Peggy Ann and Ted

 

Margaret "Peggy" Ann Thompson

Hey folks, isn't blogging wonderful! Blogging has enabled me to find so much wonderful information that otherwise would be lost to history.

An "Anonymous" comment on my last blog about Carmen and Violet who died in a car crash in 1946 leaving a two year old little girl orphaned, found the name of that little girl. He or she did some research on Carmen and Violet and found the name of the daughter was "Margaret Ann Thompson". Viola! Yes! That rang a bell. "Peggy Ann" was her name!

"Thompson" was her mother's maiden name. Perhaps she took that name because her mother wasn't officially married to Carmen Marino. Interesting, especially back then because having a baby out of wedlock was a big scandal only whispered about.

I found the census for 1950 and I found where she was living with her aunt Margaret, for whom she was obviously named. 

Look at her yearbook picture at the beginning of this blog. That folks is a genuine smile. I remember her as a little girl always happy. "Peggy Ann!" I often heard shouted in our second floor apartment building when my family lived just across the hall from Carmen and Violet. I'm pretty sure my Mother baby sat for Peggy Ann because both my father and my Mother had a close relationship with Carmen and Violet.

That yearbook picture was taken from the West Chester High School which she attended. Then her adoptive parents must have moved back to Downingtown in her senior year because Peggy Ann was on of this young people who had to finish out her high school years at a different school, which just happens to be the same high school I graduated from, Downingtown. She came too late to be included in the yearbook, thus this is the picture of her that was included.

Poor Peggy Ann, she doesn't look too happy in that picture. It looks like a hostage picture doesn't it?

Now here is something else interesting. Another commenter on my blog told me he was friends with Carmen's nephew. Here is his comment. 

Wow what a story. Perhaps eventually you can find out the name of Carmen & Violet's daughter and if she is still alive and her married name (if still married). 
The name Carmen Marino rigs a bell for me. Quick story: I knew a Paul C. Marino of Waterbury, CT. way back in the late 90s as I was just getting deep into the internet. We are both fans of the rock music group, Grateful Dead. Anyway I asked him what the "C" in his name was for, and Paul replied, "Carmen" a popular Italian name. That name was given to him in honor of an uncle who lived in or around a town called Downingtown, Pennsylvania. He and his wife Aunt Violet died in a car accident just before X-mas in the 40's. They too had a daughter. 100% this is the same man.
I lost touch with Paul about 2003. In 2020, I wanted to get in touch with him again, but got no reply.

What are the odds? Wow! 

Now here is another link to me. Peggy Ann is actually related to me! First my family and secondly by a boy named Ted Thompson. I'll explain the relationship but it might hurt your head but here goes. Peggy Ann's mother Violet Thompson was the aunt of John Thompson who was my first cousin Jane Tipton's husband. Got that? And who was Ted Thompson? He was John's younger brother. 

Now this is where things really get interesting. One day in 1957 I began my first day in Typing class in high school. Back in the Fifties not too many boys took typing because it was considered "only for girls" or "sissy." But if you took a Commercial Course, which is what some of us boys from poor families took because we weren't going to college, those college bound boys took the academic course. So there I am sitting demurely in my seat ready for the class to start and here comes in this guy who just took my breath away. He walked like a panther. He had a great smile. He exuded casual confidence, something in which I was sorely lacking at that time. He was athletic. He was on the football team. He wore glasses (for some strange reason I'm often attracted to guys who wear glasses). Wow! I was really attracted to this guy but of course this was the Fifties, what was I going to do? He was two years older than me. I was in LOVE. Ted literally made me weak in the knees whenever he walks into the room.

Theodore Thompson
Downingtown High School Year Book Photo 1957

A pause, this is a blog post I often wanted to write but put off often. Now I think is a good time to write about one of my first major crushes and the terrible ending to that crush which has stayed with me all these years. Over the years I have often thought of the tragic ending of both Carmen and Violet and Ted Thompson and now that I find out they are related is a major coincidence. Especially how I found out. This is why I think there is a guardian angel that helps me and I think Bill had a hand in this too. I do think our lives are preplanned out for us as a learning experience. And in the end everything is related. And now it has been proven to me because these two episodes have haunted me my whole life.

