The Misery Machine - The Murder of Charlie Howard | Maine's Most Notorious Hate Crime | The Real Adrian Mellon

Episode Date: June 8, 2020

In honor of Pride month, this week, Drewby and Yergy discuss the tragic case of Charlie Howard, a young gay man that was murdered in Bangor, ME in 1984, who never really received justice due to his sexual orientation.  As Howard and his boyfriend, Roy Ogden, were walking down the street, three teenagers, Shawn Mabry, James Baines, and Daniel Ness, harassed, assaulted, and murdered Howard for being gay. The youths chased the pair, yelling homophobic epithets, until they caught Howard and threw him over the State Street Bridge into the Kenduskeag Stream, despite his pleas that he could not swim. He drowned, but his boyfriend escaped and pulled a fire alarm. Charlie Howard's body was found by rescue workers several hours later. The boys were sent to the Hancock County Jail and later released into their parents' custody. They were tried as juveniles and sentenced on 1 October 1984 to the Maine Youth Center not to exceed their 21st birthdays, however all parties served less than 24 months. This event galvanized the Bangor community in ways similar to the killing of Matthew Shepard, although the case never attained the same level of national notoriety. This incident inspired a similar scene near the beginning of Stephen King's novel It, in which three homophobic teenagers throw an openly gay man, Adrian Mellon, over a bridge and into the Kenduskeag, where he was set upon and murdered by the monster It in the form of Pennywise. Today, a short distance from the site of Howard's death, a memorial has been erected; engraved on the stone are the words: “May we, the citizens of Bangor, continue to change the world around us until hatred becomes peacemaking and ignorance becomes understanding.” July 7, Howard's death date, is now Diversity Day in Bangor. Join Our Facebook Group to Request a Topic: https://t.co/DeSZIIMgXs?amp=1 Support Our Patreon For More Unreleased Content: https://www.patreon.com/themiserymachine PayPal: https://www.paypal.me/themiserymachine Instagram: miserymachinepodcast Twitter: misery_podcast #podcast #documentary #truecrime

It's the misery machine. I'm Drewby. And I'm Yergy. This week. I know we said we were going to do something more lighthearted. But we didn't. I'm so sorry. It's for an important reason.

As some of you may know, this is Pride Month. Because of that, we felt compelled to do the most famous hate crimes essentially in the state of Maine, which actually kicked off a lot of the programs in Maine for the LGBT community. Yes. So this is the Charlie Howard killing. And this seems like a weird. thing over celebrating Pride Month, so let's cover a gay man who was killed, but it's very important because this is something that didn't get national attention, like say that Matthew Shepard killing did.

And also, I just don't feel, even though it was kind of famous in our state, it quickly fell by the wayside. I didn't know about it until I was much older. And the people who took part in the killings got a very light slap on the wrist. It's just absolutely unthinkable compared to what would happen nowadays. So I think it really bears having awareness being raised about it. If you're listening on YouTube, please like and subscribe. We're almost at 450, and that's growing really fast. So thank you to everybody who's been helping us with that. Our social media is in the description, but without further ado, this is Charlie Howard killing. Charlie Howard was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire on January 31st, 1961. He was a young,

fair-haired, effeminate man. Charlie was small-boned and suffered from severe asthma. He was often made fun of as a small child and he was bolding in high school due to his sexual orientation. He did not attend his graduation to spare his family from the taunts he often received. With his poor grades, he knew college was not for him. Charlie left Portsmouth, New Hampshire and eventually landed in Ellsworth, Maine. When the relationship that he was in ended in January 1984, Charlie left Ellsworth for Bangor, Maine. In Bangor, Paul Nodden and Scott Hamilton befriended Charlie. Charlie was homeless with no prospects and Scott and Paul welcomed Charlie into their home. After a month, Charlie's opportunities were nil, and Scott and Paul convinced him to return home

to Portsmouth to live with his mother and stepfather. Unfortunately, Charlie was not home a week with his family when he knew he could not stay. He had a brief relationship that ended quickly, and when he called his two friends in Bangor, they realized Charlie was hurting and invited him to come back to Bangor. So Charlie returned in high spirits. He joined a local supportive Unitarian church on Union Street, as well as the Bangor support group Interweave. Church had never been a big part of Charlie's life, but the acceptance he felt among the Unitarians was a new experience. Here he found a new place to express his own openness and sense of humor and his love for life. He started attending services regularly and soon decided to undertake the preparations required for membership.

