When I was around Junior High School age, I went to see a class play at my uncle's high school. Bob was/is two years older than me. The play was Cornelia Otis Skinner's "Our Hearts Were Young and Gay." It was about two high school girls who had gone on a cruise ship to Europe and how, no matter what they did, something reminded them of their mothers back in the USA. The story had no connection with gays/homosexuals at all.
In regard to the word "queer," when I was growing up, my older sister sang solos in the Pentecostal churches we attended. I did sing with her sometimes and even with my younger sister. But, one song which stands out in my mind in regard to the word was titled "I Prayed Through." The opening lines of the song were:
"I remember when some queer folks came to town,
My pastor said, 'To that church, don't go down'."
The "queer folks" in the song were travelling evangelists who preached a salvation message and not a social gospel like the pastor of the song. And, they were also Pentecostal evangelists. And the "I" in the song "prayed through by repenting of his/her sins and accepted Jesus as a personal savior at an altar bench in the church were the revival was being held.
When I was in grade school, there were two interesting sayings. One was "Don't wear green and yellow on Thursdays because people will think you are queer." And the other one was to the girls, "Don't wear red and black on fridays because people will think you are pregnant." Most of the kids at that rural community school knew what pregnant meant; but, only a few of they knew what "queer" meant in the phrase. I am not sure that I knew either.
