I was living in Fort Worth, Texas. I moved there from Gary, Indiana to learn to fly. If I didn't get out of Gary, the steel mills would have had me like it had my friends who were always talking about getting out but never got in their car and left.
I got my private pilot's license which made me eligible for Veteran's trade school benefits for the commercial pilots license. Lotta flying for ten cents on the dollar. My log book only has a few entries after commercial pilot's school. A few parachute jumps at a civilian facility and a few flights at a dollar on the dolar. No future at a dollar on the dollar. I never got my instrument rating and flight instructor's rating which is the traditional first paying job for a new pilot.
One day, hanging out at a Texas Swing/Jazz club, a guy at the table said he was hitching to Denver in the morning. I'd never been to Denver so I said "I'll drive you to Denver." The next day I did just that.
Denver was a beautiful city. It is located on the very Western edge of the Great Plains. It's called the Mile High City because it's at 5,280 feet above sea level. There's a marker on the steps of the Capitol Building that says one mile above sea level. It's the High Plains for sure. The air was clean.
Where I was raised in Gary, choosy mothers would give their toddlers a Camel cigarette to smoke, just so the kids could have a sense of what fresh air must be like.
Anyway, Denver, as nice as it was, and full of young people, didn't have many industrial jobs that my several years in the steel mills before and after the Army had prepared me for. I did some day labor (rent-a-bum) and some roofing but nothing steady. My savings were flashing red. I needed a job.
One night at an all night cafe (think of: [Down At] The Sunset Grill) a fellow told me they were looking for a doorman at the bar down the block. It paid fairly well as they'd been having some trouble lately. "What sort of trouble?" "Fights" he replied. Well, as a military policeman I had busted up many fights, fights between young strong trained soldiers. I knew how to do that without hurting the malefactors as even the Army didn't want their soldiers injured just because they didn't want to go with the MPs.
I took the job. It was a gay bar, a blue collar, working class sort of place. No fru fru guys. For the most part they looked like working stiffs anywhere I'd ever been.
The women's room was where the drugs were dealt and the men's was where the glory holes were. Didn't matter to me. I was paid to check IDs at the door for underage and to keep fights from escalating and such. I had to bounce a few straight guys who thought they were going to act tough at a gay bar but for the most part this place was nothing like the bars at E Chicago, Indiana and Indiana Harbor. Bars that made Shanghai look tame. Bars that would get you killed.
I learned a few things in a few weeks. Once, when some truly tough customers started going off on the queers
(their words, not mine) and I knew I was over matched by at least their numbers and maybe their fighting skills, and I wasn't looking forward to what was to come, I learned I wasn't alone. EVERY guy in that place got up and helped me throw those jerks out. No one kept their seat. New respect from me to those working class gays. Another thing I learned after a few weeks was those rather unbecoming ladies at the bar weren't ladies at all. DUH! No one to this very day has accused agog of being quick on the uptake.
If this narrative is allowed to continue I'll tell you about Pretty Jim. A straight guy who was so good looking the pretty Denver girls would practically throw themselves at him. How one night he showed up at my apartment wanting to crash on the couch. Sure I said and thought nothing of it. He showed me an injury just below his belt line that was dressed poorly and was bleeding a little. We had coffee the next morning and he took off. Several months later I asked a mutual friend if he'd seen Jim around. He said "Haven't you heard?" Jim shot so and so (A gay sugar daddy who was broke one time when Jim wanted money) I had read about it in the paper but never knew Jim's last name so I didn't know that Jim had killed sugar daddy, who I knew also, execution style a few hours before showing up at my door. The wound below his belt line was where the dummy had put the hot pistol down his belt and then ripped skin off pulling it back out. A few days later the cops cornered Jim. He used that pistol one last time. He put it to his head and pulled the trigger. Oops, I guess I already told you about pretty Jim.
But not to worry, there's still Sonia, and Orca and John E and a bunch more. Oh can't forget Sheree. She was a post op tranny who pimped many of the "hustlers" which is what the homosexual prostitutes liked to call themselves. I had to take a straight razor from her one night when one of her boys hadn't made bank for mama.
Being a true classical Liberal I took them as I found them. Some were pretty close friends. Some were surprisingly, deceptively, dangerous. All were sexually obsessed. I can tell you about the talk of the day at that time. It was about how so many gays around San Francisco were contracting a rare cancer called Carposi's Sarcoma. They would be healthy one month, and two months later they would die. A bag of bones, weighing nothing, their insides turned to jelly. There was no name for it yet. They called it the gay plague.
I was near ten years out of Viet Nam and near five years from hearing the first good thing about Viet Nam vets that ever reached my ears. I've lived differently than most people. I read in the Bible that if one has faith the size of a mustard seed, one can say to a tree "GO! Be planted in the ocean." and it will be done. I tested my faith one time and that tree just looked at me like I was crazy. So I know I am poor in Spirit. And I went to where such people are called.
And I found the delightful Jackie Evancho, a gifted child now blossoming teen. I was so happy to participate on her fan forum with such nice people. People better than me. But it turns out the "nice people" take delight in demeaning other people's deepest held values. Values that I have never tried to impose on others here. Casually spitting on other values because they are not theirs is their style. Yet they call themselves liberal. They are not.
It's late. I'm tired. This will probably be deleted by morning. Wouldn't want to upset the "liberals."