirits high under desperate conditions, and to keep most Britons
determined to go on fighting.
But that
reputation, as a supreme fighter who would never give up, lost all appeal the
moment the war ended. Churchill’s hawkish reputation coupled with his endless
warnings over the new threat from the Soviets, were too scary for peace-time. Two
months later Winston Churchill was defeated soundly at the polls.
His ego,
however, remained undaunted. He had no fear for his reputation.  “History,” he pronounced,
“Will be kind to me for I intend to write it.”  Which he did. Over his lifetime he wrote 43
books in 72 volumes.
But still he
was unable completely to preserve a positive reputation.  Although for many years it was considered
akin to blasphemy to criticize such a great hero, that is no longer the case.
There is much discussion these days as to whether Churchill was, to quote Dr.
Andrew Roberts, “Brilliant Statesman or Brutal Demagogue.” Just from
his own quotations, he was clearly misogynistic and racist, but in his day that
was not condemned as it is today. So reputations change not only as a person
changes, and events change, but as attitudes change.
And so we
re-write history.
It’s hard to
be sure what one’s own reputation is. Probably, in many cases, not exactly what
we think it is or would like it to be. I do know that when I was married the
first time, to a man, we were considered a really strong, stable couple. I know
that because our friends were so utterly shocked when we split up. And, in so
many ways, that reputation was valid. Except for one teensy weensy detail which
no-one knew.  In one way our reputation
as a married couple was true. In another, it was as far off as it could be. But
I was the only one who knew that; and I played my part so well.
When I came
out, I became a bit confused. I wasn’t at all sure what the archetypal lesbian
would be; but whatever it was, that’s what I would become. I observed carefully
in this new world, and acted accordingly to create a new reputation, a new
version of myself. Thankfully, this stage did not last long.  
You’re doing
it again! I said to myself. Your entire life you
have created a false reputation for yourself, and now you’re finally free,
you’re doing it again! STOP!
So I did.
And for over
30 years now, I have simply been me. I don’t know what kind of reputation I
have.  I don’t care. A reputation is
simply others’ visions, versions, of me. It may or may not be anywhere near the
truth. It simply doesn’t matter.
Free at last!
© October 2014 
About the Author 
I
was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to
the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the
Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised
four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting
myself as a lesbian. I have now been with my wonderful partner Betsy for 25
years.
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Reputation, by Ricky

In 8th grade I was given a reputation as a DAR, Damn Average Raiser, when my teacher pointed out to my classmates that I received the highest grade on a test when I only had one night to prepare and they had two weeks.

In high school that reputation followed me but was undeserved as I was mostly an “A” and “B” student, mostly because I did not study but just crammed information the night before a test. At that point in my life, I still had a pretty good memory.

In the military as an enlisted member, my reputation was outstanding because I had a logical oriented brain and I could accomplish multiple tasks in a timely manner. As an Air Force officer, in the eyes of the enlisted men/women I supervised, I had a reputation of always helping the enlisted force rather than being a severe disciplinarian. In the eyes of my commanders, my reputation was one of being too soft and not “hard core” by building my career on the number of careers I could destroy.

As a deputy sheriff, my reputation was of being very tough on DUI drivers and speeders. But my patrol district traffic accidents dropped from 93 to 47 in one year with traffic related deaths from 7 to 3. So locals could call me what they will; I don’t really care. We saved at least 4 lives my first year on the job.

As a husband and father, my family set my reputation as a “fix-anything” person. I has taken me a life-time to dispel that belief, but it just won’t go away.

In this group, you all know me for a pun loving smart ass.

© 27 October 2014

About the Author

I was born in June of 1948 in Los Angeles, living first in Lawndale and then in Redondo Beach. Just prior to turning 8 years old in 1956, I began living with my grandparents on their farm in Isanti County, Minnesota for two years during which time my parents divorced.

When united with my mother and stepfather two years later in 1958, I lived first at Emerald Bay and then at South Lake Tahoe, California, graduating from South Tahoe High School in 1966. After three tours of duty with the Air Force, I moved to Denver, Colorado where I lived with my wife and four children until her passing away from complications of breast cancer four days after the 9-11 terrorist attack.

I came out as a gay man in the summer of 2010. I find writing these memories to be therapeutic.

