Dad is 70

So, Dad is 70. I’m just today back in Minnesota after a week-long stay in Oregon celebrating my dad’s birthday, which was the 18^th, and Thanksgiving. I don’t really know what to say about a guy I’ve known for more than 40 years, for my entire life. Where to even begin?

He’s a great dad. We share the same first name. But it often seems I hardly know him. I’ve always been confident that he loves me, but often much less confident that he’s been proud of me, or, more to the point, isn’t disappointed in me. I’d guess he is. Proud that is. But I’d also guess he’s always wanted more for me. More from me.

I’m certainly proud of him. In preparing for his party, which was held last Saturday afternoon, I helped Mom put together a display board of photos from his life. There are pictures of him as a young man posing with his violin, which I later played for about 6 years, and posing with the trombone that my sister later took up. There are pictures of him roughhousing with the two of us, and my younger sister, too. There are pictures of him in the army uniform that he was lucky to be wearing in the brief peace after Korea, but before Vietnam. Pictures of him with archaic computers, fingers tapping at the chunky keyboards as glowing characters flicker on tiny screens. Pictures with his model trains, pictures of him covered with automotive grease. Pictures of him with his two younger sisters, with his mother, with his father, both before and after the divorce. I tried to find pictures of the man we know, and we did the best we could, but as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry said, in one of my father’s favorite quotes: “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

As a son, I’m sure I come up short. In whatever ways I do, it’s certainly not due to lack of effort on his part. I remember him attempting to teach me algebra when I was eight, sitting on the front steps with a small chalkboard and rapidly straining patience. Building dinosaur dioramas with me when I was six on scrap plywood, with papier mâché mountains, and a clear polymer lake. Modeling the human ear with a paper plate, a mailing tube, and a Dixie cup of water. A lot of it took - I grew to enjoy and excel in math and some sciences, but a lot of his efforts did not. I certainly also remember him throwing a softball with me at ten, until our mutual frustration dissolved us - me into tears, and he into angry shouting. He was never a sports fan, and he could not make me one, nor achieve the underlying goal (which I easily perceived) of making me less a sissy.

Both of my parents could wield disappointment, or the threat of disappointment, like a weapon; they seldom raised a hand to us, but a lowered gaze and a sad head-shake could sting just as deeply. We learned to achieve grades as high as possible, not always for the joy of learning, but just as often for the fear of bringing home something less than expected. And the expectations were always high.

I lived in terror of the day they would find out I was gay. I had no illusions that this would be the worst disappointment I could deliver. Not only my own failing, but a clear reflection of their failure as parents to shape me. I would shame the family, and they would blame themselves, and I hated myself for being the cause of that shame. I could picture it; Mom would be sadly devastated, but aver that she still loved me, while Dad would be unable to hide his anger and disgust when he looked at me, would shout, would humiliate me, and would never look me in the eye again. I don’t think I could have been more mistaken. I really will never have any idea how Dad will react to something, I think.

When it came down to it, and I took my stumbling steps out (I’ll save the embarrassing details for another post), Dad took the higher road. He took me for a ride in the car, and told me that they knew. He said that Mom was having a very hard time with it, and would be angry for a while. He said I needed to know that they both loved me very much, even though Mom would have a hard time showing it right now. He said he was worried about my future; that I might be lonely, and that made him sad. That he didn’t know very much about “it”, but that there was a lot of misinformation about “it”, and that I should be careful. That he didn’t subscribe to cultural and religious evaluations of morality, and neither should I. That I should be a good man. He repeated that I should be careful. He drove us home.

He was right about Mom. She’s due her own complete tribute on another day, but I can say that the parenting cliché “this hurts me more than it does you” could have been invented for her alone. She was angry, and she said a lot of angry things. I’ve forgotten all of them, because she was angry and she didn’t mean them, even though she thought she did at the time. But I know that she remembers every word she said, and that every word cuts her to this day. I forgave her almost immediately; I think she’s forgiven herself, finally. But unlike me, she’ll never forget.

This all happened on a college break, and, lucky for all of us, I was soon 2000 miles away. We wrote. We stopped talking about it. I thought it was behind us.

I think Dad knew that without him to remain calm, Mom and I could do some real damage. Maybe having his own father wrench himself out of their family when he was ten shaped that for him. Maybe having to spend summers at a boy’s home because his divorced mother, a school teacher, couldn’t afford to feed three children when school wasn’t in session shaped it. Maybe it happened later, in the five years before I came out, when his career moved him to Portland while Mom’s kept her in Toledo, and he had to drive three hours home each Friday and three hours back each Sunday to maintain the connection. That he values family. That family matters more.

