I have lived in Hammond, Indiana, for the past nine years. I live with Chris, my life partner of 15 years. We are currently endeavoring to transform our small house and yard into an artistic oasis in the midst of an industrial, blue-collar environment.

Hammond was never on my list of top 10 places to live. As a teenager, I couldn't wait to get as far away from this area as possible. Due to the confusion in my "closet," I followed my best friend from high school to a small Christian college in the hills of Tennessee. There I remained in a rather constant state of hormonal anxiety for two years--until I was accused of being a homosexual and asked to leave.

Thankfully, the reason for my abrupt departure from school was not revealed to my parents by school officials--or by me. As far as Mom and Dad knew, I was taking some time away from college to try to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I was a 19-year-old in crisis!

The summer prior to my expulsion from Milligan College, a new close male friend, Tod Baine, and I confessed to each other that we were both sexually attracted to men. The moment was filled with mixed emotions. We were both repulsed and intrigued. Unfortunately, the revulsion of the confession was the dominant feeling for both of us. We decided to pray and help each other to overcome this perceived dysfunction. Hence, the creation of the snowball that became the avalanche that plopped me right back in Hammond for nearly a year.

It wasn't too difficult to get a job with the telephone company, as nearly all of my female family members worked for Ma Bell. Aside from that, Illinois Bell was in the process of hiring men for positions that were normally held only by women. I entered the wonderful world of keypunch! I was the only male in an otherwise all-female office. It is thanks to this job that I began smoking and learned about sexual harassment in the workplace. Remember, this was 1974.

While holding this position with the phone company, I was experimenting with my newly acknowledged feelings for the same sex. My parents were driving me as crazy as I was driving them. I had become quite a religious fanatic while away at Milligan, and I consequently felt it necessary to try and fill the void that I found missing in my parents' life. As I scanned the movie section of the newspaper, I noticed that there was a movie theater in Chicago that had an all-male cast and was rated triple-X. That could mean only one thing: There were other men in Chicago who were like me, and I could find them at the Newberry Theater.

I told my parents that each Tuesday I would go out for the evening, and I would not entertain any questions as to my whereabouts or activities. I dubbed these nights "Mysterious Tuesdays." I really needed help! I made my first gay contacts and had my first complete sexual experience in the dark, acrid rows of the Newberry Theater on Clark Street.

I actually made a date with one of the men, and I met him the following Saturday night at his apartment in the Edgewater neighborhood of Chicago. Although I hate to admit it now, the reason I had made a date with this man was because he had a striking resemblance to Sonny Bono—the exact same long hairstyle. It wasn't until we were both nude in his bed and engaged in an explorative frenzy that I reached up to stroke that beautiful hair and, to my astonishment, felt the stronger fibers that it was attached to. I like to think that now I would be able to see a hairpiece like that coming from a mile away, but, at the time, I was thrilled by whatever gay situation came along. That evening my new friend introduced me to the Bistro discotheque on Hubbard Street and the Gold Coast, a leather bar just around the corner. I was introduced to my new life.

The year was 1975, the "glitter period", the age of Disco, and a time when our government decided that if an individual was old enough to serve our country and drive a car, then they were old enough to drink beer and wine in a bar. The way this was put into practice was quite ludicrous. Every patron, upon entering a bar, would show his or her ID, and if said patron was younger than 21, his or her hand would be stamped with "BEER/WINE," letting the bartender know that hard liquor could not be served to this individual. It didn't take me long to figure out that  with the application of the contents of a small, discreetly-pocketed bottle of rubbing alcohol or nail polish remover  to the stamp on my hand was the road to a larger selection of cocktails. The first cocktail choices that would remain my regular drinks for a year or so were a Tequila Sunrise and Harvey's Bristol cream on the rocks with a twist of lemon.

With the new addition of the small handful of gay bars to my social agenda, all of my weekends were spent in Chicago. My job at the phone company began to suffer for it. I began taking too many sick days. The girls in the office treated me like their personal escort. They would take me by the arm when walking together, comment on my appearance, and pat me on the butt. One afternoon, while returning to the office from lunch, I ran up behind one of the more demonstrative women and, in jest, patted her on the butt. She squealed, then laughed, and I thought that was that.

