Monday, December 31, 2012

The Ferrer-Robertson's. Dedicated Educators.

In the mid 1970s, I was a student at the University of South Florida, and in late 1975, I had finally made peace with my attractions to men.  Looking around, I realized that there were only two ways to "be" gay, either living in terror of who would find out and what they will do in response, or taking the high road and being what we now call "out and proud."  


After a lifetime of abuse and neglect, constant rumors and other forms of harassment for just being "me" I knew that any form of hiding was futile, so I took the high road and came out in empowerment and strength.  My relationship with God helped.  Christians are by nature delusional.  It is central to the religion, and the experience of knowing Christ.  My baptism vows demanded that I live a life of integrity and passion for justice, I didn't see any exceptions to that for being "queer" in the Episcopal Prayer Book.



USF Student I.D. 1977

I quickly got involved with the Gay & Lesbian coalition at USF, and there I met Martha, or "Martica" as her family called her.  Martha was Cuban American, her story echoed the thousands of Cuban refugees from Castro who now called Florida "home."  One exception was that her mother, also Martha, had lived with her best friend and Martha's God mother for over twenty years.  Carmen was what any of us would call a dyke.  She had broad shoulders, a large and powerful body for a woman, she loved sports, had a deep voice, smoked cigars and was full of life.  Martha's mother thought their relationship was a secret, which was laughable, except that when Martica told her mother she was a Lesbian, she freaked out.  Such was the level of her own internalized homophobia. 


Martha and Carmen had reared Martha's three children in South Miami Heights, a working class enclave, then at the edge of the constantly sprawling greater Miami.  They got up at 4 AM, were at work 35 miles away by 7, and were elated that "Little Martha" was in college on a full scholarship.  


Martha wanted to go see her family, but her Toyota had been in a minor accident and the frame was bent, so she asked me if I would drive her to Miami for Labor Day weekend of 1976.  I had a new to me car, a Renault 16 that was begging for a road trip, so off we went.


A Renault 16 like mine, which was this color as well.  One of the best "road cars" ever made.

Our first stop in Miami was her long time mentor, Piedad Ferrer Robertson.  Piedad had been Martha's English instructor at Miami Dade South Campus.  Their friendship started when Martha in Spanish told a group of friends that "Mrs. Robertson" and her class were B.S., "something they make Cubans take because they don't like us."  Piedad did not reveal her Cuban lineage to her students, not wanting the Cuban ones to think they had an advantage.  She had learned English as a child, had a slight British accent, so her students presumed she was from the UK.

So as Martha dug the hole deeper and deeper in the back of the classroom, Mrs. Robertson while exiting, stopped, looked Martha directly in the eye, and said (in perfect Spanish) "I find your comments about me and this class quite interesting.  Please stop by my office so we can discuss them sometime."


Once Martha had collected herself off the floor, a friendship began, as well as a deep admiration once Martha found out who this mysterious woman was.



"Martica"  1976

But that weekend, we strolled into the sprawling home, and after a fleeting introduction, a car horn honked outside, and Martha said, "Oh, my ride is here, all of you have fun, I'll be back later."  "Later" turned out to be two days later, and I was left to fend for myself with Piedad, Bud (her husband), children Tati, Augustine, Billy and youngest daughter Dee Dee.  In addition, Bud's mother "Ghia" lived in what had been the maid's quarters off the kitchen.  To fill out the mix, there were three Bassett hounds, cats, ducks and an occasional snapping turtle living on the property.  



Piedad and "Bud" (William Leonard Robertson)

The property itself was delightfully "Old Miami", an acre and half, planted in mango trees and other tropical plants, ficus trees and bananas.  The house itself had been built for a former central american dictator in exhile.  It was one floor, situated at an angle to catch the breeze off of Biscayne Bay.  The living/dining room was paneled in wood, in the same square as the kitchen, all of which had twelve foot high ceilings and awning style windows.  A long hallway led to the master bedroom.  along the forty foot long hallway, bedrooms were on the south side, two bathrooms, two closets and a reading alcove were on the north side, all designed to let breezes blow through easily.    The central air-conditioning units had "died' early on after moving in, and there was scarce money to repair them, even scarcer money to run them, so Ghia had a wall air conditioner, and Bud and Piedad had a window unit where one of the awning windows had once been.  On the many hot nights, all of the children grabbed sleeping bags and pillows from their bedrooms and fled to either end of the house.  Some of my favorite images of the Robertson's family life were going into the bedroom late at night, or early in the morning and seeing parents on the king sized bed, with a dog or two, surrounded by at least four children (often others were spending the night as guests) and a couple more dogs, and a few cats, all spread out on the floor around the bed.  


In Family Systems Therapy, we delineate how families see themselves.  Northern European families (Germans, English, French, etc.) tend to view "family" in terms of the nuclear family.  Most of the rest of the world does not.  Most cultures, most notably Southern Europeans (Spanish, Italian, Greek, etc.) as well as Middle Eastern view "family" in terms of extended family. 


For me, coming from a family that is basically a collection of "lone wolves", bastards, and orphans, I thought I had died and gone to heaven.  I took to this world immediately, and felt very blessed to be a part of it.  I not only survived the weekend, but thrived in it.
For the next two years, I took all of my school breaks in Miami, splitting my time between the Landaus (Jewish friends whose father was a Rabbi) and the Robertsons.  I was handy with tools, they weren't, so I brought my toolbox and did minor repairs in both houses.  Some of my favorite moments in my entire life were spent in Piedad's kitchen, helping her cook, talking about life and the negotiation of at times tricky human landscape.   The Ferrer's had been at the center of Cuban society.  Piedad's father Horacio was an internationally renowned ophthalmologist and signator of the 1940 Cuban constitution.   Her older sister, Olga Ferrer, M.D. had carried on that tradition and also lived in Miami.


