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Shakesthegrounds Rumblings

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vkm91941:
Such a sad, but beautiful story.

I am so touched by the number of poignant examples, like this one, of real life illustrations of the story of Ennis and Jack.  Annie Proulx said in an interview that after the story was published the first time she received many, many letters filled with bittersweet tales  of men thanking her for telling their story.

Shakesthecoffecan:
Thank you all for your kind words, they mean a lot to me. I guess the years spent in the closet have taught me to be overly considerate of how others might react to me. I can reall identify with Eniis sitting at the table with John Twist, who wouldn't even look at him. I have been in the situation of offering my condolences to some one who was offended by my very presence. Not always, but it happens.

Something crossed my mind last night about the story I'd like to comment on, and I'll warn you it might get graphic.

In the short story there is this whole part about Ennis remembering Jack tell about his father urinating on him. He tells that his father was uncircumcised and to quote: "I seen they cut me different" refering to his father foreskin. Then she goes on to the shirts, which she describes as: "the pair like two skins, one inside the other".

So it this some kind of intentional symbolism? She is such a deep writer that when scratc the surface you might realize your looking at a whole nother piece of the puzzle.

I will be getting back to work now. I am headed out of town next week for a trip to Boulder, Colorado, with a side trip to Laramie, Wyoming. Hope to have lunch at the Fireside grill where Matthew Shepard left from his faithful evening.

Shakesthecoffecan:
Thought for the day: The name of the pience of music that plays when Ennis is going back up to the sheep the next morning, and when he returns to Riverton with the shirts in his truck is "He Who Looks For The Truth" by 21 Grams. I just love Brokeback Mountain Radio, it plays on my lap top at my desk all day, and fits the mood I find myself in these days.

I am excitedly getting thru the day, in anticipation of my trip tomorrow, I am flying out of Charlotte to Boulder, Colorado. Will spend about 5 days there, with a side trip to Laramie, Wyoming. We just had a thunder storm pass over, I hope the skys will be clear tomorrow.

Shakesthecoffecan:
I feel sorry for the State of Wyoming, in a way.

After the first publication of the tragic love story Brokeback Mountain, the little college town of Laramie, Wyoming, was in the world spotlight for the murder of Matthew Shepard. One might be left with the impression that Wyoming is place where it is not safe to be gay. I can't imagine it is any more unsafe than the rest of the world, and can't really speak to that. I would have to spend more time there than I have.

Last week I had the extraordinary opportunity to go to Boulder to read from the 52 year long diary of a gay man who lived in Washington, D.C. the first half of the 20th century. His neice, who inherited the work, has lived there for 36 years. But that is another story. After days of decipering tiny handwriting, I took a break and drove up to Laramie, Wyoming. I wanted to see the countryside, and I wanted to pay my respects to Matthew Shepard and his sacrifice.

I knew already I would be unable to visit the place where he was found, beaten and tied to a rail fence. The property owners and the Shepard family had worked together to remove the fence sometime back to prevent it from becoming a tourist destination and a place homophobes could vandalize. I did know, from reading and watching the stage production and the film "The Laramie Project" that Matthew had met his admitted killers, Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson, at a bar called The Fireside Inn.

Driving north from Boulder on Rts.119 and 287, finally escaping the sprawl of Ft. Collins and its strip malls and McMansions, I was let loose into the wide open space I love so well. It was cold, and it was windy and the mountains in the distance still had snow on them. In some crevases the snow lingered. The cows and calfs didn't seem to mind it. The air was dry and my lips were chapped and once I crossed into Wyoming (humming "King of the Road", of course) I stopped at the tiny roadside town of Tie Siding, a couple of store that doubled as a post office and antique store. The old gas pumps out front still with nozzels in place, but the rubber hose long gone. Relief came in the form of imitation chapstick, which would do until I found the real stuff. I was real tempted to buy an antique Wyoming license plate for $35, but had enough stuff to carry home as it was. 

Driving into town I saw the Chamber of Commerce. I decided to stop there and ask where to find the Fireside Inn. The two young ladies at the front desk were very plesant. The one speaking, I know from her facial expression, knew why I was asking about it, but was very professional and I thanked her. I feel her pain and the pain of those who have to endure the rest of thier lives the legacy of McKinney and Henderson, two of their own who put them on the map in the worst possible way. The bar was close by, at the corner of 2nd and Custer.