Back to Ted. When I heard his last name was "Thompson" I asked him if he was related to my cousin Jane Tipton's husband Johnny Thompson. Ted said Johnny was his brother. Wow! Now what I did next was very foolish but you have to remember I was a love struck fifteen-year old. I said "Oh! We're related!" Ted got a kick out of that. From then on almost every time he came into class he would mockingly greet me with a "Hi cousin!"

Read his caption he wrote in my yearbook, the "cousin" comment and "Ha! Ha!"  Hurt my feelings but what the heck. Wasn't the first time nor the last.  Life is a lesson. This was just one.

He was nice about it but it was still mocking me. Again, this was the Fifties and I probably came off as a bit of a nerd if not a complete sissy to him. Obviously he knew I was taken with him. Let me tell you, I really enjoyed being around that guy. I love that typing class. Of course he didn't pay attention to me, he was very popular and couldn't be bothered with his gangly, probably annoying underclassman in his typing class. I was pretty sure he wasn't going to ask me to be his date at his senior prom. Yes, that was what I was fantasizing about. Ted Thompson driving up in a cool 1957 Chevy

to pick me up to take me to his senior prom. Yeah, sure! Yes, these days students can take same sex to their prom but NOT IN THE FIFTIES!

Ted leading his graduation class onto the football field for his graduation ceremonies

And especially Ted, because he was obviously as straight as they come. But then that has always been my curse, I'm only attracted to straight or straight acting men. I've never been attracted to a swishy or feminine man, no offense to any of my gay brethren but that's just the way it is with me. This big, broad shouldered, panther walking football player taking me to his senior prom? Yes folks, that was one of my many teenage gay fantasies. Well, I could dream couldn't I? 

Ted, down in the from and in the middle. Mr. Popularity!

Not only was I attracted to Ted physically but I loved his outgoing, friendly personality even though there was a dearth of that personality directed towards me. I loved seeing how popular he was with every one he came into contact with including our typing teacher who I think also had the hots for me and he knew it. He often flirted with her. Even at fifteen years old I could tell when vibes were in the air between two people. 

Ted, the loudest in his class. Oh he was loud all right. You always knew when Ted entered the room. He was full of life. So much positive energy. I liked Rosie too. And yes, she was also loud. 

I only had one year in typing class with Ted because he graduated that year (1957) which made me sad because I would no longer be in his presence. I really enjoyed those typing classes because he sat right across the aisle from me with those tan khaki pants and form fitting shirts he always wore. What a guy! 

Then something terrible happened. After Ted left school he joined the Army, as most of us poor boys did (I did as did my two younger brothers) who couldn't afford to go to college. Ted was only in Basic Training two week when he died doing calisthenics! 

When I heard that news my heart was broken.  What a waste I thought! This beautiful guy with everything going for him. The looks, personality and popularity, what an awful waste of a life just doing exercises. And he was a football player. The only thing I could figure out is that he took basic training in the summer (which he did) and it was heat exhaustion. I followed him in basic training at Fort Dix New Jersey but my basic training was in February and March. Another lucky break for me. But back to Ted. My whole like, just like the sadness I felt for Peggy Ann, that little three year old girl clutching her doll in the dark as police flashlights woke her up that cold December night to inform her that both of her parents were dead; I also felt a sadness my whole life for Ted and the loss for his family. 

My cousin Jane Tipton had three children. Two boys and a girl; Johnny, Penny and Ted (named in honor of his uncle who died so young). I often my mother to visit Jane's mother, one of my favorite aunts and another "Peg". Yes, "Aunt Peg." Jane's son Johnny was her caretaker in her old age.

Me with my Aunt Peggy Tipton, June 16th, 2005 at her granddaughter's home (Penny Thompson, niece of Ted Thompson) in Downingtown, PA

Aunt Peg was one of my favorite Tipton aunts. She always treated me like an adult, even when I was a little kid. I even think I earned my first money from her. She and her family lived in the apartment above us at 120 Washington Avenue. She used to send me to the local corner grocery store (Wagners') to get an item or two. She would give me a nickel tip. Back in the Fifties a nickel would buy me some serious penny candy. Later in her life she gave me some old family photos. She was a sweet lady. Unfortunately all three of her children died before she did. Life can sometimes be cruel. I've been very lucky in my life. I had almost sixty great years with Bill and now I have Pat in my life. My cup runneth over one might say.

