NLA-SD Abduction The Papal Archives Optimized for a 1024 x 768 screen width. (You can get away with 800 x 600 but don't even try it at 640 x 480!) Long Ago Cons

Scanners are wonderful things.  Of late I have been going through a box of photos I have taken over the past ten or so years.  As I dig up more of these images I'll be posting them here as I get them scanned in.

Even a cold & windy Winter's Day in San Diego has its merits.  This was taken back in December of '97.  Three months later I was growing my hair out after having shaved even this short of a crewcut all off.  I used to live out in Pacific Beach, which is just north of downtown San Diego, and really liked it out there.  Even in late December walking the beach can still be worthwhile.
 
 

Here I am way back in 1993 and all tricked out for a 4th of July Celebration.  Yeah, the shirt is corny but hey, it was fun making it with me, my partner and her daughter.  We all went as a fashion coordinated unit.  It was fun.  It was also inexpensive and, as I was very unemployed at the time, that counted for a lot too.
 
 

This was my first time on the Golden Gate Bridge.  We didn't have a whole lot of time that day so we made what use of it we could.  We wanted to see the Golden Gate and we also wanted to go on it.  We made sure to walk past the halfway mark so that we could say we did more than just simply step out onto the bridge.  The weather that day was fabulous.  Very clear, very bright and not at all windy.  Compare this picture to one of the last time I was out on the Golden Gate!

Here is another shot of me on the Bridge that day.  A more "official" shot or at least a more "leathery" one.  Hard to believe this was taken just eight years ago.

LA Pride '93.  That vest which I am wearing is one that I borrowed John Atherton and still have.  It is one of the few things left from him that I still own.  I liked the way it wrapped around my torso in a modern update to the classic bar vest.  LA Pride is a fun event.  Lots and lots of eye candy.  Owing to the climate and all, their Pride Celebration is usually held in beautifully warm weather.  Aside from making it a pleasant day to be outside it is also one which just seems to inspire people to wear as little clothing as possible.  I was no exception that day as I was only wearing a pair of very short cotton/ Lycra shorts and my army boots.  And the vest.  That plus lots of sunscreen!

This was a good year.  I was well employed, had a great place out in Pacific Beach, was in the midst of a good circle of friends, was finding myself as a gay leatherman, and was becoming more secure in my life in my new chosen city of San Diego.  To top it all off I had just found an old friend from my DC days, Kelly.  He is the one who snapped this photo.
 
 

This photo is probably the very first one of me in any sort of SM activity.  It was taken way back in '86 when I lived in DC and was just getting in to the leather/ SM/ fetish scene.  I had stumbled into this brand new SM education group called "PEP DC."  That stood for People Exchanging Power - DC and it was one of a series of such groups started by Nancy Millar.  She started her first in New Mexico and then took her show on the road.  She landed in DC in '86 and soon had this one up and running.  There was nothing else like it at the time.  Now such groups are a nationwide thing.  PEP DC itself has grown and changed.  It is now called the Black Rose Society, or just BR for short, and is truly huge.  Back then though, PEP DC was extremely small.  A dozen or two folks.  I was one of them.

At one meeting they put out the call that they were looking for demoees (i.e. "pigs") for the next month's workshop on flogging.  Being new and very inexperienced, I put my hand up and volunteered.  The man who was presenting the demo was a guy named Bob Schurr.  He and John Rocco ran a leather toy store near the Convention Center in DC.  To make sure the demo clicked, Bob insisted that we have a mini-play date the night before.  I said yes to that as well.

I was so hungry for this.  Finally!  I was getting in to some real SM!  I was going to be flogged!  By a "real" leatherman!  Woo Hoo!  This is how it is supposed to start!  I was extremely jazzed by all of this and all too willing.  I was also extremely young and unknowing.  Naive.

We did the play date and that worked fine.  Then we did the demo and that worked even better.  Some of the folks in the audience were absolutely amazed that there could be such a sensual connection between two guys.  PEP DC was a mostly hetero group.  Some other folks in the audience weren't too thrilled with that sort of homoeroticism.  Screw 'em!  I was doing something intense and something wonderful.  It was my first real experience with something like this and I loved it.  I still remember the collar Bob had me wear.  It was made of the softest and most comfortable leather I have ever worn around my neck.  I was one happy guy from this experience.  It was also my one experience with Bob.

