You may or may not have noticed, but either way, I want to draw your attention to a new addition to my blog. Above just under the banner, you will see a tab for an additional page on this blog titled “The Closet Professor on Etsy,” and to the right just below the painting of “David and Me” by Steve Walker, you will see a smaller version of the above image that if clicked will take you to my new Etsy page. The Closet Professor now has a storefront on Etsy. Etsy’s mission is to empower people to change the way the global economy works. They see a world in which very-very small businesses have much-much more sway in shaping the economy, local living economies are thriving everywhere, and people value authorship and provenance as much as price and convenience. They are bringing heart to commerce and making the world more fair, more sustainable, and more fun.
I decided to join Etsy as a way to sell some of the crafts that I make in my spare time. Over the course of the summer, some of the other faculty at my school and I have gotten together for a weekly craft day. At first, I merely sat there and socialized, but one of them convinced me to take some of their beads and fashion a necklace and earrings. I realized that I had a bit of a knack for making jewelry, and it was quite an enjoyable experience. You will find gay themed and Christian themed jewelry at my Etsy Store as well as some women’s jewelry that I also make.
When it comes closer to the Christmas season, I will be adding some Christmas wreaths that I have been making for the last several years but have only given them as gifts. Now they will be for sale and will be shipped directly to you. If there is something you like in my store but would like it personalized or custom made in some way, I will do my best to accommodate your wishes.
Private school teachers tend to make roughly half what public school teachers make, but we have more freedom in what we teach. However, because of the low pay, it would be nice to make a little extra money, and making craft goods with my hands is something that I can do while also relaxing my mind from a long day of teaching.
Yesterday, I posted that I would try to do a post later in the day, but the dates conspired against me. First, as I was trying to sleep in, I received a call to run an errand, which should have lasted 30 minutes, and instead ended up taking over two and a half hours. Then I had to go take care of something for my parents at their other house, that took much longer than anticipated and I ended up having to stay the night down there, sans Internet access, and finish up this morning. On my way home, I called back one of my fellow teachers who had called to see how I was doing, and since I was about to pass by her house, she wanted me to stop in and visit. I told her that I had a meeting tonight and couldn't stay long. She insisted that I could just come by for ten minutes. An hour and a half later I was racing home to change and get to my meeting on time. Now, I am trying to get a little rest from the last 36 hour whirlwind.
I have spent most of today resting from this long and emotionally draining week. I think I am ready to be back posting regularly again. I’m sorry for my absence but I think you all understand the reasons. Thank you for all the support you have given me.
Later today, I will be posting a book review that I was asked to do a month or so ago and was asked to publish on this date. I am almost finished with the review, but it will probably take a little while longer to get everything together. So stay tuned for later today, when I want to tell you all about the book WHERE THE HEART BEATS by Kay Larson.
Grandmama was raised in rural south central Alabama. She only had an eighth grade education, but that was relatively normal where and when she was growing up. The one or two room community schools that she attended only went to the eighth grade, then students transferred to the high school in town. For many, that was too far, especially for a girl who got to school each day by riding on the back of her teachers donkey.
By seventeen, she had blossomed into a beautiful woman. Basically, she was a dark haired Barbie doll figure, with long legs and large breasts. She was the epitome of a woman of the 1940s.
In her younger years, she was far from perfect. She was pregnant when she got married at seventeen, she had at least one short affair with a famous country music figure of the time, and even spent one night in jail. The night in jail is an interesting story. My granddaddy was an alcoholic in his younger days, and he and his brother had been arrested for public intoxication. Grandmama, in her eighty-nine years, never spent a night alone. From the time she was a child, she was afraid of the dark and that fear never changed. So, instead of going home the night that Granddaddy was arrested, she stayed that night in jail with him. He was released the next day, and they went home.
Grandmama gave birth to her first child, Hope, seven months after her marriage. Hope lived shortly over a year, but developed pneumonia. She died on the day Pearl Harbor was bombed. My grandparents came home from the hospital after my aunts death, turned on the radio, and heard the announcement that the Japanese had bombed Hawaii’s Pearl Harbor.