So there you go folks. Some loose connections put together at this late stage of my life. No doubt some of Ted's relatives will read this post and be grossed out because I had a crush on Ted. Oh well. This was one secret I wasn't going to take to my grave.

Talking about graves, little Peggy Fisher got married and I hope had a happy life. She died in 2012 in  Honey Brook, Pennsylvania, not far from Downingtown. Here is her final resting place.

I hope she was able to meet up with her parents Carmen and Violet in heaven just as I hope Bill was able to meet his father who also died in an auto accident when Bill was only a year old. Yes, Bill's father also died with three other people in a drunk driving accident. His father was twenty-one years old. He and his buddies were out for a night of drinking. Apparently they were drunk when the driver of the car crashed head on into a bridge abutment. Thus changing Bill's life forever, leaving his mother a widow with two young daughters and a young son, named Bill Kelly. 

Bill with his two older sisters, his mother and his new half brother. His mother married again. Photo taken about 1931

Violet and Carmen

Me at 120 Washington Avenue, Downingtown, PA August 8, 2010

 Since the death of Bill I've been revisiting significant episodes of my life. 

I've been reading a lot about near death experiences and how when your soul departs from your body your life is reviewed with a "Board of Elders". This is not judgement but rather a video review of  your life. How you treated others in your life both from your aspect and their aspect, how you made them feel. I haven't died but I have been having dreams, both at night and during the day of reviews of my life and those episodes.

One episode that has always stuck with me my whole life was the Mystery of Carmen and Violet. 

From 1943 to 1954 I lived with my family at 120 Washington Avenue in Downingtown, Pennsylvania.

That little kid with the fat ass would be me running up the stairs to our apartment on the second floor. The two adults are my mom and my father. This photo take around 1946, the time of the "Carmen and Violet Mystery"

 We lived in a second floor two bedroom apartment that rented for $22.50 a month (I will always remember that rent because my Mother often had problems coming up with that amount monthly). 

120 Washington Avenue, Downingtown, Pa 
September 10, 2004

Other member of my Tipton family also lived in that apartment building, which is stills standing today. And interestingly it is still in the white trash section of Downingtown. Yes, our family was white trash, another word for POOR.  My father was an uneducated hillbilly from North Carolina who came with his eight brothers and mother and father in 1929 from the mountains of western North Carolina to southern Chester County to work as cheap farm labor at his uncle Don Byrd's fruit and vegetable farm in Unionville, Pennsylvania. My Mother was descended from a poor Quaker families who had immigrated to Pennsylvania in the late 1600's. Her mother died before she was two years old. Her father was a philanderer and physically and mentally abused her as the youngest of her family. She ran off and got married at sixteen years of age when she met my father on a double date (she switched dates with her girlfriend when she saw my father and his drop dead hillbilly looks for the first time.

My father at 21 years of age. He met my Mother when he was 18 years old. My Mother knew what she wanted and she went after it! Shortly before she died she told me "Your father was the only man I was ever with."

My father was originally her girlfriend's date but when my father drove up in his car with a rumble seat in the back my Mother told her friend Edie "You get in the back with Hank, I'm sitting up front with HIM!" 

I found this picture of my parents in his wallet after he died. He carried it all those years (60) that they were married.

Now that I have set the background to my story of the "Mystery of Carmen and Violet." 

Carmen and Violet lived in the neighboring apartment on the second floor where we lived. 

They had a little girl whose name I don't remember now but I do remember the names "Carmen and Violet." I also remember that evening December 11th, 1946 when something very serious happened. 

I had just turned five years old. I had just started first grade. I was awakened by a lot of muffled voices and shuffling around. I got up and went into the small hallway separating our apartments (it was very small, I guess that's why my parents were so friendly with Carmen and Violet, they were also about the same age). The police were there with flash lights. They entered Carmen and Violet's apartment in the dark with their flashlights dancing about the small room looking for Carmen and Violet's little girl. Their little girl was between a year and two years old. She was in the apartment by herself and was still groggy from being awakened. I asked my Mother what was going on. She told me to go back to bed. Of course I couldn't, I was born nosey. She eventually told me that Carmen and Violet had been in an accident and they had to take the little girl (I wish I could remember her name) away. I've forgotten a lot in my life but that is one episode that I never forget. The confused look on that little girl's face as the police carried her out of that darkened apartment. Later, much later I found out that Carmen and Violet, along with another couple were killed in a head on crash with an oncoming truck on Route 322 returning from West Chester after purchasing paint. My Mother told me the details of the story about Carmen and Violet about 2005 after I asked her during one of the trips I often took her to visit her relatives. She was now forthcoming with the information on Carmen and Violet.  I told her that I often remembered that night the police came into our cockroach infested apartment building and searched out for Carmen and Violet's little girl who no longer had parents. That was the first time in my life I know SOMETHING WAS WRONG even though no one would tell me what happened.