Piedad herself is a person who is defined by miracles.  I was told by someone a story that Piedad was a late in life baby, conceived two years after her mother had gone through menopause, and a neighbor prophesied the birth from a vision in a dream.  She  has this quality about her, she sort of "floats" above the ground, surrounded by a very bright light.  


The women of the family all seem to have this magic about them.  It is indescribable, but quite tangible.  I also met her sister Bertha and we were very close.  Bertha was an MSW in Connecticut who came for winter visits.  She told me a story about how she escaped Castro.  In her 20s, she was engaged to a young man, the marriage plans had been made, when a mysterious and painful cough beset her and would not go away.  Her doctor delivered a chilling diagnosis, Tuberculosis.  In the early 1950s, the only treatment, going to a "sanitarium" in the United States for six months or longer.  In response to her protests about her impending "society" wedding, which included a sit down dinner for 1,000, the doctor was clear, "You can do whatever you want to do, but if you don't go for treatment now, you'll be dead in three months."



Bertha Ferrer, "The General"  1976

Bertha hauled herself home, to her deeply spiritual mother.  "You only have two choices my daughter.  You can see this as an imposition on your life, or you can see it as an opportunity to grow closer to God. "   Without much enthusiasm, she canceled the wedding and went to the sanitarium.  She responded to treatment quickly, and near the end of it, heard that her dashing groom had eloped with the woman he was actually having sex with while engaged to Bertha.  "So he was a gold digger?" she posed to God in her prayers, "Why did I have to go through all this to find that out?"  No answer came, at least not right away.


She returned to Cuba and went on with her life, Batista fell and Castro came into power.  Bertha, whose family nickname was "The General" was not a fan of the impending communism that was flooding into the country.   As usual, she had no discretion about proclaiming her concerns and disappointment with a man she had known since they were children, who had promised free elections and a restoration of the constitution her father had signed.  Friends advised her, "Bertha, you'd better leave Cuba" and her response was, "I've known Fidel since we were in kindergarten."
Those connections didn't help, and soon she found herself in jail, held on political charges.  In her prayers she asked God for help, "I got myself into this mess, can you please help me get out of it?"  The answer came in the morning.  A chill went through the jail and her body, she coughed, and the "light bulb" went off in her head.  She called the jailer, "Get me something for my cough" she asked.  "It's nothing serious, I just need some cough syrup."  All the while mimicking the tuberculosis she had once had, telling the doctor of pains and symptoms that had come and gone a decade earlier, while saying, "It's nothing serious."  The doctor thinking she had tuberculosis, and remember she was still a beloved person for many in the country, ordered her into a hospital, under guard, which was quietly "bought off" so that her escape to an embassy for political asylum could be arranged.  


Piedad herself had testified on behalf of Huber Matos (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huber_Matos), one of Fidel's supporters who had decided to leave the revolution when it turned communist.  All of those who came to testify on his behalf were arrested shortly after.  So, this woman who had also given her early life to the cause of "freedom" found herself delivering her first child with a group of soldiers in the waiting room to arrest her as soon as she was finished.  The doctors got a nurse to continue screaming as if in labor, while Piedad was smuggled to an embassy.   Her child had to stay behind, no papers, no birth certificate, and other complications.  So the baby was smuggled from relative to relative, at one point, the soldiers arrived to search Olga's house.  Quickly Olga put Tati on top of a bag of garbage, told her to be quiet, put more trash on top, and met them at the door.  "I was just taking this garbage out, go on in" she said.  One of many close calls, many stories of how brave people thwarted the dictator during those early dark days.


Piedad and Tati got to Miami, spending their first months living in a one bedroom house in "LIttle Havana" with 35 other people, sleeping in shifts.  They could not work legally as officially we were still "friends" with Cuba, so they were in the U.S. on Tourist Visas.  Every day the women went to the fishing expedition docks and waited.  The tourists would return with the fish they caught, pose for a photo to take back home, and then toss the fish (which did not travel well back to the north).  The women cleaned out the dumpster and returned home with dinner. 

 
Piedad went to her first job interview in a borrowed dress, borrowed heels, and 25 cents for the bus, one way.  First told that her immigration papers were not in order, she spent half the day getting them resolved.  When she returned, she was told, "Sorry, we've filled all the positions."  After a good cry in the restroom, some fresh make up, she returned and asked for a minute with the man who was directing the program.  A minute turned into an hour, as she charmed him, and convinced him that she knew all about the testing instrument they would be using.  With her perfect English and obvious self assurance, he hired her to run the whole project.   She stepped out into the night air (the sun had gone down) and realized she had no way home, and no one to call for a ride.  While walking the three miles back to the house, she found herself on a drawbridge when the bell went off.  A heel stuck in the grate, she had to flee, upon returning the borrowed shoe was gone, so she walked home barefoot.  


But that job launched her career, one which has been fraught with controversy, accomplishment and accolades as a world class educator, insisting that students will rise to standards if they are set, and the importance of setting them.

More about Piedad F. Robertson can be found by doing a "Google" search.


A brief Biography was published by the New York Times:  http://www.nytimes.com/ref/college/faculty/coll_pres_robertsonbio.html


I moved to Miami in 1978, and the week I arrived, a new building was being dedicated at Miami Dade South.  The college had a week of events to honor the board member the building was named for, and Piedad planned a reception on her beautiful lawn, among the mangos and orchids that her husband Bud loved growing.  I went over to help her with the preparations.  Since it was humid and hot off the charts, the event would be held outside on the lawn.  

