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.