Purple Golf Cart: The Misadventures of a Lesbian Grandma (23 page)

I called the UM police. I had just completed a series of training programs for them about sexual orientation and many came to see the LGBT office in the Michigan Student Union. I wanted them to know where we were located in case of an emergency. An officer who was tall and authoritarian in appearance, with a resonating bass voice, and who I knew to be very kind, responded to my call. When I showed the letter to him, he said, “I believe there’s another way to return this package.” He took the box, went to my stalker’s office, and explained Michigan’s stalking laws which were considerable. For good measure, I was given a UM police escort to and from my car each day for a week or so, but I never saw Stalker #1 again. However, it wasn’t the last time I needed a police escort.

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Stalker #2 was the president of a local gay and lesbian association which awarded scholarships to outstanding lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students. The scholarships were presented at an annual awards ceremony in the Michigan Union. The room that year was filled for this wonderful celebration. Students, their parents, university officials, faculty, staff, and alumni were present. I opened the event with a brief welcome after which I introduced Stalker #2 by name. (He wasn't stalking me yet.) His job was to welcome folks on behalf of his organization then present the awards.

Stalker #2’s initial words were fine. It was what he said as he introduced the awards that created the problem. I had helped design the new award application because the old one asked irrelevant and probably illegal questions regarding identity, such as race, sex, and age of the applicants. The awards were based on achievement, not identity, so I removed the identity-based questions. The form was then approved by his organization’s board of directors.

Stalker #2 began his unscripted talk. “I hate these new application forms,” he said. “You can’t tell who’s black or who’s white, who’s male or female, or who’s a top or a bottom!”

What????? Top or bottom??? Did he really just say that??? I froze. I don’t remember another word or even the remainder of the event. I went to my office after the ceremony and sent an email to Stalker #2 and his organization’s board, most of whom were in the audience that evening and heard the same words I heard. I wrote, “While I love working with your organization, [Stalker #2] will never again speak before any event I produce. I am appalled, embarrassed, and outraged at his fully inappropriate words.”

Stalker #2 was removed from the organization’s board the next day, and chose to quit the organization altogether the following day. He blamed me for his fall from gay leadership in Ann Arbor and began harassing me with emails and phone calls. I ignored him.

One day a few months later two parents came to my office in the Michigan Union. Their seventeen year old son was a swimming champion at a local high school and had just received a full scholarship to college. Their son’s eighteen year old boyfriend was one of my students. Stalker #2, a man in his mid-forties, was apparently harassing the young swimmer so my student referred the family to me for help. The son had spurned the Stalker’s attention, so during a recent swim meet, the Stalker placed fliers of a photo of the young man on all the cars in the parking lot, announcing the young man’s homosexuality. I encouraged the parents to file charges against Stalker #2. Somehow he learned of my meetings with the parents and again blamed me for his fall from grace. He sent emails to me with threats of blowing up my house. He also slashed all four tires on my car. His harassment became so serious that I executed a court order for him to stay away from my home, my family, my car, my office, my staff, and myself. Hence, the police escort.

In the summer of 1997, I was recruited by and accepted a position at UCLA. My going-away party at UM was packed with folks from all over campus and Ann Arbor. An unfamiliar man entered the room and handed a paper to me, a subpoena. Stalker #2, that ass, had filed charges against me for discrimination based on sexual orientation! Since he was a gay man, I, a lesbian, must not like him. He was right! I didn’t like him but it had nothing to do with his sexual orientation or mine! I didn’t discriminate against that sleaze bucket. I was merely appalled at his ongoing mean actions for which he would not own responsibility.

Luckily, the campus attorney was at my party. She said, “Don’t worry about this, Ronni. We’ll handle it. You go on to UCLA.” The UM lawyers represented me in court. The judge threw the case out and fined Stalker #2 for filing a frivolous suit. Stalker #2 is now serving time in prison for child sexual abuse. He should only rot there.

The moral of the story is this: if you’re feeling yucky because of someone else’s behavior, trust your feelings. Don’t look for the PLE, the Perfectly Logical Explanation. There is none. It’s real! Seek assistance immediately! Trust your gut.