Wicker chairs and tables, pink table clothes, a bar and bar tender were all being set up.  A very cloudy sky, dripping with moisture, offered threat of rain.  I asked her, "What are you going to do if it rains?"  Her response, "I'm an old catholic.  God and I worked it out years ago, I do the best I can and he takes care of the rest.  It's not going to rain."  We finished and I returned to the Landau's home about a half hour before the party was to begin at 6PM.  



Piedad in her kitchen in Miami  1976

At exactly 6PM, the heavens opened up and buckets of water fell from the sky.  I turned on the TV which had a special "weather alert" describing massive squalls going across south Florida, localized flooding, lightening, etc.  I thought, "Poor Piedad, all that planning, I hope it wasn't too awful."


A couple of days later I went to see her and asked her about the party, "It was fine, we had a great time."  I queried, "Didn't you have to drag everything in when it rained?"   She looked at me very puzzled, "What rain?  It "spit" a couple of times, but it never rained."   I said, "Piedad, it poured all over south Florida that night, I saw it on radar on TV, they issued an alert, everything."  Her puzzled look softened a bit, "Well, now that you mention it, a couple of guests, who came from different directions, DID mention that it was pouring rain until they got about a half mile from my house."   We both looked up, she winked that little girl wink that so charms all of us, and that was it.


About a week later, my Master's degree arrived in the mail.  I was using their address until I settled in.  I opened the envelope and gazed at the paper which represented so much.  I had been paddled at school and beaten at home for poor academic performance, had failed the tenth grade, was told I would never get into college, much less graduate.  My father had refused to fund my endeavors after the first two years, so I had lived as a pauper for four years, and had nightmares of them taking it away on some technicality, enduring all to get this small piece of paper.  I let out a classic "Rebel Yell" to exclaim my personal victory.  Piedad emerged to see what was the disturbance in her kitchen.  I waved the diploma, "It's official, I got it."


She looked at me, with deep affection and said, "What's the big deal, God gave you intelligence and good health.  You've simply done what you were supposed to do."  It was in that moment that my world view began to change away from feeling "victim" to understanding the mind set of people who accomplish things, no matter what.  For all my struggles, that simple comment has propelled me far beyond any expectations my small town beginnings had offered.


Husband Bud, and wife Piedad both had challenging first marriages.  Both first spouses were at best incapable of much beyond flaming narcissism.  They met because one night after work at Lindsey Hopkins Education center, Bud's motorcycle wouldn't start.  She offered him a ride home, and they have been together ever since.  Piedad had two children, Bud had one, and they both had Dee Dee.  Later they adopted Piedad's X husband's daughter Michelle.   


    
Michelle, Dee Dee, Piedad and Virginia (niece) in the Santa Monica Kitchen, Thanksgiving 2011

I have an equally deep friendship with Bud, whose wit and insights are always delightful.  Bud is truly the "wind beneath" Piedad's wings.  And she is the delight of his life.  Bud and I spent many hours fixing lawn mowers, changing the oil in the old Mercedes, installing a new cooktop after his mother broke the old one, and he mixes a mean bourbon and water.



With my mother Edna in 2002, for her 90th birthday

They followed me to California, but after two decades here, they returned to Miami last year, and I miss them beyond articulation.   They have been very busy settling into their new home in Miami, Bud is almost 90, and his hearing is such that he can't talk on the phone much anymore.
But I have been very blessed to have been an honorary Ferrer for all these years, a part of such a warm and loving family.

"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched, they must be felt with the heart."  "Life is either a daring adventure or nothing."~ Helen Keller






Sallie Maranda (Guthrie, Knox) Fiske (Mc Conelly). Pioneering woman journalist, Activist, Writer

Sallie Maranda Fiske.  



Sallie in 1984


After I had sort of settled into my life in California, in early 1984, I decided to get involved with the Democratic Party, so I went to a meeting of Stonewall Democratic Club.   That meeting was at the Frog Pond restaurant, which was owned by a community activist, Bob White.  The Frog pond was on Hyperion Avenue in the Silverlake section of Los Angeles, at Lyric Ave.  There is a theater there now.

Sallie was working the table at the door, signing up members and welcoming guests.  Our eyes met and it was love at first sight.  Not romantic love, but a deep sense of "knowing" a kindred spirit, a fellow sojourner on the road of life.  Her melodious voice, quick wit and humor reeled me in, and we remained friends until she died.

It was an exciting time to be in the Gay community in Los Angeles.  Things were happening, we actually had some political clout, California was the only place in the country where "Gay Rights" was not a losing issue in the numerous ballot initiatives that were taking away our liberties in every other part of the country.  

But the most important thing that was happening was the creation of the City of West Hollywood.  "WeHo" as it's now called, was a 1.9 sq. mile enclave between Hollywood and Beverly Hills that had escaped annexation by the City of Los Angeles in the 1920s.  At the time, most of it was owned by a few families who were involved in agriculture.  It's hard to imagine bean fields on the site of Cedars-Sinai hospital, the Beverly Center, and even the Sunset Strip, but that was the case.   In the 50s and 60s, the area got built up with apartment buildings, so over 85% of the city's residents were (and still are) renters.  A very loose county rent control ordinance was set to expire at the end of 1984, so locals had organized to incorporate the area into a city which would then be able to enact it's own rent control ordinances.  