He had been so calm about my coming out that both mom and I could move along. I was surprised, therefore, to hear a couple of years later, that Dad was attending pflag meetings in Portland. To me it sent a clear message – Dad had issues with me. Maybe it was because I was now in a relationship; my big move out of the dorms and in with David. Or maybe it was because “it” was still happening, and hadn’t turned out to be just a phase. I took it to mean he wasn’t all that okay with me being gay; wasn’t completely free of “cultural and religious evaluation” after all. I found out inadvertently that he was going to pflag, and that added to the feeling – that he was attending “behind my back” suggested that there were things unsaid between us. I thought things were worked out, and it seemed that they weren’t after all. I shyly said that if anything came up that he wanted to talk about that it would be okay. But it never really did. He kept going. At some point, after they sold the house in Toledo and she also moved to Portland, Mom started going, too.

Then along came the Oregon Citizen’s Alliance, and Ballot Measure 9. Measure 9 stated that all government agencies and schools would recognize that homosexuality was “abnormal, wrong, unnatural, and perverse.” The proponents of the measure touted the fact that Measure 9 would stop “special rights” to gays, but in reality, Measure 9 ensured that civil rights of gays would be stripped away by prohibiting and revoking laws that protected gays from discrimination. Well, you can’t tell a family man that his kid is going to be fair game for discrimination. You can’t tell a school teacher like my Mom that public education systems must assist in fostering hatred and bias. The OCA turned my parents into gay activists.

They were good at it too. They were well-established in their communities and careers. They were Toastmasters, well-practiced at writing and delivering speeches. They had leisure time, and passion. They were church-going, long-married, parents of three. But most of all, they could turn the whole “protect the family” argument on its head – the OCA was clearly attacking our family, and if it could attack us, it could attack your kids, too. They could easily connect, speak with passion, and inflame the passions of other parents and families.

I was at least a little uncomfortable with this – it’s irksome when your straight parents are better gay activists than you are. But I soon realized that it really wasn’t about me. The more we talked, and could talk about it, I found that I factored in somewhere at the beginning, as an impetus to find out more about gays, to find a way to understand. But when they found out what it was like in America, in the world, a situation to which they’d been largely ignorant, they simply couldn’t live with the discrimination and keep silent. As they talked with families who’d lost their children to violence or AIDS, offered support to parents with more troubled family relationships, hugged children whose families had cut them out, it became really clear to them what the real threat to the family is: ignorance and hatred. For almost twenty years, they’ve been fighting ignorance, and hatred, and the OCA.

When this is your dad, it seems like you ought to become something. A politician, an activist, a spiritual leader, something. I want to be great, to make him proud. But so far, I haven’t. Been great, I mean.

I’m a simple adult educator in a large bureaucracy. I struggle continually with money and making ends meet. I’ve had relationships fail, and I’ve been treated for mental illness. I’m an artistic dilettante, developing a recipe here, writing a script there, arranging a song over there, but mastering none. I have made no great statements. I’m only beginning even to be able to articulate my spirituality. I have a long way to go.

Dad is 70. Most of his more memorable achievements, aside from parenting, have been in the last 25 years. That gives me hope. I have a debt to honor. And I need to get started. The expectations are high.

I love you, Dad. Happy Birthday!

Two Menus, Two Recipes

Lots of cooking and eating this week, as I prepare the spread for Dad's birthday party and the Thanksgiving dinner. Here's what's happening ...and two of the recipes in case your chocolate needs are not being met adequately. Because I'm here for ya, baby.

Dad’s Birthday Party

Mushroom Almond Paté with crackers
Cheddar, Red Pepper, Horseradish spread
Gouda platter
Baked Brie en Croute with brandied cranberries
Warm Crab Ramekin
Sesame Eggplant Salsa with Pita Crisps
Kentucky Truffles
Buckeyes
Veggie Trays
Curried Yogurt Dip
French Onion Dip

Wine
Beer
Citrus Ginger Ale Punch

Thanksgiving Dinner

Sage Roasted Turkey with Onion Sage Gravy
Cranberry Kumquat Dressing
Mashed Potatoes
Sweet Potato Hash
Creamed Onions
Brussels Sprouts
Pumpkin Chocolate Layered Mousse Torte

Buckeyes

Peanut butter filling:

1 1/2 lb powdered sugar (almost 6 cups)
1/2 lb room temp butter or margarine (2 sticks)
1 lb creamy peanut butter (2 cups)
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

Combine in a large bowl. Mix well. Form the dough into small balls, about 1/2 inch in diameter. Put the balls in a bowl, and chill in the fridge about an hour. Or chill the dough first, and then roll into balls. Or just grab a spoon...nah. They're better with the...

