The Cabin by Gary Cottle

A Ghost Story for Christmas 2025

The Purchase

It was perfect for me.  About an hour outside of town, and directly off a two-lane country highway.  I could get to it easily after work on Friday, and get back to my condo on Sunday afternoon in time to do laundry.  Friends and family could visit without much risk of getting lost.  It sat in the middle of a four-acre wooded lot with a winding driveway, so you couldn’t see it from the main road.  And there was a lake nearby, and lots of hiking trails.  An ordinary cabin, and not very big.  No architecture magazine would want to feature it.  But it had electricity, indoor plumbing, and a big stone fireplace in the living room.  There were two bedrooms on the main floor, and two more attic rooms that could be used as bedrooms.  So I could invite my parents, my brother, and my sister-in-law and their two sons to stay with me from time to time.  I could invite friends, ordinary and special.  And at 33, I could finally afford it, so it came on the market at the right time.

Bradley helped me move in and clean the place up.  At the time, he was a 25-year-old twunk, a tall and lean construction worker who wore tight pants that showed off the curve of his backside and his prodigious boy bump.  He was a special friend who was always glad to help if I needed extra muscle.  His pickup could come in handy, too.  And the only thing he expected in return was for me to thank him on my knees.  I was always ready to thank him.  Surely he knew.

We finally got to the second attic room at the end of the day.  And after dusting, vacuuming, and putting new sheets on the bed, I told Bradley how I came to own the cabin.

Carl Scott, the man who built it, died of a heart attack earlier in the year, and Mrs. Scott decided to sell.  By her own admission, she never cared much for the cabin and had only been there a couple of times in the previous fifteen years.  I called Mrs. Scott immediately after hearing she wanted it off her hands.

“You’ve been talking about wanting a cabin that’s not too far away for a couple of years, but why were you so sure about this one?  You hadn’t even seen the place, had you?”

“Oh, but I had seen it.  I stayed here one weekend right before graduating high school.  Do you remember the Scott’s son, Mark?”

“Um, not really.  Mr. Scott was a contractor, as you probably know, so I knew him.  I worked for him a couple of times, and I vaguely knew he had a son, but I didn’t know anything about him.”

“Well, we were friends, and we were in the same class.”  After hesitating a couple of seconds, I added, “Mark deflowed me in this very room.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“Nope.  Right here.  His parents were asleep downstairs, so we had to be quiet.”

A wicked grin spread over Bradley’s face, and he said, “Hot damn.  Take your clothes off.”

“What?”

“Shut up and do it.  You’re about to be ‘deflowered’ for the second time in this room.”

We had a few beers on the deck that evening.  That’s when Bradley asked, “So what’s Mark up to now?”

“I don’t know.  No one does.  He left town after graduation and never came back, not even for a visit.  I asked Mrs. Scott if she had heard from him.  I thought surely he would have called her by now.  I thought maybe he might have come home for his father’s funeral, but she says she hasn’t heard from him in all this time.”

“Wow!  That’s pretty cold.  He must have hated his parents.”

“He didn’t get along with his dad, and he was terrified of him finding out he was gay.  But he loved his mom.”

“She must be hurt by how he cut her out of his life.”

“Yeah.  For a few years, I was hurt, too.  After that weekend here, I thought we were boyfriends.  But then he left without saying goodbye or anything.  I was hurt and angry.  But eventually, I decided he must have had his reasons, and one weekend isn’t exactly a lifetime commitment.  Mrs. Scott seems to have made her peace with it as well.  She thinks something happened to him.  Maybe he was in a car accident, or had terminal cancer, and no one knew how to contact his family.  She’s sure he’s dead.”

That night, Bradley and I slept in the bedroom at the end of the house on the main floor.  It had windows all around, so I looked forward to waking up to spectacular views of the woods.  Bradley spooned me from behind.  I could feel him poking me in the butt, so it’s no surprise that I had an erotic dream that involved him, but Mark was in the dream, too.  The three of us were playing cards at the table, and there was a fire going in the fireplace.  The scene was cozy, and I felt relaxed and at peace with the whole world.  Mark, who still looked just as he had in high school, turned to Bradley and asked, “Ever spit roast a brother?  You take his backside, and I’ll take his front.”

I awoke the next morning in a state of bliss.  One of the windows was open, and the crisp air carried the scent of pine.  I was delighted the cabin now belonged to me.  I was where I was supposed to be, and although Bradley had shifted in the night, one of his arms was still over me.  I whispered so as not to disturb my friend, “Good morning, Mark.”

After breakfast, I told Bradley we needed to check out the basement.  I didn’t know what I’d do with the space other than maybe install a washer and dryer at some point, but I wanted to make sure there weren’t any problems.  Mark and I played ping pong down there once.  It was just a big open space with cinderblock walls and a concrete floor.