Because the Los Angeles Police Department did not patrol West Hollywood,  many Gay bars and businesses had sprung up, and a large presence of gay men lived in the area.  So the prospect of "city hood" also meant the prospect of Gay self determination for the first time in the history of the world.  Those of you familiar with the town of Eatonville in central Florida might understand this.  For us, it was a BIG deal, and Stonewall was front and center in the effort, including running it's own candidate, the lovely and vivacious Valerie Terrigno (pronounced "Torino") for city council.

I had taken an apartment in West Hollywood at 946 N. Curson.  With a comfortable living room, and my bountiful Southern hospitality, my apartment soon became abuzz with Stonewall steering committee meetings, other political planning, etc.   At the dawn of the AIDS epidemic, then state senator David Roberti would introduce ground breaking legislation regarding anonymity at HIV test sites, and other laws to protect the privacy of persons regarding HIV.  Most of that legislation was drafted in my living room with the Stonewall steering committee and Sen. Roberti's deputy to the GLBTQ community, Richard Lavoie (deceased).



Richard & Valerie 1984


Cityhood came, Valerie was elected and then elected mayor by her peers.  Within four months, her enemies in our (GLBTQ) community tipped off a scandal regarding misappropriated funds.  Valerie went down in flames, taking her then partner, Sallie, down with her.



1985


Sallie had opened a weekly paper in the city, The West Hollywood Paper, which was a critical and artistic success, but a business catastrophe.  Her business partner, who was supposed to handle the advertising and revenues, turned out to be incapable of doing either.  In order to get rid of him, she spent the rest of her capital to buy him out, then the Valerie thing happened, people abandoned the paper and Sallie in droves.  

Early on, I had caught Valerie in a significant lie, and distanced myself from her, and the Stonewall efforts to get her elected.  If someone asked, I told them why, otherwise, I kept my mouth shut, it was Valerie's candidacy, and there was enough cannibalism and misogyny to go around without me adding to it.  When the scandal broke, I quietly reminded the very people who had been singing her praises and now wanted to string her up, that she might be a very damaged person, but she was not malevolent, and that if she went down, we would go down with her.  

I discovered the reception that "the messenger" gets when folks pulled away from me because of my loyalty to Sallie. We "queer" people are very damaged by the rampant homophobia in society, and we use that damage to feed on each other.  When someone messes up, we jump on them very harshly and with little to no forgiveness.   When I was hired at "Aid for AIDS", one of the board members told me that when asked about me, long time activist Morris Kight said, "He seems okay, but he has questionable friends."   Later in my attempts to get a job in the GLBTQ community, I would find that my friendship with Sallie would be thrown up as a reason for caution.   At the end of 1985, while recovering from an auto accident, I became homeless.  An acquaintance at my church offered the loft in his photography studio downtown, but I had to be gone between 9 AM and 7 PM.  It was a warm bed, and I was glad to take it.

Sallie had been living in the Hollywood Tower on Franklin, but was one of the last tenants to be evicted before the renovation that restored it to it's former glory, and the current grand residence it is.  She had moved into Valerie's old apartment on Waring.  She called me up and said, "There's a bedroom in the back you can move into if you don't mind cleaning it out."  So I moved in with Sallie and we were housemates for almost two years.

Sallie lived in the world like that of most folks who grew up with wealth and servants, and who now had neither.  While she had exquisite taste, and a genuinely gifted "eye" for lovely things, she was completely unequipped to do basic house keeping.  So we lived in exquisite squalor.  Any cleaning that got done was done by me.  I once found her in kitchen, washing a dish under a tap running warm water, no detergent, no soap.  Her back problems made dusting or using a vacuum cleaner on the shag carpet impossible.  Again, I would do it when I couldn't' stand it anymore, but with my allergies, anything that stirred dust sent me into sneezing fits.  It was our own version of "Gray Gardens" and all we could do was laugh at our plight and make the best of it.  

Sallie's grandmother Knox, had come to California in the 1850s from Kentucky as a 12 year old, in an ox drawn wagon.  The family had sold out of Kentucky, knowing the civil war was coming.  They came to California, first northern CA, eventually settling in what is now Orange California.  The had an "orange ranch" and grew oranges and other produce and farm products.  Sallie grew up in rural Orange county, going to Catholic schools (she was not, but her parents believed they were better academically).


Grandparents on the ranch near Tustin & Chapman in Orange CA
early 1920s



Two views of the ranch house, long gone in the name of "progress."


Her father, Frank Fiske, was a journalist who wrote for the Hearst paper, The Los Angeles Herald Tribune.  Her mother was an actress who moved to Hollywood to seek her fortune.   In their youth, both living with roommates, they found a lovely park in which to rendezvous and "spark."  It was always late at night, very dimly lit, perfect for finding a bench and making out.  Imagine their laughter when one day, they drove by in the daylight and discovered it was "Hollywood Forever", before the wall around it had been built.  Their early courtship started in a cemetery.  



Early childhood photos

Sallie grew up fairly normally in Orange County.  She had a passion for journalism, selling her first story to the (then Santa Ana, now) Orange County Register at the age of 12.  Like most teenage girls, she had a fascination for boys, particularly the "Mexican" boys whose families worked on the ranch, and in the the community.  In her very formal white world, the Mexican servants represented warmth and genuine loving affection.  In much the same way that Black servants presented that love to upper class Southern Whites.  Sallie always felt at home, in fact more so at home, with Mexicans, than she ever felt with Whites.  

We made about two trips a year to Tijuana to buy her blood pressure medicine, as well as other pharmaceuticals and items.    I genuinely learned the depth of the "warmth of Mexico" from Sallie.  She had been going to "T.J." since she was a child, it was a remnant of her childhood, less changed than the paved over suburban landscape that had once been her parents beloved ranch.  She always hated coming back to the U.S.