My story blog is TheTahoeBoy.Blogspot.com

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Reputation: Too Precious to be Trusted, by Phillip Hoyle

Reputation has little to do with the way I see other people. I’ve come to this rather strange way of thinking because for me people are much too interesting and potent to be known for what actually is an outsider’s point of view and idolization. A fine reputation is the result of the appearance one makes in regard to his or her adherence to reified social norms. I developed quite a reputation as an effective minister. I was nice to people, worked hard, provided creative and unusual programming for people of many ages, prepared my choirs adequately, appreciated the work of volunteers, spoke publically with enough charm not to offend, had a great attendance record in the church office and in hospital calling, worked well with the church staff, and had a family that also participated in the congregation’s life. People liked me. I didn’t embarrass them with my ideas. They knew I was not afraid of the strange folk like foreigners, poor, and needy. I was a great resource for a large church organization for my ability to work with difficult people. And eventually I wrote curriculum resources for religious education. I was somewhat known for whatever that is worth.

I took a job at a church in a western city. I loved the church facility. I found the congregational leaders delightful. I appreciated the strong core of folk who nurtured liberal concerns and practical approaches to church work. I enjoyed the support of a cadre of retired ministers in the congregation. I liked the music program. On and on. The Senior Minister, Bill, told me one day I was supposed to be a woman. I responded, “I’m trying as hard as I can.” We laughed. He said that the search committee for the associate minister had made obtaining a female clergy as its goal. They found me. He also said the hiring was influenced because of my fine reputation.

I thought about that and realized that the Area Minister, Jim, had wanted me to come to that Region because he trusted my leadership, appreciated my willingness to work in summer camp and conference programs, and liked my cheerful disposition. I wondered what all he had said to move the committee away from their original intention. Although I knew that one person’s likes often influenced committee members, I also knew the appeal to reputation actually set up a minister for failure since the minister would never really know how he or she was represented, what actually was the content of that reputation. I trusted that work-wise I would sufficiently meet the needs of staff and congregation. I was already doing so when I heard I was supposed to be a woman and about my fine reputation. But I wondered.

Some years before I had known a past minister of the church where I worked. His divorce from his wife several years after leaving our congregation made the local gossip. People expressed such deep disappointment to me about the divorce. I don’t recall if the minister or his wife initiated the proceedings, but do remember clearly that the critics didn’t voice much interest in the whole picture of his life. Still, like is true in the kind of church I came from, they did fall short of saying “tut, tut,” this last probably out of deference for his then ex-wife. I listened and wondered how this change affected their feelings about what he had taught them, what leadership he had provided, what sense of faith he had engendered. Their sense of disappointment seemed larger than necessary to me. He had spoiled their ideal.

So when in my next congregation I knew the search committee had been influenced by my reputation, I became extremely alert to the function of reputation and its relation to ideals and expectations. When I learned I was hired because of my reputation, I wondered over my work and its consequences, especially were it ever to come out that my life might have changed within just a few years after my exit from that fine church. What would those fine folk think when they got the gossip that I, who was widely appreciated, left ministry fifteen years before retirement age, left my wife, moved to a large city to live as a homo (probably the largest reputation spoiler), and took up a new career as a massage therapist (oops, maybe this was the main spoiler). I knew I couldn’t control whatever people chose to think. I couldn’t save them from themselves. And I knew exactly why I could never believe in reputation. Besides I have lived through too many American general elections cycles. Even the best—and the worst—reputations are far too fragile, too precious to trust.© Denver, 2014

About the Author

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot

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Reputation by Will Stanton

I really was in the mood to prepare something more unusual and more interesting than just a run-of-the-mill story; but for a long time, the suggested topic “Reputation” did not inspire me. Naturally at first, I tried to think of a person whose reputation is remarkable. One came to mind, but I already have written about him.

On the other side of the coin and as occurs far too often, reputations are inflated, misleading, or even false. Quite often, a person’s reputation largely is the result of his “blowing his own horn,” in a sense, marketing himself. In contrast, those of us who, by nature or breeding, learned not to impose our own impressions of ourselves upon others suffer a lack of recognition and reward. Our accomplishments even may be met with skepticism because they are not widely known. My not settling upon any particular person, good or bad, I abandoned the thought of writing about a person.