I found the key and unlocked the door to the stairs.  Then I reached in and flipped on the overhead fluorescent lights.  Bradley and I walked down together, and we were surprised by what we saw.  The long, mostly empty basement room that I remembered was now full of junk.  Boxes were on top of boxes, and discarded furniture was everywhere.

Bradley grunted and said, “Did the Scotts ever throw anything away?”

“I guess not.  It wasn’t like this when I was down here the last time.”  When I scanned the room, I noticed the old ping pong table was still there.  It was folded up and pushed against a wall.  Bradley and I took a moment to admire the impressive amount of stuff that had been stored in the basement, and I said, “I’m mostly concerned about water damage and structural issues.”

Bradley turned in a circle, looking at the mudsill, and said, “I don’t see anything, but you won’t be able to get a good look until this place is cleared out.”

For Bradley’s sake as well as my own, I didn’t want the first weekend at the cabin to be all about work, so I suggested putting off the basement until later.  “How about we hike around the lake and maybe go for a swim?”

The next morning, we drove back to town, and I paid Mrs. Scott a visit.  I told her the cabin looked great, and I was pleased that she let me have it.  And I told her about the basement.  I thought she might not know, or maybe she had forgotten about all the things that were down there.  Even though the contents of the basement now belonged to me, I offered to let her have anything she wanted back.  I even offered her Bradley’s services and his pickup.  But she explained Mr. Scott had become obsessed with keeping everything in recent years, and she had no use for what he squirreled away at the cabin.

“Most of it isn’t trash.  There are some quality things down there.  I suggested we give it all to Goodwill, but Carl became weird about letting anything go.  He wasn’t always like that.”

I called Bradley that night and told him the contents of the basement might have some value, and if he helped me clean it out, he could have the stuff and sell it.  He agreed to go back to the cabin with me the following weekend.

Bradley’s parents had a garage they let him use, and the two of us must have made a dozen trips between the cabin and their home in town before the basement was empty.  We then thoroughly inspected the floor, walls, and joists and determined the cabin was sound and didn’t need any costly repairs.  I was relieved.  At one end of the basement, Mr. Scott had built shelves that might be useful.  They were solid and deep, but basic.  Apparently, Mr. Scott never intended the basement to be a finished room.

After a hard day’s work, I properly thanked Bradley.  Then I made him dinner and thanked him again.

The Secret Door

The cabin became part of my life.  I was up there nearly every weekend.  My family often stayed with me on holidays, and once or twice during the summer, I had a party for the queer guys in town.  I encouraged them to bring tents and camp by the cabin so they wouldn’t have to worry about drinking and driving.  Bradley and other special friends sometimes stayed with me.  But I also spent a lot of time alone at the cabin.  It was my refuge.  And nearly every night I spent there, Mark would visit me in my dreams.  If I had a guest in my bed, he was usually involved in Mark’s and my recreational activities.

I never tried to analyze my nighttime experiences with Mark.  I assumed my dream lover was a product of my subconscious.  But then something happened that made me wonder.  A fellow accountant, a quiet and gentle man, spent a night with me at the cabin, and the next morning, over breakfast, he informed me that he had dreamed a young man had joined us.  I held him in my arms while the stranger went down on him.  I had dreamed the same thing.

I didn’t go down to the basement often.  About the only thing I kept there were a few Christmas decorations.  But seven years after buying the cabin, I took a big stack of board games I had gotten at a yard sale to the basement.  When I put them on one of Mr. Scott’s shelves, I noticed there was a small gap between one of the sections.  Then I noticed what looked like a couple of hinges.  After standing there perplexed for a couple of minutes, I decided to pull on that section of the shelving, and much to my amazement, it swung back.  Behind it was a steel door.  I tried the handle, but it was locked.  Then I got the keys Mrs. Scott had given me, but none of them worked.  Finally, I got a measuring tape and, after comparing the length of the cabin with that of the basement room, I determined there must be a room about ten feet deep behind the door.

Was it a panic room?  A bomb shelter?  A tornado safe room?  Maybe Mr. Scott hid a massive collection of p*** behind that door.  I thought about asking Bradley if he knew of a way to get the door open without causing too much damage, but then I decided I didn’t want to know.  Maybe some mysteries are best left unsolved.

The Secret Behind the Door

Twenty years passed, and I turned sixty.  Many of my friends had married or had significant others, but Bradley and I were still single.  Bradley had gradually transformed into a hot daddy bear, and he still turned the heads of many in town, including the young guys.  He also became a successful contractor.  I had not aged as well.  My father died, and Mom went to a nursing home.  My nephews grew up and moved away, so my brother and sister-in-law often visited one of them on holidays.  They only came to the cabin once or twice a year.

