"I have been busy, but not constructively. G. and I have been doing things together. Swimming, tennis, basketball, watching TV. I spent the night at his house last night because my sister with the mouth was having a slumber party. Twelve eighth grade girls in one place tends to erupts into blatant chaos; so I left.
"There is a Black preacher up at work who says, 'Mornin' gentleman,' every night I see him. He does dealer route 3. A dealer route is the delivery of papers to stores and various racks located throughout a certain section of the city. A couple of Sundays ago we had a very late Sunday run. He didn't leave with his papers till somewhere around 7:00 am. I was wondering if he was going to be able to deliver the papers in time to preach. Everyone was joking about it. W. said, 'He's gonna preach while he's delivering papers. I say brothers and sisters! Just a minute, let me get rid of these papers.'
"This preacher drives a big Continental or something like that. A large, expensive looking red car, and puts the bundles of papers inside it. I wouldn't ruin a car like that that way."
MANHOOD REDO: Lubbock's very segregated; it's easy to stay in your white enclave if you want to. Working the graveyard shift at the newspaper dock, I probably came into contact with more African Americans than the majority of white people in the city. Looking back it seems to me that white youth in Lubbock tended to treat older Black men who didn't have white collar jobs as objects of ridicule. Ican't help but think that's going on in the scenario above. Looking back, I wonder why the preacher needed the route; what did we take for granted about his circumstances? I would guess that D. D., a friend in graduate school who is white but attended an African American church in Lubbock while he was growing up, would not have seen him nor treated him in the same way we did.
Switching to another scene but a related story: I was eating my sack lunch in the Christ the King High School cafeteria, and the guys at the table with me were talking to the Black janitor, telling him that there was a plastic bubble with a hole in it that circled around the earth. I assume that NASA was going to launch a rocket that week, because they said the hole had to be lined up exactly above the launch pad before they could ignite the rocket's engines. He listened politely to their explanation. And of course when he left, they laughed at him.
In both scenarios, I would argue we were imposing a Black masculinity on the preacher and the janitor that was tied to slavery, Sambo, and the minstrel show. We treated them as jokes, not people.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Thursday, July 31, 2008
JOURNAL EXCERPT: May 17, Wed., 1978 10:00 PM
"Went swimming today with G. over at his sister, A.'s, apartment. I enjoyed being around the girls at the pool. My nose is sunburned."
MANHOOD REDO: At the time this was written, I think I used to jokingly refer to myself as the bronze Irish god. The sun in West Texas is pretty harsh, and I spent a lot of time in it, got sunburned more than once with blisters on my back. I didn't know about aloe at the time, but how I wish I had. It is a plant whose juice is the miracle cure for burns. Rub it on multiple times over a few hours and the pain and redness disappear. Instead, I spent hours on my stomach trying to sleep and hours during the day trying to keep my shirt from touching my back.
Everyone in their teens and twenties in Lubbock would spend time outside tanning. Every spring, probably sometime in April, the coeds attending Texas Tech University and living in the dorms would line their lawn chairs up outside the dorm building, put on their swimsuits, and spend time the they weren't in classes under the sun trying to turn brown. If you were pale everyone thought you looked sickly. My sister and I would sometimes spend time together tanning in our back yard. I don't remember there being sunblock lotions with SPF numbers, just oils and lotions like Coppertone that were supposed to help you turn brown not red. Since Sunscreen Protection Factor (SPF) was first introduced in 1962 and the height of my tanning period was in the mid- to late 1970s, I suppose it's possible sunblocks were available and I just ignored them. I'm certain that things like tanning beds and booths had yet to be introduced.
I remember looking at my parents pale legs and being fairly grossed out. Of course, now I am my parents. I worry about the sun, especially since my father has had skin cancer appear repeatedly and had to have it removed especially from his ears and nose. Aging can have a way tempering our sense of control and power as men. At 52 I'm feeling a little more vulnerable than I did in my 20s.
MANHOOD REDO: At the time this was written, I think I used to jokingly refer to myself as the bronze Irish god. The sun in West Texas is pretty harsh, and I spent a lot of time in it, got sunburned more than once with blisters on my back. I didn't know about aloe at the time, but how I wish I had. It is a plant whose juice is the miracle cure for burns. Rub it on multiple times over a few hours and the pain and redness disappear. Instead, I spent hours on my stomach trying to sleep and hours during the day trying to keep my shirt from touching my back.