On the pier at the Rosarito Beach Inn, mid 90s

my nephew Michael offering her a flower.

Sallie graduated Fullerton College and moved to Los Angeles in the late 40s to pursue her own career in journalism, and it was a stellar one.  She was one of the first women to work in television news, both on and off camera.  She was the producer for Baxter Ward, a famed news anchor in Los Angeles, who went on to become a successful politician.  She wrote, she produced and in the 1970s, had an afternoon talk show on KCOP, an independent TV station in LA.  Her show, sort of an "Oprah" without an audience, offered intelligent interviews for the daytime audience, a thought filled alternative to soap operas, that was quite successful.  http://articles.latimes.com/2004/mar/02/local/me-fiske2



Early 1950s, Sallie loved glamour


But her other life was that of a Lesbian, and she paid dearly for it.  She had married, and had a daughter, Deborah.  Her husband was also in news, and both of them were strong willed people.  At some point, she ended up in bed with another woman, and like most of us, experienced a flood of passions that she had never felt.  She moved herself and her young daughter out, and filed for a divorce.  When her husband realized what was going on, and ran into her one night at a restaurant, with a woman better looking than the one he was with, his emotions turned dark.  He told her that her lifestyle made her an unfit mother, and if she did not give Deborah up for adoption, he would "out" her to her job, and everyone else.  This was the very early 1950s, the beginning of the Mc Carthy era.  His threat might as well have been murder, so in great agony, she agreed.

After she died, a mutual friend Norman Stanley, told me that for years after the adoption, she would drive to the school where Deborah was enrolled, and sit in her car on the street next to the play ground, just so she could see her and watch her play, hoping and praying that she was okay, and longing for her.  Deborah moved to Paris, had a daughter, named her Sallie.  They saw each other in the 70s on a visit, but it was too painful to maintain the relationship.

High School 




At Fullerton College with Norman Stanley


Years later, in 1977, when Anita Bryant launched her "Save Our Children (from homosexuality)" campaign, Sallie could no longer remain silent.  She took an afternoon of her show to talk about the issue of attacking another group of people, passing exclusionary laws, like "Jim Crow" in the South, the interment of Japanese Americans in WWII, the passage of the anti gay and anti jewish laws in Nazi Germany, and how fundamentally wrong the initiative in Miami was.  She included a discussion about her own situation, being a Lesbian, having to surrender her child in the face of blackmail, all because of fear and hatred.   The response of her very "liberal" television station was to cancel her show of seven years, and fire her for unprofessional conduct (basically telling her own story on the air).  Sallie was never able to get a job anywhere in journalism for the rest of her life, and it "broke" her beyond description.  Like many of us who are "different", she battled with depression for he rest of her life.

At the collapse of her paper, having spent all of her inheritance trying to launch it, she retreated into a subsistence life, taking free lance work when she could get it, spending most of her days at home, close to her beloved typewriter.  But we occasionally got out to participate in demonstrations for causes that were important to her.



Sallie's sign read, "Honk if you've had one"


I would occasionally mention her name in activist circles and the response was universal, a long sigh, a compliment, and the conversation would move on.  Only Ivy Bottini would ask about her, and it was clear that Ivy had a deep affection for Sallie, as did many women.  Sallie however longed for what we call a "glamour dyke" or a "Lipstick Lesbian," a woman who was wired similarly to herself.  But in her depressed, isolated squalor, with poorly fitting teeth, she had given up on that dream too.

She lived with horrific phobias, driving without a license for twenty seven years because every time she went into the DMV to renew, she stopped breathing.  It is a type of fear that many "minority" people suffer with.  The world gradually, or not so gradually, becomes a mine field, and one lives with the panic of wondering when we will land on a social land mine and get another foot or leg blown off.  Many GLBTQ folks live with this, and it is why many people of color very rarely ever completely trust or reveal themselves to white people.

Sallie finally got her license, after being arrested for driving without one, and having her car confiscated.  The only way she could get it back was getting her license, which she had to do from scratch, including a birth certificate.  When she got the license, and her tiny Dodge Colt back, she showed me the license.  "Look at this photo, I look like Satan" she offered.  Her complexion was gray, even beyond the usual gray from years of smoking.  I realized later that the digital media had picked up something that our eyes had not, the seeds of her end.

But the safety she found in her isolation also became very suffocating.  I moved out after a couple of years.  As with anyone who got too close to her, she retreated into her fears of unworthiness and began isolating in her room when I was home.  But I continued to see her, at least once a week.  I had an RV and would drag her to the beach in it, I even took her to New Mexico to meet Margaret and "McKay"(Day Four of this series).

Sallie would often say, "You never give up do you?  You just keep going back for more, no matter what."  I would reply, "Yes, because the day I stop is the day I begin dying."  Her response would be to tell me that she was cursed, "All the women in my family live to be in their 90s."


I pushed technology onto her.  A self correcting IBM Selectric was as far as she wanted to go.  Finally, when my mother's dementia rendered her incapable of using her "WebTV", I gave it to Sallie.  As was her custom, she complained, protested and nay sayed.  As was my custom, I ignored her.  To her own surprise, she loved it, becoming proficient at both eMail and web surfing.  The internet was a journalists dream, the world at her fingertips on her television.  Even Sallie enjoyed this change, though she was loath to admit it.

We were talking about creating an online "paper" using her masthead and graphics from the West Hollywood Paper.  She was actually beginning to see that the end of "paper" was approaching.  She didn't like it, but she grudgingly realized it was happening.  We had decided that getting her a real computer, and creating a web presence, what we would now call a BLOG, would be a good project to undertake. 

