…particularly, the girls.

Memories. Something that delights me no end is being able to share my photography with my classmates at reunions and online. Because my camera was a constant companion at school, I have tons of photographs of daily life at Woodward back in ’70-’72. It’s fun to reminisce with my classmates over them. But now and then I’ve had some unpleasant surprises.

I could be a clueless little dweeb at times. Probably most of the time at that age, but even now at age 72. I don’t think I was stupid, but it really keeps surprising me how much of what was going on around me back then kept going right past me or right over my head. Put it down to being a gay boy, plus being raised by a single divorced Baptist woman. Some subjects you just didn’t get anywhere near in that sort of household. Especially sex.

A Coming Out Story – Episode 12, “Dinner Table Danger Zone”

Now we’re all grown up, and I’ll be happily reviewing some of my Woodward photos with a classmate, and they’ll off-handedly tell me what was going on behind the scenes in this or that photo…and it throws me for a loop. Who was dating who. Who had sex with who. What? WhAT??? Laugh if you like, but I just assumed none of us were really having sex at our age, that it was just a lot of talk. I never took it seriously. I was clueless. Also gay. And a Baptist. So if there were signals a straight kid would have picked up on, little gay me was oblivious to them.

And to a lot more.

So…before one past reunion…not the most recent one… I’m arranging some of my photos with a couple of my female classmates here in the art room at Casa del Garrett. We’re selecting photos for a photo CD we want to sell to the classmates to support the costs of the reunion. We were looking at some photography I did of some of the teachers and students in the Activity Clubs for the yearbook, when I start hearing from them about which teachers in my photos were having sex with which of the other girls in my photos.

I was stunned. But it wasn’t just baseless gossip I was hearing then, because later on one of the teachers they were pointing to in my photographs was arrested and jailed for it. I never heard if the other one they kept pointing out in my photography ever did or not.

And even more than the accusations I was hearing, the casual offhanded way they told me about it stunned me even more; like it was some sort of common knowledge, among the girls back then. Because back then, among themselves, the girls talked to each about things they’d never feel comfortable talking to the boys about. I think in that moment they were comfortable talking about it to me because by then I was out to all my classmates. I don’t think they would have said anything to me about it if I was straight.

And I was stunned listening to all that. And even more…at the offhanded way they were telling me, as they looked at my photos of a couple of our teachers, the one who later got arrested and the one that, to my knowledge did not, surrounded by the other kids in one of the Activity Clubs, and they’re pointing and telling me He had sex with that girl…and that one…and that one…

Why am I bringing this up now? Oh…no particular reason…

Really living on the reunion afterglow this morning. It’s just so nice to be able to hang out with so many people who are on the same page as I am. People who, despite the different paths we have walked, share many of the same life experiences…

…like getting lost in the new Rockville. Classmate said he got lost trying to get to Montrose Road from where he lived back in the day. If you had lived in that neighborhood back in the ’70s you would understand how astonishing that is. 

Everyone I talked to about it agrees that Congressional Plaza is an abomination now. They took a lovely example of 60s mid century modern sandstone and glass architecture and paneled everything over and made it 21st century kitsch and it’s horrible.

I tried to do the place it once was justice on an episode of A Coming Out Story…

50th class reunion yesterday was amazing and wonderful. The crowd gathered around my Woodward photography slide show toward the end was especially gratifying.

Initially we were going to project it on a big screen but could not get the pre-HDMI projector to work with any of the connectors on my Mac. So we went with a large monitor instead, and my laptop next to it with the screen up and set for a two monitor display. That not only worked, it got the classmates to gather around the displays and talk to each other about what was in the photos, who was doing what, and generally what was happening back in the day. I don’t think any of that would have happened had people just been able to sit back and watch the slide show from their tables. It was such a blast reliving those images with everyone.

I haven’t felt this good inside in a long, Long time…

I’ll post more later…still just waking up…and I have to do some grocery shopping after my Disney vacation…

I had a dream about my high school early this morning. It was very painful. Not to start with though…

In this dream I am a young adult. I’m bicycling around the old neighborhoods. I find myself in front of the main entrance of my high school, Woodward, across the service road where the school buses park. There is some sort of event going on…lots of people of all ages going inside, tables and banners and colorful flags out in front of the doors and the auditorium.

