Purple Golf Cart: The Misadventures of a Lesbian Grandma (4 page)

I had no idea what queer meant, but I could feel it in my eleven year old gut, the colitis beginning to take charge.

Every time, I heard.

Every time, I felt.

Every time, I knew.

I knew, and spent the next twenty years hiding, pretending, agonizing in a sick silent hell. It took twenty years before I could finally…

Really…

Know…

Accept...

Queer…it meant me.

5. The Jewish Princess

_________________________________________________________________

1959

U.S. President
: Dwight D. Eisenhower

Best film
: Ben-Hur; Anatomy of a Murder, The Diary of Anne Frank, Room at the Top

Best actors
: Charleton Heston, Simone Signoret

Best TV shows
: Twilight Zone; Hawaiian Eye; The Untouchables; What’s My Line; This is Your Life

Best songs
: Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, Stagger Lee, Donna, 16 Candles, Charlie Brown, Come Softly to Me, Battle of New Orleans, Dream Lover, Sea of Love

Civics
: Fidel Castro in power in Cuba; Alaska and Hawaii become the 49
^th
and 50
^th
states

Popular Culture
: development of first integrated circuit for computers; Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence, Hawaii by James Michener and Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak published.

Deaths
: Lou Costello, Cecil B. De Mille, Frank Lloyd Wright

_________________________________________________________________

When my family moved to North Miami Beach, we joined Monticello Park, a little old wooden one-room synagogue in our neighborhood. My Bas (we said Bas not Bat back then) Mitzvah in 1960 was one of the last services held in that old building. The new synagogue, Beth Torah—meaning House of Torah—was about to open. It was constructed of stone and looked like a giant Jewish Star if you were lucky enough to fly directly over it. The front doors looked like the scrolls Moses held as he came down from Mt. Sinai. (My mother used to reproduce those scrolls every Chanukah on the sliding glass doors in our house, using glass wax and food coloring. Her artistry won the Synagogue's Chanukah decorating contest for years until they got tired of giving it to her. They finally made her a judge on the decorations committee.)

My family was immersed in the life of our Jewish neighborhood, surrounded by Jewish culture. I knew very few people who were not Jews. Occasionally I’d meet someone at my school, North Miami Beach Junior High (later to become John F. Kennedy Middle School) who wasn’t Jewish because some non-Jews lived south of 163rd Street—the Jewish demarcation line.

Beth Torah Synagogue was two blocks south from the junior high. Corky’s Deli was a block to the west, and the new 163rd Street Shopping Center was a couple of blocks to the east. We lived about a mile—a short bike ride—to the north of all of those places. It was a great location for young active families, and especially for hyperactive kids like myself.

Like every other Jewish family in our neighborhood, regardless of income, we had a “girl,” an African American woman who cleaned our house and who was like a member of the family, sort of. Our “girl” was Mary, who helped my father care for us kids when my mother was so ill. Mary hugged us often and told us she had our pictures on her dresser at home “just like my own children,” who I’d never met. But otherwise, we were a very white, very Jewish community and family.

I experienced direct discrimination as a Jewish person only once when I was growing up, though I often saw blatant signs of discrimination against Jews in Miami. (There were many communities, facilities, and hotels in South Florida that were “restricted,” which meant only white Protestants were allowed access, even in Miami. In fact, the celebrity Arthur Godfrey owned the big Kenilworth Hotel on Collins Avenue which was a restricted facility—no Jews, no Blacks, no Catholics.) My friends Rosie and Marsha and I were seniors at Miami Norland Senior High School. It was January, 1965, and we had just returned from the winter break. The three of us were musicians in the school concert band which met in a building not connected to the rest of the school. Apparently, while we were in band class, an announcement was made for students to stay out of the main hallway due to 11
^th
grade testing. Since we had not heard the announcement, and since the lunch room was at the far end of the main hall opposite the band hall, down the corridor we went, laughing and chatting away as usual. The vice principal, whose name I’ve long forgotten, jumped into the hallway and pulled us into the administration office as we passed. He was furious!

