Finals Week over. The last days in Las Crucifixion [ Cruces] New Mexico......then it's off to that New York State........of Mind-part III

Nothing against those African-Americans [ wish I could say the same for inbred redneck white trash] because, here in sports-saturated America where Little League daddies and lacrosse mommies raise their scheduled children to be competent little jockstraps, for many this is the only way one can pay for college, those not born into affluent families and raised in either Newtown or Greenwich, Connecticut. 

Anyway, back to me, myself, and I. The only three people I seem to be able to count on in life. And so, having the surgery and what Dr. Gilliam said apparently gave me the excuse I needed to stay in student housing beyond the move-out deadline; or did it? Stopping into NMSU Housing to talk with my friend, Jen M, a woman who goes beyond her job description to help the student, in particular those who are non-traditional students and live in what is called " Family Housing", or South Campus Housing which is where Cervantes Village is located, I learned that one must email the assistant director of housing, Ms. Aragon. Here's where things got rather difficult as you shall see. 

 Subject: Medical emergency- need to extend stay in student housing until May 25. Can provide documentation and/or phone contacts of doctors

 

Dear Ms. Aragon, 

 

I am writing to you to request an extended stay in my current student housing unit, H-19 at 200 Cervantes Vlg. After discovering a painful lump under my left arm on Monday 4/29, I went to the urgent care on Walton Blvd. who in turn informed me that I need go straight to the emergency room; Memorial Medical Center being the hospital they recommended. Upon being seen by the ER doctor on call, after draining the wound which was rather large, the hospital admitted me, at which time he referred me to see the surgeon the very next day. I had the surgery on Thursday May 1st and was discharged last Saturday; the surgeon's orders calling for a visiting nurse and required daily bathing/change of dressing twice daily. This for a period of three weeks from Sat. 5/3/14, during which time I need follow the home health care nurse's directions and report for check ups with Dr. Gilliam- General Surgeon.

 

I am enclosing the contact numbers for all doctors. 

 

Lance Whitehair, Resident MD at Memorial Medical Center​. Office: 575-521-XXXX Fax: 575-521-XXXX. 

 

Dr. Gilliam-Surgeon at General Surgery Associates, Office: 575-556-XXXX Fax: 575-556-XXXX 

 

Cheryl Oropal

Her reply? 

Hello Cheryl,

 

I will discuss your request with my supervisor. Are you planning on attending in the fall?

 

 

Candace Aragon

Associate Director

Housing & Campus Life

New Mexico State University

My reply was this. 

Hi, 

Thanks for looking into that for me, hope that the doctor's phone contacts will help, Dr. Gilliam-Surgeon would be the best to talk with as he gave the orders for my visiting nurse and about keeping the area clean and showering at least once daily[ he preferred twice, but....]. That and to lift stuff with that dressing I'm wearing As for attending NMSU-Dona Ana in the fall, I am planning to transfer to the State University of New York's Potsdam College. Originally I was accepted for spring 2014 semester at SUNY Potsdam but had deferred until fall 2014, figuring that moving in mid-winter would have been rough at best.

The truth, as I already deferred going to SUNY Potsdam until the fall of 2014 from spring semester, or January. To which the next reply would really tell me that one cannot be nice to an ARROGANT, SNIPPY " PROFESSIONAL" BITCH. Understanding of my situation? HELL NO!!!! Even though I never used, nor registered with Campus Health because students at fucking Dona Ana Mexicana Community College have to pay extra for all medical services and I have an off campus provider who also does my HRT, plus Medicare and Medicaid HMO which pays for it; I had to go to Campus Health to get their opinion before this fucking pill-box, Ms. Aragon, would approve of an extended stay. WHAT A PAIN IN THE GODDAMN ASS!!! 

And so, how do you spell " Bitch" in Ebonics? B-E-Y-O-T-C-H. 

   Hello Cheryl,

 

We don’t contact doctors and we don’t accept documentation from doctors. Every case is person by person. I will be in contact.

 

Thank you,

 

 

Candace Aragon

Associate Director

Housing & Campus Life

New Mexico State University

Definitely the by the book snippy professional with an axe to grind and then some. The finale? So far anyway..........

Hello Cheryl,

 

You will need to take your medical documentation to the Health Center and have them review the documentation and have them email me. Without this information you will not be allowed an extended stay.

 

Thank you,

 

 

Candace Aragon

Associate Director

Housing & Campus Life

New Mexico State University

And so, that I did and it almost cost me the $35 fee to see the doctor at Campus Health; however they ended up waiving the fee, but only approved my extended stay until Monday May 12, the day that they learned I shall see the surgeon, Dr. Gilliam. Calling his office, General Surgery Associates the same day from housing where I later stopped to drop off the extended stay request I got at Campus Health, despite Ms. Aragon [ should be " Ms. Arrogant"] wanting the doctor to email her, I was told that Dr. Gilliam does not send emails. He could Fax something over, however, after my check up stating as to how many days more he needs me to follow the shower and bandage change regimen. 

Which will, more likely than not, be for the next two weeks until either Saturday May 24 or Sunday the 25th; leaving me plenty of time to pack the fucking car slowly. Once that's done, I shall stay long enough for those " Up to 67 days early" to arrive, the earliest I can renew the car registration being Sunday May 25. A Day when New Mexico MVD will be closed for the long Memorial Day Weekend, and so Tuesday the 27th shall be the day. 