More of my friends admitted to having sexy dreams at the cabin involving a mysterious young man.  One of my nephews claimed that a strange man came into the room on a cold winter night when he was still a little boy and put an extra blanket over him and his brother.  My brother said that one night when he went downstairs to pee, he saw someone going into my room.  The young man smiled and winked, and put his finger up to his lips as if to ask him not to speak.  He had assumed I had snuck a date into the cabin after our parents had gone to sleep.  But I never did that.  However, my dreams of Mark never abated.  They became as much a part of my life as the cabin itself.

Mrs. Scott died on Thanksgiving Day.  She was eighty-four.  I invited Bradley and a few friends to the cabin, and I asked Bradley to help me cook.  We were talking about Mrs. Scott when Bradley pulled out a drawer looking for a knife.  That’s when something dropped.  We heard the metallic ping.  Two pings, actually.  It was a key.  It first hit one of Bradley’s work boots, bounced, and landed on the kitchen’s hardwood floor.  Ding, ding.  When Bradley bent over to pick it up, he found a strip of duct tape on the bottom of the drawer that had come loose.

“Is this for your safe deposit box?”

“No.  I didn’t put that there.”

“You mean it’s been there for thirty years?”

“I guess so.”

“Any idea what it’s for?”

I thought for a moment and said, “Yes, I think I do.  But let's leave it until tomorrow when we’re alone.”

Somehow, I did know, and a great sadness fell over me.  A part of me didn’t want to take Bradley down to the basement the next morning, but I did.  It was time.  I showed him the secret door, and the key slipped right in.  Inside was a makeshift bier made of a couple of sawhorses and a long sheet of plywood.  Lying on top was what appeared to be a body wrapped in a sheet and several layers of thick plastic.

I buried my face in Bradley’s muscular chest and sobbed.  I said, “It’s Mark.  I’m sure it’s Mark.”

We found a letter addressed to Mrs. Scott beside the body.  It read:

My dear, if you’re reading this, I am probably gone, and you now know your son didn’t willingly abandon you.  But I hope you’ll remember me as a coward and not a monster.  His death was an accident, I promise.  But I knew the law might not see it that way, and I couldn’t bear it if you thought I was responsible.  So I constructed a private mausoleum for our Mark, and I made up that story about him leaving town.  That week, when you went to visit your sister in June after Mark graduated, he and I tried to keep our distance, but one day we had a serious argument out on the patio.  I had heard the noises he and that awful boy made at the cabin one night earlier in May, and I confronted him.  I told him he would have broken your heart if you had heard.  But he claimed you already knew he was queer, or gay, or whatever, and that enraged me.  I just couldn’t stand that our son was that way, and that you were aware and had kept it from me.  So I pushed him.  I didn’t mean to harm him, but he lost his balance.  He was always clumsy.  And he hit his head on the framing of the lounge chair, and then again on one of the flagstones.  I knew when I heard that double thump, a terrible thing had happened.  I sat there for over an hour looking at Mark’s lifeless body.  I wanted him to get up and storm off to his room as he had done a thousand times when I told him what I thought of him.  Finally, I put his body in the truck, gathered a few of his things, and took him to the cabin.  I expected you or someone to challenge me about the lies I told about him running away, but you and everyone else took me at my word.  You made it easy, so don’t hate me now.

Mrs. Scott’s sister was still alive, and she was the executor of her estate.  When she heard about Mark and what happened to him, and the identity of his body had been verified, she elected not to lay her sister to rest beside her late husband.  Instead, she bought two new plots on the other side of the cemetery in town, and she held a double funeral.  A lot of people showed up, including Bradley, me, and several of our friends.  Mark and Mrs. Scott were then buried beside one another.

For a day or two, I seriously thought about selling the cabin.  And I feared Mark would no longer visit me in my dreams.  I went up there by myself on Christmas Eve, half expecting to wake up the next morning feeling alone, old, and abandoned.

Luckily, that didn’t happen.  When I drifted off, a young man came to my room, got into bed with me, kissed me passionately, and lifted my legs over his shoulders.  I awoke on Christmas morning feeling satisfied and cared for as I always did at the cabin.  I whispered, “Good morning, Mark.  I'm sorry about what happened to you.  I love you.  I always have, but you know that.”

Happy Labor Day!

The last ten years have been emotionally difficult for many of us. It's been a struggle. Learning that millions of my fellow Americans burn with hate has left me shocked. For a long time, it felt as if I were in some kind of alternate universe. I feared I didn't understand anything anymore. So, like many of you, I have felt the need to reevaluate and adjust my attitude and beliefs. I'm trying to find some way of living in our present moment without succumbing to dread and despair. I thought I'd share some of my thoughts.