The UU Church and Interweave were the only two organizations in Bangor that welcomed the LGBT community at the time. Many of the churches, in fact, were openly hostile. Fundamentalist preachers used their pulpits to blame gays and lesbians for many of society's ills. Here he made new friends and was accepted for who he was. And thanks for their support, Charlie prepared Easter dinner for Paul and Scott and decorated their home. Eventually, Charlie took an apartment on 1st Street near his church and adopted a kitten. Charlie lived at a time when most gay men were still closeted. But Charlie was out and even flamboyant.

to an extent. If he felt like, quote, sissing it up, for example, for those don't know what that means, wearing makeup, jewelry, and feminine accessories, he did so. He was also known for singing the song, I Am What I Am, from the musical La Caja Full. In 1984, many were not tolerant of gays and lesbians, and victims of gay bashing often did not report the incidents to the police. Especially in Maine. Especially in Maine. Charlie was often tormented by local high school boys and was asked to leave a local nightclub called the West Market Disco, which was not open when I lived in Bangor,

when he danced with a man. Charlie was accosted by a woman in a local market one day, who shouted epithets at him, such as, you pervert, you queer, frightened, Charlie quickly left, but as he was leaving, he stopped, turned around, and blew a kiss. After this, Charlie was more wary of strangers.

Leaving his apartment one day, he found his pet kitten dead on the doorstep. It had been strangled. On Saturday, July 7th, 1984, Charlie attended a potluck supper at Interweave, leaving the party at about 10 p.m. with his boyfriend Roy Ogden. Charlie decided to walk to the post office to retrieve his mail. As Charlie and Roy walked up State Street and began to cross the Ken Duskeg River Bridge, a car full of high school teenagers began to slow down. In the car were Sean Mabry, Jim Baines, Daniel Ness, and two other unnamed

girls. They had been at a party and had left to purchase alcohol with a fake ID that one of the girls had in her possession. Seeing Charlie, the boys got out of the car and decided to give chase. The two girls remained in the car. Charlie began to run where he recognized the vehicle from an earlier incident, shouting epithets the boys gave chase. Charlie fell because of his asthma and could not catch his breath. Roy Ogden ran further down State Street and stopped and observed what was about to happen. Pouncing on Charlie, the boys began beating and kicking him. Jim Baines shouted to throw Charlie over the bridge and grabbed him by the legs. Jim Baines and Daniel Ness grabbed Charlie and they began lifting him.

Pleading for his life, Charlie grabbed the rail and begged them not to throw him in the river as he could not swim. Prying his hand loose, they began to pitch him over the rail with Sean Mabry giving the final push. The boys then returned to the car, which the girls were trying to start. Spying Ogden, they

threatened him not to tell anyone. Why do I have to cry all the time? Because this happened in our backyard and this is really gross. I think like we forget just how much heinous stuff like this happened to, you know, LGBT people for a very long time. I have to say sorry to Eddie because I know he doesn't like to listen to when I cry, but I'm sorry. We didn't expect that to happen either.

Yeah, I mean, like, I reading this out loud, I just, I kind of get emotional too because I was just like, holy shit, this was a real thing, like not too long ago. We don't, we don't really see stuff like this anymore. This was actually like the first like hate crime I learned about because like I was just like, I was. was the president of my school civil rights team in the 90s when they first started making those this was like the first like hate crime I had like learned about mine was Matthew shepherd we can talk about our own experiences with that like growing up and just seeing that sort of stuff yeah so finishing this okay so they spied Roy Ogden and they threatened him not to tell anyone roy ogden then ran for help and pulled the first fire alarm he came to on state street soon the sirens could be heard an immediate

search for Charlie began among the concrete walls that retain the Kanduskeg. At 1 a.m. Charlie was found. An autopsy would show he had suffered from a severe asthma attack and drowned. Returning to the party, the boys bragged about the encounter. The next day, one of the boys turned himself in after he learned that Charlie had died. The other two boys decided to leave town on a freight train and thought better of it. Returning home, they were arrested. I'm just like so shocked that they didn't think that this wouldn't kill somebody. Right. Especially if they're saying that they can't swim. That river isn't the calmest river sometimes. And I'm pretty sure there's a waterfall or a dam that it leads to.

