Homophobia at the Olympics and Lunch in the Heartland

FOX News columnist and executive editor John Moody wrote a hissy-fit column this past weekend where he said that the U.S. Olympic Committee this year has changed their motto of ‘Faster, Higher, Stronger’ to ‘Darker, Gayer, Different.’ “Were our Olympians selected because they’re the best at what they do,” he asked, “or because they’re the best publicity for our current obsession with having one each from Column A, B and C?” Setting aside the fact that all the athletes have to go through stiff competitions to qualify and they’ve earned their places on the team, Moody’s attitude reminded me of the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin when someone else tried to make the Games about something other than being faster, higher and stronger. Yup, that’s the one where Adolf Hitler intended to showcase his warped ideas about the superiority of having an Aryan Nation. Instead, the Fuehrer stumped off in anger when a black “sub-human”---his words, not mine---named Jesse Owens won four gold medals in track and field events.

What possible reason other than racism and homophobia can explain Mr. Moody’s anger over having ten black athletes competing in South Korea and for the first time, having two openly gay U.S. athletes at the Games? And I’m still trying to figure out what he meant by “different” unless he’s talking about the eleven Asian-Americans on our squads or the fact that 45% of the athletes this year are women. “No sport that we are aware of awards points — or medals — for skin color or sexual orientation,” Moody wrote. Is it any wonder the blow-back on his column was so fierce that FOX ended up taking it down?

Next up: The mini controversy created by Adam Rippon, our openly gay figure skater, when he didn’t want to meet with Vice President Pence before the opening ceremony. His reasons? Pence has advocated for federal funding to go to institutions that offer gay conversion therapy and, as governor, he signed a bill that allowed businesses to refuse services to LGBT customers. Then there’s free-style skier Gus Kenworthy, a returning Olympian who won silver at the Russian Olympics. He came out of the closet since those Games and he was more diplomatic in his refusal to meet with Pence stating that he didn’t want to be “distracted” from his training. About coming out of the closet? Gus said it felt good not to carry that “dirty little secret” around anymore---his words, not mine---and the peace of mind that brought him, he says, has improved his skiing. 

The whole issue of gayness and being in the closet was brought down to a personal level for me this past weekend when a young relative I haven’t seen in over six years came into town and wanted to take me out for lunch. I’ve known he is gay since he got married three-four years ago but I’ve never had a conversation with him about the topic. I had heard stories from others in the family about who did their best to accept and understand the news and who initially rejected the idea adding extra drama to his disclosure; I’m guessing it’s that way in most families. He brought his wife/husband with him---I still don’t know what label to hang on his marriage partner---and I was a tad nervous on what to say when meeting him for the first time. I decided to make it clear from the minute they walked into the house where I stood on the acceptance scale. After being introduced I hugged the partner and said, “Welcome to the family. I didn’t get to tell you that back when you two got married.” By the time they left after lunch, I knew we couldn’t ask for a warmer and more likeable guy to join the family fold.

Over the years I’ve had several friends who are gay. One I've known since we were both toddlers and his parents ended up divorcing over their son’s sexuality. Another guy I thought I knew well in college didn't come out of the closet until after his elderly mother died. By then he was in his sixties and his coming out was an ‘aha moment’ that made pieces of my own life fall into place. We had dated for several years and while we talked about getting married, I’m grateful that we didn’t. I can’t imagine the pain a woman goes through when she thinks her closeted spouse is rejecting her in the bedroom and she has no clue why. And then there was my work friend and ski buddy in the '60s who agonized over telling his military-career father that he is gay. I'm not sure if he ever did. He moved out of town to put distance between him and his family and we lost track of each other. These three guys are the defining factors in why I fully support working towards a world where sexual orientation is no longer a “dirty little secret.” Are you with me…or do you share John Moody’s fear that the Olympics and life in the U.S.A. are getting “too dark, too gay and too different?”  ©

Photo: Adam Rippon and Gus Kenworthy at the Olympics.