The next afternoon I realized that I was not one of the girls. The head of the department, the man in charge of the women, called me into his office. He chastised me for the liberty that I had taken with my female coworker, emphasizing that sex and the workplace should not coexist. I could not believe what I was hearing! I carried a pocket Bible to work each day and was carrying on an underground gay lifestyle on the weekends, and some woman whom I thought would certainly have understood my jest had accused me of making improper sexual advances to her! This particular episode really ruined my day and has stuck with me for my entire life.

It wasn't long until I was feeling quite at home at the "Bistro". I was young, attractive, and because of my confused state of Christianity, quite sweet and naive. The bartenders picked me out of a crowd to serve, and I had found myself a small group of friends.

Before long, one Saturday, about halfway through the evening, I met John. He was an older man, all of 28 years old, with medium-length, soft, brown, curly hair, a tall, slim stature, and a basically well-groomed appearance. I don't remember whether I was cruising him or not when he approached and asked me to dance. As the evening progressed, we danced, drank, and tried to carry on a conversation over the sound of KC and the Sunshine Band and Roxy Music.

When the lights in the bar came up, John invited me to his apartment in Rogers Park, where I remained until late Sunday evening. After a month or so of frequent visits to John's apartment, we agreed that I make his home my home. It was good-bye Hammond and Illinois Bell and hello Chicago and lover number one.

I spent the next 14 years living in nine various neighborhoods on the north and near north sides of Chicago in nine different apartments. Aside from Chris, I shared parts of my life with six other "lovers" and shared living spaces with approximately 15 assorted friends or roommates. I worked in several different occupations while continually striving to build a career as an artist.

It was one evening in the early '80s, while I was tending bar at "The Bushes"--one of the first gay bars on Halsted Street, in the heart of the neighborhood now referred to as "Boys' Town," when I met my lover and life partner, Christopher Pohl. He admitted years later that it was the way in which I was able to simultaneously spin records, change tapes, and wait on and talk with customers that attracted him to me. For me, the attraction to Chris was immediate. It was physical, chemical, and everything else that might be an attractant—it was love at first sight!

After a slightly rocky beginning, Chris moved from his apartment in Evanston into my last apartment on Wilson Avenue. We lived there together for several years until my great-aunt Rachel was pressured by family members into selling her house and moving in with her sister, Inez. The low price on the house was just too much of a temptation for Chris and I, and we bought the house from "Aunt Rach". The Fates had spoken--it was back to Hammond for me and into a new world for Chris, a native Chicagoan.

We have lived in this house--this house in which my great-aunt Rach baby-sat me when I was little--for about 10 years now. The house is a small rectangle placed to the side of a double city lot. Having lived in apartments for too many years of our lives, Chris and I went crazy with the landscaping. The house is surrounded by more than 20 trees and more than 40 bushes and evergreens. With the huge variety of perennial and annual flowers that fill in the blanks, the yard has become a cross between an English garden and a section from the forest preserves. Our neighbors are not quite as inspired and seem to prefer the ordinary plain lawn with as few trees as possible.

The house, which sits on high ground (very important in the low-lying, marshy areas of Northwest Indiana), was built in 1924 and still retains its original moldings in their original but aged condition. The ceilings are higher than what seems to be standard in the houses of the area, and the basement is also uniquely higher. Unfortunately, the rooms are all small, and the two bedrooms are tiny. One of the bedrooms serves as a room for the cats and as a walk-in closet for us. The basement was very nearly empty when I was a child and was used only for laundry and home canning by my aunt. Today it is the maze of art and equipment that is my studio.

For an artist, this area of Indiana is a logical location to set up shop. All taxes are low, and there is no sales tax on food. It only takes 45 minutes to get to the art district in Chicago, the pace is much slower here, and we have a yard. Reluctantly, we give up the wonderful artistic and cultural stimulation inherent in a big city.