It's a funny think this story has stuck in my head all these years, often coming back. A few years ago a "Remember Downingtown" group formed on Facebook. I joined it because I had memories to share. Someone else posted their memory about that accident that Carmen and Violet were in. A head on crash with the four of them in their car rounding a turn on Rt. 322 returning from the nearby town of West Chester after buying paint. Four people dead. Lives cut short. A little girl an orphan.

I've often wondered over the years what happened to that little girl. I think one of the reasons I've always remembered this story and that night was because of the exotic name "Carmen and Violet." I don't remember what they looked like but I do remember what their little girl looked like and that their apartment was small. Eventually my Uncle Dude Tipton and Aunt Jeanne Tipton moved in that little apartment with their four little girls. My Uncle Henry and his wife Margaret lived in the apartment above us. 

Why do I bring this story up now? This morning I searching for high school records on Ancestry.com and I came across a link for an Edward Thompson. The reason the "Thompson" link showed up on my Ancestry.com account was because my cousin Jane Tipton (daughter of the aforementioned Henry and Margaret Tipton) eventually married John Thompson, a relative of Edward Thompson. Does  your head hurt now? So what does Edward Thompson have to do with Carmen and Violet? Edward Thompson was the father of Violet. 

What came up on Ancestry.com? Carmen and Violet's death certificate. 

Carmen Marino's death certificate

Violet Thompson Marino's death certificate

I pay a lot for my annual membership of Ancestry.com. the past five years I've rarely used it what with my quarterly holidays with Pat and the last three years taking care of Bill. This year I was considering cutting back on my full membership for a cheaper price but now I have changed my mind. Ancestry.com has opened up so much to me that was previously lost to history. I love this kind of information. Looking at Carmen and Violet's death certificates I now know the date and time of their accident and deaths. 

I hope I haven't bored anyone to death with post on this serendipitous discover. I am fascinated with this kind of history especially from my past.

I am convinced when I die I will find out ALL THE ANSWERS. I am so looking forward not only to reuniting with Bill, which I know will happen but also meeting all my relatives again. I'm also looking forward to that review of my life and know what former lives I have lived. Do I sound crazy? I'm not I assure you. I never did subscribe to this man made religion (Organized Religion). Never made sense to me. But what does make sense to me is that our souls or spirit inhabits our physical bodies during this earthly learning experience. I don't fear death. Our real life is our spirit and when we die we really do go Home. Maybe I'll see Carmen and Violet. 

Can't Sleep

 

Me, tall guy in the back second form the left, hanging out at the Service Club at Ft. George G. Meade, Maryland 1960. This occasion was my friend Sal's birthday party. What were the women doing there? Every Wednesday night the Service Club had dances which local women could attend. Ironically, most of my friends were gay but that didn't seem to bother the girls because we always had a good time at those weekly dances. In fact, Sal's girl friend ("Pat") took this picture which explains why she wasn't in the picture. 

4:32 AM Saturday morning. 

Yep, you read that time right. I'm up very early this Saturday morning because after my usual nocturnal bathroom visit, I couldn't get back to sleep.

This has been happening every now and then the past  year or so. I don't know what the explanation is other than I do get a lot of sleep what with my daily afternoon nap of an hour or more. Yesterday I think I slept for over two hours. 

On my Bose radio right now "Our Day Will Come" is the music that is playing. This song has special significance for me. It was one of the first songs I heard when I moved to Pittsburgh after I was discharged from my three year Army tour of duty at Ft. George G. Meade, Maryland. 

Why did I move to Pittsburgh and not my family home when I got out of the Army? Easy answer. I wanted to come out after being in the closet at the National Security Agency two and a half years and surviving all the gay witch hunts that was a constant threat. I couldn't come out (as a gay man) at home in my small hometown of Downingtown, Pennsylvania but I could come out in a big city like Pittsburgh. 