Everyone in their teens and twenties in Lubbock would spend time outside tanning. Every spring, probably sometime in April, the coeds attending Texas Tech University and living in the dorms would line their lawn chairs up outside the dorm building, put on their swimsuits, and spend time the they weren't in classes under the sun trying to turn brown. If you were pale everyone thought you looked sickly. My sister and I would sometimes spend time together tanning in our back yard. I don't remember there being sunblock lotions with SPF numbers, just oils and lotions like Coppertone that were supposed to help you turn brown not red. Since Sunscreen Protection Factor (SPF) was first introduced in 1962 and the height of my tanning period was in the mid- to late 1970s, I suppose it's possible sunblocks were available and I just ignored them. I'm certain that things like tanning beds and booths had yet to be introduced.
I remember looking at my parents pale legs and being fairly grossed out. Of course, now I am my parents. I worry about the sun, especially since my father has had skin cancer appear repeatedly and had to have it removed especially from his ears and nose. Aging can have a way tempering our sense of control and power as men. At 52 I'm feeling a little more vulnerable than I did in my 20s.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
JOURNAL EXCERPT: May 14, Sun. 1978 8:35 PM
"I had a big arguement [sic] with W. T. at work last night. Two high school seniors flattened two tires on this guy's pickup. The guy is named R., and he works upstairs in the mailroom. W. said it was just 'hell raisin,' and I said it was damn stupid....W. didn't flatten the tires, but he didn't think it was wrong to flatten the tires either."
MANHOOD REDO: I haven't had my laptop for a while, which explains the break in this blog. Finally, it's returned home safe and sound and fully functioning, so I'm back to doing Manhood Redo.
I was always a fairly cautious "hell raiser," maybe because I was generally afraid of getting myself in risky situations - not that I would have characterized myself as a "chickenshit," a term used in Texas while I was growing up. I thought paying attention to my fear informed my actions in ways that benefited me. I know the typical masculine ideal of hell raisin' is more in line with W. T.'s up above because it's considered fun, but I never quite looked at it that way. And I actually think that it's only a small minority of guys who do things like flatten two tires on someone's pickup. Most of us don't care to carry things too far. It's just that those who do draw a lot of attention. My "boys will be boys" acts were less dramatic. I tended to empathize with the person being targeted too much to do some damage, which explains why I'd go along with friends who were toilet papering someone's house but wouldn't participate.
A perfect example: a friend, T. C., and I snuck over to D. S.'s house during the middle of the night with a can of car wax. D. S. was someone our age who owned a fairly sporty car, maybe a Camero or something like that. All I can remember is that it was red. We parked our car down the block and when we entered his driveway crouched and tried to stay in the shadows since there were still lights on in the house. Once we reached the car there was just enough light to see, so we pulled out a piece of cloth, open the car wax can, and wrote in large letters on the hood, "Just eat a big one" with the wax. If we wanted to really hell raise, we probably would've done it with paint. We knew that it would be readable once the wax dried but wanted to make sure it could be wiped away (even though it would probably still be faintly present). I don't know how he knew we did it, but he confronted us the next day, and I think we confessed. He laughed about it.
I imagine there are plenty of examples of guys hell raisin' in ways that lead to less lasting and extreme consequences. We just don't hear about them, but it would probably be good if we did so that we could construct a whole different understanding of raisin' hell.
MANHOOD REDO: I haven't had my laptop for a while, which explains the break in this blog. Finally, it's returned home safe and sound and fully functioning, so I'm back to doing Manhood Redo.
I was always a fairly cautious "hell raiser," maybe because I was generally afraid of getting myself in risky situations - not that I would have characterized myself as a "chickenshit," a term used in Texas while I was growing up. I thought paying attention to my fear informed my actions in ways that benefited me. I know the typical masculine ideal of hell raisin' is more in line with W. T.'s up above because it's considered fun, but I never quite looked at it that way. And I actually think that it's only a small minority of guys who do things like flatten two tires on someone's pickup. Most of us don't care to carry things too far. It's just that those who do draw a lot of attention. My "boys will be boys" acts were less dramatic. I tended to empathize with the person being targeted too much to do some damage, which explains why I'd go along with friends who were toilet papering someone's house but wouldn't participate.