28. Go West, Old Woman

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1997

U.S. President
: Bill Clinton

Best film
: Titanic, As Good As It Gets, The Fully Monty, Good Will Hunting

Best actors
: Jack Nicholson, Helen Hunt

Best TV shows
: King of the Hill; Just Shoot Me!; The Practice; Port Charles; South Park; Ally McBeal; Family Matters; Dharma & Greg

Best songs
: Don’t Cry For Me Argentina, Say You’ll Be There, All By Myself, Unbreak My Heart, Men in Black, I believe I can Fly

Civics
: U.S. shuttle joins Russian space station; U.S. Appeals Court upholds California ban on affirmative action; Timothy McVeigh sentenced to death for Oklahoma City bombing

Popular Culture
: O. J. Simpson found liable on civil suit; Heaven’s Gate cult members commit mass suicide in California; The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks published; National Consortium of LGBT Campus Resource Center Directors founded; Florida Constitution Review Committee rejects including sexual orientation for protection; Ellen Degeneres outs herself as a lesbian on her sitcom.

Deaths
: Princess Diana, Jacques Cousteau, John Denver, Mother Theresa, James A. Michener, James Stewart, Gianni Versace

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I enjoyed working at the University of Michigan. I was well connected to students and staff and to the community, and I loved living in the Ann Arbor area. I especially appreciated the change of seasons, something I never experienced in Florida. I remember when I first moved to Ann Arbor. It was May, 1994, springtime, and gloriously colorful with flowers I’d never seen before. A colleague told me, “There are no bad days. Just bad clothes. Go to Eddie Bauer now and get yourself a good winter coat while they’re on sale.” I did. The coat said it would keep me warm to thirty-below. I bought it, hoping with my Florida-self that it would never be that cold, but with the warmth of that coat, I thoroughly enjoyed the winters. The golf courses became cross-country ski courses, their bunkers became moguls. Reflections of sunshine in the snow during the days and the street lights at night provided hues I’d never seen. And for some strange reason, perhaps because of the cold on my skin, hot chocolate never tasted so yummy!

I would have stayed at UM, ensconced in Student Affairs and LGBT work there, but I also wanted to teach. The UM School of Education wasn’t crazy about having an open lesbian on it’s faculty back then. UCLA recruited me to direct their LGBT Center, accompanied by a lecturer appointment in the Teacher Education Program. I would teach a course on social justice and cultural diversity in education. Perfect. I accepted the UCLA position.

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I met Kim at a conference in Chicago in the spring of 1997, just after Paula and I separated for the last time. Kim’s bright sea-blue eyes, thick mop of blonde hair, and quick hearty laugh caught my attention. We ran into one another several times on the day we met. That evening we went to the conference’s social event and danced and talked and danced some more. She walked me back to my hotel room and stayed longer than either of us had expected, wrapped in each other’s arms. She flew back to her home state the next morning. Our time together was way too brief, but we knew we’d see each other again.

Over the next few months we travelled back and forth to each others’ homes in our somewhat neighboring states. I was in Michigan, Kim in Kentucky. When I accepted the job at UCLA, Kim made the drive across the country with us—my cat Sarah and me—in my lavender Chrysler LeBaron convertible.

We spent the last night in Ann Arbor at the Hamilton House Hotel, the place I stayed when I first moved to Ann Arbor three and a half years earlier. Kim and I were never particularly quiet in our nighttime activities. Because we were happy to see each other and excited about embarking on an adventurous road trip, that last night in Ann Arbor was no exception. In the morning there was a note under our door that read: Sounds like you had a great time last night! Yep! We sure did!

We said goodbye to Ann Arbor and headed out towards Indianapolis, acknowledging the hometown of Rebel Without a Cause star James Dean because we saw the sign that said so. We stopped in St. Louis and rode the tram to the top of the Arch, marveling at the expansive view of the Mississippi River from north to south, across the river to Illinois and over the city of St. Louis. We took a driving break in Abilene, Kansas, near fields of sunflowers taller than ourselves. We visited the Abilene Civic Center and ate cookies and drank lemonade made by three elderly women who chatted at the front desk. In eastern Colorado, we drove up to the top of Pike’s Peak, over 10,000 feet in elevation, then back down to spend a day at the United States Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. We went white-water rafting down the Arkansas River in Canyon City, Colorado, to the breathtaking 1200-foot granite Royal Gorge crevasse. At a roadside café where we stopped for lunch, a deer put her head inside the car in search of snacks. My convertible was easy pickings for her.