This country was founded on some lofty ideals: all of us are equal, and all of us have rights. But from the start, there has been anti-democratic forces keeping us from living up to our ideals. When our Founding Fathers declared our independence, only White male property owners were allowed to have political power. This racist patriarchal system meant women were at the mercy of their fathers, husbands or brothers, the men who were supposed to protect them and their interests. Black people and Native American people suffered unspeakable abuse because those with the political power refused to see them as fellow human beings.

After that, the list of outgroups grew: Catholics, Jews, the Irish, the Chinese, Italians, the Japanese, socialists, communists, liberals, feminists, LGBTQs, Muslims, professionals, the educated, Hispanics, immigrants...

At the root of this hate is fear and paranoia. Those who organize it and direct it are driven by greed and a lust for power.

Greed and fear are part of the human condition, so it would be a mistake to believe only rightwing societies fall into the trap. When the communists took control of Russia, they did away with the aristocracy and private property. But the party was immediately consumed with greed and a lust for power. They reserved the best for themselves and ruled over everyone else using fear and intimidation.

We cannot isolate the problem by pointing an accusing finger at specific groups. Any of us can be manipulated with fear. Any of us can be greedy. If we're lucky enough to be given great wealth, we might use it to acquire even more. As easy it is to hate the rich as a class, it's important to remember that we have an economic system that allowed them to get rich, and the greed many of them wallow in is a human failing. It isn't reserves specifically for them. So, if we divorced ourselves from so-called red states, and deported the rich from our new liberal Graden of Eden, it would only be a matter of time before the same dynamics began to trouble us again.

I was born in the mid-1960s. I was a kid in the '70s, and I came of age in the '80s. This country had many problems during that time. As a gay boy, I feared rejection from my family. I even feared physical harm. As a young man, I feared I would die alone from AIDS. But things seemed to be changing for the better. It was very slow, but it was happening. And eventually, without even consciously realizing it, I began to believe this change for the better was unstoppable.

That was my mistake. And that's why the last few years have been so emotionally difficult. Fear and greed haven't gone anywhere. Until our species evolves, we will always have to deal with it.

What is the best way to combat these human failings? I don't have all the answers. I'm not sure anyone does. But I firmly believe we need to perpetually renew our commitment to our ideals.

I believe everyone should have a right to vote. I don't think anyone's vote should count more than anyone else's. I don't think anyone should be allowed to accumulate so much wealth they can become our masters. I think we all have rights. And I think we're all deserving of basic necessities: food, water, relative safety, decent housing, healthcare. And I think we should take care of those who are too old or too sick to take care of themselves.

No outgroups. No enemies from within. We're all in this together.

The Friday Afternoon Club, a review.

Griffin Dunne's The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir is often funny, sometimes sad, and always interesting. I enjoyed it. Dunne has been around Hollywood celebrities his whole life, and he's been involved in the movie business for over 40 years as an actor, producer and director. He played Jack in An American Werewolf in London (1981). He wasn't the werewolf. That was his character's friend David, played by David Naughton. Jack was the werewolf's first victim. I was in high school when the movie came out, and I liked it a lot. It was a cheeky, fun horror movie. And the special effects were impressive for that period. As a kid who came from a West Virginia family of modest means, I liked the idea of backpacking across Europe with a friend.

Poltergeist came out the next year. That was another big movie that appealed to the teen crowd when I was in high school. Dominique Dunne played the older daughter, Dana. Sadly, Dominique was murdered by her boyfriend a few months after the movie was released. She was 22.

Dominick Dunne was the father of Griffin and Dominique. Back in the late '80s and throughout the '90s, he often talked about high profile murder cases in L.A. on TV chat shows. He also wrote a few successful novels as well as books and articles about Hollywood murders. Before his writing career, he was a Hollywood producer. One of the films he produced was The Boys in the Band. Dominick Dunne always triggered my gaydar when I saw him on TV, and as it turned out, he was primarily attracted to men. Although, when he finally came out late in life, he described himself as bi.

Griffin reveals in his book that his father had a relationship with Frederick Combs, the actor who played Larry, while The Boys in the Band was being made. And he had a relationship that lasted years with one of Dominique's male friends. Dominick was terrified people would discover his connection to this man during the trial of his daughter's killer because he was sure the defense lawyer would have used the information to paint him as a pervert and suggest to the jury that Dominique was part of a sleazy Hollywood family without morals. This was the 1980s, so I don't think Dominick was just being paranoid.

