Artistic by Lewis

[To my audience:  Please be forewarned that what you are about to hear may be infused with more than a soupcon (süp- sän) of "artistic license".]

When I was about eleven and on the cusp of discovering that there was something about me that was likely to relegate me to the margins of society, I began to explore the ways in which American popular culture might open up avenues of expression to me that would help me to wrap my arms around who I was and, more importantly, how I might fit in. 

It was 1957 and there were circles of American society wherein people leaving the movie theater or concert hall might be heard to say things like, "You may have noticed that [take your pick] Liberace/Sal Mineo/Anthony Perkins/Montgomery Clift is a bit on the 'artistic' side."

As people who say such things often were prone to doing so in soft voices, I mistakenly heard them to say that the actor at issue was "a bit autistic".  I thought it appalling that a loving god would see fit to bestow two such strikes upon a child from the moment of their birth but I counted my blessings in that I seemed to have been passed over for the autism part and moved on.

Knowing little about autism and anxious to avoid drawing attention to my own proclivities when it comes to members of the male gender, I, thenceforth, associated being "autistic" with anyone exhibiting a combination of three or more of the characteristics of the classical homosexual persona.  That is--as Wikipedia describes Franklin Pangborn, surely one of the most "artistic actors" in Hollywood history--"fussy..., polite, elegant, and highly energetic, often officious, fastidious, somewhat nervous, prone to becoming flustered but essentially upbeat, and with an immediately recognizable high-speed patter-type speech pattern."

I thought I had stumbled upon a fool-proof guide as to how to behave so as not to elicit any suspicion whatsoever that I might be "queer".  I set about to find the movie personality who embodied every antithetical quality so I could emulate him.  He had to be stoic, insensitive, blunt, laid-back, modest (even falsely so), unflappable but downbeat, slow-spoken and have nerves of steel.  In a matter of seconds, it came to me--Rock Hudson.  We all know how that turned out.

© 8 September 2014 

About the Author 

 I came to the beautiful state of Colorado out of my native Kansas by way of Michigan, the state where I married and I came to the beautiful state of Colorado out of my native Kansas by way of Michigan, the state where I married and had two children while working as an engineer for the Ford Motor Company. I was married to a wonderful woman for 26 happy years and suddenly realized that life was passing me by. I figured that I should make a change, as our offspring were basically on their own and I wasn't getting any younger. Luckily, a very attractive and personable man just happened to be crossing my path at that time, so the change-over was both fortuitous and smooth.

Soon after, I retired and we moved to Denver, my husband's home town. He passed away after 13 blissful years together in October of 2012. I am left to find a new path to fulfillment. One possibility is through writing. Thank goodness, the SAGE Creative Writing Group was there to light the way.