Of course, the idea of reputation may apply to whole organizations, such as the I.R.S. or political organizations such as those financially supported by the Koch brothers, but I did not wish to upset my stomach and rejected them as a subject. Then, it occurred to me that reputation, good or bad, can apply to locations as well.

That’s when I decided to prepare something a little more amusing, writing about the abandoned Moonville railroad tunnel and all the wild rumors about it. Over the years, I have taken several rail-fan friends there to see it. The idea to write about it was sparked when I was doing a Google-search for railroad history near my home-town, and I stumbled upon an astonishing number of videos and websites devoted to supposed ghostly apparitions associated with the tunnel. This widespread reputation keeps growing. All one needs to do is talk to any person residing in the general area of the tunnel or just look on Google or YouTube for stories, pictures, and videos.

The ironic, but not surprising, reputation of the Moonville tunnel has nothing to do with reality or the utilitarian purpose of its construction but, rather, the generations of people who have imposed their fantasies upon the tunnel. Apparently, a large portion of the human population is prone to eagerly embrace such fantasies and escalate their spread.

Here is the factual history of the tunnel. Early in the nineteenth century, people living and working in southern Ohio decided that they needed a railroad to ship coal and iron, to take goods and produce to market, and to more conveniently move passengers. The construction of the Marietta and Ohio Railroad began in 1845. By 1856, the line had reached into the wilds of the isolated Zaleski Forest, named after a Polish count who had been persuaded to invest in the railroad with the hope of profiting from the coal reserves lying in the area. Vinton County remains as the most heavily forested and least populated county in Ohio. More memorable for me is the fact that the area surrounding Moonville is rather desolate, gloomy, inhospitable, and can be reached only by circuitous gravel roads through the forest. That alone can contribute to a person’s developing strange feelings about Moonville.

The tiny village of Moonville was built to house railroad-construction workers, miners, and those forging artillery pieces at nearby Hope Furnace for the Union army. The village consisted of a small row of clapboard houses, a general store, saloon, a saw mill along Raccoon Creek, and a cemetery atop the high ridge just to the east. At its peak in 1876, Moonville housed only around one hundred people. By 1947, the last family left, and the remaining structures crumbled into nothing. Only a few sandstone foundation stones remain.

It was that high ridge that obstructed the railroad without its having to be diverted in a large loop along Raccoon Creek to the other side. So, a tunnel was dug out and lined with brick. Above each portal, protruding bricks proudly spelled the name “Moonville.”

By 1887, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad had crossed into Ohio, and they bought the Marietta and Cincinnati, using it as the main southwestern line from Washington to Cincinnati and St. Louis. In the later 20th century, in addition to freight-train traffic, Amtrak leased the rights to run passenger trains on the line. The one time in the early ’80s that I decided to go to Athens by train turned out to be the very last run of the Amtrak “Shenandoah” on the southwest line and through the Moonville Tunnel.

 The final owner, CSX Corporation, tired of maintaining that mainline through the low and isolated Zaleski Forest and cleaning up train wrecks such as the coal train that I saw tipped over right at the eastern portal. They abandoned the line by 1988 and pulled up the track, ties, and the short bridge near the west portal. I was surprised that CSX, out of any over-concern about potential injury and liability, did not close the tunnel by blowing up the portals. Instead, a portion of the line has been turned from rails into trails, allowing people to hike through the tunnel.

Because of Moonville’s isolated and unusual setting, tales of hauntings around the tunnel began as early as the 1890s. I suppose that it’s human nature to imagine experiencing paranormal phenomena and to weave tales about what they supposedly saw. Usually, such tales surround tragic events and deaths. There certainly were some incidents over 150 years, although such things can happen anywhere. It’s just that Moonville Tunnel makes for such an appropriate setting.

During the 19th century, the job of railroad brakeman was one of the most dangerous jobs known. Sure enough in 1859, a brakeman fell off a train near Moonville and was run over.