And then I am off, sometime that week and probably by May 30th. Off to a state where I have been before and was born, New York-the Empire State, but a part of that state I maybe passed through back when I was still " It".  In 1992 when I was still living with both parents in Orlando, Florida and took off to visit a friend I knew who moved back to his hometown of Buffalo, NY, after which time I drove the back highways across beautiful New York State and, as I remember, was on US Route 11 and passed through Potsdam, New York on my way toward Malone and SR-22. Sleeping on a back road amidst the Adirondack Mountains I still remember passing by the Ausable River Gorge. 

New Mexico may be the so-called " Land of Enchantment" and does have some interesting geographical features to it, Angel Fire Mountain in the north and Sitting Bull Falls National Recreation Area near Carlsbad being two of those, and yes, Carlsbad Caverns National Park with its miles of underground caverns and bats flying out of the belfry [ cave] every summer evening. However, for the most part it is just a desert, the only exceptions being in the mountainous regions of the state. 

By comparison, New York State is a green, lush paradise filled with gorges, waterfalls everywhere. By comparison, its mountains are not quite as high and the landscape not as wide open; cows do not graze free-range in New York like they do here in the West. New York's winters are much colder than anything Las Cruces will ever see; for that reason alone, people are moving into Las Cruces in droves. Unaware that there's only so much water in a region that gets, on average, just 10.5 inches of precipitation annually, on the East Mesa houses are popping up like zits upon the average teenager's face; each home built closer than anything Baldwin, New York on Long Island has ever seen. Las Cruces, New Mexico. Another Orlando, Florida with even fewer trees, much lower humidity but hotter in summer. A planned city with plenty of retail and fast food shitboxes for all the modern day idiots to shop and eat burgers at, we even have a Chuck E. Cheese replica called Peter Piper Pizza making the most terrible pizza to be found anywhere! A place where all the yuppie and Mexicana mommies and daddies can take their little fucking ninos' to play " safely" in " Such a dangerous world for children to play unsupervised in", or so says Fox News. 

And so I shall be off. Sunshine never brightened my fucking life and sunshine-loving fitness-freak people simply make me even more depressed. That was true in Orlando and still is here in Las Crucifixion, another mostly conservative boomtown that still lacks a decent abortion clinic; yet contains two " Abortion alternative organizations" ready to shove a gooey dose of " Liquid Jesus" up your vagina should you be a pregnant woman. All of which shall be accompanied by an extra heavy dose of Biblical fairy tales, of course. Fairy tales which come in both SPANISH and ENGLISH.   

Finals Week over. The last days in Las Crucifixion [ Cruces] New Mexico......then it's off to that New York State........of Mind-part II

The doctor at the Urgent Care clinic on Walton saw me and told me to go straight to the hospital, asking me if I knew where the hospital was. Explaining to her that I've passed by both hospitals in Las Cruces but didn't really know which was best, she told me " Memorial Health Center. It's on South Telshor at University". That said, immediately I drove myself down to Memorial Health and checked into the emergency room. The first ER doctor having drained that awfully painful boil,which literally smelled up the entire room with a stench similar to septic tank effluent leaching through the lawn behind someone's house, he called for a second opinion from the next doctor who just came on call. Dr. Wilson. A younger doctor sporting a well-trimmed beard with a hippie-type look who seconded his opinion that the surgeon, Dr. Gilliam, needed to take a look and decide if surgery was needed. 

I was then admitted into the Intensive Care Unit for observation; the next day I was seen by Dr. Gilliam-General Surgeon who told me that surgery was the best route to take in my case. I had severe cellulitis. Something which plagued my mother several times since she was in her mid-50s and we lived in Newtown, CT. Back when Mom worked at Fairfield Hills State Hospital as a bookkeeper and she first broke out with boils similar to what I had all over her legs and arms. Anyway, so I underwent the surgery and was later discharged from Memorial Health Center. Told by the surgeon, Dr. Gilliam, that, for the next three weeks, I needed to shower and change the dressing at least once, if not twice daily. 

Then I explained my expected predicament. That I lived in campus housing and they expected us students not going to summer classes to move out on May 11, 2014; the day after Finals Week commenced. That I was going to end up homeless and living in my Ford Escape SUV and/or tent and would have to, once again, go several days without showering; because I am on Social Security Disability and cannot afford to pay rent. Something the student loans have been paying for here at school; loans which I may eventually default upon should those future novels never really sell. Which is, by the way, what has happened so far to my friend back in Connecticut, James K. Buchanan: Publisher of The Lonely Hill; The Woolridge Tale, and his latest book titled The Ghost of Scheherazade. [ He's working on either some short stories or a fourth book as we speak.] 

And so, that he could not help me with. However, explaining that I really didn't have any close friends to help me with changing my bandages every day and that I could never depend on my fucking 19 year old suitemate with whom I shared a bathroom since last semester when she actually moved in from Garcia Hall [ dorms]. A woman who obviously hated my fucking guts but didn't have the fucking cujones' to say it. And so, I was told that I could get Memorial Home Health Care. This after first being told that that might not have been an option being that I had transportation, but later being told that Medicare, which I have, would cover it fully. They would send home health care aids for as  long as Dr. Gilliam requested; however, I would need to have someplace to live during those three weeks. [ Two weeks remaining from today, Saturday May 10. A day better known on the NMSU Campus as " Move-out day".] 