So to kind of explain what this is, because a lot of people are not going to be from the area. So the Kandeska River stream, that goes down State Street, which is basically downtown Bangor. It's where all the shops are. It's where all these crazy one ways are. It goes right down there. And then it empties into the Penobscot, which is the big busy river that follows along where the waterfront is, where the concerts are. But if you can't swim, there's no way to get out.

because there's like cement retaining walls. So if you're, you can't swim, you're fucked. You're not going to get out. Yeah. And that's why he drowned. So now after looking at a picture of it, I think that even if you could swim, you would drown because the walls are just so high and there's no way out. There doesn't seem to be anything to hold on to or climb up out of. There really isn't.

So if my memory serves me correctly with this, it is those retaining walls all the way until it hits the Pinaub, Scott, like, empties into the river and Pickering Square. So unless you are a very good swimmer and can just riot it out. Or can float on your back or something. It's kind of hard to do with clothes on. Yeah, I don't believe you can get out until there. I mean, it's not that far, but if it's rough or you're not a good swimmer. I mean, it seems like a safety hazard that there should be something there to hold on to in case somebody falls. Yeah.

It seems like a huge drowning hazard. I wonder if people drowning in that river is not an uncommon thing. Yeah, I'm not 100% sure. I mean, I haven't really walked that area in a long time. If we head up to Bangor anytime soon, we can go ahead and stop. It's a nice area anyway. Yeah, I've been down there multiple times. You know, we discussed this when we talked about Annalise Heineg.

There are a bunch of deaths in Maine from people mysteriously being pushed into or falling into bodies of water. This river was that one of the places where there were mysterious deaths? So, no. Not in the Kandeskag, but Pinaab, Scott, Yes. So that gentleman that I knew from the main punk scene up in Bangor, Junebug, he went into the Pinaub Scott around that area within a mile, they believe. So that was one that we kind of covered in that episode. And then there was a gentleman who went into the Stillwater River that connects into the Pinaub Scott up in Orono. So within a five to 10 mile radius, yes. That's so scary. And this was done openly. Yeah. So after the boys were arrested, They were sent to Hancock County Jail, and they were later released into their parents' custody.

That's strange. I don't know why they sent them to the Hancock County Jail. Why wouldn't they just send them to Pinnobscot? Was there not a Pinnobscot Jail back then? There must have been. I mean, this was almost 30 years ago, so it's hard to say. But Pinobscott County is bigger than Hancock. Yeah. So that's just interesting. Anyway, tangent. The justice system in Maine is weirdly set up, but they were all tried as juveniles, despite I don't have their ages. but they were at least 16 years of age. They were like 16, 17 when this happens. Yeah, under the age of 18, but no younger than 16. They were driving.

Yeah, they were all driving. I mean, there could have been somebody in the car who was under 16, but... I know some of them were 16. Yeah. Okay. So they were sentenced on October 1st, 1984 to the main youth center not to exceed their 21st birthdays, which is ridiculous because this is straight up murder. Nowadays, you hear all the time somebody's 14, 15, tried and as an adult.

younger tried in as an adult. And it would be probably life because it's tied in its murder and it's a hate crime on top of it. Nowadays, yes, would be considered a hate crime. Let's say they threw some little old lady into the river. They would be tried as adults. What we're reading off doesn't really suss out is why were they given such a light sentence? And probably it's because they killed a gay man. They killed a gay man.