Over the years, local people often avoided the winding roads and made a habit of walking the rails, taking a shortcut through the tunnel, or hopping freights for a more direct route to Moonville. In 1866, a ten-year-old girl was walking on the small bridge near the west portal and was hit by a train. In 1876, thirteen-year-old Henry Sharkey hopped a freight, tried to jump off near Moonville, and was run over. In 1880, James Hood road a freight train from Athens to Moonville, jumped off, but smacked his head on a post. Mrs. Patrick Shay was trying to cross that same bridge in 1905 and was killed by a locomotive. Allen Albaugh hopped a freight in 1907 and fell off near the tunnel. Coal-miner Rastus Dexter took a shortcut through the tunnel in 1920 but did not make it to the other end. As recently as 1986, a girl scout on a hike tried to beat a train across the bridge.

There were a few other kinds of deaths, too. David Keeton was murdered along side the tracks in 1886, and another man was murdered in the Moonville Tavern in 1936.

But it was the 1880 head-on train crash that has sparked the most tales over the years. The tales spun around this incident grew to the point that someone even wrote a folk ballad about it. Starting with westbound train No. 99 in 1895 and for generations afterwards, locals told tales of a ghostly railroad man with a lantern trying to stop approaching trains near the tunnel. Rumor has it that this occurred so often that engineers were instructed to ignore such visions in the area of Moonville.

What amazes and amuses me is that the current generation of teenagers, college students, and locals, have not only perpetuated the tales surrounding Moonville Tunnel but actually have increased their number. Clusters of kids make the long trek through the Zaleski Forest to experience, what they hope to be, ghostly encounters. So called “ghost clubs” have sprung up, and whole groups come out to the tunnel, sometimes even at night, bringing their cameras and sound equipment. Often, they do convince themselves that they have witnessed something strange. A college student swore in 1993 that he actually saw a swinging lantern in the tunnel. Then these young ghost-hunters, fascinated with their experiences, upload their stories, pictures, and videos onto the web.

The unfortunate result of all this attention to the Moonville Tunnel and its reputation is that many kids have felt the urge to spray-paint graffiti throughout the tunnel and over the bricks forming the name on each portal. Fortunately, the cemetery on the hill above the tunnel has been left alone. Mother Nature has not been so crass as the kids have been, but she has contributed to the decay of the area around the tunnel. Within a few short years, new trees and shrubs have crowded in on either side of the railroad right-of-way, and soil has crumbled down upon the path.

Moonville is a perfect example of reputation based upon people’s perception and imagination rather than more prosaic facts. It also is a good example of how such a reputation can grow and spread. Once this happens, people are less interested in hearing facts, especially when the facts are far less exciting than the myths. After all, the Moonville myths are so much more fun.


© 9 October 2014

About the Author

I have had a life-long fascination with people and their life stories. I also realize that, although my own life has not brought me particular fame or fortune, I too have had some noteworthy experiences and, at times, unusual ones. Since I joined this Story Time group, I have derived pleasure and satisfaction participating in the group. I do put some thought and effort into my stories, and I hope that you find them interesting.