By the way, this fucking scumbag university [ including its sorry ass " branch" called Dona Ana Community College], one that U.S. News and World Reports Magazine recently called a " Top Tier University", does not even give students a few days to regroup after Finals Week commences!!!! But should that not be expected from a school that, annually, pisses away $4,200,000 of ACADEMIC FUNDING on their stupid sports programs, the failing American Football team in particular? Football, after all, is great for luring " diversity" to campuses throughout the United States; meaning that it encourages "minorities" to apply for athletics scholarships, along with redneck white trash conceived when its human mother had sex with its uncle in the trailer park or barn. After all, what would NMSU do without " diversity", meaning a bunch of African-American [and Caucasian] male Neanderthals whose testicles and penises probably exceed the actual sizes of their brains? Hey, it provides "family-friendly" entertainment for both redneck rancher and Mexican-American immigrant alike.         

Finals Week over. The last days in Las Crucifixion [ Cruces] New Mexico......then it's off to that New York State........of Mind

School having officially ended yesterday[ May 9, 2014] at New Mexico State University and its Dona Ana Community College Branch [ where I was for the past five semesters], technically I am supposed to be Homeless and Hopeless in the [ So-called] Land of Opportunity called America. The registered ISBN title for what will be, now, my third novel from those 19 notebook-sized journals; plus childhood and teenage memories growing up [ but never really maturing in the traditional sense-Erikson's Psychosocial Theories] in Baldwin, New York and Newtown, Connecticut. A few weeks ago, I assumed that I'd be living in the car once again. Staying here in Las Cruces, New Mexico until the end of May/early June when I can get the Ford Escape XLT registration renewed. Avoiding the hassles of trying to register it in New York where I don't even have an address yet, but will soon be starting school at the State University of New York's Potsdam College come late August. 

Yeah you heard that right. I'll soon be going from a climate where I've seen fewer than 25 rainy days in the since settling into my former rental cottage at 2215-1/2 South Solano Drive in late October 2011; to one where it rains frequently throughout the warmer season, and yes, snows rather often in winter. Four-foot long icicles hanging from the many rooftops throughout rural Potsdam Village in New York's North State from Thanksgiving through late March or early April, it's the stuff those Santa Claus cartoons on TV feature every Holiday Season in America. Offering the children a pleasant alternative to the bitter bullshit and metaphorical lies associated with that other fantasy character Christians call "Jesus Christ". Santa, after all, makes the otherwise lame holiday called "Christ-mas" [ the Pagan Holiday, Yule, which the Christo-Catholics stole and later moved three days ahead on the Gregorian Calendar from Dec. 21st to the 25th] palatable to children who really couldn't care less about " sin" and if some ancient Jewish menace to Rome supposedly died for the " sins" they shall commit throughout their long lives. 

I will miss a few of the friends I have made at NMSU. [ none at Dona Ana, however. A fucking career-oriented community college populated mostly by awfully conservative Mexican-Americans and New Mexico rednecks hailing from both beef ranch and pecan field alike.] In particular, Tori C. Kathryn P, Chris L, and a few others. Many of who will be graduating in about a year or two from NMSU. Something that I was getting closer to at NMSU-Dona Ana Branch with 48 credits; upon enrollment, they accepted 29 credits from all my other attempts at college over the past thirty fucked up years of my life as " It" Oropal-the pathetic loser in life.

And so a new town and new place. Las Cruces never having become a place that even felt close to anything I could call " home" within two weeks after moving into that fucking cottage owned by my former landlord, Roz. A Catholic school teacher who had three daughters and lived in their new house on La Purisima in Las Cruces fancy-schmancy-ish East Mesa and was only keeping the old property for her oldest daughter to eventually live in. Then again, that seems to be something I've often said, and felt about every other place I have lived; Baldwin, Long Island, NY; Newtown, CT; Orlando, FL; Southbury, CT; and every place I briefly settled down in over the two years I spent homeless and traveling across this socially-challenged, economically-unjust fuck-hole called the United States of America. I cannot say that I have ever felt a part of any outside entity. My expression I use for town, city, or other domicile, seeing them all from the perspective of being " On the outside looking in". A line from a song by Longmeadow, Massachusetts' Band Stain'D, by the way. 

After all, stemming from what I learned about life as the misfit child and teenager in both Baldwin, NY and [ especially] Newtown, CT, I came to this generalization about everyplace in America. You're either one of the chosen many; or you're one of the alienated few. I've always seen being the " Team player" as just a crock of bullshit, probably because I've always been blackballed by every group of "team players" in every place I've ever been. In this place, I must admit my attitude stems from getting hollered at several times a week on S. Solano Dr. where I first lived at in that small cottage. That and an LGBT community that was somewhat accepting of me at first, but later shunned me, for the most part because I didn't have that " Las Cruces Attitude". 

I haven't any problem admitting that I am hardly the optimistic type, unlike many I've met here in this pathetic desert dust bowl full of sunshine and bullshit. In fact I see many optimistic people as fucking phonies and always have, particularly those who say we need to " love our opponents" and not categorize people by their religion, beliefs, financial class, etc. Having went to high school at Newtown High in Sandy Hook, Connecticut from September of 1977 through June of 1980 [ when I unofficially "dropped out" and went on homebound schooling because I was never going to pass physical education], I soon learned that everyone had their place. Everyone fit into their own clique, whether you were one of the jockstraps and preppy-jock cheerleader perfume cunts who were " Kings" and "Queens" of the school; or you were one of the " Burnouts" or " Stoners" whose primary motivation for attending school was to smoke pot and stay stoned all day long. Not giving a shit whether you graduated or did not. 