A perfect example: a friend, T. C., and I snuck over to D. S.'s house during the middle of the night with a can of car wax. D. S. was someone our age who owned a fairly sporty car, maybe a Camero or something like that. All I can remember is that it was red. We parked our car down the block and when we entered his driveway crouched and tried to stay in the shadows since there were still lights on in the house. Once we reached the car there was just enough light to see, so we pulled out a piece of cloth, open the car wax can, and wrote in large letters on the hood, "Just eat a big one" with the wax. If we wanted to really hell raise, we probably would've done it with paint. We knew that it would be readable once the wax dried but wanted to make sure it could be wiped away (even though it would probably still be faintly present). I don't know how he knew we did it, but he confronted us the next day, and I think we confessed. He laughed about it.
I imagine there are plenty of examples of guys hell raisin' in ways that lead to less lasting and extreme consequences. We just don't hear about them, but it would probably be good if we did so that we could construct a whole different understanding of raisin' hell.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
JOURNAL EXCERPT: May 12, Fri. 1978
Played tennis with G., T. (G.'s younger brother) and R. L. about 9:00 PM. Didn't have to go into work tonight. Then we went out to the strip, bought a six-pack of beer each, and went over to R.'s parents' house. His parents were out of town. R. lives at home. Left about 2:00 AM and went to G.'s. Came home and went to bed about 3:00 AM."MANHOOD REDO: If you're not going to a bar or club, the strip is where you buy liquor in Lubbock. You can't get a six-pack inside the city limits. There's a photo of the strip up above. At night it's like a dramatically downscaled Las Vegas with neon signs lighting up the West Texas dark. Up until 1972 when Lubbock legalized liquor by the drink within the city limits, it was the largest dry county in the country. I turned 18 in 1973, the legal drinking age then, so I was able to take advantage of all the clubs that quickly popped up inside the city. The most famous Lubbock club before liquor by the drink passed was the Cotton Club, about 15 miles east of the city limits. Elvis, Buddy Holly, Little Richard, Willie Nelson, and a host of others played there; supposedly it was the only place a musician could play anywhere between Dallas and Los Angeles and make any money. At the Cotton Club it was bring your own bottle. Once liquor by the drink was legalized, places like the Cotton Club started to fade. You no longer had to drive halfway to Slaton to hear music and drink. You could drive 10 or 15 minutes and buy all the beer and booze you wanted, then dance to the latest songs played by a DJ.
Beer was a strong part of my masculine makeup. When I developed Type II Diabetes and kept trying to drink the way I had been, I felt like crap, so I stopped. Not until recently did I decide it's okay to have a beer with a meal, and I admit that I really enjoy it. I won't say that drinking now isn't at all connected to manhood, but I can't for the life of me imagine driving to a liquor store with two or three male friends, each of us buying a six-pack, and then going somewhere to drink them.
Monday, June 30, 2008
JOURNAL EXCERPT: May 11 Thurs. 1978
"J. B. brought those three books [referred to in the May 5 Journal Excerpt] to work. They were Making U-Hoo, Unwary Heart, and Me Natalie. All I can say is her intentions were good.
"Saw an accident (already crashed, police there, etc.) on way home from work. Someone ran into a pole."
MANHOOD REDO: I have to admit that the three book titles make me curious. After doing some digging around on the web, I found out that Making U-Hoo, which sounds like a corny romance novel trying to imitate a 1930s or 1940s movie is actually a mystery by Irving A. Greenfield. He might not have been a well respected author since he doesn't have his own website and he's not listed in Wikipedia, but he wrote a lot of books, and a used hardback of Making U-Hoo is being sold on Amazon.co.uk for over 78 pounds and the U. S. Amazon for over $100. You can buy the paperback for $2.90, though. So I'm not sure what to make of him.
I would guess that Me Natalie was a novelization of the movie by the same name, which there is a Wikipedia entry on. It's a 1969 dramedy directed by Fred Coe, in which Natalie, played by Patty Duke, feels she is an ugly duckling. Her father hatches a plan to marry her; she finds out that it's a set up and leaves home for Greenwich Village, where she becomes a cocktail waitress, lives the bohemian lifestyle, and gets involved with a married man. When she finds out he's married, she considers suicide, but he convinces her she's beautiful and worthwhile. I'm tempted to see if it's available on Netflix.
The last book, Unwary Heart, was a Harlequin Romance, I believe, by Anne Hampson. It looks like Ms. Hampson wrote a lot of books. That's really all I can say about her.
Even today it would be embarrassing to have a romance novel in my possession. I'd rather read a feminist book interpreting romance novels. That more clearly fits into my picture of myself. And I would be willing to see Me Natalie but not read it. Lastly, I wouldn't be inclined to read Greenfield's mystery unless it did some interesting genre-bending.