It was the 80s. I'm thinking that in northernish Maine, I mean, still Bangor is considered Central Maine, but not the South Central Maine that we're. where are from. It's very different up there. Yeah, as far as... Very different up there. I use this term loosely. As far as populated areas in Maine are concerned, Bangor is considered northern Maine.

It's the last populated area before you start getting into the county. Yeah. But... Yeah, excluding the county. I know somebody's going to rip me a new one for that if anyone listens from the county, but that's like way up north, Holton, Fort Kent, those areas. So I'm thinking that maybe the justice system thought it was a of boys just being boys and fucking around. I definitely think that if let's say they killed some grandmother.

It would have been different. It would have been different. It would have been different. It's the fact it was a gay man. And just like other cases of killing gays and lesbians, trans people, sentences that were doled out tend to be pretty light. And we can get into that later, especially with stuff that, you know, I saw growing up. But it really needs to be mentioned.

the fact that they were not tried as adults and were given such light sentences absolutely had to do with the fact that Charlie Howard was gay. Baines was released after two years and Mabry was released after 22 months. So this event galvanized the Bangor community in ways similar to the killing of Matthew Shepard, although the case never attained the same level of national notoriety. 25 years later, the Bangor Daily News, which is the newspaper up there, tried to locate Sean Mabry, Jim Bames, and Daniel Ness, now middle-aged men for their views on the murder. They were unable to locate Mabry and Ness at the time, but found Jim Baines, who was living and working in Bangor.

Following his release from the detention center, he spoke regularly about the tolerance to local students and even addressed the main state legislature in support of a bill to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation. In addition, he co-authored the book Penitence with Ed Armstrong in 1994. Bains do not receive any of the prophets for the book. The same year, Sean Mabry expressed his regrets about his participation. He stated that he thinks about Charlie Howard every day. The Maine Lesbian Gay Political Alliance, which later became a quality main, which is still active today, was formed in part as a reaction to Howard's death.

Today, a short distance from the site of Howard's death, a memorial has been erected and engraved on the stone are the words, may we, the citizens of Bangor, continue to change the world around us until hatred, becomes peacemaking and ignorance becomes understanding. In May 2011, Vandal spray-painted graffiti and an anti-gays slur on Charlie Howard's memorial. Family and friends cleaned it up and rededicated. I just still can't believe. I think it said die fag. Did it?

Oh, my God. July 7th, which is Howard's death date, is now Diversity Day in Bangor. On July 7th, 2004, which is the 20th anniversary, a walk was held in memory of Charlie Howard. The main speakout project maintains the Charlie Howard Memorial. Memorial Library in Portland, Maine, and the library is open to the public. So I looked this up, and I can't find anything about a Charlie Howard Memorial Library. So I lived in Portland. There's only a couple of libraries there, and I tried Googling this, and I can't find anything that has his name on it. So if anyone knows what that is, message us or leave a comment and let us know.

So in 2015, in June, Bangor celebrated its very first Pride event, which Yergy here marched in. In Bangor? In Bangor. I didn't know that. So it was a really, really, really hot day. How this all came about is the bank that I work for is a huge supporter of Pride events in Maine. They usually are the chair people for Southern Maine Pride, which is the biggest pride events that we have. And Equality Maine reached out and needed people to march in Bangor Pride.

So I'm like, okay, I'll head up because that year I couldn't go to Southern Maine. pride. I think I had like a birthday party I had to go to or something. I go up there and I'm looking and I'm looking and I'm looking and I'm looking and I'm not seeing anybody from the bank. Well, apparently an email had gone out that Friday and I had PTO that day stating that we weren't going because they didn't have enough participation of folks that wanted to drive clear up to Bangor. Because mind you, my bank has some branches up that way, but not many. A lot of the business and the employees are in the southern main area. So they didn't have enough people. on short notice to drive up to Bangor. Well, I didn't get the email and showed up there anyway. Inequality Maine was actually putting this on. So rather than just going home, I saw the people who run forgotten felines of Maine. And I approached them and just asked to march with them. Oh, that's cool.