Bob turned out to be anything but a worthy mentor or play partner.  A couple of years afterward, Bob ripped off his business partner, John Rocco, in that leather toy store.  One day John came into open the store and found that Bob had emptied the till, cashed all the video rental deposit checks, emptied the bank accounts, and skipped town.  Fraud, embezzlement, larceny, felony and theft are all the right words to use here.  So too is saying Bob is a real low life scum.  It turns out that he resurfaced a couple of years later in a different company, Crypto Technologies, which operates the various Crypt stores.  He tried to do the same thing to them but got called out before he drove their business into the ground.  I don't know where this guy is now but I hope it is a really deep hole.

On balance though, the vast majority of folks I have met in the Scene have been exceptional people - and all in a good way!  Honor and integrity are in great abundance among the leatherfolk I know.  This makes people like Bob Schurr a real exception.  I do not regret the time I spent with him as it was a fun time and a necessary one for my development as a leatherman.  I just wish it was with someone more like a Mr. Benson than otherwise.  However, the past is what the past is.  I could go on forever wishing it were more perfect or different and that wouldn't do anyone any good.  I live in the present and I am pretty happy with who I am right now.  That means that everything which has happened to me has been part of making me who I am today.  Even the bad things and things which I would be loath to repeat helped make me who I am today.  So, while I wouldn't want to go through such a scene with Bob again today, I don't regret the fact that I did way back then.
 
 

In late June of '01 a long time friend of mine came out to see me and to attend a "surfing school."  Maria is a woman I have known and remained friends with for longer than anyone else save but for my family.  We first met when I befriended her brother, Billy, back when I was in high school and he and I were both in the Civil Air Patrol.  Billy and I both planned careers in the Air Force and were best buds because of our mutual interests.  He is the first person - even before my mom - that I came out to.  Proving just how much of a good friend he was and also proving just what sort of good friend he was Billy reacted to my telling him that I was gay by telling me this:
 
 

We remained good friends long after that but have kind of drifted out of touch since after he got out of the Air Force after the Gulf War and the reductions in force with the whole "Peace Dividend" thing.  This picture below however, is before all of that.

This sort of picture could easily become a good blackmail photo in other hands!  Long ago and far away.  This was taken back in the Summer 1983 when I was back from my first year at George Washington University and relaxing at the Hecht home in Reading, Massachusetts.  That is an equally young Billy behind me.  Dig that cool hairstyle and fantastic mustache!  I am all of twenty one in this photo.  I was always comfortable at the Hecht's.  They have always had a very warm and open family life and it was a real joy to be around them when I was growing up.
 
 

Seventeen years old and in uniform.  I was a pretty happy guy.  I had been just another cadet in the Salem CAP Squadron when Captain Grillo started forming a new squadron closer to where we both lived and he asked me to command it.  Even though I was just a sergeant at the time I was the highest ranking and most qualified to do so.  I really found a home in the CAP.  Officially it is the Auxiliary of the United States Air Force.  Sort of like the Boy Scouts of the Air Force.  Organized along military lines and wearing Air Force uniforms, the CAP is a great place to prepare for a military career, as I intended back then, and a great place to help out your community by running search and rescue operations for downed aircraft or missing persons.  It really is a great organization and I benefited from my involvement in it greatly.

Maria brought these two photos with her to show me when she came out for that surfing school.  We are both amazed at how much has changed in these two decades that have passed.  Maria had a crush on me then (this is on the back of the photo above) but I was distant second in her life.  The Beatles came first.  I could understand that.  She and I have remained close over the years and shared much of what has been going on in each other's lives.  We are still so in tune with each other that it can be scary at times.

When she was out here in June  of '01 she took me out to eat at a nice restaurant.  We were both reading the menu when I noticed one item had the description next to it that read something like "covered with a true cilantro sauce..." and thought to myself "good thing they aren't using a 'false' cilantro sauce."  Before I could say that however, Maria beat me to it!  Tuned indeed.  I'm glad to have her as a friend.