Nevertheless, this attitude has stayed with me throughout my so-called "adulthood". A time when most Generation Y's have since moved on to jobbie-land and career-dale and had children of their own. I've never been one to volunteer for anything unless the cause was of benefit to me in some way. I'm not one of those pathetic " Christian" phonies who only serve others because some outdated, fairy tale " guidebook for living" called the Bible tells them they must do so to satisfy the requirements of what some long dead " Man-God" creature told them to do. Nor am I one of these " Community types" who feel a need to give back to whatever piece of shit they reside in. Not that I did not try to be one of them; I did for ten fucking years every fucking Sunday morning when I went to Mattituck Unitarian-Universalist Society in Woodbury, CT. Surrounded by so-called " liberals" who, while being friendly toward me in general, often gossipped behind my back. Saying how I should have been on psychiatric medication and how I never knew how to " Act appropriately". Fuck them. More on this in my former blog, The Diary of Cheryl Lynne Oropal. 

Anyway, how does this relate to Las Cruces. A place which actually has a Facebook page titled Whatever Forever Las Cruces dedicated to all the excitement that goes on here in Las Cruces, New Mexico. What will I miss? The many rainless days full of sunshine, roughly 350 days' worth, annually, that supposedly make Dona Ana County, NM the " Outdoor recreation paradise". A place which, for me, has essentially choked my right lung with dust parasites and caused COPD,  or Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. Turning me from once-active hiker who loved the outdoors back in Connecticut throughout all four seasons; to a lazy and fat person for whom this " Outdoor recreation paradise" has been everything but a paradise. I fail to see the beauty in an arroyo, or " Dry brook" as I call them and still have yet to see what that actual spring looks like at the end of Dripping Springs Trail in the Bureau of Land Management area looks like; locals claim it actually flows during the summer Monsoon, or thunderstorm season. I haven't seen a babbling brook since first arriving in New Mexico and spending some quality time as a homeless bitch and deserter of a Brooklyn homeless shelter back in New York City, crossing the Gila River while hiking in the Gila National Forest [ 140 miles away from lame Las Cruces]. In fact I've gained nearly 60 pounds, going from about 268 when first coming to NM, to about 312 as of yesterday. 

The reason that I'm still here on campus, past the May 10th move out date, is this. On Sunday April 27, that boil under my left arm recurred. This after 29 years; back in 1985 I had a huge and painful boil that required draining by a doctor at an Orlando, FL urgent care clinic called Centra-Care on West Oak Ridge Rd. The lumpy skin still there and in dormancy all those years [ long before transition as transgender woman], last year my nurse practitioner [ like a doctor doing family practice] discovered that very same lump and was worried it might have been breast cancer. Suffering through Monday as the boil grew to the size of an orange, I waited until Tuesday to call the Presbyterian Health Centennial Care Plan's Nurseline, the Medicaid-Managed Care Plan I got because I'm on both Medicaid and SNAP Benefits under the Affordable Healthcare Act signed by President Obama. A president many of these self-sufficient Christo-fascist douchebag Republicans love to accuse of destroying the American Work Ethic of self-sufficiency touting the free-market and faith-based initiatives as the answer to poverty; and those trickle down economic principles which were a failure to most Americans. 

Anyway, I ended up taking that nurses' advice and going to the Urgent Care on Walton Blvd. here in Las Cruces. 

Summer of Love II 1976. Excerpt from Chasing Rainbows: A Search for Identity amidst Role Confusion

[An excerpt about not knowing who you are]Nevertheless, I let Chris load my bicycle unto his Jeep. After which time we rode away, taking a ride around Newtown up Point O’ Rocks Road and Boggs’ Hill, smoking a joint or two and just talking. From what I remember, Chris came on to me, thinking that I was gay and simply in the closet. Naturally, I pushed him away, telling him that I didn’t want to do this. Being the decent guy that he was, Chris was okay with that and discontinued his pursuit of me, his trying to bring me “Out” of the closet. However, Chris was not one to give up easily. Later on during that summer, he would pick me up and offer me some pot to smoke. Taking me to see a friend of his from New York City who had a summer house on Candlewood Lake in New Milford, Connecticut. A novelist who was published and also worked for an advertisement agency, Chris’ friend lived in nearby New Milford. Taking him up on his offer some two weeks later, despite the fact that I was not ready to “Come out” as a gay teen, one who even knew that [she] was “gay” to any extent, I had a really good time that evening with Chris and his writer friend at his Candlewood Cottage.  I liked his writer friend, feeling that I could be more the adult and less the teenager I had to be around most of the other people I hung around.

The evening that Chris took me to see his friend, I had a very good time. For once, I felt that I didn’t have tom pretend to be what I wasn’t. Not only had he shown me all his record albums; he also showed me all the books he both owned and wrote himself. Truly, I felt comfortable, however, there was still that “Gay” thing that I did not understand. I was not ready to come out as a gay “male”. Oddly enough, I still saw myself as the “Straight male”, or so I thought. Fellatio, or oral sex upon a man, was not the thing for me. Not that I wasn’t at least open-minded enough, sexually speaking, to try it that night. I was. Much unlike all the homophobic asshole guys back in Newtown, including those I often chilled out with. Honestly, I did not know what the right path to take was. After all, I still had hopes of being the heterosexual “male” I thought I was. The one I was raised to believe that I was, yet really wasn’t. I was not “gay”, or so I thought, anyway. [Back in 1976, nobody ever used the term “LGBT”, an acronym that stands for “Lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender”.]

