Month: August 2019

I was not circumcised at birth. This operation waited until the summer before I was turning age 9 in September and joining the fourth grade. When we returned to school in the fall our teacher asked all of the fourth graders to bring a summer project and to have a show and tell over the next month. We had a sign up list for each student to select a date and state the name of the project
to be presented. I selected the last date and titled my project,
“Egg Castration Puppets”. The fateful day arrived and I presented my egg carton with twelve eggshell puppets that you could wear on one finger with costumes that covered the hand. Each egg had been decorated with an elaborate face and glued on false eyelashes from the ‘five and dime’. The teacher asked why I had made the dolls and the conversation proceeded:
“I had to have something to do in bed.”
“Why were you in bed?”
“Because I had to rest a lot and be packed in cold ice.”
“Why were resting and packed in cold ice?”
“I had an operation.”
“Tell us about your operation.”
Whereupon I drew a giant picture of a penis which covered the entire blackboard. Then I drew a line through the end and said that it had to be cut off. I meant the foreskin but it appeared that the end of my penis had been chopped off. There were audible gasps and smirking laughter in the classroom.
Immediately the teacher excused me from my show and tell presentation and called for a recess.
All the boys wanted to see what it looked liked so I obliged them in the restroom and they thought I was very brave and still slightly red and swollen. When I returned home from school that evening, Poppy was in a fit of laughter, Rea had a dictionary out to clarify my use of the words castrated and circumcised, and Ruth was fielding many telephone calls of condolence and curiosity from my classmates parents. I had to write 100 times “circumcised not castrated”
Entry – August 14, 2007


During one of many summers, home to Texas from Wisconsin,
in 1990, I drove over to Rea’s home in the middle afternoon and with her not expecting me. I entered the kitchen and called for her and there was not an answer. My first thought was that she must have been taking a nap/siesta so I checked her bedroom and she was not to be found. Then I heard water running and noticed the bathroom door was slightly ajar. I quietly opened the door wide enough to look into the all pink tiled bathroom and was greeted with a stunning vision. Rea was stretched on a diagonal framed in a stream of afternoon light coming through the window above the porcelain bathtub. Her hips were resting on a small blue footstool and she held her hair under the faucet at the end of the tub with the water washing through a blue tint – blue footstool, blue hair, blue water, blue eyes, and blue stain in the tub. Her body was completely nude with long legs, tight skin, and firm rounded peach breasts. She was spectacular and she was almost 90 years of age. I took in the view and thought she had not heard me so I quietly shut the bathroom and slipped away only to return at suppertime. The meal progressed as usual with the two of us in conversation meandering through many topics of mutual interest… the stock market, the low water table, the new stray cat
we named Zubedizah, the neighbors car for sale… when out of the blue, Rea enquired, “Did you visit this afternoon?”
I responded, “Yes and I was unannounced.”
Quickly she said, “ And you opened the Bathroom door to find me rinsing my hair”Again my, “Yes with apologies for catching you undressed.”
I added “What a vision you are with your tight firm body. You must have been a knockout in your flapper days.
She gave me a sharp and stern look – took a breath for emphasis and ended the conversation with, “The nudity was how I have seen you many times as a child and that is nothing between us, but to call me a knockout (pause) I was nothing less than
RAVISHING!”
Entry – August 13, 2007



Each time I would go to Asia one special family connection would die.
In 1967, I went to Japan on my first Fulbright to study in the Grand Kabuki. Poppy passed away in the winter at the exact same moment as I was stranded in a stalled ski lift over the village of Ishiuchi. The lights of the village flickered below and the snow fell softly as we hung in the air.
When I returned to Tokyo a telegram was waiting at the
US embassy to inform me.

In 1979, I was in Japan on a Japan Foundation Professional fellowship. Mimi passed and no one informed me at the time.
Three weeks later I opened a letter from Ruth while in a taxi enroute to my Japanese dance lesson. Mother Ruth informed me with a news clipping and said that all were surprised that I had not responded to the call from my brother. I never received this call.
Mimi and I have the same birth date and were thick in our fun and joy of living.

