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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (April 1, 1985)
The Eastern Trail by Lee Lynch I left O re g o n to visit family in Boston and went on to read, in the last few nights of my trip, at three different stops. O n m y way to the first reading I visited Rhea Hirschm an of Golden Thread Book sellers in New Haven, Connecticut She hadn't expected me. but plunged into our visit as if starved for lesbian culture. While Valentine, the fluffy white cat from the attached used clothing store, showed off, Rhea escorted m e through her current passions in lesbian literature. Carolyn Vance's Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality. Powers o f Desire: The Politics o f Sexuality edited by Snitow, et al, the erotic poetry of O lga Broum as, Ruth Geller's lesbian novel by Camerin Grae and others. Triangles. Paz T H E AMAZON TRAIL She also went on about the talk Deb Edel and Jo a n Nestle, of the Lesbian History Archives, did in the class she taught at Yale: lesbian sexuality, butch-fem m e roles, our history. Rhea said it was a powerful discussion which blew away the young, newly gay students who. after it had all sunk in. came back to her with gratitude and new visions of themselves. My next stop was the Bloodroot Feminist- Vegetarian Restaurant and Bookstore in Bridgeport. Connecticut. I was accompanied by a transplanted Eugene resident. The Bloodroot Collective was warm and welcom ing, feeding me from recipes out of and their delicious recipe books,* before I read. Th e audience was a mix of brand new dykes, political dykes and a few old gays, but they all seemed pleased and excited by a reading from m y new novel, which is the story of an old gay stone butch in Greenwich Village in the 1960s. Th e collective, in thanks, pressed upon m e a copy of Andrea Freud Loenstein’s a highly readable, exciting new novel. Th e n on to New York City where I briefly visited W om anbooks in uptown Manhattan. T h e salesperson was Lucy who once operated La Papaya, a woman's restaurant in Brooklyn, N .Y She gave me a message to deliver at m y next stop on the Trail, Pandora Bookpeddlers in Englewood, New Jersey. I delivered it to Vivian Shineman, a straight woman who was m ore interested and supportive of our culture than m any dykes are. Her group wanted to talk about lesbian publishing and writing. There are a lot of dykes writing out there, building and building lesbian culture til no one will ever be able to hide us again. Vivian graciously drove me back on the controversial and rutted Westside Highway and I treated myself to dinner in a West C o ¿t style natural food restaurant where I planted Political Palate Political Palate, ler.* The The Second Seasonal The Swashbuck Place, This myself across from two apparently former lovers. They spent their meal catching up on activities of nieces and nephews and old col lege friends. I spent the night at Th e Lesbian Herstory Archives where I ran into Felice Newman sleeping on the couch. She’s a publisher of Cleis Press and was in town to sell books at the W om en in Psychology Conference. Later, Madeline Davis and Liz Kennedy of the Buf falo Oral History Project arrived. We talked into the night with Deb Edel of the Archives about break-ups and non-m onogam y. That seems to be a national topic. T h e next morning was International W o m a n ’s Day and before I left we celebrated. Jan, a PhD candidate at Columbia who is writing her thesis on a 16th century French wom an poet sang a Cajun-style lesbian song. She's from New Orleans. Then Madeline sang two of songs, one about the Stonewall riots and the roots of gay liberation, the other her "addict song" about being addicted to falling in love with women who are addicts. Leaving the Archives is always difficult as, unlike any other place on earth, it’s for and filled with lesbian sculpture, paintings, photo graphs, clothes, manuscripts, books and on and on. But I did manage to leave, braving the N YC transportation system to stay for the night with m y first lover, Sue Kenler and her 12 year old daughter Kris, on Long Island in New York. That evening while Kris took her cab bage patch doll Maryellen next door to the sitter’s, Susan took me to Alternative Comers, a lesbian book and t-shirt shop in West Hempstead. Th e theme of the night was again our history. Three of us had com e out in 1960 and another in 1942. Everyone else was post-1970. Susan grum bled that the her us younger wom en didn't appreciate what we'd gone through, pointing out that one reason so few old gays appeared at lesbian funtions was that many had killed themselves because they couldn't take "the life." Others, of course, went straight for the same reason, and still others are too painfully closeted to be seen in a gay bookstore. But we also discussed the exciting contributions of the newer "genera tion.” These are the lesbians whose relative freedom produces the energy to do the work so m any of them have begun: on lesbian alcoholism, for example, or lesbian geriatrics. Their O ld Dyke Homes may well provide shelter for us all. Shelly Glick, whom I had never met in O re gon, was there. W hen we repaired to the local lesbian bar, which serves non-alcoholic beverages and coffee, she showed me some photographs that appeared in a Southern Oregon feminist photography magazine* She was part of the photography Ovulars held at Rootworks in Sunny Valley though she's a native New Yorker. But Shelly is jum ping back on the Amazon Trail to move to Florida. And I, the next m orn ing, said goodbyes to our Eastern Branch and write this now, across the aisle of a D C - 10 from two handsome dykes who won't meet m y eye, on the great Amazon Trail in the sky. G oing home. Blatant Image, *Political Palate, etc. available from Blood root, 85 Ferris S t, Bridgeport, C T 06605, $10.95 plus $1.00 postage. available from A W o m a n’s Place Bookstore, 2349 S E Ankeny, or Naiad Press, PO Box 10543, Tallahassee, F L 32302. available from 2000 King Mountain Trail, Sunny Valley, O R 97497. *The Swashbuckler, *Blatant Image, THE HEW BLOOD TEST FOR AIDS ANTIBODY IS NOT A TEST FOR AIDS T h e physicians of the O regon A ID S Task Force would advise you to think twice about requesting the AIDS antibody test from your doctor or the health depart ment. T h e test is meant to screen blood donors not to diagnose or predict A ID S in an individual. While we would all like to predict the risk of A ID S or exposure to A ID S by means of a quick blood test, this current test simply will not provide this information. We would like to warn you that: • T h e test is not diagnostic for A ID S or AIDS related diseases. • T h e test will not determine if you are healthy. • T h e test will not determine if you have AIDS. • T h e test will not determine if you are a carrier of AIDS. • T h e test will not determine whether you are likely to give A ID S to som eone else. • If you have a positive test, you m ay experience co n siderable anxiety from not knowing what it means for your health status. • If you have a negative test, it m ay falsely reassure you that you have not been exposed to AIDS. Take our advice. Don’t take the blood test for AIDS. A message from the physicians o f the Oregon AIDS Task Force. ____________________ « Family Business Traffic Workers Comp. Divorce Custody Support Modification Visitations Gay Coiffe Agreements & Breakups Contracts Licensing Admin. Hearings Partnerships Corporations Smal Businesses Tickets Suspensions Accidents D a rk Driving Hearings Appeals Preparation Other was Banknote y Property Medical Consents Ben Merrill 295-2456 408 SW Second , Suite 519 Downtown Portland 97204 Just Out, April 1985