During World War II, she followed Grandaddy to his training camps, and when he was shipped to England with the Corps of Engineers, she stayed with family in Alabama working various jobs, but mostly as a beautician. When he returned home after the war, my daddy was born, roughly nine months later. Shortly after Daddy was born, Grandmama told Grandaddy that he could either quit drinking or she would leave him. He never took another drink, except to test her homemade cough syrup and to taste the bourbon to make sure it was good enough for her fruit cakes.
Grandmama spent most of her life working in factories. We lived in an area that before NAFTA was rich in textile factories. When she was thirty-nine, she became, surprisingly, pregnant with a third child. She swore that would never happen again, and she and my Grandaddy never slept in the same bed again. My aunt was born a few weeks before Grandmama’s fortieth birthday. With Daddy almost grown, Grandmama was basically starting over again with raising another child.
In January 1978, when I was six weeks old, my mother had to return to work. At the time, Mama was a public home health nurse. From that point on, I spent every week day with Grandmama, who kept me for Mama. When I started school, I spent every Friday night with Grandmama, and we ate supper with her every Wednesday night. During the summers, I spent the days with Grandmama again. My sister was also always there with us, but in the twenty-one months before I was born, my sister was with the nanny who had helped raise Mama.
After Grandmama retired from working in the factories, she began what would be her daily routine until my Grandfather’s death in 2001. She woke up at dawn each morning and made a pot of coffee, then she began making breakfast. Breakfast could be as simple as homemade buttermilk biscuits and sausage or as complex as biscuits, sausage, gravy, eggs, and grits. No matter, it was always a hearty breakfast. While Grandaddy was still working, she also packed his lunch each day. When breakfast was over, she cleaned up and did one of a few things. If it was Monday, she did her laundry for the week. If it was the summer, she spent the cool hours of the morning up in the fields picking peas, butter beans, corn, okra, squash, or whatever else they were growing that year. When she came back from the field, she would start dinner. When dinner was finished and eaten she cleaned up and sat to watch her soap operas. During her “stories,” she often crocheted. About the middle of the afternoon, she started cooking supper, which was the most elaborate meal of the day. She was a true southern country cook, and the best I have ever known. After supper, she cleaned up, and then finally had some time to rest. On Friday nights when we spent the night with her, after supper was time for Dallas and Falcon Crest.
Though she had her faults at times in her life, she was a good Christian woman. Before she became to sick to do so, she went to church every Sunday. She told me once that though she was raised and originally baptized a Baptist, when she was baptized into the Church of Christ, she knew she had found God and the right church. Incidentally, I have always felt the same way.
She was always proud of her grandchildren, but she and I had a special bond. That is what makes this so very hard. On her 89th birthday two weeks ago, she was so proud to have all of her family with her. She was still in relatively good health for an 89 year old woman with COPD. She especially loved her great-granddaughter, my precious little niece.
Grandmama passed on to the next life yesterday evening. It may get easier eventually, but it’s very difficult right now to think of her as gone. I can only console myself in the fact that she is no longer struggling and she is with Granddaddy, her baby Hope, and her friends and family who preceded her.
For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. (Romans 8:18 KJV)
Thank you all again for your comments, emails, thoughts, and prayers. They truly mean a lot to me and have been a great comfort in the period of great stress and sadness. Grandmama is hanging in there, but the doctors hold out no hope. She just won’t give up, though the doctors say her heart eventually will not be able to handle the stress it is under. She has not had a good last two days as she is beginning to feel more pain. At first she was not feeling any pain, but it is obvious whether medicine wears off that she is in great distress. The hospital is doing what they can to keep her comfortable.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
I hope everyone has a wonderful Fourth. Thank you all for your comments, emails, thoughts, and prayers. They truly mean a lot to me. Grandmama is hanging in there, but the doctors hold out no hope. Her heart is just too weak. We are keeping her comfortable and are at her side as much as the hospital will let us.