I was working on getting her a real computer and I was able to arrange for her to buy a Chrysler convertible from a friend who was getting a smaller car with lighter doors.  Sallie loved convertibles, having only had two hard topped cars in her life.  She was driving the Dodge Colt, which she had grown to respect, but the magic of a convertible was always her passion.  When she picked up that Chrysler, the little girl grin came back

About six months later, she mentioned to me that she was seeing a doctor for treatment of "These cysts I've got on my body."  I asked her more about them and she diminished their importance.

Very soon, the "cysts" became larger and larger.  She became increasingly gray and thin, all the while insisting she was fine.  


Our last dinner together, she got down two bites, maybe three of a Monte Cristo sandwich.  She brushed back the corner of her blouse, and I saw a golf ball size tumor on her shoulder blade.  I realized she was writing the story of her passing, and that like the rest of her life, she didn't want any intrusions into how she wanted to leave this world.  The first part of the story was the avoidance of any conversation that might actually allude to it.  "The doctor can't seem to figure out what to do about the cysts" she reported.  It was clear that she was riddled with them internally and they were finally growing out of her skin.  I made a conscious decision to honor her story by not sharing what I knew, to maintain silence about her impending demise.  She abhorred sympathy, or any of the maudlin sort of behaviors we associate with death.  I respected that, and let her be.

My last visit with Sallie, shortly before she passed.

The week before she died, she asked me to bring her some "Slim Fast"  "The Ensure is too thick, I can't get it down."  So I brought a couple of cases, remembering her love of chocolate and strawberry, and disdain for vanilla anything.  She told me, "When I get better, I want you to help me rearrange some furniture."  I said sure.    A few days later her housemate Jack called me, he had gone into her room to check her and she was cold.  She had died at home in bed, and I was grateful that such a loving gentle soul had passed in the privacy of the world that she had surrounded herself with, her grandmother's beloved Spode china, the crystal glasses, silver flatware, her art pieces, all of which reflected a better time in her life.

She had died years earlier when she was shoved out of the life she so loved, being at the forefront of "breaking news," "watching the body turn cold" (as she would say).

Her body had finally caught up with the earlier quiet passage out of the mainstream of life, too soon, too painfully, all because her sense of integrity got the best of her, and she didn't have the fight in her to re-invent herself and stay in the game.

Sallie was not at all fearless.  She was in fact, a beautiful little girl, with child like wonderment for life, and that child got raped and pillaged by the hatred and prejudices of this world.  In my profession, one of the things we do is help people become their own loving and protective parent.  For many reasons I won't go into, Sallie was never able to do that, and suffered deeply for it.

But that vulnerability also enabled her to see into the future in ways that most people avoid because we are too invested in the status quo.  The first meeting Stonewall had after West Hollywood became a city was a forum to discuss the creation of "Domestic Partnerships" for GLBTQ people UNTIL we could get marriage equality.

In 1984, she understood that we would not be completely "free" until we could have our love blessed and ensconced by the same laws that straight people take for granted.  Destroying that barrier was for her, the core of our "rights" and she was the first person I know to publicly engage the question in an open forum.  It was from that forum that the impetus to enact current Domestic Partnership laws in the new city of West Hollywood, Los Angeles county, and other jurisdictions arose. 

One day we were having dinner at the French Quarter restaurant on the patio and one of the first Toyota Prius's went by.  She looked at me and said, "Do you realize that we are witnessing the end of the internal combustion engine?" 

Her intellect and achievements were celebrated by those who came to memorialize her.  Malcolm Boyd said it best of her writing and perspectives, "She was just so damn good."  

Her remains are in a mausoleum space, loving donated by Hollywood Forever, where her parents first started out, she is resting from her burdens.

Sallie was another of my friends who encouraged me to write.  That wish for me echoes in the chambers of my heart, and I hope that I am honoring her legacy and her wish.

Merry Christmas,  Ed





Margaret LeFranc, artist, philanthropist.

Margaret LeFranc, artist, philanthropist.


In 1983 I was living in Miami, working at the DUI program, and taking care of my God daughter "Nikki."  We were living in a rented house, a beautiful two story home in north east Miami, going to church at St. Stephen's Church in Coconut Grove.  The house we moved into had the unexpected surprise of her cousins living in a house directly behind ours, life was generally good.  I desperately hoped that I could buy the house, but (as they say in 12 Step programs, "God had other plans."

Suddenly, near the end of school, the house sold and we had to move out.  Fortunately, Nikki was finishing the school year, her father was established in the Army and stationed near Frankfurt Germany, so she went to live with him two days after we moved out.  I got a house sitting gig for the summer, things quickly fell into place for the moment.  

Then two friends moved to Los Angeles, and they asked me to drive with them in their UHaul truck.  Being everyone's favorite truck driver, and never having been west of Mobile Alabama, I jumped at the chance.  

The adventure was stupendous, and I realized that my next move was to Los Angeles.  Suddenly my heartache turned into a triumph, life was moving on and sweeping me along with it.  

But the hardest part was saying goodbye to friends in Miami, and the hardest of that group was Marti Kolker.

Martha Lynn Biernbaum-Kolker was a very interesting woman, a Lesbian, who had moved to Miami Beach in the 1940s from Iowa where her father had a very successful shoe business.  In Miami Beach, his attempts to invest in the shoe business failed, so he became a hotelier, at one point having more hotel rooms than Conrad Hilton, mostly small hotels on what is now called "South Beach."

Marti had a friend, neighbor, who she described as "an old closet case" named Margaret.  I had purchased a 1983 Renault Alliance, my 4th Renault, and Marti "hooked" Margaret by telling her that I too was a Renault fan.  Margaret had a cherished R-16 Renault hatchback sedan.  So, Margaret came by to drive my Alliance.  She enjoyed it, we talked, I went to work, that was it, at least I thought.  

