greyhound 'Vicky'
I was 18 when my sister married.
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The 1940's | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| The first 5 years of the 40's were not easy. When Dad left for the war-front, my Mom had to go to work for the first time since she was a teenager. We had to give up the house that we had been renting and moved into a small 3 room apartment which was part of another family's house. I was becoming a teenager so could no longer sleep in the same room as my Mom and Sister, so from 1942 to '45 I slept on a cot in the kitchen. By then, Mom was working at the munitions factory and was on shift work so the housework and cooking was the responsibility of my sister June and myself after school. Later when June also went to work, I ended up doing everything myself. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Mom and Dad the day before he left for overseas. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Meanwhile, my hormones were running rampant! My buddies were suddenly only interested in girls. Of course, I was finding myself more and more interested in my buddies. It was an extremely confusing time for me. As other gays my age will know, in the forties, words like queer and fag were not used, and 'gay' was just a type of 'apparel' in a Christmas Carol. We had no bars or even organizations we could go to to find other people like us. It would usually be just a lucky chance if you met someone, then you had to sneak around like a common criminal. My teenage years were not happy years. I was constantly trying to pretend I was really just like the other kids. High School was particularly difficult. I seemed to be forever making up excuses why I couldn't take Phys Ed, play football or use the communal showers. Soon a few started calling me sissy, mamas boy or pansy. So I made up my mind that I would force myself to partake in these activities no matter how miserable it made me feel. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Mom & I (in Army Cadets) 1942 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Consequetialy, by the time I finished High School (5 yrs in those days) I couldn't wait to get away from the pressure and despair, so although my parents offered to send me to university, I absolutely refused to put myself through that again. Jobs were plentyful then and I had no problem finding a job in one of our local banks, My first full week's take home pay was $12.89 and out of that, I paid room and board at home of $4.00 per week. But I was happier. I started dating various girls. I wasn't comfortable with the situation, but at least it made me feel like I belonged. As soon as a girl would start to get serious, (and they all seemed to) I would move on to the next. Of course that gave me a bad reputation with the girls, but the guys thought I was a real playboy. By the end of the 40s, although I had had several sexual contact with men consisting mostly of touching, necking and mutual masturbation, I was still a virgin sexually with either males or females. It's funny, because I recall shortly after my Dad came home from overseas, he knocked, said "It's Dad* and walked in the bathroom while I was taking a bath. Of course, that pissed me off right from the start as I wasn't used to losing my privacy like that. Anyway, as he was going to the bathroom, he looked over at me, and said "That reminds me son, I guess it's time you and I had a talk about girls and sex." I was mortified! So I said "Sure Dad. What is it you want to learn?" He never brought up the subject again. Which was unfortunate, because, in reality, at 15 yrs of age. I knew absolutely nothing about sex. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Age 16 - Summer Camp Leader | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| 17 Yrs old with my gorgeous greyhound 'Vicky' |
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| By the end of 1949, I was just a month short of my 20th birthday. By then, I had found several beer parlours in Toronto, where other gays hung out, but I was always afraid to venture into them. I hated beer in the first place, Remember -'Toronto The Good' did not have bars or cocktail lounges until the mid fifties. I had been to a couple of 'Gay" house parties but was always petrified that I would run into someone I knew. How stupid and naive can you be? My job at the bank was going well. I had moved up in positions and my pay had more than tripled by the New Year. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| On to the fifties, where I buried my head even deeper | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| June's Husband Bill, June and Myself I was 18 when my sister married. |
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