Straight Talk
BY NAN PARKS
Hi everyone! Remember me? Nan Parks? I used to write a column called “Straight Talk” for the San Francisco Bay Times and the whole “point” of the column was to give you gay (and lesbian!) folks an idea of how your friends on the straight side of the aisle think. Because sometimes (and don’t get mad at me!) I think you get so wrapped up in your enthusiasm that you try to go a little too far too fast. And you can bet that the “homophobes” out there won’t tell you what they think because they just think bad things no matter what you do so it’s up to people like me, who like you a lot and believe in tolerance for all, to give you a piece of advice now and then.
Well anyway I’m back! And I have to thank Ann Rostow for letting me use her “blog” and everything so “Thanks Ann!” because Ann called me the other week and asked me what I was doing these days and to be honest I haven’t been that busy lately because the boys are grown and out of the house and Doug’s working harder than ever and my sister Carol (who’s a lesbian… gosh I hate that word but Carol insists on it for some reason and that’s sort of one of those things that I can’t help noticing. Because who cares whether you’re called “lesbian” or “gay” or whatever as long as no one is using one of those mean words? Why make a big fuss over something that’s not important when you folks have so many really important things to worry about? Just asking!)
Ooops! Looks like I never finished that sentence but anyway Carol moved to Kansas City of all places because she met a Russian gal named Kelsey (and she’s not really Russian but her family came from there and I know it was a hundred years ago or so and that Kelsey was raised in Lubbock Texas but you know these things stay with you and Kelsey knows how to make all sorts of Russian dishes and has her grandmother’s recipes!) and anyway I’m tickled pink for Carol and I even helped her with her “wedding” a couple of years back!
I have so many things to tell you because it’s been almost ten years since I last wrote a column but I suppose most of you never read that old column to begin with so you probably don’t care about “catching up” with my news. And it seems like so much has changed and you all have made so much progress and I have to say that if you talked to my sister Carol you’d think everything was just as bad or worse than it was in the 1990s because she has just as many complaints about “gay rights” as she ever had! And I guess that her “marriage” doesn’t count for much in Missouri which I think is a shame. But still! She got to get married in California and no one forced her move (although Kelsey got a job in Kansas City so it made a lot of sense for that reason) but my point is that instead of looking at the glass “half full” and being grateful for being able to get “married” in California, all she can think about is how sad she is because she can’t get health insurance from Kelsey’s job and she has to pay for it herself. Which is too bad, I agree and I remember when Doug was out of work for awhile we had to pay for something that was named after a snake and believe me I was not happy to see all that money go our of our bank account (when I could have had quite a shopping spree instead!) but I’m just saying that these kinds of problems are part of everyone’s life--- gay or straight!
So! I must say that I’m a little surprised that we’re still fussing about gay people in the military because I think I wrote my very first column on this same subject back in 1993 and here I am 17 years later (can that be true?) writing about the very same thing! But you know folks, it just goes to show because back those many years ago I thought that it would be a good compromise to allow you folks to serve in the military as long as you didn’t tell anyone that you were gay. Because how hard is that? I know I don’t go around discussing my personal business with the butcher or the baker! And I think that if I were talking a shower with the girls on the base for example I wouldn’t care who was gay or who was straight as long as I didn’t know because I remember back in grade school that there were a lot of rumors about Patty Cratcher and I was always a little uncomfortable in the locker room when she was around and I may have been wrong to feel that way but I was only 13 or 14! (And in case you’re wondering why I put Patty’s name in my column under the circumstances it’s because she did turn out to be a lesbian and she doesn’t care who knows about it so I think it’s OK to “spill the beans” at this point. And Patty, if you’re reading this please don’t take offense in any way and thanks again for helping me make that dodecahedron model for geometry class!)
But anyway my point is that I’ve changed my opinion in all this time and now I don’t see why you folks should have to keep secrets like that and I know both my boys think that everyone should be allowed to serve without these special rules for gay people (but then again my sons are very “gay friendly” and sometimes they think I’m a bit of a stick in the mud even though I’m “gay friendly” myself). So anyway my only suggestion would be that you openly gay soldiers take your showers when none of the straight soldiers are around because otherwise it would be like straight men and women taking showers together and I don’t think any of us would approve of that!
Well that’s enough for my first column this time around and I just want to say how happy I am to be doing some serious writing again after all these years. I hope you keep reading!
