What I Didn’t Know

 Alert: I am, once again, invoking my Howard Cosell rule to write about something not directly related to cycling.  It is, however, a reflection from the vantage point of midlife, as I have defined it on this blog.

The night was hot, even for early summer. Judy Garland had just died, 47 years old. Patrons of a particular bar were mourning her passing. Or, perhaps, they simply wanted to release some tension, or simply have a good time.

Some of the bar’s regular patrons had been forewarned about one event about to take place. But at the time, they could not have known its aftermath.

On this date in 1969, New York City police officers raided a bar. That, in itself, was not unusual. Nor was the fact that its “respectable” patrons—mainly white-collar and creative men with wives and families not very far—at least geographically—from that place had been forewarned.

The remaining patrons consisted of “undesirables ” and “throwaways”: kids kicked out of their homes by families who didn’t approve of their “lifestyles;” others, young and old, who survived on the streets by catering to the most lurid fantasies of men (mainly) richer and more powerful than themselves, and those who were expressing their gender identity and sexuality in then-illegal or yet-unnamed ways.

I am talking, of course, about the 1969 Stonewall Rebellion. I was a week and a day away from turning and would know nothing about what happened that night for many more years. By that time, I was close to midlife—at least as I define it on this blog—and had become an avid cyclist.

So You Didn't Marry The Girl Or Guy Next Door? Thank Your Bike!

If the love of your life is of a different race, ethnicity, national origin from your own, you have the bicycle to thank.  I might say the same if your significant other is the same gender as you, or identifies in a way you never heard of until you left home.

That's more or less what University of Arizona historian David Ortiz says.  As I've mentioned in several posts, no less than Susan B. Anthony said that the bicycle did more than anything to emancipate women.  Cycling would change the clothing women wore, allowing more freedom of movement.  The bicycle also allowed women to travel unchaperoned by males for the first time.

And, says Ortiz, it also allowed men to travel greater distances.  At the time the "safety" bicycle was introduced, most people never got further than about 50 kilometers from where they were born or raised.  For a young man, then, "the girl next door" wasn't a Hollywood stereotype (well, ok, Hollywood didn't exist then): If she wasn't the one he married, she didn't come from much further afield.

Now, I don't think there's anything wrong with marrying the girl (or guy) next door, if that is what you want.  I just think it's nice to know that it's not the only choice.  And, of course, having two parents of very different backgrounds can be a great thing for their kids:  What could give them a better education?

As a transgender woman, I can't help but to think that such heterogeneity, along with women's liberation, helped to bring about, however slowly, greater acceptance of LGBTQ people. It's no coincidence, really, that the first and most vibrant queer communities have been found in cosmopolitan neighborhoods and cities.

So, if I ever find myself hooking up with an Afro-Japanese Brazilian bisexual whose pronoun is "they", I know the bicycle is responsible!  

Seriously, though:  From what David Ortiz says, the bicycle made us freer.  Certainly, I feel freer when I ride!

Carrying Our Flag

Today's post won't have any double-entendres.  Or even any single ones.  In other words, it will be completely unironic--and short.

As you probably know, it's LGBT Pride Day.  I have marched in a few parades past, but I didn't this year.  To tell you the truth, I've never cared for it.  For one thing, I hate being forced to walk slowly in a stop-and-stop fashion in a crowd. Also, the noise gives me a headache. 

But I was involved with an event en route--specifically, between the Stonewall Inn and the Christopher Street Pier, where the march ends.  Specifically, I was preparing and serving food (chicken, pasta salad and burgers, mainly) and greeting people.  Though I'm pretty introverted, I prefer that to actually marching in the parade.

So...I'll just share this image from the march:

P.S.  The Stonewall Rebellion is one of those historic events I would have liked to see:  It's a great story.   I was ten years old when it happened, but, at the time,I knew nothing about it:  nobody in my conservative blue-collar (mostly Italian and Catholic)  neighborhoorhood in Brooklyn talked about it.  At least, I don't recall hearing anybody talk about it.  On the other hand, I heard all about Woodstock!