I Hated High School Gym Class

During my high school days in Southern California (at Centennial High in Compton, to be specific), I was not into sports and lacked athletic ability. In fact, I absolutely hated gym class. For me, spending time in the school library would have been preferable. Whenever it rained I was glad because that meant we didn't have to change into our gym clothes (white T-shirt, blue shorts, white socks, and high-top sneakers). The entire gym period would be spent sitting in the locker room until the next bell rang and we went to our next class. 

Since this was California, it didn't rain much. And on the days when it didn't, I would sometimes decide to skip gym altogether, joining a few other boys walking around the grassy field for an hour until it was time to go to the next class.

If recent storms in California had happened back then, I would have considered those storms a blessing.

"In The Life" 's 40th Anniversary

October of this year will mark the 40th anniversary of In the Life, the groundbreaking black gay anthology edited by Joseph Beam and published by Alyson Books in 1986.

Radio Before The Internet

Back in the day, a radio buff like me could sit up late at night to hear radio stations as far away as San Francisco, Spokane (Washington), and Oklahoma City. Listening to those stations brought me joy although it could be a frustrating experience because of the static and the fading in and out of the radio signals. How clear they sounded depended on the station's distance from my home, which at the time was in Southern California. Stations like KOGO and KFMB in San Diego came in clearer because they were in a city closer to the Los Angeles area.

If the Internet had existed in the 1960s, I would have been able to hear all the disc jockeys I read about in the national music magazines like Teen Life. Among those deejays would have been Jerry Blavat (Philadelphia), Ron Riley (Chicago), Arnie "Woo Woo" Ginsburg (Boston), Johnny Rabbitt (St. Louis), Hal Jackson (Newark, New Jersey), and Murray the K (New York). I would have had a ball.

It's possible now to hear many of these radio personalities via archived airchecks on YouTube and other websites, but it's not the same as hearing them in real time. Unfortunately, many of these deejays are no longer alive.

One of the deejays I was able to hear clearly was Wolfman Jack when he had yet to become a household name. He played R&B (or soul music) on a super powerful Mexican station, XERB. At the time I thought he was black because of his gravelly, down-home way of talking. I later learned he was a white guy whose real name was Bob Smith. That didn't bother me, he became one of my favorite deejays.

Finding Free Books On The Streets Of Manhattan

Among the authors whose books I have found in free book kiosks, on street corners, and in front of apartment buildings are Harper Lee, Richard Wright, Dorothy L. Sayers, Walter Isaacson, Stephen King, James McBride, Isabel Allende, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Ed McBain,  Kurt Vonnegut, Sylvia Plath, Percival Everett, Jhumpa Lahiri, Amy Tan, Clive Cussler, John Steinbeck, Renee Rosen, and Michael Eric Dyson.

That would also include a copy of In the Life: A Black Gay Anthology, published in 1986 and edited by Joseph Beam. I was one of its contributors. (New York's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture listed In the Life on its "100 Black Voices Schomburg Centennial Reading List." I know Joe would have been very pleased.) 

Finding free books on the street is one of the many perks of living in otherwise pricey Manhattan.

The Waning Days Of Harlem's Mount Morris Baths

While going through some old manila file folders, I found a handwritten draft of a letter-to-the-editor written on canary yellow paper and dated June 25, 2001. I don't recall what publication prompted me to write it. As far as I know, it was never published. Here's what I wrote (which includes my edits):

Dear Editor:

Re: The increase in HIV infection among black gay men. 

I recently worked part time as a towel attendant in a Harlem bathhouse. During the two months of my employment I witnessed

After working two months as a part-time towel attendant/porter, I can see in a Harlem bathhouse, I can see why there is an increase in HIV infection among young black gay men. During my employment, I found crack vials, poppers, and other evidence of drug abuse as well as carelessly discarded condoms.

On the flipside of the page was another handwritten (and presumably unpublished) undated draft. This is what I wrote:

While the rest of 125th Street [in Harlem] rebuilds or renovates its premises, the Mount Morris Baths remains dirty and rundown. In a 1999 issue of the New York Blade News [a gay newspaper], Walter Fitzer [the straight owner of the bathhouse] claimed that the Health Department had been "busting my chops for the past three years under [then mayor Rudolph] Giuliani." If that is true, it would seem justified.

Lady Liberty's Welcome Mat

"Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"--Emma Lazarus (1849-1887), author/activist, from her poem, The New Colossus, used as an inscription at the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor.

Donald Trump should have the words from this poem hanging on a wall at the White House, in large, glowing letters, to remind him and members of his administration that America is, and has always been, a nation of immigrants.

Cloris Leachman's Lapse Of Memory

While listening to the BBC News on New York's public radio station WNYC-AM 820, I heard that the TV actress June Lockhart (Lassie and Lost in Space) had died at the age of 100. The mention of her death brought to mind the time I had proofread Cloris Leachman's memoir, Cloris, for Kensington Books in 2008 or 2009 and pointed out a factual error.

In the manuscript, Leachman said that she replaced June Lockhart as the mother on Lassie. For verification, I went to The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network TV Shows, 1946-Present by Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh (Ballantine Books, 1979). I found out it was the other way around--Lockhart had replaced her on the show.  I then corrected the error with my red pencil, citing the source of the correct information. 

Leachman, in her 80s when the memoir was about to come out, obviously had a lapse of memory. (The book, it should be noted, was actually ghostwritten by her ex-husband, the film director George Englund, who later died in 2017.)

**I previously wrote about this subject for the blog on February 17, 2021. To see this blog post, click on "Cloris Leachman" in the Labels section below.