Despite that, I really enjoyed visiting Chris’ friend. For once in my mostly fucked up teenage life, I felt comfortable. Both Chris, and his writer friend made me feel as if I were actually a part of the human race. No more and no less. For once, I felt as if I could simply be myself. However, at the time I was way too hyper, too confused by my attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, to see myself as artistically inclined. Looking back, however, I have a feeling that both Chris and his friend sensed that I was “One of the family”, or “Queer”. The only problem being that I, at age thirteen, was not quite ready to realize this. After all, I saw being “queer” as a bad, not good thing. “Queers” were abnormal. They were “Faggots, ass fuckers, ass lickers, pussy lickers, child-molesting Boy Scout Leaders” and the like. Not human beings like everyone else, who, like everyone else in America, had every right to the same civil rights the United States Constitution intended as a guarantee when our American Forefathers wrote “All men are created equal and have certain inalienable rights guaranteed by their creator”. If you actually believe in a creator, that is. Seeing what oppressive, evil “parasites” many who consider themselves to be “Christians” have become, ever since President Nixon designed and planned his “Republican Southern Strategy” to lure all the Southern bigots away from the Democratic Party of America [the conservative, prejudiced “Dixiecrats”] back in the early 70s, after age thirteen, I found it hard to believe in a fairy tale “God” and his so-called “Son” named [by Paul of Tarsus] “Jesus Christ”.    

About Maria? Well, without a doubt, Maria was definitely attractive, from the Playboy Magazine perspective, anyway. An Italian-American woman who was highly athletic, she was tall and thin. Much like the character “Jill” in Preiss and Reese’s One Year Affair, Maria had long black hair parted in the middle. That and a well-toned body; long before the yuppie-jockstrap fitness craze of the 1980s became popular and many upstart racquetball clubs and gyms soon took over the landscape in city and suburb alike. Exceptionally friendly beyond belief, especially after one took into account that she was a cheerleader and lifeguard, Maria was one of those teen women I could talk to without pretending to be something I was not. She was very smart and on the Newtown High School Honor Roll; I loved the fact that I could carry on a conversation with her. However, as the testosterone-driven “Gorilla” I was raised to be [due to physical birth sex assignment], often, I confused a woman wanting to be ‘friends-only’, with someone wanting a relationship with me. Put simply, I did not know the difference. That soon would play a part in whether she and I would get along. At first, she and I would became friends, true. Whenever I had nothing better to do, I’d ride into the town park and stop by her “post”. She and I would end up talking for at least an hour or more.

However, unable to understand the difference between “Friends-only” and sexual love, also called infatuation, in an opposite sex relationship because I didn’t understand how people of opposite sexes could even be “Just friends”. After all, back in the 1970s, that never happened in magazines; or on TV and in the movies. That and it never happened in any of the popular love songs I heard on the radio, one that comes to mind is B.J. Thomas’ 1968 hit, Hooked on a Feeling. 50 Particularly in the remake originally performed in 1971 by the United Kingdom’s Jonathan King, who, producing his own version, added “Ooga chukka” jungle chants at both beginning and end of song. [A version later reproduced in 1974 when Björn Skifs, lead singer of the Swedish pop group Blue Swede, did a cover including their own version of King's "Ooga chuka" introduction. The version I remember best, as it reached number one on the United States Pop (music) Charts.] That said, I began pursuing Maria to the point of obsession. Always pestering her for a “Date” because I liked her; unlike many other women living in Newtown who were, essentially, stuck-up bitches. Often I’d follow her home on my bicycle, all the way up Brushy Hill Road where she lived. Riding behind her bicycle, I’d holler “Maria! Maria! I like you a lot and want to go out with you!” During which time she’d constantly remind me, to no avail because I just could not [and still really cannot] understand the rules of social engagement, “I like you as a friend, ‘Frog’. Can’t you understand that? I think that you’re really sweet; however, I’m too old for you.”

Needless to say, I couldn’t take “No” for an answer from Maria, and, much the same as was with Jodi Harrington, soon I pissed Maria, too. However, Maria was a sweet, forgiving teenage woman. That said, I finally got it through my thick skull that all she wanted was for us to be friends and chat. Maria and I, as naïve teenage ‘Frog’ Oropal, became great friends. Referring again to my sister’s assumption that I had Asperger’s syndrome, despite never being diagnosed as such by a psychologist or psychiatrist, maybe that was true? That I do not know for sure. However, after reading what the symptoms are, maybe I did have [or still have] Asperger’s. Not really sure to be honest? However, for someone like my sister who subscribes, fully, to Wisconsin Senator Paul Ryan’s worldview of “Work as important virtue to all Americans”, in particular when he mentions those like myself [ and “ Urban males from the inner city”, translate “Black men”] who are “ Too lazy to work and would rather depend upon government Food Stamps and welfare”, whether or not I had/have Asperger’s and how it might have been the reason I was never able to hold a full-time job [or two to three part time jobs] is of primary importance. She, of course, referring to the social awkwardness often associated with those having Asperger’s; an inability to understand and interpret non-verbal, and verbal social cues.

However, this social awkwardness did not seem to interfere with my friendship with Chris; nor did it with his friend, a successful, published writer with both Manhattan apartment in New York City; and gorgeous weekend house overlooking Candlewood Lake in New Milford, Connecticut. Despite my fears of gay men at the time, the three of us had more than a great time that night at Chris’ writer friend’s place that night. His friend, whose name I have since forgotten, took me on a tour of his lovely weekend home in Connecticut. Telling me about the many other famous neighbors living in the area, he showed me all of his albums and played whatever I wanted to listen to. Honestly speaking, for the most part, he made me feel at ease. However, I did not think I was gay. I was basically sure that I was not a gay kid. To be perfectly honest, I was not sure what I was, exactly. It would be another thirty long years [chronologically speaking], that and a few sexual experiences with men, plus many more with women that never evolved beyond the first week to two months period, until I’d finally figure this out and “come out” of the closet. Much like Chris and his writer friend were encouraging me to that very night.  

