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Holly Pruett (right) connects with old friend Beth Grace in the lesbian capital
OFFICE (503) 281-4040
ike many queer folk, 1 fled my hometown
years ago. It wasn’t homophobia that
fueled my 3,000-m ile displacement. (A t
age 17 I was still rampantly heterosexual.)
1 was following a family habit of rootless
ness. My mothers parents, Italian immigrants,
used the excuses of class (they were profession
als) and religion (they were Protestant) to shun
any association with the Italian American
community. My father grew up poor in the
South. A n athletic scholarship
turned him into a Harvard man.
He remained a Yankee until his
midlife crisis, when he divorced my
mother and moved 6,000 miles to
Hawaii. I had just turned 12.
Growing up in New Haven,
Conn., our nearest relatives were
two hours away; most required a
full day’s drive or an airplane ride
to visit. Soon after I moved to O re
gon, my mother and sister left C on
necticut too. There really wasn’t
anything to draw me back there.
Certainly not my high school
reunions. I graduated from Hopkins
Grammar Day Prospect Hill
School. If the name isn’t enough to
pump blue blood through your
veins, try the date it was founded:
1660.
This was not the place, nor the
time (the late 1970s) for my queer
classmates to run around outside
the closet. So after I came out in
the mid-’80s, I thumbed through
the old yearbook, wondering who
else had switched from maroon
(the school color) to lavender.
Prime Suspect Number One was
Beth Grace, a popular tomboy
who’d gone on to Smith College.
My hunch was confirmed when the
media “discovered” lesbians in
1992.
There she was, in the grocery
store check out line. O n the cover
of the National Enquirer. Exhibit A in their
portrayal of Northampton, Mass, as the lesbian
capital o f North America.
Not long after, I got a letter from Beth. She
had a confession to make. In 1990, she’d
attended our 10-year reunion. Not only did she
stay firmly in her high school closet, she stayed
silent when our classmates derided me for com
ing out in the reunion survey.
I wrote her back a sympathetic letter. The
way I saw it, she had more at stake than I did.
These people had been her friends, and she still
lived in a nearby community. I had moved
3,000 miles away from that world.
L
But now, on my approach back to New
England, I became curious about some of the
people who had populated my long-ago life. At
my sister’s house in upstate New York, I bor
rowed her alumni directory and immediately
saw that things had changed dramatically for
Beth.
She practically had neon rainbow stripes
around her alumni listing. W hat was my first
clue? Her hyphenated last name? Her spouse,
Karen? Or the business she owns in Northamp
ton called Pride & Joy (“A Mom and Mom
Operation”)?
We stopped by her shop on the way to New
Haven. It was as crammed full of queer politi
cal and cultural paraphernalia as Beth’s life is
with family, friends and troublemaking. She
filled us in on the heartbreak of life as a baby
dyke at Hopkins; her many foster kids, two of
whom she’s now adopted; and the homo
phobe’s lawn signs she’d like to pull up— but
won’t, since she’s a model mom, as illustrated
by several book and magazine articles she dug
out to show us.
I wish I could say that I marched down to
our old campus, as Beth urged, and demanded
to know what support they now offer to queer
students. Amber and I did haul Betty up the
hill to visit Hopkins. I took quiet note of the
multicultural student union housed in what
had been the headmaster’s office in my time.
But I spoke to no one. Twenty years of absence
and that old habit of rootlessness were too
much to overcome.
Yet, in spite of the gulf of time and distance,
I felt oddly at home during this past month in
New England and New York. Not connected
to community, as I am in Portland, but con
nected to the place.
The things found only on East Coast beach
es: horseshoe crabs and sea glass. The moun
tains, rocky and rugged despite their short
stature. The names: Sleeping Giant, Ham-
monasset Beach, the Quinnipiac River.
It’s not that I’ve actually missed these
things. But, in returning, I know they are
somehow a part of me.
Betty treated us to the best the Northeast
has to offer: the Berkshires, Boston and Cape
Q x l; Maine’s “other” Portland and Acadia
National Park; the W hite Mountains of New
Hampshire; and, of course, the Big Apple.
(Betty waited patiently in the suburbs during
our visit to the latter.)
For all these splendors, perhaps the greatest
highlight is my own personal archaeology—
becoming more at home in my own history.
■ While on the road, H olly PRUETT is accepting
travel tips via e-mail. Send your pointers and warm
wishes to hjpruett@aol .com.
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