A few days ago my grandmother suffered a heart attack. This was something we did not know until this morning when she was taken to the emergency room because she was having trouble breathing. She has suffered from COPD for years. Sadly, the heart attack has done a great amount of damage and because of her already failing health, she is not a candidate for any surgery or other invasive treatments. The only hope that the doctors have given us is that they will keep her comfortable as long as her heart holds out, though they do not expect it to be long.
Until my grandaddy died nearly 11 years ago, Grandmama had never really been sick, but without him for her to take care of, her health has steadily declined. When I was growing up, I spent as much time with my Grandmama as I did with my parents. She kept me when my parents were at work, and we have always been very close. Right now, my heart is breaking. I have cried off and on all day today and the tears are far from being over. I only ask that you keep my Grandmama, my family, and I in your prayers and thoughts.
I am typing this on my cell phone because I don't have internet here. My posts may be sporadic, but I think you will understand. Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
No one guessed the right answer, though Fan of Casey was half right, and I will admit the reason anyway. I had spent most of the day with friends hanging out at their pool and drinking beer, this the reason for the guy at a pool holding a cocktail in yesterday’s picture. Quite honestly, I had a few too many beers, so I was not in the right mindset to write a post, so I did a picture instead. Yesterday, I spent a large part of the day with a hangover. It wasn’t a bad hangover, but just one of those foggy ones when you just generally feel like crap, and you know your day will be a total waste. Oh well, sometimes I just need one of those kinds of days.
However, I would like to add that I would have much preferred either SilverEagle’s or Mack’s guesses. Not that I didn’t have a lot of fun hanging out with friends, but I wish I had either been at the beach or with a hot guy. Mack was right in one respect, I was in a very warm climate…it was over 90 degrees here and it will be over 100 this weekend.
Fortunately, the ruby slippers are optional. Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there who have it all. I know there are at least a few dads out there who read my blog, maybe even two gay dads out there raising sons and/or daughters, and I want to wish you a very Happy Father’s Day. Just like mothers, fathers can drive us crazy. Most of us may not have been as close to our fathers as maybe we should have been or should be, but all of us have a father somewhere. Besides wishing you fathers out there a Happy Father’s Day, I also wanted to tell you about my father.
We are very different in so many ways. He is very outdoorsy: he hunts, he fishes, and constantly works outdoors. I was always a book worm, who liked books better than sports. I’ve learned to like the outdoors: I walk nature trails, I like to hike, and I even like to fish occasionally. Whereas my father worked outside all his life, I prefer to work inside, research, writing, teaching, etc. There are a lot of other differences as well. We can generally have a conversation for about 15-20 minutes before we get into some type of argument. My father has never felt I was right about anything. I can be agreeing with him, and he will fuss at me for agreeing with him. No matter what I say, he will say the opposite. The other day, I made a remark about a house being painted white (it used to be gray), he argued with me that the house was painted gray, just a lighter shade. Everyone else I know says the house is white, but he still says that it is gray. It’s that sort of thing that drives me crazy. Needless to day, we barely get along. I love him nonetheless, I just don’t like him sometimes. He can be very cruel and frustrating.
To switch gears a little bit, I want to tell you also how great my father can be, without me ever knowing it. This is part of the reason that I forgive so much of the misery he causes me. When my parents found out I was gay, it was a very traumatic experience for all concerned. My mother had suspected for quite a while and was being very nosy. She checked my email. She didn’t like some of the emails that she saw. Most of them, if not all, were fairly innocent, but there were some like an ad from Showtime about “Queer as Folk” and maybe another one from gay.com. I was over at my grandmother’s checking on her, when my mother called me and confronted me about it. I was tired of denying it. All of my friends knew, so why shouldn’t she. I knew she wouldn’t like it. She had confronted me several years before about it, and I denied it then. I wasn’t ready, and to make sure that I never was, my mother told me, “If I would rather have a dick up my ass, then be part of this family, then I should go ahead and leave. They would have nothing more to do with me.” When this time came around, we got into a huge argument. I yelled, she yelled, and I left. I was still dependent on them for some things, but I could live without them. My mother went to bed and cried for the next two weeks. BTW, this all happened two days before Christmas, while I was home on Christmas break. When my father got home, he talked to my mother about what was wrong. She told him. She tells him everything. This was one of the times when he sided with me.