An excerpt from my novel Chasing Rainbows: A Search for Identity

 The move to Newtown, Connecticut in 1974. "The summer weather drawing to a close, the nights up in Connecticut’s Berkshire Mountain Foothills were starting to get chilly. Nevertheless, I tried out our new in-ground swimming pool, enjoying our new place. That and I wandered around the property, down into the forest toward the rear property line and those two babbling brooks. One of which flowed year-round [Tom Brook], the other which flowed most of the year, except in cases of extreme drought. Having grown accustomed to having fences surrounding our backyards in Baldwin, I wondered where the property line was at. Meanwhile, our new neighbors, David Lydem-a police sergeant with the Newtown Police Department and his idiot hillbilly wife from Tennessee, both of them acted as if we were going to be just like the radiologist and his big Italian-American family. Naturally, they automatically assumed that we’d allow them to use our swimming pool anytime they felt like! After all, as that whining skank of a wife had explained to my father [assuming that he was a fucking idiot, or yes, redneck cop like her husband], “Both their three year old, as well as their eight year old girls learned how to swim in it”. However, neither I [as “Frog”], nor my father or mother wanted them to do this without our permission. Mind you, Dad had a point. After all, if one of their children happened to have drowned in our pool while we were not home, out family would be party to a huge lawsuit. That said, Dad put his foot down. Telling that son of a bitch cop next door, and his fucking uneducated, Tennessee Imbecile of a wife, “No! We are not going to share our property and definitely not our pool.” And so, soon the problems with our new neighbors had begun. Much the same as was back in Baldwin, before long, there was to be another “shootout” between the “Hatfield’s and McCoy’s”. From the local teenagers, including the Thompsons, our new neighbors on the other side, I’d soon learn the inevitable truth. We were next door neighbors with Sergeant David Lydem, the cop many teenagers often called “The Buford T. Justice of Newtown, Connecticut”. 18

On a lighter note here, soon we learned about Newtown’s local customs. Some of which were common to other communities in general. Others which, like the annual Labor Day Parade, were unique to Newtown, and only Newtown, Connecticut alone. Much like other towns in America, every year on Memorial Day, Baldwin [New York] had a Memorial Day Parade. Something which Newtown had several years before we got there in 1974, but had since done away with. In Newtown, we had Labor Day Parade. The big whoopee-doo of the town, every year on Labor Day Weekend, the parade signaled the unofficial end of summer in Connecticut. A time after which the town’s kids returned to school until late June.

Beginning on Johnny Cake Lane, a small cut-off road located along Mount Pleasant Road, halfway to the top of that hill and just past the Newtown Volunteer Ambulance Association, the parade route followed Newtown’s one and only Main Street. As it passed Edmond Town Hall and the infamous, towering toward the sky, one-hundred and twelve-foot tall flagpole, Newtown’s Citizens cheered it on. Clapping and yelling as the Striders Marching Band, farm tractors from both the Future Farmers of America [FFA] and Four-H Clubs, plus the Newtown High School Cheerleaders and Easton Banjo Society on that huge hay wagon, all marched down Main Street. Best of all were the Shriners from Bridgeport, Connecticut, the men driving around in circles in their miniature cars as the parade moved down Main Street. Onward they marched toward Route 302[Sugar Street] and Glover Avenue, at which time the parade route turned left onto Glover Avenue. A main road that soon curved to the left and became Queen Street; at which time the parade concluded at the Newtown Parade Marshall’s Stand. The judging stand which was set up in front of the Wheeler Shopping Center; near the [former] Connecticut National Bank and just past Newtown Middle School. Newtown Middle School being the public school I would soon attend. This for the first time since Mrs. Shelley had me expelled from Kindergarten, because of my “Shenanigans.”     

As for my own ‘neighborly relations’ with our new neighbors, “Buford T. Justice” and his white trash wife and family? 19 Well… two weeks later, I was down by Tom Brook, on OUR property, mind you. Cleaning up what I assumed was just trash left out in the woods. Having removed an old wooden milk crate, plus an old drinking glass with a cracked rim, and some old rusty beer cans, I loaded the crap into a wheelbarrow and hauled it off; dumping it all into the trash cans placed outside our garage. Little did I know that the crate and glass were part of his eight year old daughter’s “play fort?” Walking down into the woods she assumed were our “Shared woods” and finding that crate and glass missing, the little bitch ran home. Crying to her Tennessee Hillbilly mother, and police sergeant father, and yes, telling them that [I] “Broke her fort”. And yes, as if that alone wasn’t enough, literally, the little piece of shit told her father that I [as ‘Frog’] “Tried to rape her”. DISGUSTING!  A bloody fucking LIE at best! And yes, just to say this all began as soon as my family set the record straight, telling his idiot family that we DID NOT want to share our pool, and property, with them. Something the former family not only allowed, but actually encouraged.