I have an urge to go inside and look around, but I feel as though I’m not allowed inside and everyone would know that. But I want to look around, and maybe take a few reference photos for A Coming Out Story. So I walk my bike across the street to a nearby bike rack.

I realize I don’t have a bicycle lock on me. But then I notice there is one, in a holder in the bike frame. It’s an odd type I’ve never seen or experienced before but in the dream it all makes sense. It’s just a small chrome plated block of metal that rests in a holder in the frame. There is a key lock at one end and I pull a key for it out of my pocket, and remove it from its holder. It fits into a slot in the front wheel yoke when the wheel is turned all the way to the left, and blocks the front wheel from turning. The theory seems to be that a thief can’t ride off with the bike if the front wheel is stuck to the hard left. Of course one could always just throw the bike in the back of a car or truck, but in this dream I don’t think about that. I’m in a hurry to get inside.

My dreams often geek out like this.

I figure if I just act like I belong there nobody will notice me. It’s behavior that has served me well as a photographer. I walk inside and see that people are gathering in the cafeteria. There are also a lot of people walking around in the hallway leading to the cafeteria. Just like outside, there are tables inside, colorful flags and banners. It looks like the tables are selling or giving away souvenirs and keepsakes for whatever event is happening today. There is no text on any of the banners, just splashes of color everywhere. Everyone is happy. Everyone is having a good time. Smiles and happy conversation all around.

Inside the cafeteria it looks like a catering company is providing the food, as the kitchen area is empty. There are tables of food and various juice and soft drinks. It’s all high quality stuff. I’ve done wedding photography where it was like this at the reception. The dress code today seems to be everyday casual, so it’s not a very formal event whatever it is. People are sitting at the tables or standing or milling around. Everyone is chatting amicably with someone near them. This is a happy crowd.

The hallway outside, I notice, is much Much bigger than I remembered. Wider and taller. It’s become a grand hallway, but still keeping that 60s modernist flavor. I will always love that architecture. I step out into it, and walk toward the classrooms. I want to see the art rooms again. Every hallway, every staircase, has been greatly enlarged, made grand, but here there are no people and all is quiet. As I go up the stairs I can see sunlight from outside shining in and creating huge spaces of beautiful light and shadow. I reach for my cellphone to take some photos, and realize I left it back in my car.

Yes, somehow, and dreams do this to me all the time, the bicycle has become a car. My little green Geo Prism specifically this time. I’ve no idea why that car specifically, but it might have some dream connection with the fact that it was my first new bought car when I started making good money as a contract software developer, and I could live on my own for the first time in my life, and not in anyone’s basement. The Prism (I named it Aya) is a touchstone, a marker at point where my life took a turn for the massively better. The life I have now is nothing like the life I was expecting to have. I run out to the car, see the cell phone on the passenger seat, grab it, and run back inside.

But now all those grand spaces around the classrooms are full of people wandering about. The event, whatever it is that’s happening here, has grown in size.

I begin snapping some shots of the grand spaces inside. Like downstairs the hallways have tables and colorful banners and flags and people either selling or giving out keepsakes. I don’t look closely at what they are, I am focused on getting my shots.

I wander into the art rooms. Inside instead of all the art tables and stools, there is a big merchandise counter with friendly looking youngsters selling or giving out I can’t say which, more keepsakes and souvenirs. There are people of all ages looking the stuff over, and also milling about enjoying themselves.

I take a few shots and mutter to myself, “Well I guess that’s enough.”

An older man nearby gives me an odd look (I’m still a young adult in this dream). I suppose without context what I just said is strange, so I explain. “I just wanted to get some reference photos for a cartoon I’m working on…”

…and then I realize.

“…because this place doesn’t exist anymore. They tore it down.”

Now the man is looking at me like I’m crazy. But a younger man standing next to me speaks up.

“He’s right. They tore this place down. It’s not here anymore.”

And then it all fades away around me, and I’m standing in the middle of a field of wrecking ball art. Concrete blocks and bricks and twisted steel beams scattered all around me, none of it recognizable as having been anything in particular.

And I begin to cry. And cry. And cry. Like my heart is breaking.

And I wake up. It always surprises me when I wake up from dreams that do that to me, that my eyes are perfectly dry. I’m breathing pretty heavily though.