BY NAN PARKS
Hi everyone! Remember me? Nan Parks? I used to write a column called “Straight Talk” for the San Francisco Bay Times and the whole “point” of the column was to give you gay (and lesbian!) folks an idea of how your friends on the straight side of the aisle think. Because sometimes (and don’t get mad at me!) I think you get so wrapped up in your enthusiasm that you try to go a little too far too fast. And you can bet that the “homophobes” out there won’t tell you what they think because they just think bad things no matter what you do so it’s up to people like me, who like you a lot and believe in tolerance for all, to give you a piece of advice now and then.
Well anyway I’m back! And I have to thank Ann Rostow for letting me use her “blog” and everything so “Thanks Ann!” because Ann called me the other week and asked me what I was doing these days and to be honest I haven’t been that busy lately because the boys are grown and out of the house and Doug’s working harder than ever and my sister Carol (who’s a lesbian… gosh I hate that word but Carol insists on it for some reason and that’s sort of one of those things that I can’t help noticing. Because who cares whether you’re called “lesbian” or “gay” or whatever as long as no one is using one of those mean words? Why make a big fuss over something that’s not important when you folks have so many really important things to worry about? Just asking!)
Ooops! Looks like I never finished that sentence but anyway Carol moved to Kansas City of all places because she met a Russian gal named Kelsey (and she’s not really Russian but her family came from there and I know it was a hundred years ago or so and that Kelsey was raised in Lubbock Texas but you know these things stay with you and Kelsey knows how to make all sorts of Russian dishes and has her grandmother’s recipes!) and anyway I’m tickled pink for Carol and I even helped her with her “wedding” a couple of years back!
I have so many things to tell you because it’s been almost ten years since I last wrote a column but I suppose most of you never read that old column to begin with so you probably don’t care about “catching up” with my news. And it seems like so much has changed and you all have made so much progress and I have to say that if you talked to my sister Carol you’d think everything was just as bad or worse than it was in the 1990s because she has just as many complaints about “gay rights” as she ever had! And I guess that her “marriage” doesn’t count for much in Missouri which I think is a shame. But still! She got to get married in California and no one forced her move (although Kelsey got a job in Kansas City so it made a lot of sense for that reason) but my point is that instead of looking at the glass “half full” and being grateful for being able to get “married” in California, all she can think about is how sad she is because she can’t get health insurance from Kelsey’s job and she has to pay for it herself. Which is too bad, I agree and I remember when Doug was out of work for awhile we had to pay for something that was named after a snake and believe me I was not happy to see all that money go our of our bank account (when I could have had quite a shopping spree instead!) but I’m just saying that these kinds of problems are part of everyone’s life--- gay or straight!
So! I must say that I’m a little surprised that we’re still fussing about gay people in the military because I think I wrote my very first column on this same subject back in 1993 and here I am 17 years later (can that be true?) writing about the very same thing! But you know folks, it just goes to show because back those many years ago I thought that it would be a good compromise to allow you folks to serve in the military as long as you didn’t tell anyone that you were gay. Because how hard is that? I know I don’t go around discussing my personal business with the butcher or the baker! And I think that if I were talking a shower with the girls on the base for example I wouldn’t care who was gay or who was straight as long as I didn’t know because I remember back in grade school that there were a lot of rumors about Patty Cratcher and I was always a little uncomfortable in the locker room when she was around and I may have been wrong to feel that way but I was only 13 or 14! (And in case you’re wondering why I put Patty’s name in my column under the circumstances it’s because she did turn out to be a lesbian and she doesn’t care who knows about it so I think it’s OK to “spill the beans” at this point. And Patty, if you’re reading this please don’t take offense in any way and thanks again for helping me make that dodecahedron model for geometry class!)
But anyway my point is that I’ve changed my opinion in all this time and now I don’t see why you folks should have to keep secrets like that and I know both my boys think that everyone should be allowed to serve without these special rules for gay people (but then again my sons are very “gay friendly” and sometimes they think I’m a bit of a stick in the mud even though I’m “gay friendly” myself). So anyway my only suggestion would be that you openly gay soldiers take your showers when none of the straight soldiers are around because otherwise it would be like straight men and women taking showers together and I don’t think any of us would approve of that!
Well that’s enough for my first column this time around and I just want to say how happy I am to be doing some serious writing again after all these years. I hope you keep reading!
Oh Nan, I've so "missed" you, and now I see it's been 6 years since you wrote this. I hope you are still writing. None of the "straight" world quite understands us the way you do!
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