(getting the hell out)
At first, it was Canada,
one infinite NPR station.
There were several ex-
cursions into Canada.
The one we didn’t take
as a family of six in the
tan Leisure Van (Ford,
of course) because Dad
wouldn’t part ways
with his fancy gun (Oh,
Canada, you have such
chest-warming nostalgia!).
This at Niagara Falls, which
was a little embarrassing
and would have been my
first venture into another
country, 1973. When in
graduate school in 1991-
1992 at Bowling Green,
Ohio, there were all those
invitations to Windsor,
just through Detroit,
where, oddly, my Dad
had grown up (Uncles
Earl and Dale, his two
living siblings, still lived
there) — for, yes,
the male strippers, who
got very naked, and even
(ahem) performed erect,
it was said. I passed on
each of the invitations
as it didn’t sound like
my kind of party. And then
I fell for a francophone from
Ann Arbor, with whom we
took at least a couple of trips
to Quebec. Montreal, to be
precise. And then I learned
the true riches of Canada.
The guys in Montreal were
gods. And so every trip to
this city in which one could
almost feel as if one were
in a strange land, what with
the smattering of French
spoken alongside English,
and the outrageously gor-
geous men who were also
seemingly the most friendly
men on the planet (probably
because of the direction my
libido kept taking me - strip
clubs and sex clubs - where
friendly made money, per-
haps even from a tiny bit
from me). A few years
later I would take two
excursions back by
myself. It never seemed
to have the cache it had
on that first trip. Although,
I did once stop at Windsor,
just to find the famed strip-
club there, and this trip,
with a boyfriend. There
we sat at a sort of rec-
tangular boardroom table,
lined round in our executive
chairs, as the men came out
using the outskirts of the table
like a runway, grazing our very
mouths as they passed us by.
It was there that I fell briefly
in love with a rather well-
endowed Native American
who must have found me
an easy target from the
get-go. Needless to say,
the boyfriend did not
see a need to stay for
the second show, much
to my chagrin. Years
later there was the train-
ride to Vancouver. Which
actually ceased being
a train ride once we reached
Canada. Another boyfriend,
our first anniversary, and as
I had just spent my first five
years or so in San Francisco,
what a pleasure it was to get
a bit of a snowstorm our first
couple of nights there. Once
again, the men were quite
pleasing to the eyes, but I
was less interested in them
than in adventure. I was
in the middle of the begin-
ning of a romance that I
would have never known
would later grow so intract-
able that, thanks to it (to
him), I would lose pretty
much everything. Soon,
I would escape the country
for much more foreign des-
tinations. But for many de-
cades, Canada was my one
foreign destination. It was
for a long time the one place
I would GTHO. Which seems
appropriate. I had forgotten
its significance with regard to
the multiple excursions I made
or almost made to the country
of our northern neighbors. So
I shall leave for another time
such adventures as the Gay
Cruise to Mexico, and the
Trip to Hong Kong (solo),
turning 40 in Paris, the trip
to Tokyo (also, solo), the
time I took someone to
Italy as a graduation pre-
sent, but found it to be
my favorite place in the
world. Oh, and of course
the gay cruise upon the
Baltic (with stops in Russia,
Estonia, Oslo, Stockholm,
Amsterdam, as well as my
first and only cross-Europe
train ride). Another day.
For now, I shall hope for
more such adventures.
Too many to even write
of. And other fantastical
wishes and dreams, which,
you never know..............