But when Marti found out I was moving to LA, she insisted, "You have to stop in Santa Fe (New Mexico) and see Margaret."   I protested, I'd only met her once, she was 40+ years my senior, she seemed a bit formal.  Before I could say "No", Marti picked up her telephone and called Margaret, "Ed is moving to LA and I think he should stop and see you on the way."  She handed the phone to me and Margaret's beautiful voice said, "Why of course dear, you must stop and see me.  I'll enjoy your company, and I'll show you Santa Fe."

So it was settled, I said "Okay, thank you" and Marti gave me Margaret's contact information.  

A few weeks later, as I left Miami in my very packed Dodge with a trailer behind it, my last stop was at a very tearful Marti's house.  We exchanged our "Farewells", I insisting that I'd see her again soon, but it was in fact the last time I would see her.


The Dodge & trailer at a rest stop in New Mexico

But the highway called, as it always does for me, and soon I was headed first north to escape the peninsula, and then west into the sunsets, across America for my first time.  

I have to say, if you've never driven across America, you REALLY need to.  And don't do it in too much of a hurry.  Our country it too beautiful to limit seeing it from 35,000 feet.

I spent a night in the front seat of the Dodge (it was BIG) in a truck stop in Wichita Falls Texas, and then found I-40 at Amarillo Texas.  The trip into New Mexico was beautiful.  The colors change almost immediately upon entering New Mexico, which truly is "The Land of Enchantment."  Margaret's instructions had bee simple enough, "Get off at Cline's Corners and go north on 285.  When you get to the edge of town, stop and call me (1983, no cell phones or navigation) and I'll come get you.  You'll never find my house on your own."  

Well, my father was a Celestial Navigator, and I've gotten anywhere I ever wanted to go with a map, no compass.   So, armed with a map of Santa Fe I'd gotten from the New Mexico tourist welcome center, I drove myself right up to Margaret's house and pulled into the driveway.

She was impressed, and decided that perhaps I would not be the usual visitor.  I wasn't, and her formal nature soon melted into the charming little girl that defined her inner spirit.    Like so many of the people who have crossed my path, Margaret did not have a conventional life, nor did she see things simplistically.  Margaret was a VERY old soul, who communed with the animals, the rocks, the very earth.  To her, all of creation was a part of her, as she was a part of it.  Like me, she abhorred waste.  

The first thing she taught me was how to live in, and appreciate a desert.  Water is scarce in most deserts.  One does not let the tap run freely, each drop is too precious, potential life, wasted going down a drain into a sewer.  In the desert, one only irrigates plants that bear food.  The luxury of lawns is non existent.  


Margaret's home was a living piece of sculpture.  She lovingly described to me how it had come to pass.  She had lived with Alice Marriott, the famed ethnographer, who first knew and wrote "Maria, The Potter of San Ildefonso", a cherished masterpiece explaining the life of Pueblo Indians through the eye, ears and voice of a (now) internationally renowned artist.  She and Alice lived in Nambe, northeast of Santa Fe.  Their life together would later be chronicled in the book, "The Valley Below."  



Margaret had been a successful art dealer in New York, but the grime and cold had affected her health.  When a persistent lung infection refused to go away, her doctor told her, "leave New York, or you'll be dead in six months."  It was during WWII, she had met Alice only once years ago.  She called Alice, who said, "Come on out, we'll find something for you to do."  Margaret packed her own Dodge, a station wagon, and drove west to seek her fortune living with Alice in Nambe.

Margaret illustrated many of Alice's books.  A link about Alice Marriott and her books is below:

Her simple pen and ink drawings were perfect, and she and Alice enjoyed many years together.  When the "Maria" book hit the big time, she got a sufficient royalty check to buy some land on the edge of Santa Fe, and proceeded to build a house herself with the remaining funds.  

She told me about hiring men to make the adobe bricks out of the very land they leveled for the house.  The house had a concrete foundation, and concrete lentils over the doors and windows, everything else is adobe.  The outside she plastered with stucco over chicken wire.  The "Vegas" and "Latias" (the logs for beams and boards in between the logs, done in a "herringbone" style) she peeled and dried herself.  

Funds were running low, so instead of covering the wood with tarpaper, she went to Sears and collected large heavy cardboard boxes that appliances were shipped in.  She opened them up, and laid them across the roof beams and wood, and then built up the roof, first with dirt, then pumice to provide insulation, then more dirt, and finally roofing paper and hot mopped tar.  

She finished the walls with "Nambe Red" plaster, basically mud made from a specific earth found in Nambe.  The floor was flagstones, set over sand so they could be leveled and adjusted before being sealed with red dyed concrete.  She got a "Steel Kitchen" sink/cabinet some second hand furniture, including an Eames chair (who knew they would be valuable someday) and lived in the house for a week before her mother called her to come to Miami to help with her dying father.  She rented the house out, and didn't return for years.  

She did the same thing in Miami with an old house in Coconut Grove that had been condemned, and now in her old age, she spent winters and springs in Miami and summer and fall in Santa Fe.  She could never give up her yearly migrations, she loved each city too much to give either up completely.

Because Margaret had spent so many years with her hands in soil, and paint (she was a painter), and lived with and around Native Americans, she had a deep intuitive sense of "Earth" in the "Indian Way."   The Pueblo Indians in northern New Mexico have been able to maintain much of their way of life, having been occupied by the Spanish, who were more inclined to convert them to Catholicism and then put them to work.  