Even though Griffin was strongly attracted to girls since the start of puberty, as a teenager in the 1970s, he wondered if he had inherited his father's attraction to men. So one day when his father was out of town, Griffin went to his father's house and experimented with his father's boyfriend, a man whom closeted Dominick referred to as his valet. Although Griffin was not repulsed by the experience and was able to perform, when it was over, the "valet" told him he was definitely not gay.

As a long-time Star Wars fan, I was surprised and delighted to learn that Griffin and Carrie Fisher were best friends. They were, in fact, roommates when Carrie landed the part of Princess Leia. They lived in an upscale New York apartment paid for by Carrie's mother Debbie Reynolds.

John Dunne, the highly regarded journalist and writer, was Dominick Dunne's brother and Griffin's uncle. John's wife was the hugely successful and extremely talented writer Joan Didion.

I'm sure Griffin would freely admit that his writing talent doesn't come anywhere close to that of his aunt's, but his book is well worth the time, nevertheless.

Mrs. Bridge (1959) and Mr. Bridge (1969)

Mr. & Mrs. Bridge (1990) was one of those literary films that received high marks from critics, but it didn't draw in the crowds. However, it was directed by James Ivory and produced by his partner Ismail Merchant, and I loved A Room with a View and Maurice was important to many LGBTQ people in the 1980s. It was groundbreaking. So I was interested in their latest project. And the film starred Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward as Mr. and Mrs. Bridge. I loved both of them, so that was another reason to watch.

The film was another period piece for Merchant and Ivory, but it switched from Edwardian England to 1930s Kansas City. Mr. and Mrs. Bridge are a conservative upper middle class couple with three children, Ruth, Carolyn and Douglas. They live in a comfortable home in the country club district, and they have a live-in maid. The film is based on two novels by Evan S. Connell, Mrs. Bridge (1959) and Mr. Bridge (1969). I first read the novels about 20 years ago, and I revisited them last week. The film is a fairly faithful adaptation, but the novels are darker, and the social commentary has a sharper edge.

Both Mr. and Mrs. Bridge are commendable in many ways. They love their children and each other, and they are concerned with decency and fairness. But they're stuck in a bubble in terms of time and social class. Changing attitudes and mores confuse them and sometimes frustrate them, and they have a hard time understanding people who live outside their neighborhood. Their inability to adapt and open themselves up to knew ways of seeing and experiencing the world limits their capacity for intimacy with their children, their friends and even each other. They're always so proper and conventional.

Mrs. Bridge is far more likable than her husband. She is aware that her knowledge of the world is limited, and she does have empathy for others. But she has allowed her husband and her way of life to box her in. Her first name is India, and she wonders if her parents were thinking of another sort of girl when they gave her that name, someone more sophisticated and daring. At first it did look like Mrs. Bridge was going to be an independent woman. She was nearly 30 before getting married. However, when she settled down with Mr. Bridge she made it her goal in life to do exactly what was expected of the wife of a prominent Kansas City lawyer.

Throughout the 1920 and '30s, she focused on her children. The house was taken care of by her maid, and the yard was tended to by a gardener that came once a week. Douglas gave her the most trouble when he was a boy. She would tell him how things were done, and he would always demand to know why. Mrs. Bridge usually didn't have an answer. These episodes were often funny. For instance, when guests were in the house, guest towels were put out in the bathrooms. But no one used the fancy guest towels, not even the guests. When they had guests, everyone used tissues to dry their hands, even the guests. But one time, Douglas used one of the guest towels, and when Mrs. Bridge saw one of her fancy towels had been soiled, she scolded the boy. But he told her the practice of hanging towels no one used seemed silly to him. Mrs. Bridge realized her son had a point, so she didn't know how to argue with him. She just insisted he follow "the rules." When Douglas reached a certain age, she said it was time he start wearing a fedora like his father. Douglas resisted at first, but then he agreed to go to a men's shop and buy a hat. But then he started wearing it everywhere. He even played basketball with it on. And he pushed it up onto the back of his head, and he got a big slogan button that said, "Let's get acquainted" and pinned it the side of the hat. Mrs. Bridge was exasperated.

When the kids got older, Mrs. Bridge was lost. She had very little to do. The house was taken care of by the maid. The children didn't need her anymore. In fact, they found her annoying and silly. And Mr. Bridge worked long hours. Several of her female friends were in the same boat. So the novels had a feminist element. One of Mrs. Bridge's closest friends was so frustrated by the constraints put upon her as the wife of a banker, she committed suicide.