Chocolate coating:

In a heavy bottomed saucepan or double boiler, combine 12 oz chocolate chips (regular bag) with 1/2 slab of paraffin wax (found in the canning or baking section of most grocers) cut into small pieces. Heat over lowest heat, stirring every minute or so. In the meantime, have a bunch of cookie sheets and toothpicks or bamboo skewers ready. When the chips and wax have melted together, turn off the heat, and remove a handful of peanut butter balls from the fridge. Don't grab the whole bowl; you'll need reheat the chocolate at some point anyway.

Poke a toothpick or skewer in a ball far enough to hold it. Dip the ball in the chocolate, and swirl to coat it about 3/4 of the way up. So it looks, you know, like a buckeye. Place the dipped buckeye on a cookie sheet and move on. There are gazillions to do. If the chocolate gets too cool, warm gently over low heat. The buckeyes should be chilled after dipping; in Minnesota, that's easy - we put them on the porch, and keep an eye out for squirrels. Or slide them in the garage. In warmer climates, do as many batches as will fit in the freezer, freeze them solid (about 20 minutes) and remove to ziplock bags or cookie tins, and return to fridge or freezer to keep. Repeat until you're done. When removing the skewer, some people like to smooth over the hole, frankly I think it's a waste of time. Invite friends, and eat till you're sick.

This recipe originally appeared in the Penzey's Catalog. I think. Either that or I have a mysterious note here about a "pencil" and "cartilage".

Layered Pumpkin Chocolate Mousse Torte

(This baby’s entirely my own creation. Believe it!)

Crust:

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup cocoa (dutch process)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp cloves
2 tsp grated orange peel
1/2 cup cold butter, cut into 8 pieces
1 Tbsp dark molasses
1 large egg
1/4 cup chopped bittersweet or semisweet chocolate.

Mix flour and next 6 ingredients in food processor bowl. Whir to blend thoroughly. Add butter, and process 30 seconds til mixture forms coarse crumbs. Stir molasses and egg together in a measuring cup. Add to processor and whir until soft dough ball gathers (about 30 seconds.)

Roll dough on lightly floured surface to 1/8 thickness. Gently press into bottom and up sides of a PAM sprayed 9-inch springform. Prick the bottom all over with a fork. Stick in freezer for 30 minutes while oven heats to 350. It wouldn't be a bad idea to drop in some foil with some pie weights on it for baking, but I didn't - live dangerously! Bake 12 minutes. Gently deflate if necessary with a clean dishtowel. Sprinkle with 1/4 cup chopped bittersweet chocolate (I had some Sharfenberger on hand, but mini-chips would be fine). When melted, smooth with offset spatula.

Filling (the pumpkin layer):

4 oz Cream Cheese
1/2 cup creme fraiche
1 cup canned pumpkin
2 tbsp dark molasses
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
2 tbsp brandy
2 large eggs

Combine 4 oz room temperature cream cheese with 1/2 cup creme fraiche in the bowl of a stand mixer. Mix on medium til smooth. Add pumpkin, and mix til smooth. Add two tablespoons dark molasses and 1/3 cup brown sugar, mix thoroughly. Add spices, vanilla, and brandy, mix til smooth. Add eggs 1 at a time, mixing thoroughly after each addition. Pour over chocolate in crust. It will probably just fill the crust (assuming it slumped slightly during baking) however, it is fine if it comes above a little bit. Wrap outside of pan in heavy duty foil without covering the top, and place in large roaster. Pour in enough boiling water to come partway up the sides of the foil-wrapped springform. Bake at 350 for 35-45 minutes until soft set. Set aside on rack to cool.

Chocolate layer:

1/2 cup heavy cream
1 tbsp orange liqueur
1 tbsp brandy
2 tsp finely chopped grated orange peel
1 1/2 cup chocolate chips or chopped bittersweet chocolate
2 egg yolks
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup heavy cream, whipped

Heat cream, liqueurs, and orange peel to simmer. Pour over chocolate in a bowl and stir until smooth.

Mix egg yolks, sugar, 1/4 tsp cloves with mixer until thick, fluffy, and light yellow (2-3 minutes)

Fold egg mixture into chocolate mixture.