In 1983, in the middle of a November night my brother called me in Seoul, Korea to inform me of our Mother Ruth having passed. I was near the end of a year long Fulbright and performing at the National Theatre. Ruth had requested to be cremated. When I returned to Texas, I picked up the urn with the ashes from the funeral home and arranged a memorial service when most relatives could attend in January. My brother arrived late and a bit drunken after the service had started and sat at the other end of the pew.
Rea sat next to me and Barbara did not attend.
The next day there was a battle with my brother at the lawyers and I agreed to buy him out.
It took me six months to raise the money. That is another long strange story, but Rea attended all the meetings and hosted the two of us for a meal at the San Juan Hotel where she told Charles that he only had one brother and to recognize the fact of blood.
In 1995, I was going to Korea for the summer and had planned a stop in Texas before my departure. My plane was late and misconnected so that when I arrived in the early morning – 6am – I had to rent a car and I drove direct to hopefully greet Rea at Breakfast. I was greeted with her death and holding my last letter in her hands. At the funeral parlor twenty-four hours later when I was given a private visitation a pink carnation had been placed in her hands.
As I sat talking with her remains, the right hand moved toward me and the pink carnation fell.
I replaced it with a yellow rose that I pulled from a bouquet.
For the funeral, I insisted on paying for the flowers that were placed as a blanket over the closed coffin. I ordered every spring flower that I could recall she had grown. Barbara and family at first did not ask me to sit; finally I was seated alone in the middle of the front row with all behind me. Brent came for the funeral and at The People’s Church dinner after the funeral we endured the smirks of Barbara’s youngest son in reference to our friendship. I excused us, and we drove to Padre Island and the fond memories of many summers.

I had a fear to return or make a trip to the orient, yet in 2006 I went to Thailand. While I was there a personal friend passed.
I have a fear of the orient.
Entry – August 5, 2007

In 1979, I received a grant for the year to study in Japan on a Japan Foundation Professional Fellowship.
On the morning I was leaving Texas I was given a hand written letter from Rea on The People’s Church stationery with the letterhead:
The People’s Church
800 South Standard
Phone ST7 – 1034
San Juan, Texas 78589

I found this letter today – August 4, 2007 – when I was cleaning off three years of my desk clutter in the house in Bloomington, Illinois.
This is the letter…

To dear Joe:
After years of struggle and failure this philosophy has been revealed and seems to be working:
Jesus taught God created a world for our benefit and that he was a fulltime partner. The thoughts we think are molding our destiny
for good or evil. The whole of our experiences in life are but an outer expression of inner thought – Life is the reaping of a harvest we ourselves have sown. Scripture urges man to submit himself to the guidance and direction of Spirit (within given to all men) in
every area of his life in order that he can live in positive assurance of his highest good. God can do for man only what he can do through man’s will. It often takes sorrow to cause man to be still, to be meek and to listen. There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hand, you seek problems because
you need their gifts.
What a comfort each morning before arising to cast all our burdens upon Jehova and know in our heart that he will sustain us, guide us, and give us wisdom to handle our life through the day – Marie
Entry – August 4, 2007