The first novel, Mrs. Bridge, ends just as the film ends. Mrs. Bridge heads out on a snowy morning to do a little shopping. She climbs into the Lincoln that was a gift from her husband some years before, a car that she refused to part with even when Mr. Bridge offered to buy her a new one. And she gets stuck when the car stalls when she's backing out of the garage. The garage doors pin her in. In the film, we're told Mr. Bridge eventually comes home and rescues his wife. But in the book, Mr. Bridge has died of a heart attack. Mrs. Bridge is alone. She has failed to adapt and change with the times. She doesn't know how to live on her own. So there she is by herself, stuck in the past.

In the film, Mr. Bridge comes off as introverted and a bit stuffy. But in the books, Mr. Bridge is a racist who has little empathy for anyone outside of his class who struggles with life. In Mr. Bridge's mind, he has worked hard for everything he has, and sees no reason why others can't do the same. He has a strong distaste for Jewish people. He misses an investment opportunity because the man giving the investment advise to his friends is a Jewish man, so Mr. Bridge is sure he's a social climber who doesn't know what he's talking about. He resents it when he learns the nephew of their maid plans to attend Harvard. And when a Black girl attempts to join Carolyn's sorority, Mr. Bridge insists the girl is a troublemaker who should "know her place." When Mrs. Bridge is deeply disturbed by a photo of a lynching she sees in a magazine, she takes the photo to Mr. Bridge and asks why anyone would do such a thing. Mr. Bridge has the nerve to blame the violence on the victim. He says he has been to the South, and all the White people there were very nice to him, so he's sure the Black man must have done something to provoke his attackers. We learn that a White man in Mr. Bridge's social circle, a senator who is running to be governor, once borrowed 500 dollars from Mr. Bridge and has never paid it back. At the time, that was a huge sum of money. Mr. Bridge resents the man and thinks poorly of him, but he doesn't judge other White men by what this one man did to him. However, when the maid asks for an advance on her salary, Mr. Bridge refuses and claims this is an example of how Black people often feel entitled to what they haven't earned and how they're irresponsible with money. Sometimes, you just want to shake the shit out of him. But when his prejudice is pointed out to him, he deflects. He insists he is right.

But not everything Mr. Bridge does, thinks and says is awful. For instance, an older boy once attacked Douglas, but Douglas is very proud of the fact he was able to defend himself. Mr. Bridge wants to hear the details. Douglas's attacker was the son of some people Mr. and Mrs. Bridge know. His parents insisted he was a genius and allowed him to be rude and critical of others. He waited on Douglas and pretended to read, but he concealed a rock under his book and threw it Douglas, even though Douglas had done nothing to him. Mr. Bridge realizes this boy is dangerous and instructs his son to stay away from him, and to not fight back if the boy ever attacks him again, and never turn his back on him. Douglas agrees, but doesn't understand why his father wouldn't want him to defend himself. Mrs. Bridge is confused, too, and asks Mr. Bridge to explain himself when Douglas is out of the room. Mr. Bridge points out that Douglas is a boy, and he thinks like a boy, but this other older kid is smart, and he's not to be trusted. Mr. Bridge doesn't use the term psychopath, but that's clearly what he thinks this other boy is. And sure enough, a couple of years later, the headline in the local paper proclaims the boy had killed his parents. Mr. Bridge does care for his family, and he looks out for them.

Their oldest daughter Ruth is the one who breaks out of their suburban gilded prison. As a young adult, she moves to New York and becomes an editor of a literary magazine. She befriends artists, intellectuals and bohemians, regardless of class, religion, race or ethnicity. One of her closest friends is a gay man. Mr. Bridge is horrified, and Mrs. Bridge doesn't even know what a homosexual is.

Of course, these novels are dated. The events described take place in a different era. But I was struck by how many of the themes are still relevant. A hundred years later, and we're still struggling with racism, classism, sexism, homophobia, and distrust of outsiders. And we still struggle with loneliness and being stuck inside of our own heads. These novels are episodic, and nothing extremely dramatic happens, but they provide deep insight into the human condition.

Canaries In A Coal Mine

Hurricane Katrina: Race Against Time is a 5 part National Geographic documentary about what happened in New Orleans 20 years ago. The storm made landfall on August 29, 2005. The next morning, it seemed there was only minimal damage. TV reporters on location told the world the city had dodged a bullet. But then the levee system failed.

The series uses archival footage and interviews of people who were in the city to reconstruct what happened. There is a special emphasis on the poor Black people who were not evacuated and left stranded for nearly a week.

Storms happen, but much of the destruction and suffering caused by Katrina was avoidable. Much of the surrounding wetlands had been seriously damaged by the oil industry. There wasn't much effort to restore that natural buffer because it would have cost money. The levee system was poorly designed and desperately needed to be reinforced, and this was well known for decades. But nothing was done because that would have cost money. The year before, the city staged an exercise to see what would happen if a major hurricane hit. They knew then that many poor, disabled and elderly citizens had no way of getting out of the city on their own. There was a proposal to use buses to pick those people up in their own neighborhoods and transport them to shelters outside the city. But that would have cost money, so the plan wasn't implemented.

