Kelly Poorman

Hello, this is Rebecca Scofield with the Gay Rodeo Oral History Project, and I'm here today with Kelly Poorman. We are meeting via zoom because of the Covid-19 pandemic. I'm in Moscow, Idaho, and it's 10 a.m. on May 5th, 2021. Kelly, do you want to say where you are right now?

KP: I am in Boalsburg, Pennsylvania, and it is 1:00 here and it's about 58 degrees. I don't know what the temperature is there.

RS: Today it's supposed to get up to 82 here, which seems aggressive.

KP: A little bit.

RS: A little bit for me.

KP: Yeah.

RS: OK, well so if you wouldn't mind sharing, what year were you born?

KP: I was born in 1948.

RS: And where?

KP: Makes me seventy-two. And I was born in a hospital about 10 miles away from here. This is actually my hometown that I'm living in. And it's pretty neat. I'm in this small town called Boalsburg, as I said. And according to Pennsylvania, we are the birthplace of Memorial Day and I live on Main Street, which means I have the best porch to sit on when we had the Memorial Day parade.

RS: That's gorgeous -.

KP: If I'm not in it!

RS: And was it a pretty rural town when you were growing up?

KP: We were about three miles away from the home campus of Penn State University in State College, Pennsylvania, about 85 miles northwest of Harrisburg. When we had students in here, we go up to about 100,000 people living here. With the pandemic we're down to about 50,000 or so. When we tailgate the...I want to say arena, because we're talking about rodeo, the stadium holds 110,000 people. So during the football games, we we are the third largest city in Pennsylvania at that time. So, yeah. It's rural. Yes. I mean, five miles away from here, you can step in cow patties. But you can also see a Broadway show when they open back up over at the university, so.

RS: And the house that you're in now on Main Street, was that the house you grew up in?

RS: Did you have brothers and sisters growing up?

RS: What birth order are you?

KP: I have 2 older sisters and they're both still living. And then me and then my younger sister passed away.

RS: And so you were a middle kid. Do you think that...

RS: What did your parents do for a living or with their life?

RS: So you're the middle kid. You moved into town. Were you around horses or cattle at all growing up?

RS: So. Wow. So you're kind of a town kid. You had your sisters. Close, close friendships at all in middle school or high school?

RS: So I absolutely understand that. Yeah. So how did you feel... So first of all, can I ask how you identify in terms of gender and sexuality?

KP: I, on the Kinsey scale, I identify [as a ] 5.2. I was married to a woman for 8 years. Don't be shocked. In fact, I have a little comedy routine about it. We married 8 years, 2 of the happiest years of my life. It was it was 15 minutes here and 20 minutes here. And then after 3 years, I found out she was bisexual. I had to buy things for before she'd have sex with me. And then after eight years, it was a different kind of bisexual: Bye, I'm not going to have sex with you anymore. So that's my comedy routine. And she lives in Texas, by the way.

RS: So I still get along with her.

KP: We do. We're Facebook buddies and. that's a whole 'nother story. I really think God put her in my life to save my life because we met at well before you were born. We met in 1978 and separated and in 1986. And by that time, that was right at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic and I was monogamous and to my wife. And by that time, I knew what HIV AIDS was and I knew and I am still negative. I actually just went and had a test and still negative. So.

RS: And growing up, you said, you know, you sort of presented a little bit effeminate and that caused some bullying in school...

RS: And, you know, growing up, did you have any sense, maybe not just that you were different in terms of gender, but were you aware at all of your, like, same sex attraction or anything like that?

RS: And had you told your sister or had...

RS: So do you think your family was pretty supportive?

RS: So after high school, did you...you had mentioned the military. Did you go into the military or...?

KP: I went into the military, yes.

RS: Which branch?

KP: I went into the army. And as I said, I was heavyset, and I was very effeminate. And it did not fit right with me that I should be in the military. And I went to to the medic a lot. And finally, the medic said, "Are you homosexual?" And remember, this was back in the '60s, so it wasn't a don't ask, don't tell situation. I said, "Well, yes, I am." And he said, "It's not going to get you out of the army because we're at war." It was during the Vietnam War. And he said, "You're just going to have to, you know, not worry about it." And I said, "You're not going to tell anybody, are you?" And he said, "Oh, no, I won't tell anybody." And that was a lie. He told my drill sergeant. My drill sergeant was a little Hawaiian guy with an attitude and and and he was always on everybody's case, and he actually showed kindness to me.

I might need Kleenex because he took me in his room and he said, "You know, I talked to the medic, and I know you're a homosexual. If anybody gives you any problem about that, I want you to tell," which shocked me. And from that point on, I said, "I'm going to make the army a career." At least for the four years that I had signed up for and I did and I actually reenlisted and I was an openly gay soldier during my MOS (military occupational specialties) training, I was in ground control approach radar, which I didn't realize was the radar that they put into rice paddies in Vietnam. So about halfway through my training, which I was failing miserably because I'm not technically oriented. My commanding officer and his XO invited me into their office and the commanding officer said, "I understand you're a homosexual." I said, "Well, yes, I am." And he said, "We can't give you a security clearance because you're a homosexual. So you can't, essentially go to Vietnam and get shot up in a rice paddy." I was like, "ahhhh."