And yet there was a time when I read all these sorts of books. When I first started reading something other than comic books, I poured over everything I could get my hands on. There was no distinction between literary fiction and popular fiction. I even read a few romance novels because I was curious about them, so if I'm honest, it's really not so easy or straight forward to think of myself as a man who has never identified with these kinds of books. I remember enjoying Frank G. Slaughter novels, staying up all night reading them.
If developing a healthy masculinity is in part about reclaiming parts of ourselves as men that we've supressed or had supressed, maybe it would be worth considering finding a way to claim these novels J. B. gave me - or at least what they represent.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
JOURNAL EXCERPT: May 9, Tues. 1978 9:45 PM
"G. came back today. I helped him unpack all his furniture etc."
Manhood Redo: I'm surprised that such a big event merited such little text. I don't even sound the least little excited. Given the kind of loneliness I was experiencing and have written about in earlier blog entries, you'd think I would have been thrilled, overjoyed, ebullient. But G.'s move back sounds routine, almost something to take for granted.
Sometimes I resent the hell out of masculinity - for instance, when it tamps down joy I might be feeling, and I mean a silly, happy, almost giddy joy about people and events. I've kept the full extent of my emotions - both exhilaration and sorrow - under wraps for so long that it still can be hard to not only express them but also to find a way into them. Someone at work told me I'm hard to excite; maybe that's true based on what I'm seeing today in this journal excerpt. Although it might be more the case that I have excitement bubbling up in me and am cautious about expressing it. I'm trying to think about both what forms of excitement are sanctioned by traditional masculinity and what aren't. Obviously, it's okay to get excited about sports if you're a guy. You can yell and scream and jump up and down and cry if your team loses. But had I jumped up and down and screamed in excitement about G. moving back to Lubbock, I can't help but think that people would've looked at me either like I was crazy or thought I was gay. So even in the journal I was keeping at the time, even in a personal and private space where I might have felt free to express what I didn't feel free to express elsewhere, I'm restrained.
Let me try to be a little unrestrained now. The last time I saw G. was maybe 20 or so years ago in Lubbock. I had tried to track him down a couple times over the web but never had any success - until about a month ago. He had been on my mind, perhaps because of this blog, so I just on the spur of the moment decided to try one more time since it had been quite a few years since the last time I checked the web. I had little in the way of expectations, so I was shocked when a photo of him turned up. He looked just about the same, except his hair had turned completely gray. He's in a covers band now. When we were friends years ago, he dabbled with the piano, and the two of us would sing Beatles tunes along with his car cassette player as we drove back and forth from Lubbock and San Antonio, but I never would've predicted he'd be playing keyboard and sharing lead vocals, singing anything from the Texas Tornadoes to the Temptations. I don't know if he sings lead on "YMCA" but that I would like to hear, maybe even dance to.
He's in the Southwest but no longer in Lubbock; he hasn't been there for a long while. I'm not sure what will come of our getting back in touch since we're far apart, there is a lot that's happened since we last saw each other, and we're both busy, but it's exciting to have him in my life again, even if only in a minimal way. He's someone who's had a significant impact on my life. I was best man at his wedding. We worked on a comic strip together and tried to syndicate it. We went camping for almost three weeks, driving from Texas to Oregon and back. We shared and critiqued our creative writing. We read our favorite poems to each other.
Manhood Redo: I'm surprised that such a big event merited such little text. I don't even sound the least little excited. Given the kind of loneliness I was experiencing and have written about in earlier blog entries, you'd think I would have been thrilled, overjoyed, ebullient. But G.'s move back sounds routine, almost something to take for granted.
Sometimes I resent the hell out of masculinity - for instance, when it tamps down joy I might be feeling, and I mean a silly, happy, almost giddy joy about people and events. I've kept the full extent of my emotions - both exhilaration and sorrow - under wraps for so long that it still can be hard to not only express them but also to find a way into them. Someone at work told me I'm hard to excite; maybe that's true based on what I'm seeing today in this journal excerpt. Although it might be more the case that I have excitement bubbling up in me and am cautious about expressing it. I'm trying to think about both what forms of excitement are sanctioned by traditional masculinity and what aren't. Obviously, it's okay to get excited about sports if you're a guy. You can yell and scream and jump up and down and cry if your team loses. But had I jumped up and down and screamed in excitement about G. moving back to Lubbock, I can't help but think that people would've looked at me either like I was crazy or thought I was gay. So even in the journal I was keeping at the time, even in a personal and private space where I might have felt free to express what I didn't feel free to express elsewhere, I'm restrained.
