JOURNAL EXCERPT: May 20, Sat.1978 6:45 PM

"I started reading The Notebooks of Thomas Wolfe.He excites me. He became so immersed in the world around him. I have only read You Can't Go Home Again by him. I started The Web and the Rock, got about three-fourths of the way through and wasn't able to finish it. It became too much of a struggle. It also became very boring. You Can't Go Home Again was a much better book; more cohesive. I also have Look Homeward, Angel by Wolfe, but haven't read it yet.

"Received a letter from Ida a few days ago. Surprised the hell out of me. I haven't written her back yet.

"I've decided to start writing poetry again. Hope I'm ready for it now. My past poetry hasn't been too good."

MANHOOD REDO: Looking back, I think I was drawn to the study of literature because it seemed like a way into the world of emotions; I suspect that explains the sentence, "He became so immersed in the world around him." Whereas I felt cut off from the world around me, locked in a frozen emotional state, standing on the board but unable to dive headfirst into the messy human world, stuck in a place of feelings stunted by masculinity, Wolfe in my mind could feel everything, enter fully into his environment. He felt all the pains, darkness, and glories of childhood, captured the rolling emotional states of a town, a community, savored the struggles and transitions into adulthood. He reveled in the complexity and comprehensiveness of a lived life. It all seemed so different, such a nontraditional way for a man to be in the world.

The same applied to writing. I could spill feelings onto the page, whether a journal, a story, a poem. I was reading and writing to save myself, to start the thawing process.

Of course, later in grad school, I learned that the study of literature had its own very traditonally masculine qualities. And it became hard to hold onto that deep-seated emotional revelation in stories. Some twenty-five years after grad school, it's still not as strong as when I first began reading literature on my own in my twenties, although there are flashes of it.

JOURNAL EXCERPT: May 20, Sat. 1978 6:45 PM

"J. G. quit working at the Avalanche Journal newspaper. They forced him to quit because he was 67. He's a tough old bastard as far as surviving goes. He was working on his ranch and driving the A. J. country truck at the same time. Now I guess he'll just be working on his ranch."

MANHOOD REDO: Work has long been a key part of male identity, and been a way to prove your masculinity. To not work is to lose your sense of self. To not be successful at work is to fail as a man. This probably explains the men who are workaholics. Of course now that women have become a significant part of the workforce, they have some of the same issues since masculine expectations have defined most of our workplaces - at least those not identified with females.

I don't think J. G. was a workaholic even though he probably worked 12 hour days much of the time. I'm pretty sure he just needed the money. His ranch couldn't have been huge, and I would guess that, in the same way small farmers were struggling, he was being squeezed out as ranching became more corporate. I remember him responding angrily to being pushed to quit. I hadn't ever really thought of him as a cowboy, but that makes sense now. Maybe his black horn-rimmed glasses threw me off. He always wore a cowboy hat and boots. Larry McMurtry wrote an essay called, "Death of the Cowboy" for the New York Reveiw of Books. The trappings of the cowboy life still exist - rodeos, horse riding, the Western gear - but the practice has changed significantly. Most large ranches now incorporate more than just raising cattle into their business portfolio as part of their survival strategy. They've become big business.

J. G. was a cowboy, dying.

JOURNAL EXCERPT: May 20, Sat. 1978 6:45 PM

"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.

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.

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.

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.

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.