You just have to realize that what you're comfortable with." And so he did it through aversion therapy. Whenever I had a limp wrist and there was a lot of them at the beginning there, he would Indian burn me. You know how Indian burn. Yeah. And if I would sashay. He would thump me in the spine and I would be retching on the on the ground and he'd walk by going, "Watch what you're doing." And when I tell people, you know, he taught me how to be masculine, I skipped lesson 4 and 18, I can't remember what they are. But he, I really feel, saved my life. And in the military also, I learned about theater. Fort Riley, Kansas, had an incredible theater program that I got involved in. And on stage, I thought these characters were coming from outside me. And I realized at a certain point that it was coming from inside, and that's when the light came on that I could be anything I wanted to be, and that's it. I came up with this and I like it.

RS: So when you when you entered the military was that, do you remember what year that was?

KP: It was '67. It was a year after I had graduated high school.

RS: So big things are happening in America in '67.

RS: What was it like living in Hawaii at the time?

RS: And did you experience, you know, anti-gay sentiment? And was it did you experience any of that in different places or... Were people pretty, OK?

KP: It was actually, you know, for the most part, I mean, you know, in Killeen, Texas, I had an apartment in Killeen and I would walk down to get a drink down at the gay bar, which was nonexistent. But, you know, and one night I was walking back to my apartment and a car stopped and three guys came out and and I ran back to where there was a lot of people, some people that I knew because I knew I was going to get my ass kicked. Am I allowed to say that?

RS: Yeah.

KP: Sure. Why not?

RS: Yeah. I'm sure there is some scary moment.

KP: Oh, yeah. There's scary things about anything, you know. But when I was some basic training, I, I somebody attempted to...three black men attempted to rape me. And I'm a big guy, I'm 6'1" or was before I turned 70, and I'm a big guy. I was able to to get them away from me. But you know, after that I was really afraid of black people. And then through theater, I met black people and people are people, you know. If you treat people with respect, they will treat you with respect and if they don't get them out of your life, you know.

RS: Did you have any romantic relationships with people in the military?

KP: Are you asking if I had sex in the military?

RS: I am.

KP: Yes. I had no relationships in the military. I had a lot of sex. My mom said, "We're going to send you to the Army to make a man of you." I joked when I got out of the military, I joked and I said, "It made me several men."

RS: So how did you meet your wife then, your ex-wife?

So I saw her and it was really interesting anyway. You know, we're laying down during rehearsal where it's a break and we're laying down and...She said, "What side of bed do you like to sleep on?" I said, "Well, I'm pretty much on the left side." She said...I said, "What about you?" She said, "Well, usually the bottom," and that really... And it was very confusing to me. And it was also very confusing to everybody that knew me that I would be interested in a woman. When I told them that I was getting married to a woman, she almost hung up the phone thinking it was a prank call. But but like I said, we were married for eight years and we're still friends today. So no children. We didn't have any children.

RS: And did you get married as you were leaving the military?

KP: Ah no. I left the military and went home for a while and then went out to California. And I got married about 2 years after that. But see, it's funny how you are indoctr...indoctrin... It's funny how you believe things that you're told, OK, I knew I was homosexual. I did not...I was told that if I were a homosexual, I couldn't have physical relations with women. Ever. And she came out to visit me in California when I was staying with my best friends. And she was there for a week and we slept in the same bed and nothing happened the first 2 days, and then we sort of messed around the second 2 days, and then on the last night before she left, you know... I had been afraid earlier in the week that I wouldn't get hard; well, I got hard. Then I was afraid that if I put it inside her, it would get soft. And then the last night, we feared that it would never get soft again. [laughter] It was the light came on, the light came on. So it. You could use this, you can't use this, but anyway.

RS: I do think you're getting a little bit too, is that previously this had all been set up as a binary like you were either gay or you weren't gay, right?

KP: Yeah.

RS: Where I think today we have much more of a spectrum. And I think younger people are understanding sexuality differently in terms of being openly bisexual or gender neutral or...

KP: Right. Yeah, well, it's like what I said earlier, on the Kinsey scale, I'm a 5.2. Obviously, I had relations with my wife and I'm also attracted to women that can kick my ass. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dark Angel. You know, women like that. I, yeah...

RS: That's wonderful. So while you were married, where did where did you all live and what were you doing for work?