My brother had emotional problems with me as the new arrival.
The manifestations were over the years varied and many.
When I could not play tennis as he tried to teach me at age eight – his anger mounted until he drug me across the asphalt tennis court at the local PSJA high school. My knees were bloody and ripped. The scabs took over a month healing – I told Ruth. Marie, and Mimi that I had fallen down.
At age ten, I knocked over one of his tennis trophies and broke an arm holding a racquet. We were alone in the house and he threw shoes at me and one of them hit the ceiling in Ruth’s bedroom.
The impact made a cut in the acoustical tile and left a long scar.
When Ruth noticed, I told that it happened with a broom handle.
When I was eleven, one day in the fruit packing shed Charles held my buttocks down on the conveyor belts where they turned around each other and caught my cheeks with a pinched black and blue mark that turned yellow and purple.
About a week and a half later, Ruth entered the bathroom – saw me after a bath – and caught site of the marks.
This was the first time I explained what had happened after she had several questions.
There was a long silence and then she asked, “And the Knees?”
“The bedroom ceiling?” I remained silent.
She let me finish my bath and dressing and then she took me outside and said I could not be alone with Charles again.
The anger never quite went away.
When he came to visit me in Illinois in summer 2006 he listened well to my traumas and we revisited life as siblings and years on differing paths.
After he left, he sent me a bill for all of his trip expenses.
I sent a check in full.
Entry – August 4, 2007

Poppy was not one to be harsh with discipline.
Only once do I recall him administering a spanking and then he used a limp palm frond. Some time about my age of four, I was very angry about something now long since forgotten and I took a pair scissors to the left long sleeves of his cotton work shirts and cut as high as I could reach above the elbow.
For several years he would wear these shirts with the right long sleeve in tact and the left sleeve cut off on the arm that he placed on the pickup truck window driver’s side. His left arm always had a deep tan.
My punishment was seeing him in the shirts, his silent treatment about the scissor-cutting incident, and his very tan left arm. At age seven, I was riding with him in the truck when a man at the cotton gin asked him what had happened to his shirt.
Poppy replied, “Oh! A little rat chewed on it.”
As we drove away, I finally expressed my guilt and bravely said, “I am that rat”.

Poppy looked at me with his cool blue eyes and smiled in a bemused manner. Finally he took a long slow breath and asked me, “Is it time to cut the tail off of that rat?”
I sided up to him and he put his right arm around me and held me close for several miles as we drove in silence.
Finally the silence was broken when he pulled into the rural
country store and said, “Time to buy some new work shirts”,
We did exactly that and drove back to the ranch, marched into the house headed for his closet, and took all the cut
(rat chewed) shirts and removed them.
The shirt fabric became work cloths. I used some of them over 15 years later to wash and scrub my car and to wipe the oil dipstick. Now sixty years later. I found the remnants of one of the backs of one of the shirts and the front pocket side cut and stitched together into a kitchen towel.
Good cotton and good people endure and age softly.
Entry – July 31, 2007

In my 30 and 40 years of age, I would have my hair buzzed each summer into a marine cut and let it grow out the rest of the summer on the beach and then trim it for the fall and back to school. Rea did not like my hair cut this way, but she said little about it when I would come home for the summer.
One Particular Sunday we had a visiting minister at The Peoples Church. When we were leaving the church the minister had positioned himself at the bottom of the steps in order to greet all.
When Rea greeted him she added, “…and this is my grandson who just got out of prison.” He blessed me and mumbled something about my redemption.
As planned after Church, Rea and I went to the San Juan Hotel for Sunday Lunch – just the two of us.
Once we were seated and before we could order, Rea turned to me and exclaimed,
“Today, I zapped you good!”…and she had.
The next summer I came home with my hair neatly cut and with a part on the right side.
Entry – July 31, 2007

At age seven Rea held a birthday party for me at the ranch.
She invited all of my second grade classmates. This was a special day because I was to learn to tie and untie my shoelaces before the party. I did not learn well, and I ended up with the laces tied in a mess of knots.
The party proceeded without me and with me looking out the window at the festivities and finally seeing the gifts opened.
I found a pair of scissors and cut the shoelaces open, then crawled out of a window to join in the fun. Hung in a hackberry tree were seven plastic parachute men that had been sent into the sky with popguns. The parachutes were as entangled as the shoelaces and they hung in the tree for several years as a long time reminder.
That evening I was told that I could not have new shoelaces but that I could make do with twine. I found some black bias tape used on the bottom of skirt hems and laced my shoes and learned to tie and untie. I was stylish with my black bias tape bows.
Then another boy copied me, and I saw his shoes at Sunday school. His name was Tommy, and we became the best of friends through high school. At the prom, we wore white bucks with black bias tape laces and bows. It was 1960, and we danced up a storm.
Entry – July 30, 2007