He told my mother, that I was there child. She could not stop loving me, just because she did not agree with my lifestyle. He would continue to love me, and she would have to do the same. No matter what his children did, they would still love them (it may have helped that my sister married a complete and total jackass, who doesn’t physically abuse her, but abuses her mentally). Then he came and talked with me. He told me that he didn’t care what I told my mother, but to tell her something or she would die in that bed in there (you don’t know my mother, but she would have). Then he told me what surprised me the most, “I should have taught you how to fight the urges. I am sorry that I failed you.” It is the only time my father ever apologized to me for anything. I never asked about the urges, but I am pretty sure I know what he was talking about. He knew exactly how I felt. He had been there himself, but he had chosen a different path. Maybe that is why they still believe it is a choice. But I see the misery in him almost everyday. I went to my parents and told them both that I was celibate and would remain that way, and I had never acted on my sexuality (yes it was a lie, but it was one I think was and still is for the better). They made me promise that I would not tell anyone else in the family, and I have agreed to that. Our family has become a “Don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t discuss” Zone. It is not my preference but it is what I must deal with for the time being. If I ever find a man to live my life with, I will deal with the other consequences then. I don’t think I could hide from my family the love of my life (if he ever comes along).
They still consider my being gay a lifestyle choice, I never will. I would have never chosen this myself. I would have chosen to live a more open life, but that is mostly not possible where I live now, and especially not with my job. But I know what makes me happy, and after a lot of prayer and meditation, God told me that love is what matters most in this world. I came to understand that if I lived a lie and married a woman, I would make her and my life miserable (somewhat like my father has). If I was going to be alone, then I would be alone. At least I wouldn’t be hurting someone else. I realize that some people had more pressures to get married and have a family and come out later in life. I do not fault them for that, it was a different time and different circumstances. But in this day and age, I felt I could not lie to myself or anyone else and spend a large portion of my life as a lie.
Dolly lends her vocals for a live version of Holly Dunn’s timeless classic song, “Daddy’s Hands.” This song reminds me a lot of my Daddy for many reasons and has been one of my favorite songs for a long time. Holly Dunn is also one of my all-time favorite country singers, too bad she had retired from country music. She’s now an artists in the Southwest.
Reba McEntire singing “The Greatest Man.” This is a truly great song and also describes my relationship between me and my Daddy, although I don’t know if he thinks I “hung the moon.” My mother always says he brags about me to everyone, but I also remember him telling me once when I made a 99 (out of 100) on my report card, “Can’t you do better than that.” He was kidding with me, but it didn’t feel like it at the time, especially since some of my grades on that report card were above 100. Also, my Daddy is still alive, but he is one of the greatest men I have ever known. I hope this post proves that.
Some of you may have read much of this post before. I not only used it for my Father’s Day post last year. I plan to use it each Father’s Day for as long as this blog is published.
Sunday is a close friend of mine’s birthday, but we are having the party for her tonight. She generally cooks for me, so tonight as a treat for her, I am cooking a real Italian feast. Italian food is one of my specialties, so I am cooking chicken piccata as the main course. I think she will enjoy it. So I’m going shopping in the morning, spending the afternoon with her “partying” and then cooking in the evening for all the guests. I love to cook for people, so this will be a lot of fun for me, and I hope yummy for the guests. I think it will be a fun day, and I hope that she will enjoy it. She does so much for me, that I just want to do something special for her.
Joe
The Closet Professor 