We drove up the Rocky Mountains to Independence Pass at the Continental Divide which was already dusted with snow though it was only early September. The road down the other side took us into Aspen. Along the highway into Utah, we stopped at roadside tables where Native American women and children were selling trinkets. Red rocks and sculpted mountains provided backdrops for their small portable businesses. We hiked around Bryce National Park, took photos at the Fairyland Canyon sign, then drove across the plains of the Painted Desert to the north rim of the Grand Canyon.

My cat Sarah stayed in her crate on the floor of the back seat during the drive so she wouldn’t blow out of the car since we never put the top up. The ride was just too beautiful, and it was much easier to take photos with the top down. We stayed in motels along the way each night, letting Sarah out of her crate, fixing her litter box and a meal service (as she saw it, I’m sure). She was quite the trooper, and, I say with great admiration, an awfully good sport.

We arrived at the north rim of the Grand Canyon the weekend before it was to close for the winter. We had no reservations for hotels anywhere across the country because we didn’t know where we’d be on any given night. So far, a week out on the road, we had no trouble finding rooms. But on the last weekend of the season at the north rim of the Grand Canyon, nothing was available. The hotels were fully booked as was the campground. The manager of the campground told us about a clearing in the woods not far from the entrance to the Grand Canyon. There were no amenities at all but we could sleep in our car there without hassle.

The clearing was just off the main highway, very close to the entrance to the Grand Canyon park area. We weren’t the first folks in there but we were able to find a spot that felt safe and unobtrusive. There was one—well, more than one but this was the first—problem. We were in a convertible, probably resembling Thelma and Louise more than we cared to. I put the top up for our camp-out and let Sarah out of her crate. She howled, scolding me, no doubt, for this imposition, used her litter box, ate some food, then howled some more. I put her back in the crate. She stopped the racket and settled down. The temperature began to drop. Into the 60s, now the 50s, approaching the 40s fast. We were wearing shorts. The trunk of the LeBaron was very small so we traveled with very few items. We gathered what clothing we had, got into our seats in the car, and covered ourselves with all of our belongings. We nestled in for the remainder of the cold night.

After a few moments of quiet, I heard a loud whisper, “Sanlo.” Kim always calls me Sanlo. “Sanlo. I heard something.” I didn’t care. I felt perfectly safe because Kim was a large, strong, athletic woman. I thought if anything went wrong, she’d handle it. I never figured her for a chicken.

“Sanlo.” She always says my name as if it were a full sentence by itself. With purpose. “Sanlo. I think there’re bears out there.” Bears? How did she know? Well, she’s from rural Kentucky. Maybe they have bears there and she’s familiar.

“Sanlo. The bears are gonna come through the convertible top. I just know it. We’re screwed this time.”

“Kim, why do bears want us?” I innocently asked in my regular, non-whispered though somewhat amused voice.

“Not us,” she was agitated but still in a loud whisper. “Sarah. They can smell her. They want her.” Bears want my cat? Oh no they don’t! I stayed awake all night long to make sure the bears didn’t get into the car to get my beloved Sarah. Kim—damn it!—slept like a baby.

Because I didn’t sleep, being awake for sunrise wasn’t a problem. Just before daybreak, I drove us over to the park entrance. I woke Kim up and we walked out onto the rim with dozens of other watchers, cameras in hand. As the sun began to rise, so slowly, gently peaking over the hills on the east side, the west side of the Canyon began to glow. I was stunned! I meant to take lots of photos, but really, I just stood there in awe of the grandeur I was experiencing, of the golden light of day that was surrounding us, of the warmth of the sun that was quietly, quickly embracing us. I knew the trip was for this.