“Get in here!” he motioned frantically, his voice a gruff whisper, as we passed by his door. Stunned, we obediently followed him into his office. Strangely, he then walked out, leaving us alone in that inner sanctum. We were frightened, not knowing what rule we’d violated this time, because, well, we inadvertently broke many rules almost daily. Unfortunately for us, whenever Marsha got nervous or scared, she laughed. Her quiet giggling began. When the vice principal returned, he hollered at Marsha for making “snickery” noises. Frightened, Marsha backed away from him, right into the tall wooden stand that held a large metal globe. The globe went crashing down onto the floor and rolled to a stop at the vice principal’s feet. We looked up at him in horror! Marsha’s giggles became a roar, a loud hysterical roar! Rosie and I were mortified but Marsha’s laughter was so contagious that we couldn’t contain ourselves any longer. The three of us were at it loudly, unable to stop.

The vice principal screamed something unrecognizable at us, and then made THE HUGE MISTAKE. “You Dirty Jews! Out of here for 10 days!” he bellowed as he suspended us. Dirty Jews? DIRTY JEWS??? Did he really just say that? We couldn’t wait to get home to tell our parents! We knew this guy had just crossed a giant line. Our parents conferred with one another then collectively visited the principal that afternoon. The dust settled quickly and we were back in school the next day. The vice principal was gone. Forever.

I felt empowered after that experience, empowered that I had a voice, that I could do something to create change when a bad thing happened. But I also felt sad and confused as well. Why would someone say those things? Why would someone act that way? And why—because for me it was a reminder of the anti-gay words I heard every day at school—do people hate and hurt others? What’s the purpose? What’s the point? The incident raised more questions than answers for me but I had no one to ask. I remained alone, as always, with my thoughts, and the colitis.

I was actively, religiously Jewish as a young person. During most of my adult life, though, I’ve been a cultural Jew more than a religious one. For some unknown reason, I’ve always acknowledged God’s presence in my life, even though my relationship with God was on shaky ground for many years. I used to envision God as some external non-gendered entity who sat high above my right shoulder and who really didn’t take such good care of me. I felt that God often provided me with choices, knowing I’d select the wrong one, then laugh at me. I was God’s entertainment, much like I was as a young child for my family. It was a disturbing vision of God for me. But later, much later, after I had been working a 12-step program for codependency, I gave myself permission to revisit my view of God. Today my God is an internal entity, not an external one. Today my loving God is within me—my intuition, my gut, the voice I consult and heed. I’ve learned that when I listen to my gut—my God—and trust my intuition—my God—my choice is never wrong. Except, of course, with lottery numbers.

6. RSL

_________________________________________________________________

1960

U.S. President
: Dwight D. Eisenhower

Best film
: The Apartment; The Alamo, Elmer Gantry, The Sundowners, Sons and Lovers

Best actors
: Burt Lancaster, Elizabeth Taylor

Best TV shows
: My Three Sons; The Andy Griffith Show; The Flintstones

Best songs
: Beyond the Sea, This Magic Moment, Crazy, Wonderful World, The Theme from A Summer Place, Only the Lonely, Cathy’s Clown

Civics
: Kennedy defeats Nixon; U-2 spy plane shot down over Russia; Adolph Eichmann captured; NASA launched first weather satellite; Greensboro sit-in; Civil Rights Act of 1960

Popular Culture
: first working laser built; To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and Run, Rabbit, Run by John Updike published.

Deaths
: Boris Pasternak, Emily Post, Clark Gable

__________________________________________________________________

My Bas Mitzvah was in April, 1960, Shabbat HaGadol, the Great Sabbath, the Friday just before Passover. I was 13 years old. I practiced and prepared for this day with Cantor Kirschenbaum for over a year. Back then, very few girls had Bas Mitzvahs, and females weren’t allowed to touch the Torah. We were (and still are in Orthodox Judaism) considered
trafe
, unclean, like ham and shell fish. I studied mightily because I wanted to be a Rabbi. Perhaps, I thought, if I studied hard enough and did all that was required, I would somehow be able to sneak past the laws that said women couldn’t be Rabbis. The
trafe
thing again. Thank goodness the rules eventually changed. Today there are many women Rabbis, but not then, not for me.