It does not stand out, it fits in well with its suroundings. Probably built when Johnson was in the White House, the most remarkable thing about the building is its mod 1960's beer glass shaped sign that advertizes everything but its name. You can tell where it should be, but it is not there. It did not open until 3 pm the day I was there, I read on a sign advertizing a live band that would soon appear. On the side walk I found some spilled gravels, the red stone variety native to that country, suggesting something that had been plowed up with the snow and left upon the side walk like a glacial erratic when it melted. I pocketed a couple of them, and set out to explore the town.

I bought me a "new" outfit at the Good Will at the far end of the street. Black Jeans and a button down print shirt for $6.00. Can't beat it. This part of town near the rail road tracks featured a boarded up theater, Majestic Elks Lodge, several gentrified shops and resturants and coffee houses. And, not far from the Fireside, an small park, with a monument to Louisa Swain.

Now who is Louisa Swain, you might ask? She was a 70 year old woman, who on 6 September 1870,  became the very first woman in American History to cast a vote, one block away. The incription to the statue of her explained that in 1869 Wyoming became the first state or territory to grant women equal voting rights. They still could not vote in federal elections until 1920, but in Wyoming, they could elect all their state and local candidates. The statue of her looks like a frail, terrified Mary Todd Lincoln looking woman with ringletts and the standard issue bonnet. I need to know more about this woman, I decided.

The University of Wyoming, where Matthew was a student, sits on the other side of town, a sprawling campus. I visited the Student Union, a place where he would have walked and shopped and ate, where I checked my email. The students of Matthews' day are long gone, with careers and growing families of their own. There were a couple of tables set up for Veterans for Peace, who were selling buttons and another for students organizing an AIDS walk the following Saturday. They had a table covered with condoms, all free. I pocketed one, with the realization that it was in a way an affirmation I would have a reason to use it, which I found pleasing. I drove past the court house where Matthew's father, Dennis Shepard, gave his historic and empassioned speach, condeming Aaron McKinney to a life in prison, which I quote, in part:

" I would like nothing better than to see you die, Mr. McKinney. However, this is the time to begin the healing process. To show mercy to someone who refused to show any mercy. To use this as the first step in my own closure about losing Matt. Mr. McKinney, I am not doing this because of your family. I am definitely not doing this because of the crass and unwarranted pressures put on by the religious community. If anything, that hardens my resolve to see you die. Mr. McKinney, I’m going to grant you life, as hard as that is for me to do, because of Matthew. Every time you celebrate Christmas, a birthday, or the Fourth of July, remember that Matt isn’t. Every time that you wake up in that prison cell, remember that you had the opportunity and the ability to stop your actions that night. Every time that you see your cell mate, remember that you had a choice, and now you are living that choice. You robbed me of something very precious, and I will never forgive you for that. Mr. McKinney, I give you life in the memory of one who no longer lives. May you have a long life, and may you thank Matthew every day for it."
Lincoln said, at Gettysburg, the world will little remember the things that are said and done at a particular place and time. Laramie is no exception. I saw no memorial to Matthew Shepard there. Perhaps somewhere on the University campus there is, or a scholarship or some such. But there is no mention of him that I could see. Perhaps it is too soon yet. I would estimate Louisa Swain's memorial to be less than a decade old. Those people in Laramie suffered, horribly, in the spotlight of that murder and the spotlight it cast upon them. The subsequent play and film about the experence may have brought some closure to some involved with the case. These are good people. There are people who were ahead of their time with regard to women's rights, I don't condemn them. Matthew Shepard is ledgend now. His life documented and examined and laid bare. Laramie, Wyoming being the place it ended. There needs to be some kind of acknowledgement of that, it cries out for it.
On the way out of town I stopped at a conveinence store and got the real thing for my lips. The woman at the register, reading the local classified ads commented on the advertizement of an Alligator for sale for $100.00: "That is just wrong" she said, "on so many levels."
         

Shakesthecoffecan:
My local library got a copy of the story story Brokeback Mountain, on CD, read by Campbell Scott, a talented actor and son of George C. Scott, he was the cancer patient in DYING YOUNG. I was surprised I had to get on a waiting list for it.

Today I walked into the branch and proudly told them who I was and what was reserved for me, by name. I got in my car, turned off my phone, and at nearly $3.00 a gallon, I drove and listened. The story poured out to me, and although I had read it, I enjoyed hearing it told to me. In someways the story tells so much more, tells better how these two men felt for one another. For an hour he read to me, and still, it came out the same. A lonely man caught somewhere betwixt what he knows and what he feels.

Check and see if your library has it, and patronize them, they have thousands of stories just as powerful as Brokeback Mountain, waiting for you.

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