And they let me hold their sign and gave me some kitty toys after. So I marched in the parade with... For two good causes. Yeah, with Frida the Throwaway Kitty, who's now deceased, but she was a cat. that was found in a ditch. She was like this little itty-bitty Persian tortoiseshell with really long hair. And she was like a little dwarf cat. But they brought her everywhere as their spokesperson for their organization.

And she had this like little rainbow tutu on. It was very cute. Would she look like if Prada and Kitan had a baby? If Prada and Kiten had a baby, it looked like Frida. Okay. But like she was smaller than Prada. She was just the tiniest little peanut. But she did end up passing.

She had a lot of health issues. Yeah. I can imagine a found in a ditch. Yeah. but she was very cute. It was, I had such a bad sunburn that day. Yeah. It was so hot.

Yeah. And surprisingly, I mean, it was a small event. There weren't many people marching in it. It was definitely not licks the pride events that I've been to in Portland. No, I'm sure it was very underwhelming. I've seen some of these smaller town pride events. And it's, it's not what you guys at home are probably envisioning. No, but, I mean, it was decent sized.

I was actually somewhat surprised about it. So I marched with them. Bangor Roller Derby was in front of us. And it was actually kind of fun. And then they had street festival type thing where there were vendors in Pickering Square. But at that point, like, I just wanted to head home because I was very sunburnt and needed some food. And it was quite a drive. Definitely sun drunk.

But yeah, I went to their very first pride event ever up there. Wow. I know that. And it's very strange because I lived in Bangor for a small portion of. 2005 so it was basically covering the winter there into that summer and I tell you what it's a very different thing I did not fit in at all I mean there is like a punk scene up there when I moved up there the only gay bar they had closed down it was called spectrum and it was right near where my apartment was but there was really no gay scene up there at the time no jobs up there so I can definitely go with the

sediment that Charlie couldn't find work because I worked two jobs at the mall and my partner at the time worked like three jobs at the mall. We never left that goddamn mall. Literally open to close. That's where we were to like make ends meet on our $500 apartment. It was probably the biggest employer there, save for maybe a factory nearby or something like that. The airport was probably the second biggest.

Oh, yes, the airport. Because that's where the only international airport is in Maine if you're, if you need to go through customs. But there was really nowhere to work. I mean, there were some paper mills if you were skilled and could do that. But yeah, that was really all you could do up there. Bangor is. at least back then, and maybe to an extent now.

And from what I hear from people that live there have live there, it's just, it's an impoverished place, all things considered, compared to other places. Compared to other places, it's starting to get a little bit better now. It's definitely gentrified. That same apartment that I had in when we went up to Bangor a couple weekends ago, I brought you by my old apartment. It was a hot fucking mess. Yeah.

It was definitely just went to shit. But an apartment like that now probably would be like $1,000 because it's so, close to downtown yeah it's true and it was close to one stephen king's house too that pipe that was in it the stand pipe that's in it yeah it was like centrally located to so many different things so the u-u church i could walk there from my apartment i could walk to charlie howard's house that was just on the other side of the roads oh his house was yeah the the numbered streets first second third all that stuff that's over on the other side was that place memorialized or anything like that we could find out i don't think so but bangor definitely it's just a very different thing i mean it's very

quaint, but living there is very different. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know if that's changed. So if any of my bangor friends want to kind of speak to that, please do. Do. My experience up there, although I found it very quaint and cute, just wasn't really great. I was happy to be back home.

So this incident inspired a similar scene near the beginning of Stephen King's novel It, in which three homophobic teenagers throw an openly gay man, Adrian Mellon, over a bridge into the Kendoskeg, where he was, did I say that right? Kandeskeg. You're saying it as best as you can. Where he was set upon and murdered by the monster It in the form of Pennywise. This incident was shown in the opening of the film adaptation of the second part of the book of the same name. The murder is also the inspiration for a novel by Betty Green titled The Drowning of Stefan Jones. And Mark Doty wrote a poem about the tragedy called Charlie Howard's Descent.