Again, why Pittsburgh? I had a friend who lived right outside the city who I was friends with at Ft. Meade. His name was Sal De Rosa and he was in the Air Force.

My friend Sal DeRosa in the Army barracks near my locker, I surprised him by taking his photo in 1961. Sal lived in the Air Force barracks which were right next to the Army barracks where I lived. I think he came over for me and we were going to go to the nearby Service Club which is where we usually hung out with our friends after a day of work at the NSA headquarters building.

When I was stationed at Ft. Meade all branches of the service (Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines) all had adjoining barracks nearby the huge NSA headquarters building. Sal had completed his tour of duty with the Air Force a few months earlier than I did with my three year Army stint. Sal lived in Elizabeth with his family (mother, father and brother), right outside Pittsburgh. Sal was going to be my contact with the gay world, which back in January of 1963 was a lot different than it is today.

Sal and his friends took me to my first gay bar in the nearby town of Clairton, Pennsylvania, a small, rough steel town right outside Pittsburgh.

Clairton, PA (exactly as I remember it from 1963)

Oh I remember that bar well. Just a local neighborhood bar in an old ramshackle two-story building. The ground floor with the omnipresent flashing neon sign outside was for the local straight population. That was NOT where gays went. Instead we went up the steps up back that went to the second level of that building. I followed Sal and his friends Howard and someone else whose name I can't remember now, led me up those stairs to the door on the small landing outside. I could hear music playing softly on the other side of that door. To say I was nervous would be a gross understatement. Butterflies were flying in my stomach. Sal or one of his friends knocked on the door to be let in. Yes, this is how one went to gay bars back in the early Sixties. Speakeasy type entry. The guy who opened the door recognized Sal and his friends and let us in. 

What I saw simply amazed me. I had literally stepped into another world. What I saw were men slow dancing together to the slow dancing music coming from the juke box.

Not my photo but similar to what I saw when I walked into my first gay bar in Clairton, PA. Men in suits dancing together, like this. YES! I had arrived, I LOVED IT!

Many of the men had suits on and looked like "regular" men. I don't know what I had expected, men dressed like women? Well, I didn't see that, I saw men like me........dancing together. It is hard to describe the feeling that flowed through my body when I saw the incredible sight of two men dancing together. I do know though that it was an incredible feeling of acceptance. 

We walked towards the bar with the lights behind the multiple booze bottles reflected in the back mirrors in the dimly lit room with the small dance floor with those men slow dancing cheek to cheek. I didn't know it at the time but I was the "new face" in the bar. If you know anything about the "gay lifestyle", being the new face in town, especially a gay bar, is something to behold and experience. 

We ordered our drinks and settled in. Being the new face in town, it was only a few minutes before a man in his early thirties, crew cut, horn rimmed glasses, suited, well built man drifted over to our group and asked me if I would like to dance. WOULD I LIKE TO DANCE? OMG! I THINK SO!  

I put my drink down as my friends smiled knowingly to each other as I accepted this man's hand as he led me to the dance floor where all those MEN were still slow dancing TOGETHER.  Remember, this was before the disco invasion that was launched by gay bars. This was Forties style nightclubbing albeit it in much more modest circumstances.

As my dance partner enveloped me in his arms, (he was about six feet in height, a little shorter than my then 6'4" height), we merged in with the other slow dancing all male couples on that minuscule dance floor. First thing I realized he was leading. Oh wow, I'm dancing backwards, just like a girl. Hey folks, that wasn't easy. I'm telling you! But I quickly got the hang of it and I didn't even have to contend with high heels. 