Computer Geeks and Rowing Crews

I have a tech guy---young, cute as a ladybug if ladybugs were males that wear black leather pocket vests full of tiny tools. I’ve loved those pocket vests since I first noticed them on gutsy photo-journalists running around dodging bullets to report on some long-ago and far-away war. It’s the one piece of clothing that I’ve lusted after for decades but would never let myself purchase. Maybe if I become a bag lady a pocket vest would be become a necessity but for now I’m too vain to add that much bulk to my already bulky mid-section. But every time Nate makes a house call to fix my computer woes he kick-starts the vest lusting all over again. This time the guy was sporting what I’m guessing was a two-day old beard. Talk about a lethal combination! A black beard with inky dark eyes, dimpled checks and that leather vest. Be still my heart. My days of seeing him might be coming to an end, though. He suggested we set up my two computers so he can do repairs and maintenance remotely from his shop for a fee of seven bucks a month. My computers would send him reports when things need doing or aren’t working and he’d do what needs doing. Every time he walks through the door it costs a hundred dollars so on one hand, his suggestion would save me money, but on the other hand I’m not sure I want to give someone a backdoor into my computers. Even though I know and trust Nate, there are others working in the business. It’s a local chain with five locations.

While he’s here we always have interesting conversations but this time I was struggling with my voice. I’ve just come off from a round of Prednisone (for joints inflammation) and one of the side effects for me is my voice gets very hoarse and soft which is shocking at first because I don’t get Prednisone often enough to remember this happening. I googled the drug and learned that sometimes your voice doesn’t come back! I’ve had the Prednisone medrol dose packs five-six times in the past---a year apart each time---so I know it’s just a matter of time when I will get my voice back but for the two days when I didn’t remember this side effect, I was bummed out thinking, First my eyes, then my ears, now my voice! What’s next?  But I know what’s next. I have to do something about my clicking, painful jaw. In the mornings I’m starting to have trouble opening my mouth wide enough to shovel cereal inside. Google is telling me there isn’t much that can be done except exercises so I’m letting it ride until my next dentist appointment. 

This week was my monthly book club and we had a great book to discuss, The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown. The cover describes the book in one precise sentence: It’s a true story of “nine Americans and their epic quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.” Almost 400 pages long but, boy, did I learn a lot about rowing crew teams and what it was like to grow up during the Depression, the socioeconomic landscape of the 1930s that molded the characters of these nine young men. The research and details that went into this book is mind boggling and it includes a lot about how Hitler prepared his country for the event. The boys in the boat who won the Gold in Berlin were the sons of loggers and shipyard workers in the Pacific Northeast, college students at the University of Washington in Seattle. If you like Olympic sports history you’d like this book. But it’s also a very human story about overcoming family dysfunction, nearly impossible odds and never giving up. 

George Yeoman Pocock, a designer/builder of racing shells and a mentor to the 1936 Olympic Team was quoted near the end of the book as saying, “Good thoughts have much to do with good rowing. It isn’t enough for the muscles of a crew to work in unison, their hearts and minds must also be as one.” Couldn’t the same be said of families and other groups to succeed? We have to give up our individual desires for personal fame or power in favor of working together, setting one goal to move forward.

Most times when I leave my house I go past a place on the river---a shell house---where rowing crews from the area high schools store and launch their shells. In the fall, when they start practicing again I will have a new appreciation for a sport I erroneously thought was just for yuppies. I look forward to pulling into the riverside park and watching for a while. I’ll know if they’re doing sweep-oar rowing (one oar per rower) or sculls rowing (two oars per rower). I’ll have a label---the coxswain---for the person who sits in the back and coordinating the rhythm and power of the crew, who has to factor in the wind, the weather and the position of the other shells in the race as he/she barks out orders. That’s what good books can do for us, they can make us see our own little world through a new and broader lens. ©