There was a lot of media attention after the flooding began and thousands were stranded in the city in hot weather without drinking water and food. Many were still stuck in their houses or on their roofs surrounded by flood water. But soon the media and officials began to focus more on looting than rescue efforts. The crime rate was greatly exaggerated. There were some bad actors doing some bad stuff, to be sure, but most of the people in the stores were there to get necessary supplies. They were looking for food, water, medication, and clean clothes and shoes. The gun shots were often calls for help. Some of those stuck on their roofs fired into the air hoping this would draw rescuers to them. But very quickly the media gave outsiders the impression New Orleans had turned into a wild, lawless and dangerous place. As a result, National Guardsmen, many of whom were recent war veterans, game into the city with the attitude they were they to put down a rebellion rather than engage in a rescue mission. 20 years later, and it still seems unreal that so many were left in that horrible situation for nearly a week while the world watched on television.

New Orleans did rebuild. It's a thriving city once more. But many of those poor people whose families had lived there for generations were unable to return. There was a lot of grant money available for several years following the storm, but the rules for getting the money made it difficult for the poor to take advantage. Most of the money went to middle class and affluent families.

One elderly man at the end warned us. He said the poor Black people of New Orleans were like canaries in a coal mine. The monied interests who have taken control of our country will quickly leave the rest of us behind and label us criminals if we ever get in their way.

The docuseries is streaming on HULU.

Still Dreaming

I grew up in southern West Virginia, so as you might expect, I was surrounded by Christian fundamentalism and evangelicalism.  Many of my relatives and neighbors attended small, rural evangelical churches.  Some didn't even seem aware of alternative worldviews, or those alternatives seemed so distant and foreign they weren't viable options.  Many were not particularly religious.  "Unchurched" neighbors were in no way unusual.  But many who weren't churchgoers still bought into evangelicalism.  They saw themselves as "sinners" who were "lost."

As a little boy, I attended a small church near our home with my family.  Like many in my LGBTQ tribe, I could have been harmed even more by the homophobia embedded in evangelicalism if I had continued to be "brought up" in the church.  But my mother had schizophrenia, and when she began acting out in inappropriate ways at church, my father didn't know how to deal with it.  My mother wasn't diagnosed and treated until just a couple of months before I graduated high school.  So, twelve years earlier, we stopped going to church, and Dad was so disheartened that he didn't even try to "witness" or preach to his kids.  My mother's illness provided a kind of buffer.  The disease also provided another out.  I knew I shouldn't believe many of the things she said.  I didn't understand what was going on with her at the time, but I knew she could be "off."  And my hapless father was so overwhelmed.  As a result, I didn't grow up with a strong appreciation or respect for authority.

I was a socially awkward gay boy, a loner, an outsider.  And I became a freethinker.  After seeing the film Close Encounters when I was 12, I became obsessed with the idea that altruistic aliens like those in the movie would take me aboard their spaceship and transport me to a better world.  My hope became an expectation.  Without even realizing what I was doing, I had invented my own religion.  However, I was unable to sustain my belief, but I remained a seeker.  When I attended WVU, I studied religion and philosophy.  I wanted "answers."  I learned about many great ideas, but nothing universally acknowledged or accepted.

Many see a great dichotomy between religion and science.  This idea is strong among LGBTQs.  Many of us have been harmed by organized religion.  Many of us have come up against intransigent homophobic attitudes that are framed as religious beliefs.  And many who claim to be religious are often hostile toward science.  We've all heard the stories of people like Galileo being persecuted by the religious.

However, some would argue that using religion to justify persecution is an abuse of religion.  Paul Tillich was one of the thinkers I studied in my younger days, and he spoke of "the God behind God."  He meant that we have our ideas of God, and our human institutions are founded on those ideas.  But the God we seek is beyond our capacity to fully understand.  To treat someone as an enemy simply because they challenge your concept of God is to make an idol of your own thoughts.  Neti neti is a Sanskrit expression found in the Upanishads, meaning "not this, not that."  Annie Dillard said in her book The Pilgrim at Tinker Creek that whatever you say about God is untrue because we can only know creaturely habits which do not apply to God.

Evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould wrote about something he called non-overlapping magisteria.  He claimed science deals with the empirical realm.  It uncovers facts about the universe and develops theories based on those facts.  Religion, on the other hand, deals with meaning and moral value.  At their roots, one has nothing to do with the other.