Gently fold in whipped cream. Mound on top of pumpkin layer, and smooth to edges. Refrigerate covered several hours or over night.

Shiny top:

2 tbsp butter
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips or chopped bittersweet chocolate

Heat cream and butter til simmer. Add to chocolate and stir briskly til smooth and melted. Pour over top of chilled cake. Chill. Decorate as desired. I usually use edible copper Luster Dust sifted on through a tea strainer.

Songs for the Road

I’m pretty well just fascinated by music in general. Isn’t it pretty amazing? I mean, any toddler can wail out a tune, strange and wordless as it may be. All it takes to make music is a voice or an instrument that will resonate, producing sound waves.

Almost as quickly as we learn to speak, we learn to recognize our culture’s musical patterns – the sequence of tones, the structure of rhythms, the basic elements that define what our culture describes as music – that some wave patterns are more listenable than others and mean more to us than others. The existence of these patterns is only the beginning of the fascinating part – the rules that describe the relationships between notes apply and imply certain physics, and the way that tones can fit together, sound waves amplifying, multiplying and canceling each other to build chords, discords, and harmonies is beautiful in the way that snowflakes, nautilus shells, and faces are beautiful – not just esthetically, but in that almost frightening way that they imply an order to things that we can’t really find the tools or the math or the faith to put a name on. Maybe it’s God. Or maybe that’s just another name for an even larger mystery.

Yet observing only the physics and math makes music sound dry – as any six year old can tell you, you don’t sing or play an instrument because the math is cool. You do it because once those notes join to become melodies, and the other resonances produce harmonies, and the logical progressions lead to the next chord and the next, while the beat goes on, metering out measures of stress and unstress, repeating patterns, progressing to the next, this grammar, this syntax can build an emotional wallop ranging from repulsion to ecstasy. It’s humanity’s second language. I see little evidence of actual magic in the day to day lives of humans. Except when they make music.

I got to watch a bit of that magic this weekend while on tour with a choral group to which Boo lends his lovely tenor voice. One Voice Mixed Chorus, and its spinoff ensemble OVation, is one of a plethora of queer and queer friendly arts groups in the Twin Cities. In addition to OVMC, there’s the Twin Cities Gay Men’s Army Chorus (and their spinoff ensemble Outloud!), Calliope – a women’s chorus, TransVoices – a recently formed transgender community choir, the Rainbow Families Children’s Chorus, Timbre - the newest kid on the block, the Twin Cities Women’s Choir - who aren't primarily GLBT, but friendly, the Minnesota Freedom Band, and the Minnesota Philharmonic Orchestra – the first GLBT orchestra in the United States. And I won’t even go into dance groups, theater troupes, or the most fabulous glam-goth genderfuck rock band in the entire world, All the Pretty Horses.

But…that’s the Twin Cities. Get only a few miles out of town, and not only do queer arts not exist, it’s possible to find communities that insist that queers don’t exist. Or shouldn't exist. At least not in their town. In each of the past three years, OVMC has taken a tour to remote towns, such as Vermilion, South Dakota; and Marshall, Stillwater, Bemidji, and Duluth, Minnesota. This year’s tour headed south, hitting Northfield; LaCrosse, Wisconsin; Mankato, and New Ulm (enough links - here's Google Maps, do your homework!). It was the first time I went along on the tour – I had a great time being a roadie.

Getting 80 people, their luggage, five sets of portable risers, a box or two of props, and a backup electronic piano (just in case) from the Twin Cities to five or six remote destinations without losing anything (or anyone) significant requires a great deal of logistical planning and a lot of cooperation. Since both of those things were in short supply this year, we were very lucky to have a force of nature on our side. I’ve mentioned him before; we shall call him Boo. He’s my spouse.

When Boo releases his inner dominatrix, the world must bow to the whip. Thus, despite road detours, a slightly directionally impaired driver, and a schedule tighter than Nathan Fillion’s trousers, we arrived everywhere we needed to be on time, fed, and rarin’ to go. Essentially (inside joke). This is Boo’s fourth tour as tour dominatrix, so he was in fine form.

Our first stop was Northfield, a town of “Cows, Colleges, and Contentment.” (Says so right on the label). I went to one of those colleges, incidentally, which is how I came to be in Minnesota after growing up in Oregon. (I’ll bet that had been troubling you up until now. No? Huh.) At any rate, this performance was at the other college, the one with the world-renowned choir. So, no pressure...