So yeah, in this the second installation of It, that very opening scene where the two guys come out of the carnival. that's essentially like an ode to Charlie Howard. Yeah, I think Stephen King openly. He openly admits to it and talks about it because he was like in his 30s when that happens and was outraged. Yeah. He was recently-ish when the second installation came out. He was interviewed by the Bangor Daily and he was about it and like spoke to it.

I think that most people when listening to this, yes, they'll probably think this is the 80s. But I think it's hard not to feel like, oh, this is just some random senseless hate crime, but this isn't a common thing. But if you don't live in Maine, you probably don't completely understand what the cultures like here. And again, it's not nowadays. It's not like this. But even the aughts or earlier in the case of Yergy, homophobia was very prevalent and widely accepted. Yeah.

So growing up, I mean, I guess I'm a little bit of an oddity on this because they came from a fairly accepting house. old. I met my first gay man when I was four years old. My neighbors would babysit me and my friend's Uncle Larry would come over and he sort of dressed a very new wave. I thought he looked like Boy George. I mean, he really didn't. But he wore women's boots, women's clothes. He's actually is a drag queen now and he was the first person that ever served me a drink legally because he worked at the gay bar that I used to go to all the time. So my friend Amanda told me, you know, Uncle Larry is gay. I went home and asked about it. My mom was very upfront about what that meant. So I was like totally okay with it and had some really good gay dar very early. In first grade, I had my first gay friends who's still a

friend to this day. He ended up coming out in middle school. Everyone was fairly accepting to him at the time. He was definitely part of our scene and we were like the got off kids and all. But it was when we got into high school that it became a really big problem. He ended up getting kicked out of school, due to harassment because the principal didn't want to deal with it. And Riteout told him that if he wanted to get an education, he needed to do it elsewhere. So he ends up dropping out of school, heading up to the Bangor area and joining Job Corps, where he then learned to be a chef. I mean, I don't want to give too many details. I don't know if he wants his story told. I'm sure if he, you know, he wants to talk about it. He can. This sounds like a way more inclusive environment than what I grew up in. Yeah, but I mean, it was pretty pretty shitty. He ends up. up being my prom date senior year. Yes, I've seen the pictures. Yes, it was pretty fabulous. I'll ask him if I can show it. But we were crazy. He wore this top hat in a pink cumberbund and we covered

ourselves in glitter. It was very stylish. And I wore this hot pink dress and we just sauntered in and the principal's mouth dropped. And it was fabulous. It was a pretty gay prom because our advisor came with their partner and it was pretty, pretty great. Growing up, there was kids that you thought could have been, and there was always rumors. There was rumors about a ton of people. Like, that was just such a commonly thrown around slur was anti-gay slurs growing up. And when you grow up in the sticks, people talk about things like gay bashing or fag drags or things like that.

It's just such this openly hateful thing to the point where there was nobody in my senior class who was out until after high school. Two grades ahead of me, there was two people who were out, but they were band kids and theater kids. So they had such a large group around them that they were protected. If you didn't hang in such a cloistered environment, because if you were a band or a theater kid, you didn't have all your classes around there, but you could get down there pretty easily. you could spend most of the day there depending on your curriculum. If you had study hall, you didn't have to deal with anybody fucking with you at study hall. You could get a pass to go just hang out there and many of them did. But if you weren't one of these people and if you weren't a band or theater kid,

they definitely would not accept you otherwise. You were kind of forced to stay in the closet. I think that's really anywhere because a lot of the people thinking back on it, you know, going to high school in the 90s into the early 2000s, Anybody who was LGBT or LGBT adjacent, they were either a band kid, theater kid, goth kid. That's basically who we were. Yeah. And I mean, we had one goth girl at my school.

And it was weird because, like, girls pick on her. Some dudes would, but, like, a lot of dudes wanted to fuck her. So it's hard for me. I know I had friends in other schools that were goth and experienced a lot of the same harassment, and not to equate like homophobia with hating goth kids. A lot of times it went hands in hands because they were the same group. Yeah, exactly. Because if you were in with the Goths or in with the punks, they were a little bit more inclusive.

