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Loading ...Neff: Bigger than the moonwalk
I remember the summer of 1969.
I was five years old and bound for kindergarten in the fall.
For my birthday in May of that year I received my first wooden Louisville Slugger bat and a Franklin baseball glove.By June I had suffered my first significant sports injury. I was catching a pickup game in the neighborhood and caught a split lip when the batter threw my first Louisville Slugger.
I remember well that event in the summer of 1969 because I drank milkshakes for two days.
And I remember gathering with my family to watch Apollo 11 landing on the moon, a live transmission from the moon to our television set.
My parents told me the moon landing would change the world, would change my life in ways I could not imagine.
I don’t remember anyone that summer mentioning Stonewall or that the riots outside that New York club would change the world, would change lives, would change my life in ways I could not imagine.
My parents probably saw a news report that Judy Garland had died, but they probably did not hear or read the short reports about the six nights of rioting. They were a long way from Greenwich Village and a current issue of The New York Times or Village Voice.
My parents, like many young Midwestern parents living on tomato soup and tuna casserole in their first suburban home, probably would not have quite grasped the meaning of the headline in the New York Daily News — “Homo nest raided. Queen bees are stinging mad.”
Stonewall took about 15 years or more to impact me and my family, but the event, with its long-lasting after-shocks, did influence my life in far more ways than Apollo 11’s landing on the moon.
When I came out, I came out into a community that, forged in Stonewall, had rioted and rebelled, protested and pushed, marched and rallied at capitols in most states and on the National Mall.
When I came out, I came out into a community that, following Stonewall, felt liberated and proclaimed pride. Think about Allen Ginsberg’s comment about the gay men he saw on Christopher Street after Stonewall — “They’ve lost that wounded look that fags all had 10 years ago.”
When I came out, I came out to friends and family aware and awakened by the modern movement that Stonewall spurred.
From Stonewall came gay power and from gay power came gay pride. And from gay pride the community learned to use its power, to build influence, to force change — social change, cultural change, political change.
Now, years after coming out, I realize the Stonewall riots even made possible my day-to-day domestic tranquility —though not yet equality — that my partner and I enjoy with our neighbors and co-workers.
Perhaps the most rebellious of readers might think this a sad comment, but I realize too that Stonewall helped pave the way for young gay Midwestern parents to start out like my parents — to be living happily in the summer of 2009 on tomato soup and tuna casserole and raising their 5-year-old daughter in their first suburban home.
My memories of 1969 are of baseball and new sneakers for school, learning to never talk to strangers and watching a goofy new show about “The Brady Bunch,” and finding my way to North Elementary School and thinking about walking on the moon.
My memories of 1969 are not of the Stonewall riots, or news of the riots, or talk of the riots. Years would pass before I would hear of Stonewall and even then I had to struggle to understand the concept of police harassment — because Stonewall had already forced some reform.
Stonewall is nowhere in my child’s memory of 1969, but Stonewall, that event that went unnoticed in the small Neff household that year, changed my life and the lives of so many others born then and born after.
Thank you, Stonewall generation.
And happy pride.
awww the ebd made me cry very touching
What a nice column. Thank you. In 1969 I was 18 and had just finished my freshman year in college where I had told a couple of people I was gay. I was working a summer job at an old hotel on the Maine coast. It was my first time outside the South so my eyes were just opening to the wider world. The summer was very eventful…the moonwalk, the Sharon Tate murders, Chappaquidic, the ragingViet Nam war, Woodstock. I read about them all every morning in the Boston Globe and the New York Times that were delivered to the hotel. I distinctly remember reading about Stonewall and feeling fear and excitement about my future.
We are all indebted to those who were there that night and to all those who were courageous before who set the stage for that night. My life for the past 40 years has been far more exciting than fearful thanks to them.
Thank you for writing Ramon.
My eyes didn’t glaze over.
Were you in the one where they used rubber/plastic bullets along with the tear gas to disperse everybody?
I was so young then, I just remember running with older guys pulling me by my arms to get me the hell out of there. I was big for my age and didn’t really know anybody very well, as I got to the city rarely.
I was 12 in ‘69.
For the life of me I can’t even remember what part of the neighborhood we were in.
I just remember chanting and singing and people sitting cross legged in the street and–wait, in the grass! It was near a park!
The cops were all around everybody. Then there was running and screaming and gunshots and, like I said, there were a few older guys that knew how young I was and they more or less carried me along the wave.
