Do you need to read something beautiful today? This dad sure loves his kid.

[MADem]

88. You could never tell my aunt that about my cousin...!

My cousin was "hard wired" at a young age, everyone knew it way back with his choices in toys and playmates, and he was out to our family WAY before it was fashionable, and before "out" was even the expression used. We all knew he was gay in the mid-sixties. We knew who his boyfriend was, he came to family gatherings, and we knew they weren't "roommates," that they were a committed couple. We didn't give a shit either way--he was a great young guy then, he's a great old guy now.

I will say I think our attitudes (which were a bit 'forward' for the era, I think) were very strongly and actively shaped by the generation of matriarchs who ruled the roosts, still alive a half century ago, who came up and were kicking their heels up in the Roaring Twenties. They had gay friends when they were younger, and they "got it" and they passed the lessons on to the next generation. There was much more tolerance and acceptance of differences amongst the "in" crowds back in those wild Temperance days. The parents of the Leave It To Beaver era were much more prudish, conservative, and disapproving than their grandparents who had spent time partying in speakeasies during Prohibition!