Homer'sWorld

Every so often someone posts a drawing on Facebook, something like, "If we spanked/paddled/beat kids they wouldn't be so rotten."

When I was 10 my evil grandmother sold the land that was supposed to have gone to my father, "Promises mean nothing," that wicked woman told him. So my father decided to have his first mid-life crisis and quit long-haul trucking and become a dairy farmer, something he was completely unsuited for.

My parents bought a farm in Buckley and sold the house in Traverse City and we moved to this shitty little town and even before we got there my father probably realized what a mistake it was.

One day my parents and my three siblings and I were moving in the enormous table that had once belonged to my great-great grandmother Edna, and my father lost it. He gave me a look and suddenly he was chasing me through the kitchen into the laundry room with its cold concrete floor and he knocked me onto the floor. There was a bin with firewood next to where he was standing and he grabbed a 2x4 and started to beat me with it. I tried to ward off the blows, screaming over and over again, "What did I do? What did I do?"

Except I had done nothing except be the child my father did not want me to be- book smart, a weakling, probably a bit on the girly side. By the time he finished striking me with that piece of wood I had bruises all over my ass and legs and was lying there sobbing. What did I do?

Whenever I see those postings on Facebook extolling the wonders of beating children as "discipline" I flash back to the 10-year-old me on that floor. My mother claims she has no memory of it. My sister Susan is the one who remembers the 2x4, which would soon burn in a stove. It disappeared. The memory of what my father did has not. He's been dead for 17 years and whenever I think about him only the bad things he did, and there were plenty, come to the surface.

Child abuse isn't funny. Facebook postings about beating kids are not funny. And don't expect me to not tell you off if you post them.

So the Supremes are busy deciding whether I am equal to people like Ronald Reagan, Rush Limbaugh, Zsa Zsa Gabor, et al. Oh dear, some of them are super concerned about rushing to decide, because you know, gay marriage hasn't been around long enough to see whether it destroys the world as we know it. Certainly has never stopped them from ruling on other recent developments.

I wonder what it will feel like, someday, to not be a second class citizen in my own country.

My camera batteries became dead shortly into the Egg Party and so I don't have the quality of photos that I would like.

Egg Party!

This is probably the 6th or 7th Annual Non Denominational Egg Decorating and Backyard Egg Hunt Party. I got up and from 8 AM through almost 3 PM I cleaned and cooked, cooked and cleaned. Mostly cleaned. I was horrified at how much dirt there was in my kitchen.

The baskets were prepared, three for the winners and four for the little children attending.

I forgot to tell people I needed the baskets back, but they are cheap.

I bought 120 eggs and boiled most of them.

Jeffrey and Patrick decorating.

The handsome guests arrived and my handsome boyfriend greeted them.
There were some pretty women as well.
Mary and Tara.

Patrick helped hide eggs and he was naughty and put some in difficult places. He just got back from a photo safari in Africa.

The children (Milo, Nathan, Evelyn, and Sagan) all had a nice time and liked their baskets.


At a few minutes past 4:00 PM I called for the egg hunters to assemble, handed them bags, and counted,"3, 2, and 1" and off they went.

Egg Hunters.

There are over 400 eggs to find (they fill an enormous plastic bin the rest of the year).

Kyle won with 119 points, Tara placed second with 111, and Allen third with 106. Chris was the loseriest with only 5.

In the Mission midden, Nick found a vinegaroon.

Post 2500. I'm watching the Rhode Island Senate hearing on Same Sex marriage and it has been going on
for hours and hours (at least 5 or 6 hours).

The people against same sex marriage, Christians and a single Muslim, are fucked up pieces of shit, in my candid opinion. I've heard them describe gay folks as perverts, disease-ridden short-lived perverts, sinners, and on and on. A couple of the men testifying were obviously closeted homosexuals.

I spent a week camping with nine students aged 20 to 27. It has been a while since I have been exposed to people a generation younger than me. One was a 20-year-old gay man. A 30-something lesbian showed up and worked with us for a couple of days. And then there was me, the 49-year-old man.

When I was in my 20s, being gay was a big deal. I was usually the first gay person anybody knew. I was an oddity, eccentric and exciting. But I also had people call me names, once I was offered a job, which was rescinded when the guy found out I was gay (he was subsequently fired for doing this and I got the job anyways).

Things are so different today. The younger generation simply doesn't give a crap whether someone is straight, gay, transgender. People asked me about my boyfriend, cooed over pictures of him. Nobody flinched when the lesbian told a few stories. I was rather amazed.

If I was an old Republican voter I would be freaked out. The Republican base hates LGBT people. With a passion. And this hatred is going to kill the Republican party. The vast majority of young people don't have a problem with LGBT folks. The small percentage who do have grown up in fundamentalist households, and perhaps after they get more experience in the world, their views will change. I know I changed many peoples' opinions about gay people by being open about my life.

Field School. We drove south to near Nogales to work at the Spanish mission site. Portions of the site are in an active road bed and vehicular traffic has damaged prehistoric pit structures and threatens a Spanish-era building. We are also testing a trash midden area to recover a sample of artifacts.

The  first couple of days had bitter cold nights. I shivered in my tent. One day it hailed on us, but we still made progress. My crew worked on the Spanish structure.


First day, first units. Jeremy, Eric, Whit, Tony, and Lisa watch Kellie at work.


Waiting for the hail.

By the second we had found 13 courses of adobe bricks that had fallen down from the north wall.

Family Facial Hair.

Evan arrived and shortly thereafter we went to Rosa's for supper. I was daring and had a bean burrito instead of my usual three cheese enchiladas.