So how was it dancing with a man Ron? Well, it was great! Now I understood why dancing was so popular, especially slow, cuddly dancing.  I felt so at home. I felt like I belonged. For the first time in my twenty-one years of life I felt like I belonged. And what a wonderful feeling that was. The sexual tension, you could cut it with a knife. And something else I immediately noticed although at first I was a little confused. Well, not really. But initially when he pulled me closer to him my right leg felt this "ruler" in his pocked. "What's he doing with a ruler in his pocket?" I thought. Of course it only took me about five seconds to realize that what was in his pocket wasn't a "ruler" but an indication he was very glad to be dancing with me as I was him because it turned out I had developed a "ruler" too! During our dance he asked me if I would like to go to the bathroom. How solicitous and kind of him! I told him I didn't need to go and continued to dance. Again he asked me if I would like to go to the bathroom, again I declined. After our dance ended, I returned to my Chesire Cat smiling friends at the bar. They asked me "Well, how was it?" I told them I thoroughly enjoyed dancing with Mr. Crew Cut, black horn rimmed glasses, nice build, ruler in his pocket dance partner. I also told them I thought it was unusual that he kept asking me if I wanted to go to the bathroom. My friends immediately responded "Well, you did go didn't you?" I said "Of course not, I didn't have to go." They laughed which I didn't understand. I didn't get IT. Then they explained to me why he kept asking me if I wanted to go to the bathroom. OH NO! Man oh man, was I ever naive. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. They told me WHY he wanted me to go to the bathroom. Of course he would go with me and, well you can figure that out for yourselves. Well, back then, as naive as I was I would never engage in anonymous sexual activity with a stranger, no matter how butch and attractive, in public bathroom. But I have to say I was flattered. 

When we left the bar for downtown Pittsburgh and the after hours bar the A.V.A. (another whole experience which I will write about later), they told me who the man was who asked me to dance and then go to the bathroom. He was the local police chief of the township. And no, it wasn't a trap to ensnare homosexuals frequenting that bar, this guy was serious. He was gay.  

And that my friends is a little bit of my gay history early this Saturday morning. And what does this have to do with the sone "Our Day Will Come." That was the song that was playing in another gay bar my friends took me to during my stay in Pittsburgh. That was the song that was playing when I met my first boyfriend, Joseph Labriola. And that story I may tell the next time I wake up very early on a Saturday morning and I can't get back to sleep. 

Another Sad Saturday

Bill and me, July 2010
Photo taken fourteen years ago.
I will not have to wait fourteen years until Bill and I are reunited.
When that day happens I truly will be in Heaven. I will be home with Bill.

 Yesterday was another sad Saturday. 

Bill died early Saturday morning February 22, 2024. 

It took me several months before I realized why I was more sad on Saturdays since Bill died. 

I realize now that Saturday's will never be the same for me for the rest of my life. 

Yes, I'm still grieving for Bill. But I now realize I have comfort knowing Bill is in a much better place. 

I do believe in an Afterlife. I don't believe in man made religion with all the threats of retribution by a vengeful God if you don't sufficiently praise him enough an accept "his son" Jesus Christ as  your savior. All that never did make sense to me, no offense to my Christianity religious followers of this blog. I don't condemn anyone's beliefs, whatever gives you comfort is my belief. I won't try to change you and don't try to change me into believing something that just never made sense to me. 

I do believe in an Afterlife. I believe all those near death experiences. I believe we are here to learn but then when our time is done here on earth we return "home." That's where Bill is now, with his beloved dogs and with his mother and his father who he never knew. I also know that Bill awaits me. And one thing I know for sure, it won't be too many years until I pass on from this life and return to my "home" with Bill. 

That's what keeps me going folks. 

In the meantime I'll deal with the Sad Saturdays and remember all those good years that I was blessed to lie with Bill. 

The Debate And An Update On My Life

 

Well, I think it's pretty well agreed upon, even by the staunchest Trump supporter that Kamala Harris won The Debate last night. 

Will her win change any of the Trump supporters to suddenly switch from Trump to Kamala? Are you kidding? NO WAY! But perhaps enough of the Undecided Voter will now realize what an incompetent buffoon Trump is and should be no where near the nuclear codes and now vote for the Democratic nominees Kamala Harris and Tim Walz for president and vice president. Kamala totally dominated the Buffoon who is the Republican nominee for president. On to the Vice Presidential Debate now! We don't need another Debate with Trump. He's finished. 

So what else is going on in my life you all might ask. Well, maybe not but I'm going to tell you anyway.

Provincetown Commercial Street September 1979

As you'll notice I have a new background photo on my blog. This one I came across while searching for photo of an old boyfriend I had forty-five  years ago. Yes, that long ago. 