When Rea retired from being treasurer of her church –
The Peoples Church – at the end of the service she was presented with a corsage made of pink carnations. The color pink and carnations were both not favorites as a color or flower. A better selection would have been yellow roses.
Anyway, she was gracious and thanked the attending congregation with her humor.
She said that she had received flowers when she was a young bride and in courtship with Harold, now today as she retired from here role of treasurer, and the next time would be for her burial and she would not see them but thanks to all of the senders in advance. There was a wave of hearty laughter as we exited the church and drove away in my new gold Mercedes with a moon roof.
About a block on our ride, Rea asked me to open the roof and when it was accomplished she put her head back on the headrest and looked up to the sky and questioned, “Lord, after all these years don’t you think I deserve a gold watch along with the pink carnations?” I took mental note and once she was home reclining for an afternoon rest.
Action started with my call to the owners of the local jewelry store named Briton’s – and yes they could select a suitable gold watch and engrave it with:
“for Rea, our Founder, from The Peoples Church”
Next, I called all the deacons and a few special friends to come on Tuesday at teatime. They would pick up the engraved gold watch and bring a teacake. At the appointed time two days later all arrived and Rea was surprised with the gathering as I had kept her out of the kitchen all day and secretly made the preparations for tea and service.
She was seated in her maroon velvet rocker and wearing a
cotton homemade house dress with bare feet in house slippers. She bitterly complained about not being ‘fussed-up’ in her party clothes but one could sense her joy with the attention and bit of surprise. Eventually one of the deacons produced the wrapped box from Briton’s, made a short speech of thanks, and presented it to Rea.
First she shook it gently, then held it to each ear, and then looked at me with a circumspect grin and proceeded to open the box. When the engraved gold watch was revealed, the engraving read, and the new watch was placed on her left wrist she rocked a bit and then look up at the ceiling of the parlor and remarked, “Lord, prayers do get answered when you talk through the roof of a gold Mercedes!”
After many happy wishes, her head tilted back again and she exclaimed, “Lord, you best be listening tomorrow because I am going for a ride in a gold Mercedes”.
The next day at breakfast she expressed her desire
for a long drive to the island (Padre Island) and to pray all the way. We did and Rea prayed for something for everyone. Over the following years all of her prayers were answered and in one form or another came true.
Entry – July 29, 2007

Rea founded The People’s Church in our rural town and for many years (about 50) was the treasurer. I would always attend services with her when I visited home. She dressed up for church and had a wide brimmed white straw hat for summer.
She had a throaty voice and she would speak out to the pulpit or congregation, as she felt appropriate.
She always delighted in a visiting pastor and a new sermon.
On this Sunday in July of 1991, at her age of 91 the visiting pastor asked the choir not to sing and hoped the babies would not cry as we all listened for the voice of the Lord to come into our hearts.
As we sat in the silence of the sanctuary a minute passed, and she became petulant due to her hearing aid not functioning and wondering what was going on about her.
Rea turned to me and leaned over to my right ear and said in a church hearable voice,
“Well Butch, what are we listening for?”
I attempted to whisper back that,
“We are listening for the voice of the Lord to come into our hearts.”
Upon this response, Rea lifted the brim of her summer hat and looked up to the pastor at the pulpit with his bowed head and loudly announced,
“I can stay home and do that!”
Immediately the laughter flowed, the organ played, the choir sang, and some babies joined the chorus.
As we filed out of the church and the pastor waited to shake hands he greeted Rea with a presence and said,
“Yes, I can also stay home and do that.”
Entry – July 28, 2007