Let me try to be a little unrestrained now. The last time I saw G. was maybe 20 or so years ago in Lubbock. I had tried to track him down a couple times over the web but never had any success - until about a month ago. He had been on my mind, perhaps because of this blog, so I just on the spur of the moment decided to try one more time since it had been quite a few years since the last time I checked the web. I had little in the way of expectations, so I was shocked when a photo of him turned up. He looked just about the same, except his hair had turned completely gray. He's in a covers band now. When we were friends years ago, he dabbled with the piano, and the two of us would sing Beatles tunes along with his car cassette player as we drove back and forth from Lubbock and San Antonio, but I never would've predicted he'd be playing keyboard and sharing lead vocals, singing anything from the Texas Tornadoes to the Temptations. I don't know if he sings lead on "YMCA" but that I would like to hear, maybe even dance to.
He's in the Southwest but no longer in Lubbock; he hasn't been there for a long while. I'm not sure what will come of our getting back in touch since we're far apart, there is a lot that's happened since we last saw each other, and we're both busy, but it's exciting to have him in my life again, even if only in a minimal way. He's someone who's had a significant impact on my life. I was best man at his wedding. We worked on a comic strip together and tried to syndicate it. We went camping for almost three weeks, driving from Texas to Oregon and back. We shared and critiqued our creative writing. We read our favorite poems to each other.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
JOURNAL EXCERPT: May 7, Sun. 1978 11:10 PM
"No insert tonight, so I don't have to go in [to work on the newspaper dock] till 12:00 AM. Just finished recording Emerson, Lake, and Palmer on the King Biscuit Flower Hour. Recorded them on one of the Scotch tapes. Sounds fantastic.
"Slowly reading Moby Dick. On page 150.
"Didn't get off work last night till 8:30 AM. Presses couldn't start until the results from the governor, senatorial, etc. elections were in, so they didn't start running till 3:30 AM. I'll be glad when I quit."
"I received notice yesterday that I had been readmitted to Texas Tech, so it's official now. Back to school again. I'm going to major in English lit."
MANHOOD REDO: By this point I was very ready to leave the Avalanche Journal newspaper dock behind. Material and monetary success are very much a part of traditional masculinity, and while I have never been one to place high value on either, I knew that I could only work the dock for a limited time before I would be seen as one of those guys who never had any drive, who failed to live up to his potential. Plus, I had been connected to the AJ for quite a while.
I had started working their when I was a senior in high school - first as a city newspaper driver, which meant I delivered papers to some of the carriers in Lubbock in a particular area of the city. There were probably 10 to 12 of us, and since the AJ had a morning and afternoon edition, we had to make deliveries twice. Usually, about a half hour before the city bundles would be ready to start coming down the chute - sometime between 2 to 3 am - we would receive a call telling us to come in. I roomed with T. my first semester of college, and I don't know how he managed to sleep through the phone ringing in the middle of the night. In the afternoon, we had to arrive at the dock about 2:30 or 3 pm. This lasted for about a year before I started working the dock, eventually becoming dock foreman. I was responsible for overseeing the other dock workers, for making sure that the bundles of papers ended up in the right country and city trucks, and for stacking the bundles for the car carriers on the dock.
I dropped out of college after my second year and went to work for a small print press, which I generally hated, especially when I had to stack inserts on wooden pallets. They came off the press in batches of 25 for the local Piggly Wiggly grocery stores, and I would purposely take my time stacking so that the inserts backed up, jamming the track, and someone would have to come over to help me keep up. After about nine months, I'd had all I could take and decided to quit, making plans to return to college. They hired a Vietnamese immigrant in my place who was more than happy to stack Piggly Wiggly inserts on a pallet, which made me feel sort of like a snotty nosed, entitled college kid, even though I wasn't exactly yet.
The timing was such that I wouldn't be able to start until the fall semester, which was some months away, so I had to find work in the meantime. I really didn't have a sense of where to start looking, and even though it felt kind of humiliating, I thought the easiest thing to do would be to go back to the Avalanche Journal, although I didn't know whether there would be a job available. But the AJ dock always had a lot of turnover, so I started almost right away. Many of the same people were there, and they were happier to see me that I was them. I knew that my time would be limited, since I planned on quitting when I returned to school.
I had some sense that a degree in English literature might give me a little more merit and status in the world than the position of dock foreman at the Avalanche Journal, but I couldn't have told anyone how since I only chose that major because I had discovered I liked to read and I wanted to write creatively - not exactly a well planned career path.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