Next thing I really knew, I’d been shoved down a subway stair and told to get the hell home.
It was great. I hope that doesn’t sound awful, because it was awful, but the energy, the care everyone showed everyone even in the panic.
No one ran alone. The cops kept having to break people up to single out somebody to beat on…I remember that.
I remember being dragged along by a group and wondering/marveling at how everyone seemed to grab onto everyone else, trying to get everyone out of there.
I was at another one where they turned fire hoses on us. The plastic/rubber bullets missed, but I got caught in the shoulder by a hose and slammed up against a wall.
Again, next thing I knew, I was dragged down into the subway by a group of people.
That was it for me. I had to hide that my shoulder was hurt for weeks. Luckily, the attention my parents usually paid to me had nothing to do with my welfare, if you catch my drift.
Weinstein hall doesn’t ring a bell, but I remember being at NYU for something. No violence then, just a big group of people.
I wish I had been just a bit older but thank all those older guys/girls that pulled my butt out of the bad parts.
I’m so glad that you, Ramon, are alive and well in San Francisco and ain’t it great to still be here?
As we all know, the best revenge is living well.
Ciao
I was 18 when Stonewall happened and I remember going to the public library in Syracuse, NY and reading about it. I wasn’t out, but I knew I was gay and I remember being so happy. The following year I came out and there was a movement waiting for me. Syracuse University had the Gay Freedom League. We built coffee houses, went on speakers engagements at local colleges, and held dances at SU. It felt so good to be gay in those days. Stonewall was something waiting to happen and it swept the country. I moved to NYC a few years later where I have been ever since.
I love your comment Jonathan. The first thing that went through my mind was MJ’s moonwalk!
Even Seinfeld (The Pledge Drive, 1994 No 89, S6, E3) “referenced” Stonewall – by quoting “Before Stonewall about those dark ages when you couldn’t come out of the closet, lest you be persecuted because of your, you know”
http://www.google.com/custom?hl=en&cof=&sitesearch=www.seinfeldscripts.com&q=stonewall&btnG=Search
I missed Stonewall by hours; I went to a party in Flatbush where food and drink were guaranteed to be plentiful. I even remember having my palm read at that party.
But I do vividly remember all of the harassment that so many of us endured on the streets of the West Village; thats where I met Sylvia Rivera, sitting on one of the stoops of Christopher street. I can still remember what she was wearing that night; it was a turquoise chiffon pants-suit and low-heeled shoes. There were plenty of queens living by their wits on the street, and few were more familiar with the strong-arm tactics of the man than she. What struck me about Sylvia was her anger and her determination to stick it to the man, because as she said: What else can they do to me?
We were shoved from Sheridan Square to the Silver Dollar Café, and it was a daily occurrence. We knew what was going on: The mob controlled the bars and clubs; the police were on the take; there was no protection from the hitters who came into the neighborhood to gay-bash. We were caught in the middle. It was OK for people to come from el Barrio, Harlem, Bed-Stuy, etc., and stand on the sidewalk outside the Womens House of Detention, and shout out the names of their incarcerated pals, but the cops would not leave us alone, and we didnt have the clout with them that the mob-owned clubs did, so we were the easy target.
You had to even be street-smart to walk the gauntlet home. I lived in a top floor crash pad on East 7th, between C&D – East Village to those of you who arent familiar with the area. We had to walk thru the straight park of 8th Street, across to St. Marks Place, past Thompson Square Park – where anything and everything could happen, all the way to Avenue D. Our ceiling came down on us once – too many junkies at one time up there. We kept peace with them by handing out old spoons and matches as they wound their way to the roof. It was better than risking a falling out with them.
I was with the group who held a sit-in at NYUs Weinstein Hall.
I guess my disappoint is that 40 years ago we felt the change in the air, and I thought that disparate groups were forming alliances that would benefit us through solidarity. The truth is that they threw us under the bus when they felt their cause had more merit than ours.
I was later one of the 162 who got hauled off to jail in the infamous Snakepit Raid, a night, rather a dawn that saw one of us get impaled on six fourteen inch spikes. I stood there and watch the entire process of cutting those bars and taking him away, still impaled. Ill never forget that.
Its 40 long years later, and I live in San Francisco, but if I talk about any of this I can see the listener’s eye glaze over.
Its a small part of our history, but we should never forget.
Still, our issues are now hot topics, and they’re not going to vanish; that’s a good thing.