But the lack of water made any kind of farming for profit impossible, so the Spanish sort of left them alone.  While it was not paradise, it was also not the mass genocide and displacement that marked the areas settled by the English speaking settlers in the east.  

Margaret was adopted by a Pueblo family in Nambe.  Margaret took me to my first "dance", a Corn Dance at Tesque pueblo, one of the smaller pueblos north of Santa Fe.  The dances are significant in the life of the communities.  It is the Indians Eucharist.  The events are festive, the Indians prepare food and share it with all who come.  My own sense of the dance is that it is a "great thanksgiving" (Eucharist) that is done on behalf of all creation.  The dance becomes a mystical event.  Personally, I sit and cry.  The rhythms evoke quiet tears, and a gentle internal melting of my rigidities.   It is meditation set to ancient tones and rhythms, the very cosmos transforms in front of the witnesses and participants alike.  

And with predictable accuracy, within an hour, clouds form in a previously empty sky, and rain pours out of the heavens onto the thirsty ground, it is truly mind boggling.  

As we fled to a favorite cafe, The Roadrunner at Poaque, Margaret explained that she has seen rain fall from a cloudless sky many times.  

In all things, Margaret respected our mother the earth, and I learned much from her.  A biography of Margaret is here:  http://www.cla.purdue.edu/waaw/lefranc/index.html

As years went by, I would return to Santa Fe, for Thanksgiving and in the summer.  Our hours turned into days, and weeks, and it was like having an adult playmate, such was the time we spent, driving the local roads,Margaret sharing stories of the time a UFO had chased her on a lonely road late one night.  We spent hours talking about life.  She poured out wonderful stories, each filled with wisdom, insights, humor and her own bitter lessons, which she encouraged me to not repeat.

One favorite story to tell on Margaret happened one afternoon after lunch.  The phone rang and Margaret answered it.  Her side of the conversation went something like this, "Why hello Ceil.  Yes, how long has it been?  Thirty years?  Well, tell me Ceil, how are you?"  This was followed by a very long silence on our end, save for some whiney chatter erupting from the ear piece of the phone.  Suddenly Margaret came back to life, she exclaimed, "Look Ceil, I'm an old lady now, I turned 80 this year.  I don't have time to listen to people complain anymore, or tell me about how miserable they are.  So do me a favor Ceil, call me back when you've got some GOOD news, or something happy to tell me.  Otherwise, DON'T BOTHER !!"  She slammed the phone down on the hook, looked at me and exclaimed, "Thirty years and nothing has changed."

One friend (Phil Sheeley, deceased from AIDS) who went with me one summer described New Mexico as being filled with the spirits of deceased people, filling the area with a chorus of invisible voices in a giant mystical symphony.  

My own response to New Mexico is, it is as if the earth itself is singing.




































Ed and Phil sitting in front of Jose's cafe in Santa Fe.  circa 1990

Margaret loved animals, most notably cats.  They came to her for nurture and healing.  Her best friend, "Winter" had crawled onto the Miami property, mostly dead, a tattered shred of fur, barely alive.  She wouldn't let Margaret close to her for weeks, but the food and milk Margaret brought brought her back to life. Winter had been de-clawed, and then left defenseless in an attack was almost killed.  Once in Margaret's care she flourished, and remained Margaret's cherished companion for the rest of their lives.  She was the first person I knew who spoke of the cruelty of de-clawing a cat, and how terrible it was to do, leaving the animal defenseless.

Margaret was the first person who encouraged me to write.  I still have a recording of a message she left on my answering machine, "simply apply the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair, and DO it" she said.  


Margaret & Winter enjoy some afternoon sun in late November

In her final years, a companion joined Margaret, Sandra McKenzie, "McKay" remained faithful to her beloved Margaret, taking her life and paintings and creating the Margaret LeFranc Art Foundation to preserve and advance Margaret's body of work.  http://www.margaretlefranc.org

For many years, Margaret would do her traveling back and forth to Miami by airplane.  But once McKay came to live with her, she returned to driving back and forth.  It was just easier with a cat to transport, as well as luggage for two.  They bought a Ford Taurus station wagon for the drives, and for general travel around town.  Most of the time, McKay did the driving.  But Margaret had been a race car driver in her youth.  She loved open highway, and "burning up asphalt" (as we would say in Florida).  On one trip back to Santa Fe, well in her mid 80s, Margaret was at the wheel of the Ford, doing over 100 MPH, when a Texas State Trooper pulled her over.  She said it was worth the price of the ticket to see the look on the mans face when she rolled down the window, utter shock.  He said that though he clocked her at around 105 MPH, he was going to reduce the speed so he would not have to arrest her on the spot and take her in.  She thanked him, and drove away.  As soon as they were beyond "sight" she "put the hammer down" and continued into Santa Fe at 100 MPH, her favorite cruising speed.  She did comment that she was disappointed that the aerodynamics of the Taurus did not dampen the wind noise at 100 MPH.  Somehow she expected better.

A beautiful book that catalogs all of Margaret's work is at this link:  http://www.margaretlefranc.org/store.html

Though I had always had an appreciation for "Earth", knowing Margaret brought that awareness to a much deeper level.  She introduced me specifically to the depth of spirituality intuitively known by the first "Americans."  She also showed me a part of the west that is beyond breath taking.  It is genuinely magical, and can only be appreciated by going, and sitting and listening to the earth as it sings.  

I was blessed to know her, all because I couldn't say "No" to another friend, who knowing she would soon die, passed me on to Margaret as a last act of love.


Merry Christmas,  Ed




"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched, they must be felt with the heart."  



"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing."



~ Helen Keller