This was the summer of 1979. We went on a week long trip to Provincetown, Mass. Our relationship ended badly, which was as it should be. Coincidentally he contacted me a few weeks ago. He now lives nearby in Rehoboth Beach. He suggested that we should meet and discuss "old times."  Well, maybe. That's to be determined. As I said, the relationship ended badly and for me, I haven't forgotten what he did during that trip. I've written about it in several of my past blog postings so I won't rehash that experience. But it was a valuable learning experience for me and for that I have him to thank. The photo I've posted here is one I took of the main street in Provincetown during our stay in the summer of 1979, the height of the popularity of Provincetown when a gay person could feel free to walk around town without disproving stares of straight folk. Oh those were the days, that I could feel totally free without the omnipresent of homophobia pressuring down on me every waking hour. Just once I would like to visit Provincetown again before I exit this incarnation of my earthly visit. Of course I'll drag Pat along and he will stay with me on this vacation unlike my "boyfriend" of forty-five years ago.

Summer is coming to an end. I can feel Fall in the air. Still not a day goes by that I don't miss Bill. I wish I could say I'm getting on with my grief but this is slow going folks. I'm still grieving but my grief has shifted. I'm surprised that perhaps the one thing I miss the most is caring for Bill. I liked caring for Bill. He depended on me so much. I am so thankful that I could provide a safe and comfortable home for him all the  years we were together. That he's no longer under my care, I feel that I have abandoned him. But then I realize that he really is in a much better place now because he is in Heaven. I am convinced that eventually we will be together again. That's what keeps me going folks.

All the political drama and old boyfriends who betrayed me can keep causing drama in my everyday life but I know, I KNOW, that Bill and I will be absolutely together again. And if all this reincarnation stuff is true, perhaps we will again get to live another life together. That to me folks, is Heaven.

Saturday September 7th, 2024 Update

 

Pat

Good morning folks!

I haven't been posting for a while. Please accept my apologies. 

Life continues to go on without Bill. I still miss him every day. As I probably will the rest of my life. He does contact me almost daily though by way of that blinking yellow Christmas light that I have in our living room. He promised me he would keep in touch and he has. Bless his heart.

I've posted a picture of Pat on this blog post because he's going through some medical problems right now. In addition to his continuing squatter neighbor problems (they've calmed down a bit but they're still there), he has a detached retina. He had surgery earlier this week and not has to lay on his stomach for the next eight days, with only ten minutes per hour to get and eat and/or go to the bathroom. Pat is very stoic about his situation but this is hard on him and my heart hurts for what he has to endure now. When something like this happens to someone you love it makes you realize how lucky you are to have your health.

Speaking of which, just by coincidence I had my annual eye appointment this week. Thank God all went well. I have no problems there. However, I continue to have a walking problem. I use my cane almost all the time now. I walk much better with my cane than I do wobbling without a cane. I cannot afford to fall any more.

Last week I made my reservations in Palm Springs for Modernism Week in February of 2025. A bit pricey, especially now that my household income has been reduced roughly in half, but this will probably be me and Pat's honeymoon. Hopefully my K-1 VISA application will be approved by then and Pat and I can get married in Las Vegas. Yes, we're still planning on getting married by an Elvis impersonator. Why not? But then maybe not, we might just get married here at the courthouse here in Georgetown Delaware, where Bill and I got married back in 2013.  By the way, how do  you like Pat's new hair do? He let it grow out. I've been urging him for years not to shave his head but to let his hair grow out. I think he his adorable!

Not a whole lot much going on around here at Casa Tipton-Kelly (I'm keeping that name by the way). I tire easily, can hardly stay up past eleven at night. I just run out of steam. I'm eating less, appetite decreasing. I am able to keep up with my yard maintenance with the help of Jose. My one bit priority is keeping the grounds looking lovely. I wish Bill was still here enjoy our "park." We had such a nice wooded parklike setting in Pennsylvania too.

I'm looking forward to the presidential debate next week where Kamala will hand Trump his fat ass. Did you hear Trump's answer about child care this past week?

Ever the con man. Well, he has a lot of people brainwashed and fooled. He's good at that. But if you had a half brain you can see right through his lies and exaggerations. I am so looking forward to the election. And even more, I'm looking forward to seeing him behind bars. But our corrupt Supreme Court will probably find a way to save his sorry fat ass. They always do.

Well, I don't want to end on a negative note. So what's good? Autumn has finally arrived! This is my favorite time of  year. 

Have a great day every one!