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Reputation by Pat Gourley

It has been some months at least since I have quoted Grateful
Dead lyrics in one of my written pieces here so I think it’s about time. A line
from one of their classic songs, Uncle
John’s Band – a tune by the way covered by the Indigo Girls, states “all I really want to know is are you kind”.
If I address “reputation” from a personal perspective I would most want to be
known and remembered for being kind.
While watching a 60 Minutes piece last night that featured a
few of the Dallas nurses who cared for Mr. Duncan the first Ebola patient in
the U.S. I was actually moved to tears by their genuine empathy and kindness
toward this man who was dying a horrifying death while at the same time at
considerable risk of infection themselves. As a nurse myself I can attest to
the fact that while we are not necessarily immune to the sight of human
suffering we are not often easily shocked either. This disease apparently is an
exception to that rule. Large amounts of human secretions are often part of the
game with nursing in certain settings. Ebola though seems to take that to a
whole new level most often in the form of voluminous amounts of vomit and
diarrhea. In the end stages of the disease even small droplets of these
secretions are teaming with literally millions and millions of viral particles
and it only takes one to pass it on.
They interviewed four nurses and all four seemed to exude
genuine kindness but I was most impressed with an African American woman and a
portly man with a definite and beautiful fey-air about him. Though not the case
anymore gay men were at one time a preponderance of the male nursing population
and we are still quite well represented. I will remember these nurses not so
much for their bravery but their dignified and uncompromising acts of human
kindness, wiping his tears and holding his hand albeit through multiple layers
of protective gear among many such acts in his last days. I would like to have the
epithet “he was a kind queen” attached to my tombstone or rather an urn full of
my ashes before they get scattered in San Francisco bay.
I suppose there was a time in my distant past when I did not
want the rather large “queer’ part of my being to be sullying my reputation in
anyway. I do think though I was lucky and got over that one quickly. One sort
of throws caution to the wind in that regard when you enter certain health care
professions and nursing in particular as a male in the 1970’s. I was probably
at my most flamboyant professionally in the 1970’s and I am sure had the
“reputation” as being the flaming homo nurse. Only once though in 40 years of nursing,
when working ICU, did a patient openly verbalize that he didn’t want the
“queer” touching him. My co-workers were much more upset about this than I was
at the time and it’s probably safe to say that the amount of kindness directed
this man’s way may have been severely curtailed during his intensive care stay.
Efficient and appropriate medical care does not necessitate kindness but it
sure goes down a lot easier with that in the mix.
As I alluded to I was quite out of the closet during both
nursing school and on the job in the 1970’s. I think my ‘homosexual-reputation’
if you will was solidly cemented one night in the ICU at University Hospital when
I had just returned from recovering from a bout of hepatitis. Hepatitis was
being discussed by a group of us including some docs and folks were speculating
whether or not I may have gotten the hepatitis on the job, something not
uncommon for nurses in those days before the advent of “universal precautions”
and good hepatitis vaccines. As I recall without missing a beat I quite
flippantly said that it was much more likely I was infected at the Empire
Bathes with my legs in the air. That was the end of that discussion.
As Andy Warhol so famously said everyone gets at least 15
minutes of fame, which I suppose you could say, then becomes a significant part
of his or her reputation. For me personally though I certainly hope that is not
the case. In early 2000 a writer with Westword came to Denver Health wanting to
do a piece on the current state of the AIDS epidemic. I had always shunned the
press wanting to do AIDS pieces because they so seldom got it right and what
could be worse for one’s ‘reputation” than to be grossly misquoted. The
reporter, a fellow named Steve Jackson, was a frequent freelance contributor to
the paper often doing long feature pieces. He apparently became bored with the
usual AIDS talking heads, mostly docs, at Public Health and was steered in my
direction by someone in the building.  He
and I actually hit it off having some sort of Grateful Dead connection as I
seem to recall and I spent quite a few hours telling him my story.
A long story short I became the entire focus of the piece and
wound up on the cover of the next issue. My own fifteen minutes of fame if you
will. The piece was insufferably long as it appeared in print and I was still
the case after the editor, Patty Calhoun, had cut a full third of it before
publication. I have never posted it to my web site in part because I found it
to be embarrassing, not because it affected my reputation at all but it really
seemed to focus on my own personal drama in a very over the top fashion. If any
good came out of it though I hoped it might have persuaded some folks at risk
to finally get tested and get on meds. I was, as was graphically laid out in
the piece, probably twenty years into my own HIV infection and still walking,
talking, working full-time and posing for Westword cover stories.
One might think, and I suppose I did too, that such exposure
would have major repercussions but it actually had virtually none. For one
thing it was too long for most folks to get through and secondly I attribute
this lack of fallout to the strength of coming out. If all your secrets are
already out their in your personal and work circles and most folks are already
bored with the old queen’s story and simply adding a few thousand more Westword
readers to that mix doesn’t much effect one’s life or reputation and it did
not.
In fact the response at least that blew back to me was quite
muted. Oh a few mostly gay positive men came up to me in person and were very
supportive but most responses ranged from “oh is he still alive” to my personal
favorite “I thought they only put convicted felons on the cover of Westword”.
The lesson for me seems quite obvious. One’s reputation
hopefully is not in anyway significantly influenced by any particular 15
minutes of fame but rather by a lifetime of being kind or at least trying to be
to all you encounter. In that respect I am great believer in Karma and what
goes around eventually, despite frequent bumps in the road, comes around.
© October
2014 

About the Author 

I was born in La Porte Indiana in 1949, raised on a farm and schooled
by Holy Cross nuns. The bulk of my adult life, some 40 plus years, was spent in
Denver, Colorado as a nurse, gardener and gay/AIDS activist. I have currently returned to Denver after an
extended sabbatical in San Francisco, California.