In the meantime, the Thompsons, our new neighbors on the other side, had invited me for dinner. All of whom were far more intelligent than “Sergeant Porky Pig” and his moronic family. Besides Mr. and Ms. Thompson, their family consisted of their two teenage daughters, Natalie-who was majoring in English Literature at a private liberal arts college in Massachusetts, and Melissa- now in her junior year at Newtown High School. That and their two boys, John and James. One who was rather quiet, the other who acted tough but, at the time, seemed really cool to me. Naturally, I was later to learn that they all smoked pot; excluding John-the younger one. Excluding the eighth grader, James, all were highly artistic. Either they played some sort of musical instrument; or, like the youngest boy, had acted in the local theatre organization.

After all, Newtown was a very artistic town. That and a booming exurban area that was fast becoming the location of choice for many of Fairfield County’s corporate executives, most of whom worked either in Lower Fairfield and New Haven Counties, or in equally booming Westchester County, New York. Many famous residents lived in Newtown, as well as in surrounding towns such as Bethel, Redding, and Southbury. 20 Among Newtown’s well-known residents, those who called Newtown, Connecticut home at one time or another, is the late Alexander Scourby. A Bible Narrator and Playwright, Scourby and his wife lived in an Eighteenth-Century house along Albert’s Hill Road. The dirt road [at the time] one took to get to the Upper Paugusett State Forest and the state boat launch. That and the power station at the Shepaug Dam; the huge hydroelectric dam separating Lake Lillinonah from Lake Zoar. That and Director Elia Kazan. A movie director who, at the time, lived in Newtown’s Sandy Hook Section. Also living in Newtown at one time was Opera Star Grace Moore. Back in the 1930’s and 40’s, Moore lived in a gigantic white farmhouse. Situated along Mount Pleasant Road atop the hill of same name, her place overlooked Taunton Pond. Also to note here, Steven Kellogg, an author of many children’s books, also lived in Newtown, Connecticut for a while. 21 That and rumor had it that one of the guys from the 1960’s and early 1970’s rock band, Steppenwolf, had rented a summer house on Butterfield Road. A narrow road off Hanover Road which, at the time, became little more than a horse path between the east [Hanover], and west [Parmalee Hill Road] sections of the road. However, this may have simply been hearsay. Worthy of noting here, though. In either the spring, or summer of 1976, Steppenwolf actually did perform in concert at our Edmond Town Hall [minus their Lead Singer John Kay who refused to show up]. I shall discuss this more later. The point I’m trying to make here is this. While Baldwin, Long Island, New York had a few residents who achieved stardom, namely Dee Snider [Twisted Sister] and Taylor Dayne; Newtown, Connecticut was simply a magnet for famous artisans. This, I’m sure, because of its outstanding beauty and rural atmosphere; and yes, it’s reasonably close proximity to New York City." 

An excerpt from my novel, One I was going to name Chasing Rainbows: A Queer Woman's Adventure through Rural, Back Roads America; but now am considering renaming the beginning of . Chasing Rainbows: The Search for an Identity?

Nevertheless, during the summer of 1975, my father decided to sell his share of his business, Barry Creations, Incorporated and Remlin Accessories, Ltd. His garment-producing factory in Manhattan which he, and his Business Partner, Mel Baranoff co-owned. That said, Dad paid off the mortgage on our Newtown home, bought a Volvo 1800-ES compact station wagon, and had more than enough free time. Curious as to why I was going to the Town Park nearly every day when we had our own in-ground swimming pool, Albert Oropal began making himself well-known in town. Put simply, Dad had become a “Pest”. Daily, in his new, light blue Volvo Wagon, he’d drive down to the [A. Fenn Dickenson] Town Park. Cruising slowly by those tennis courts filled with Newtown’s corporate housewives, many who had nothing better to do than play tennis and “breed”, Dad would round the bend toward the picnic area. Slowing down and sometimes stopping in hopes to better learn what my “Fascination with going to the Town Park” was all about.

By this time, Dad knew damn well that I smoked cigarettes. However, did he also know that I was smoking pot with those hippie teens who were at least four to five years older than myself? That I did not know. However, I found his snooping into my life to be uncomfortable at the very least. As did my high school aged friends, many of whom wondered if he was some sort of undercover cop. What did he know? What were his objectives here? Did he suddenly want to become the fucking father he never really was, now that he no longer had to spend half his life making sure that the wheels of his “Shop” turned smoothly? Whatever his reasons were, I would see him coming around that bend before he saw me. Much like everyone else did among Newtown’s loosely-organized “Stoner Posse”. After all, in a town where nearly everybody knew everyone else, one could not hide for long. Every one of those potheads knew that I lived next door to the biggest asshole on Newtown’s Police Force; Sergeant David Lydem. Not just that, but they knew damn well that “Buford T. Justice”, as many called him, had it in for me! That I was one of few teenagers in Newtown who had the guts, as well as gall, to walk right up to Sergeant Lydem and tell him, in loud and downright obnoxious “New Yawk Accent” [Downstate New York-Long Island that is], to well “ Go fuck [ himself] Pig!” Believe me, I had no qualms about saying just that.