In 1972, I accepted a position at Southern Illinois University as the Director of Dance. I moved from New York City and lived on a 250-acre farm outside of Murphysboro, Illinois in an old Victorian Prairie Farm House. Fields surrounded the house and there was a very long gravel drive that meandered for about a quarter mile to arrive at the house on a small hill. I had made many improvements to this house … painted walls and redone floors. In the summer of 1974, – the three muses, Ruth – Rea – Mimi all came at the same time to visit and to check on my life.
One day they made a shopping list for groceries and the hardware store. At the kitchen table I heard Mimi say add a can of gold paint to the shopping list. We got organized to drive into town (a seven mile excursion) and off we went. I was driving the three muses all dressed in variations of summer white in my one-year-old green Mercedes Sedan.
Enroute to town
Ruth asked, “ Mimi, why do you need a can of gold paint? ”
Mimi replied, “ Why? Well Ruth, (a long pause ensued) we need to touch up your Halo. ”
Rea took a breath and very slowly said, “ I will need a new brush with pig bristles.”
The remainder of the ride all was silent in the car.
That next Christmas,
Ruth wrapped a can of Gold paint and placed it under the tree for Mimi,
and Mimi gave a pig bristle brush to Rea.
But best of all was when Ruth opened her present from Rea
wrapped in an old hat box and it was a hand made gold foil
angel’s halo.
Peace was made by the muses at Christmas in their ironic gifts which none had discussed with the others.
Entry – July 27, 2007

• 

Time in this life has arrived to capture some of my life moments in a written journal. There will not be an initial attempt to make a chronology…the stories of the moments will be documented as they are remembered.
Each entry will be made as memory prevails.
The three southern muses to interact with and be present with early formations in my life were…

1. Ruth Rebecca Lee Gordon – my birth mother RUTH
2. Mildred Lee Gordon Starlin – my aunt MIMI,
   the sister of my blood father, Floyd Charles Gordon
3. Marie Elizabeth Hawkins Cramer – My foster mother REA, also referred to as my grandmother.
   They will be called Ruth, Mimi and Rea.
   Because of my stuttering as a child I could not say Mildred or Marie and the shortened names prevailed and were used by community and another generation in the family.

I never knew my blood father, Floyd Charles Gordon (FLASH), as he died 4 days before I was born. Ruth carried me for the time of incubation after the first two months knowing that her husband (my father) would die. I had one blood brother – Charles Lee Gordon. He thought my entry into the world was the reason for his father’s, our father’s exit.
Charlie – Chuck – was a tennis star, Apollo Boys Choir tenor, womanizer, full scholarship athlete at Texas Christian University and wanted me taken back to the hospital. He had been a favored only child and only son until “the Runt” arrived. The runt that killed his Flash! It took years to bond.

As a child I was told that Flash died a very painful slow death from Bacterial Endocarditis that he transferred to himself through a cut he made while skinning a deer.
Two months ago, it was suggested to me that he died from cocaine injections that came from the pharmacy supply in Gordon REXALL Drug Stores.

I had a very special and loving foster father,
Harold Cecil Cramer – POPPY.

The Cramers (REA and POPPY) had one daughter of their own – Barbara Ann, and they raised me as there own son for the first seven years of my life. Ruth placed me with the Cramers at six months as she took over all my blood fathers business after he passed. At my age 7, Ruth came to take me to her home to live since I was ready to enter the second grade. At the front door I told her she was the ice cream lady and not my mother – my mother was REA! I held onto Rea under her skirt. I was finally pried away and taken screaming over and over
Ice Cream Lady Ice Cream Lady
Not My Mother Not My Mother and to the new home.
Charles Room was now my room and yet it was Charles Room with his tennis trophies and his childhood clothing.

I had a little suitcase that was always packed and went with me to visit Rea, Mimi or back to Ruth. I lived off and on and in and out of the Cramer home for the rest of my life until it was old, I was getting older – 53, and Rea passed in her sleep. I found the suitcase again in 2006 and it was still packed with my childhood jeans and boots…
Entry – July 26, 2007