And now that I'm saying this, I just remembered something. So everything that I just said about how homophobic my schools were growing up, this applied only to boys. It did not apply to girls. In fact, being a bisexual girl. girl was a very, how do I put this, sought after thing? It was something that many boys found attractive. And so many girls were openly bisexual. Many of them to this present day are not anymore. They were just that way in middle school and high school. And that was okay. That was a very accepted thing. But a boy being gay was not, was not at all. I don't know. I don't know.

if that was something that you'd see in other schools. I don't know if other people who grew up around the same time I did or Yergi did if they saw that type of thing. But that is something that I remember you were, it was not okay for you to be gay. But if you were a lesbian, totally fine. So I think it's one thing we have to kind of, for people who haven't listened to maybe previous episodes about Drewby's school wasn't that far away from mine, but like the experiences sometimes are like night and day.

I would say it's actually rather fun. far away. I was right in the sticks where you were, you were like live not far from the highway where you could just get to Brunswick pretty easily. Yeah, but when thinking about like the general area, you didn't live way out in the boonies like out in the county. So you were basically, depending on how you were driving it, like two or three towns away. Turner is kind of the boonies in some, at some extent. Okay, it's not like as far out as like Buckfield or Sumner and it's not way ass northern Maine. But you grow up in a very conservative environment. a mostly poor working class farm people, people who a lot of them are xenophobic, don't like outsiders. What I mean is if someone were to look at a map, like of Maine who's not familiar with the area. They would say, wow, this isn't far away. This isn't far away. But in reality, the culture is very different. And actually, Turner to Lisbon is probably 40 minutes.

maybe 35 it's it's a little bit of a drive but i see what the point you're making is but the environments are night and day yes absolutely night and day i mean you didn't have you didn't have kids bringing guns to school no i did and it okay it's not that it was okay to bring guns in school there was some people who had them in the building but what was okay was having a gun rack on your truck and having a rifle in there there were some kids who did that this is the type of place that i was people would drive their tractors to school, their snowmobiles to school, stuff like that. This is definitely a rural environment. And I've witnessed multiple times kids fighting.

If somebody were to have called one of the people of color in my school, a racial slur, the school would have been all over that. But I have seen so many times people openly calling each other faggot in front of teachers and the teacher's not doing anything. especially when there was like threats of violence going around like the teachers look the other way a lot of times so this was an openly hostile environment if you were gay and i'm happy that my friend group and i were more accepting of those people but unfortunately there was nobody like even though we were accepting and we weren't tolerant of those things there was nobody that we knew in our graduating classroom when we hang out with that was out So to your point where you had a lot of people who were out, and I say that in quotations as bisexual females, we didn't really have that at my school. It seems like that was more of some sort of fashion statement to get attention. Well, that's what I mean. Yeah. Rather than it being a legitimate orientation, the people that were out at my high school were literally like LGBT.

Yeah. There wasn't any of this trying to pander to men by saying you were by. It was 100% a pandering thing and the, I wish I had somebody that I was close to that was bisexual in high school and now isn't. Because I want to talk to them like, what was that like? What was the pressuring like? And between some of the few bisexual or lesbian women at school and the men, where did the pressure come from and what kind of position did that place you in? Because I was one of the out bisexual women in high school, and I never had any sort of pressure whatsoever from anybody about anything. Yeah. Which is like the very interesting thing about what went on at my school and what went on at your school.

Yeah. It was quite different. And yes, there was a, there was a period of time where this whole people talk about gay as a fashion statement. That really only applied to bisexual women and that was it. That did not like doing that as a, as a, as a, as a, man, you, you were at risk. Yeah. Very much at risk. You know, when I think about that place we worked at. Yes. I remember one girl in particular who very aggressively tried to convert straight women or

tried to find out how bisexual you were and very aggressively sexually harassed people and that was accepted. Yes. However, the, the gay men that were there, kind of a different story. If they wanted to be predatory, they'd. They had to operate in secret or do things a little more subtly. Or even just to be gay, it wasn't as this open thing as some of, as that, as that woman I mentioned. And I kind of think that my high school in a way was like that.