Back then, 50 years ago, there were a number of traditions associated with boys’ Bar Mitzvahs but none yet for girls because Bas Mitzvahs were such new events. For example, the quality of performance for boys was always low. Their voices snapped, crackled, and popped, courtesy of the onset of puberty. Another example: despite the fact that most 13-year old boys were short, the Bar Mitzvah boy was expected to stand as tall as he possibly could in his rented tuxedo with a taller girl on either side of him for the obligatory photos. He had to flex both arms so the girls could admire and caress his non-existent muscles while an unlit cigar hung stupidly from his mouth. Classic! Every boy who ever had a Bar Mitzvah in Miami has that photo.

And there was THE RING, the gold ring with the boy’s initials carved into the top of it. Girls received gold necklaces with their first names in script. Boys got The Ring. I wanted The Ring. I knew I was getting the necklace but I wanted The Ring. (You don’t want that. You want this.) As I began my Bas Mitzvah preparations when I turned 12, I went to the local jewelry store in the 163
^rd
Street Shopping Center and ordered my own ring. Each week I took some of my allowance money to the jeweler to pay a little more on my then-$35 ring. It was a beauty, gold with my initials, RSL, carved into the Florentine top. A year later, the week before my Bas Mitzvah, I made the last payment. I was a girl with a Bar Mitzvah ring!

Years later, after I came out as a lesbian, I changed my name. My original name—Ronna Sue Lebman (RSL)—was okay, except no one but a few family members ever called me Ronna. Most folks call me Ronni which I prefer. Ronna Sue sounded so Southern to me, so Gone with the Wind-ish. Though I lived in the South, I just didn’t identify with the likes of a BobbyJo or JennyMae or BillyBob. RonnaSue. As if that weren’t enough, I also have a Hebrew name—Rivkah. Every Jewish kid has a Hebrew name as well as an English name as a remembrance of a deceased family member, preferably someone who lived to be very old. Rivkah. Ronna Sue. Ronni.

When I married, my new last name began with an S. I dropped my middle name of Sue and adopted my maiden or original name, Lebman, as my middle name. My initials became RLS. When I divorced I changed my name again. I didn’t want my children to have to deal with the consequences of my public actions or media work by having my same last name, but I didn’t want to go back to my original name because it kept getting stuck in my Jewish nose. The b and the m side-by-side in Lebman are really difficult for me to pronounce at times, and I had pretty bad allergies back then.

It was 1979. I came out at the height of the Women’s Movement. Many of my friends were adopting their mothers’ original names as their own last name. I didn’t care for that. Instead, I selected the first syllable of my father’s first name—San from Sanford—and the first syllable from my mother’s first name—Lo from Lois—to make Sanlo. I kept my original name as my middle name. Actually, I just kept the L. My legal name became Ronni L. Sanlo. The ring—RSL—still works, and it’s been on my finger for over 52  years. The Florentine design that was scored on top of the initials wore off a long time ago. Yes, I still have my name necklace—Ronna—with its Florentine scoring intact because it’s been tucked away in my drawer, but my RSL ring—The Ring—remains on my finger today, my love gift to my 13-year old self.

7. Jalousie Windows

__________________________________________________________________

1962

U.S. President
: John F. Kennedy

Best film
: Lawrence of Arabia; To Kill a Mockingbird, The Music Man, Mutiny on the Bounty, The Longest Day

Best actors
: Gregory Peck, Anne Bancroft

Best TV shows
: The Virginian; The Jetsons; The Beverly Hillbillies; Tonight Show; McHale’s Navy; To Tell the Truth

Best songs
: Big Girls Don’t Cry, Sherry, Telstar, Soldier Boy, Johnny Angel, Breaking Up is Hard to Do, Monster Mash, Can’t Help Falling in Love, Sealed with a Kiss, Dream Baby