It was mid-day on a Friday with unwarranted pleasant weather, so a huge crowd was not in attendance. But a good friend that I've known since I lived in Northfield was, so yay! I’ve known J for 23 years; a lesbian a few years older than I who with her partner-at-the-time provided home-away-from-home to me and my partner-at-the-time when we were newly-minted and still-happy; she now works on the St Olaf staff. It was wonderful to see her, as well as her lovely daughter, who was planned, conceived (with the minimum required male contribution), and born while I was still in college. She’s now a student at St. Olaf, which makes me feel ridiculously old.

While Minnesota seasons come on fast, there was still a little leaf-color on the way down river to LaCrosse. But I must confess I strapped on the headphones, tossed on Sigur Rós, and slept most of the way.

The dinner and performance at UW LaCrosse went smoothly, despite the auditorium not having the right kind of risers (we backed up the bus and unloaded our own – hooray for the roadies), the right kind of lighting (they were pre-set for a rock show the next night), and a auditorium that seemed huge and empty. Acoustically, it was quite good nevertheless, and while a few of our very-white Minnesotans gleamed a little hot under the lights, it didn’t look bad either. Also not looking bad? That would be Chris, the far too young, far too muscly, cuter-than-all-hell leader of the campus queer group, who was wearing a very fetching black t-shirt emblazoned with the phrase “I ♥ (heart) Female Orgasms.” I’m quite sure several basses and tenors wanted to give him one.

The next day, we set off for Mankato, via route 16 through the Bluff Country. I only encountered the Bluff Country in southern Minnesota a month or so ago; it really is a lovely area. I opted for Neko Case for most of the route, but needed a little aural caffeine part of the way, so switched to System of a Down.

Along the way, we stopped in Forestville for a tour of the Mystery Cave, which was cool (48 degrees to be exact) and fascinating, but ran a bit long. We dashed through Austin for an all-too-brief lunch and visit to the SPAM Museum. This is a very well-designed museum for a very campy product, and we enjoyed it a great deal; getting all 80 of us lined up for the photo op out front by the bronze pig farmer. We arrived in Mankato to a delightful soup supper at the UU Fellowship, then off to Minnesota State for a fun and well-received concert for far too many women with hair that apparently escaped from one of those two horridly coifed television psychics. Why do these psychics have terrible hair-dos anyway? Is it a requirement for spiritual communion? A mystery for the age.

Now One Voice is a fairly eclectic group musically, but in the short amount of time in which they put together this concert, I don’t feel they really played to their strengths – which are typically humor, and exotic musical compositions. The humor pieces they did (I Do – a riff on marriage, and Bittersweet Tango, a riff on chocolate) are ones they’ve done for three seasons now...so I’m tired of them.

Further, they didn’t really find anything unusual – in the past they’ve done some amazing diverse work – a brilliant choral work in Mongolian, a composition employing overtone singing, some very nifty and challenging folk works from all over the world. They’ve even performed a piece entirely in ASL, interpreted for the hearing audience. This show, unfortunately, was heavy on anthems, all performed in English, and frankly, yawn.

Somehow, though, it all came together the next morning, in New Ulm – where One Voice performed for a UCC church service. New Ulm is not a big town, is not cosmopolitan by any stretch, and is about as representative of southern Minnesota as a town founded by Germans, dominated by Lutherans, and home of a brewery (Schell’s) can be. Aside from the giant statue of Hermann up on the hill.

Anyway, I’ve heard One Voice perform “I Come From Good People” about 30 times by now. I’ve heard other choruses perform it at least another dozen times. OVMC first performed it about eight years ago, and just brought it back for tour. It is, without a doubt, a simple, beautiful, and moving piece, some of Robert Seeley’s and Philip Littel's best work. But I’ve heard it. Many times. Hell, I’d already heard it four times that weekend.

Were the soloists that much better this time? Was the space that much more resonant? Or did the phrase “my family are neighbors, and my neighbors are my family” just hit us all with such a force of truth about what we can be to others if we try? Why, when my friends sang it in New Ulm, were tears rolling down my face (and many others) and the pews shaking with barely suppressed emotion?

There’s just a very cool thing that happens when the right performance of the right music for the right crowd goes just so incredibly right that the magic I was blathering about back a million paragraphs or so sweeps down and converts everyone in the room into one big thing. Something bigger than differences and prejudice. Something bigger than fatigue and cynicism. Something that doesn’t have a name. Maybe it’s God. Or maybe that’s just another name for an even larger mystery.