Yeah. So to your point with that, she was pretty sleazy. She wasn't just like, she was just played out nasty. I don't even want to say sleigh. I want to say predates. She was a predator. She really was. And to your point about men who were doing the same thing.

thing my roommate at the time was an open gay man, had a drinking problem, and at night sometimes would go in his room after a night of heavy drinking. It would flirt with people via Facebook. He was fired for it. He did more than that. He was straight up sexually harassing people. And this is somebody that told me that, don't worry, he's not a threat to me because he's into real men. So, yeah, no, I, I bore witness to a lot of. of his sexual harassment, but still, like, he had to be subtle about it, whereas this, this woman we mentioned, she was very open about it. So I just, we're getting a little off topic here, but I kind of tie that back into, like,

how my high school experience was. That workplace was essentially high school plus, but. Yeah. So anyway, in closing, I'm really sad because this week, I'm on vacation right now, but this week, we were supposed to fly out to go see Eddie and, Milwaukee. We were supposed to be in Milwaukee for Pride. To go to Milwaukee Pride. Yeah. And I'm really sad. I really wanted to meet Eddie and go to Pride there. It's going to happen at some point. I've never been to Milwaukee either. I've been to Wisconsin twice. I've never been that far out.

I've been to O'Clair. I've been to Madison. I've just never been to Milwaukee. It sucks. Because we could have like done that and and gone to wherever the Ripley's museum is to see Peter Curtin's head. His head is severed and dissected. Yeah, that's at the Ripley's Museum. Not far. I think it's like an hour from Milwaukee. But yeah, I really wanted to go there. I wanted to visit Dahmer's last residence or gravesite. I don't know what's there. So basically it's just a big field now.

I think when we were talking about some of the stuff with Eddie on the Dommer episode that we're going to put out at some point that it's across the street from a hospital and it's basically just a big open field now. Yeah, I was looking at it on Google Maps. I was just like, shit. Yeah. But anyways. All right, so we got to wrap this up.

So let me do the Apple Podcast reviews. We have one today. And it is fun to listen to. Keeps your interest and keeps you coming back. Keep it up. Great work from Garden State Revelry. I think I said that right. So thank you very much for the review.

And if you want your review read on our episode, you can leave us a five-star review and a written review at Apple Podcasts. And we will shout you out on the podcast. Thank you to our patrons, Eddie, Holly. Rowan and Marky. You are all wonderful as usual. We love you so much. We love you so much. So if you want to be our patron, patreon.com slash the misery machine. And come hang out with us. Yeah. Discord, Snapchat. You get postcards. Postcards are going out today. Join our Facebook group.

Yeah, join our Facebook group, which I don't think has a hyperlink, but it's in the description. It has like a hyperlink that doesn't make sense. So, I mean, that kind of is what it is. This Facebook sucks. Facebook doesn't make sense. get zucked. Anyways, happy pride. Yes, happy pride. I wish that we were out there celebrating it as well as if you were listening and planning to attend pride this year.

I'm sure you're quite disappointed, but I have faith for next year. I really hope so. My work's putting on a virtual one Monday, but I'm sure it won't be that great. Yeah, I'm sure it will suck, especially since it's your work doing it. Yeah. Because people who make pride corporate don't actually care about queer people. But anyways, let's not get me fired yet. I mean, I feel the same way.

However, it's nice when marginalized people become social currency to businesses. Okay, I'm done. I'm done. Anyway, we love you. And until next week. Until next week, stay safe. Yep. Lots of loves and kisses and hugs.

Yeah. Okay. Bye. Bye. Did you hear that? Who's out there? Oh, it's you. A podcast listener. Well, I'm John.

Oh, you really scared us. I'm Holly. And we host the Mystery of the Week podcast. Guided by curiosity. We creep through the shadows to uncover the strange and unexplained. Do go see his toilets? Is my dad Bigfoot? We are here to ask the big questions and seek answers by deep diving into a mystery or discussing personal experiences. Mystery of the Week is available wherever you listen to podcast or visit MOTW Podcast.com.

Bigfoot bless you. Thank you.