Charles Alexander
Pages past tense #8
Parting Glances Fifty years ago Detroit's Washington Boulevard was a busy setting for exclusive shops, upscale restaurants, elegant bistros, stretching sedately from Grand Circus Park's popular Statler Hotel to Michigan Avenue's prestigious [...]
Same-Sex Wedding Gospel
Parting Glances 1. In the Year of the Grand Delusion, during the Reign of Lost War Rumors, a decree went out from the Tetrarch of Theocracy, abiding in the Capitol of Divine Cacophony, that all same-sex couples must register, under penalty of [...]
Pages past tense #7
Parting Glances There was a time – oh, so long, long. long ago – when I would stand on Hub Grill corner in downtown Detroit and within five flattering and exciting minutes be offered a lift by some accommodating driver cruising by. I was hot stuff [...]
Pages Past Tense #6
Parting Glances I was 19 the summer I graduated from Cass Tech. I flunked courses, staying an extra two-class semester. Once free from studies, living at home, taking time off before job hunting, I was keen to explore Detroit's gay scene. I [...]
Pages past tense #5
Parting Glances During my Cass Tech High freshman year I was active in the Voice of Christian Youth, a nationwide evangelical outreach that held rallies "on the Devil's Saturday night" at Detroit's Masonic Temple. Witnessing for Jesus I carried my [...]
One snappy fairy tale
Parting Glances "Your condition can be changed using this box of amazing cure-alls," hOOty hOOted Dr. Exodus Barn Owl, shoving a package of Miracle Elastics, Assorted Colors, Funny Farm, LTD., across his highly polished oak-tree desk to Reggie [...]
Parting Glances: Pages past tense #4
Detroit's imposing, massive, block-wide Masonic Temple, now virtually empty, was built in 1922, or, cornerstone dated 5022, following the Hebraic custom of noting esoteric history. At one time in the 1960s every major dance company in the world, [...]
Pages past tense #3
Parting Glances Sundays my mother took me to a First Baptist Church from ages five until 12. We rode with our neighbor Mrs. Williamson, her two sons, William and Robert. First Baptist (now Detroit's People's Community Church) was affiliated with [...]
Parting Glances: Pages past tense #2
35 right; 25 left; 15 right. Click! After 60-plus years I can still recall my locker combination at Harry Burns Hutchins Intermediate, located on Detroit's west side. I can also rattle off 30 names of my Homeroom 223 classmates … Lenore Abramowitz, [...]
Sex with zombies
Parting Glances Twice recently I observe an attractive young woman interviewing graduating seniors at a nearby Barnes & Noble bookstore. Curious about the company she works for I stop to chat. She answers with a pleasant, charming mid-twenties [...]
Remembering a BHM star!
Parting Glances When Detroit-born, Cass Tech graduate Bernard Johnson died, age 60 in 1997, the New York Times carried a quarter-page obit celebrating his life as "a Renaissance man in dance." Little bigger than a metronome minute – at five-foot [...]
Ystrad Mynach. Where?
Parting Glances "Fairy tales can come true, if you're young at heart," so go the lyrics of one of Frank Sinatra's biggest hits. Sing along mentally with me to this truth-is-stranger-than friction, er, fiction fairy tale I'm about to relate. (You [...]