Science is many things, but it isn't a philosophy of life.  Some might want it to be, and some might try to turn it into one, but that's scientism, not science.  Margaret Atwood has written some dark stories about the future, sometimes classified as science fiction.  In these stories, technology in the hands of bad actors can have devastating results.  In her book Burning Questions, she says she is sometimes asked if she has a dim view of science.  She insists she does not and claims science is a tool like a hammer.  You can use a hammer to build a house, or you can use it to kill your neighbor.

So what was I doing when, as a middle school boy, I was looking up at the sky and dreaming of little gray men coming to my rescue?  I was seeking meaning, purpose, a sense of belonging, love, and hope.

Many of us are discouraged.  The news is depressing.  Some of us are getting older.  We have more years behind us than ahead.  Some of us are dealing with health issues.  Many of us are grieving for family, friends, and furry companions.  Like many of us, I need more than a hammer or the Big Bang Theory to get me through.  I'm still a seeker.  I'm still looking at the stars and hoping a better way is out there.  I'm still dreaming.                                                   

Goodnight, Mr. President.

All the news reports about Jimmy Carter have stirred up a lot of childhood memories.  I had just turned 11 when Carter was elected.  I was in the fifth grade and still attending the small elementary school close to my house.  I still watched Saturday morning cartoons, and in the evenings, I watched shows like The Six Million Dollar Man and Wonder Woman.  In many ways, I was still a little kid, but I was changing, and it seemed like the world around me was changing, too.

I was in those dreaded tween years.  Movies like Pan's Labyrinth and Let the Right One In, as well as books by Stephen King, such as It, capture the horror of that transitional time.  Like most of us at that age, I was beginning to realize the world could be a scary place, and I couldn't always count on my parents and other adults to protect me.

The following year, I had to ride a big yellow bus to a much larger middle school on the other side of town.  Many of the kids were older than me, and many were a lot rougher.  I heard swear words all the time, and there were a lot of graphic discussions about sex.  I saw a lot of bullying, and not just gentle teasing, but some scary shit.  Fights would break out, and blood was drawn.  I was also exposed to tremendous amounts of homophobia every day, and I had recently realized I was "one of those."  I had always been shy around my peers, but I was traumatized in middle school.  I never felt safe.  I had to go to gym class, which was segregated by sex, and I felt out of place and vulnerable.  The sports wasn't just about exercise.  It brought out the boys' aggression and need to dominate and prove themselves worthy.  I didn't relate.  I didn't understand that milieu and feared the boys would discover I wasn't one of them.  After seeing the film Close Encounters, I began hoping for, and then expecting, altruistic aliens to take me aboard one of their spaceships and transport me to a kinder and gentler world where I would be loved and wanted.  For a couple of years, that was my religion.

It was a frightening time, but there were high points.  Realizing I liked boys and beginning to have overt sexual thoughts was exhilarating.  I secretly crushed on some of the boys I knew, including some of the mean ones.  I had a celebrity crush on Shawn Cassidy, who played Joe on the Hardy Boys.  Shawn was older than me, a young adult, but the things I did to him in my imagination would have made him blush.

I was allowed to stay up late when I didn't have school the following day, and I began watching Johnny Carson, Saturday Night Live, and Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.  In the afternoons, I sometimes watched soap operas with my older sister, such as Days of Our Lives.

I began watching the news with my father and became interested in current events and politics.  Nixon had resigned a couple of years before, but at the time, I didn't care.  Even though I lived through the Nixon years, I had to learn about his presidency, Watergate, and Vietnam years later.  But I paid close attention to Jimmy Carter.  I watched his inauguration, and I watched him walk to the White House.  I remember how he wore a bulky brown sweater when he delivered his fireside chat about energy conservation.  His daughter Amy was just a couple of years younger than me, and I was struck by some of the cruel things adults would say about her.  The Carters were from Georgia, and my family was from West Virginia.  They sounded a lot more like my family and neighbors than other people on TV.  Jimmy Carter's sister Ruth was a faith healer, and his brother Billy was a country mess.  Jimmy's mother, Miss Lillian, was a character, too.  They all seemed familiar to me.

Jimmy Carter lived to see his 100th birthday.  He lived a long life, so it's time to let go and say goodbye.  But his death reminds me I'm getting older myself.  I'll turn 60 this year, and I don't expect to live as long as he did.  The late 1970s was a good while ago, but they were important developmental years for me.  I'm glad Jimmy Carter was a role model during that time.  When I was younger, Mr. Rogers showed me what it was like to be gentle and compassionate.  Then, President Carter displayed a more adult concern and desire to do the right thing.  I was lucky to have him at that age.  We should all be so lucky now.