Mom and Dad may have “Raised me right”, or so they always said. Raised me and taught me how to respect authority. However, upon moving to Newtown, I soon realized that everything Mom said about how “The man in blue is a friend to you”; this was NOT always so true. I have my asshole former neighbor in Newtown, Connecticut to thank for that. A law enforcement officer who taught me, quite well, that sometimes “right” is “wrong”, and “wrong” can sometimes be “right”. This depended less upon what side of the law you were on; and much more with who you were in Newtown, how much money your Daddy [or Mommy] made. That and what they did for a living, if you were either a jockstrap on the football team or volunteer fireman; or maybe even a Newtown Police Explorer during your school years.  That and where you came from, and if you were from one of Newtown’s longtime families. If you were any of the above, you could be the biggest fucking jerk and troublemaker in town and still get away with everything besides murder. Force your girlfriend to have sex with you after getting her drunk at a teenage keg party? Why as long as you’re the star quarterback on the Newtown Indians Football Team or center-court for the basketball team, the cops would often be soft on you. Even more so if your father was “Somebody important in town”, like an attorney; or maybe a high school baseball coach. [Case in point here: Years later when I was living with my mother in Southbury, Connecticut, I was assaulted in a hate-crime stemming from a pot deal gone bad. Three teen middlemen having set me up for the fall, I was brutally beaten by two attackers; Christopher “Cody” Labrie and Dave Eisenbach of Southbury. Rather than do their job like they were supposed to; the corrupt Southbury Police did a cover-up. One in which they literally blamed, and arrested me for being attacked, allowing eighteen year old Dave Eisenbach to get off the hook. Turns out his family was originally from Newtown where he had an uncle with the same name as his. Also originally from Newtown, his other uncle was the baseball coach for Region 15’s Pomperaug High School. I now have to wonder what kind of “new equipment” the Southbury Police received from his uncle in exchange for letting the other, much younger Dave off. Mom having learned of the uncle from her hairstylist in Heritage Village whom I shall not mention, but had a teenager on that baseball team.]

Anyway, so Dad’s driving through didn’t scare me one bit. As soon as I got home, I’d ask him straight up, “I saw you driving through the town park today like you were looking for me. What’s the deal here?” To which Dad replied “I want to know what is so fascinating about the town park that you have to go there all the time? You have a nice pool to swim in right here at our house; a house which cost me a bundle I want you to know. I simply don’t understand why anyone with their own pool would want to go to the town park to swim!” trying to figure out how to tell him, I simply said “I don’t go there to swim. I hate the goddamn jocks, the preppies, and the hick bastard firefighters. That and all the stuck up girls in Newtown. The preppie-jock bitches who date those stupid muscle monkeys!” “The why the hell do you go to the park, then, if you hate the jocks, the preps, and the stuck-up preppie bitches as you call them?” pausing for a moment and hoping that he wasn’t onto me by now, I told him. “I go there to hang out with my friends.” Giving me that look of scorn, Dad continued “What friends? You have no friends. You moron! You mean that idiot Tony [Balducci] who acts like he’s your friend and then talks behind your back; telling everybody he knows your business like it matters??? I just don’t understand why you go to the park, as you call it. All I see is a bunch of older kids with long hair who look like a bunch of beatniks down in ‘The Village” [Greenwich Village in New York City]. “Oh, don’t tell me that they’re your friends? You are a fucking moron. There, I can speak your language.”

Nevertheless, I still went down to the town park nearly every day and chilled out with the stoners; a number of whom no longer wanted me around for fear that I’d soon bring attention from the cops. However, at the same time there were others that were still “cool” with me coming around. Two of those being Chris and Darrell Smothers. One of whom was gay, Chris as I remember. I remember when he and his friend gave me a ride in their Jeep with the convertible top, throwing my bicycle in the back as we rode around Newtown and got super stoned. And then there were the jerks, the townie hicks who would sometimes mix in with the others. Come next year, the summer of 1976, I would meet them all. By the end of that summer, Dave’s crowd began to fade away. Many of them having graduated back in June, they left Newtown for college; one of those being Bob Brown. That Black dude who was the best musician you ever saw. Evan, I believe, was already in college. He may have gone to West Conn [now Western Connecticut State University] in Danbury, as that was the place where many of Newtown’s less preppie and jock students, those who weren’t as good at academics as the “brainos” [or brains-like my sister was when she attended Baldwin Senior High], generally went to college. 

About stupidity. Something that seems rather common in both Christian and Catholic Fundamentalists, and Patriotic Americans

About Part 6 Stupidity. A video I found on You Tube after finding a link from Safe and Sound Schools/ A Sandy Hook Initiative. [ Sandy Hook having always been the working and middle class section of Newtown, Connecticut; a town in which I lived from August 24, 1974 to June of 1985, going to the same Newtown High as Adam Lanza did. Horseshit. I found it. perhaps this was because former United States' President George W. Bush was the example? Back in 2008 when I worked the Hillary for president campaign in Connecticut, I remember calling an Obama supporter in El Paso, TX, a black-sounding man who first started he was for Obama and then went on to say " As a construction foreman without a high school diploma, never would I have thought that I'd be smarter than the president. However, when I see George W. Bush on the television news making his speech, his body slouched over like a moron who can't even stand up straight and speech slurred worse than the dumbest cowboy in all of Texas, I look at that and say ' Hell, I am smarter than this president! Hard to believe that this idiot graduated from Harvard or wherever his rich daddy sent him to school at." Truly, he had a point. I went on saying what my educated, but unable to hold the simplest jobs, friend from a wealthy Jewish family on Long Island told me, one who graduated from Columbia University with a master’s degree. “It’s hard to even believe that this Bush moron even graduated from Yale. His father had to give Yale money to build a new addition to their library or something in order for that to pass." “His grandfather, actually", I replied. “The late, great US Senator from Connecticut named Prescott Bush." However, Bush was probably socially intelligent. I mean he knew how to properly pledge his fraternity, Skull and Bones, and how to initiate recruits in that basement by attaching electrodes to their testicles or whatever the hell they did while consuming massive quantities of beer at their Rush Week.