KP: We lived in California. I was trying to be an actor and she was trying to be an actor out there as well. That didn't work out. I worked all kinds of stuff. Like I said, we were only married for a total of...we were together a total of 8 years and... By the time she left, she hadn't done...we'd done see a community theater, but not, you know, and she was a little excuse me. She was a little angry with me because, you know, we would go to auditions and I would get parts and she wouldn't. And she's gorgeous. I mean, and she's a dancer. She had legs that started at her armpits, just a wonderful dancer. And she still is.

And she wouldn't get the parts that she wanted and she would get very angry with me. And, you know, I'd say I want to I want to go on a diet. And she said, OK, but I was going to make the chocolate cake. Yeah. But anyway, she left and so I did more community theater. I worked in a bakery out in Westwood for a long time and it was off and on. And it was...the lady was Armenian, I can swear at you in Armenian. And she was the baker to the stars. I mean, she had pictures of people up on the wall.

Her co-owner was Barbra Streisand's stepsister. Barbara used to come in all the time and get sticky buns, Philadelphia sticky buns right out with it. I was just talking about this the other day. Olympia Dukakis used to come in all the time. Yeah, I know. And when I...the day she came in and I just found out that she had been cast as Anna and Tales of the City. I said, "Oh, my God, I can't see anybody else in that role." She said, "I hope I do her justice." And she was tiny. She was just this tiny waif of a woman. But she could act her way to heaven. Where she is now. Absolutely. I met a lot of people in there. A lot. Madonna. And Sean Penn used to come in, so it was a fun place to work.

RS: Yeah. Were you were you part of, you know, the kind of emerging gay scene at all, or was this when you were still married and pretty monogamous and...

KP: Well, no, I...I was...I've never been part of the gay thing. I'm so not stereotypical of a gay person. I have a green screen so you can't see the mess behind me. But right about that time is when and it was well before Craigslist or any of that stuff. I met a guy named Steven who I dated for about 20 minutes. And part of that 20 minutes was we're going to go to the gay rodeo. And I'd been to the gay rodeo before. And because I was supporting this hairdresser that worked about three doors down who was dressed as a woman and miss, Miss L.A., Miss L.A. Rodeo, and I went to support him, her and it was like it was a lot of fun. And then when Steven said, we're going to go to the gay rodeo, I said, "Oh, shirtless cowboys and dancing." He said, "No, no, we're going to work in the arena." I said, "Not in these new boots, we're not." And when I went to support my friend, it was a Sunday night when he was entertaining and that's when they gave out the awards.

And it was really interesting. You know, they had All Around cowgirls and All Around cowboys and they would call up the women for All Round cowgirls and they would shake hands. Right. And the guys would come up and they would go, "Oh, sweetie, girlfriend," you know? And when the guy won it, his name was Greg Olsen. This was a long time ago, so. He wept in his hands. He wept that he had won best All Around cowboy for the weekend, and I said, "This is a place that I need to be." And then I didn't think about it until Steven said, "We're going to work in the arena."

And I went and I always joked that the first cowpile I stepped in, I was home. And I've never been around animals like that at all, you know, I'm from the middle of Pennsylvania. There are farms around, but I never got involved in any rodeo situation at all here. And it changed my life. The rodeo. Rodeo taught me a lot of things and one of the main things, I might get emotional, one of the main things is: we as gay people, all our lives have been told you can't love somebody for any length of time, it's all a sexual thing, you know. If you stay together, you're not going to stay together long. And I met couples.

The first rodeo I worked in the arena, there was a couple from New Mexico that had traveled there, two men, that had been together for 35 years, 35 years, and there were other couples as well. You know, Carl and Dave were from San Diego and they had been together 17 years. You and it was such a mind-blowing thing to see this where you'd been told all your life that this was never going to happen. You know and if I'd seen this earlier in my life, I might have had a really totally different life. I'm still single. I have a cat that's about it, it's the longest relationship I've ever had. He's just turned 7.

RS: So what do you remember what year it was that you went to your first one?

KP: I cannot remember. I have...I have a...a bag. Then I got going to a rodeo one time, will you excuse me? I know right where it is. I'll be right back. Don't go anywhere. [long pause]. OK, so one of the great things about living in L.A. was you could fly anywhere in the country and even up to Canada for like one 100 bucks round trip. And I was in the Burbank Airport, and they just canceled the flight for 7 hours, so I was there for 7 hours. I couldn't go home, you know, and I found this. And it looks like the sidesaddle, right? So I started putting these you get tags whenever you go to the rodeo and you put them on your belt loop, or if you're too old to look at the belt loop, you hang it on a lanyard. But these are the first 25 tags that I had. And I don't know if they have the year on it or not. '95. I think I started in 1990, I think. But. It was just a really neat thing, and then I had so many of them because I've been to the 133 that I'd said, you know, this won't fit through the TSA at the airport didn't enjoy that too much. So I stopped putting any more on that.

RS: So you went to the first one and, you know, stepped in the cowpile and really felt at home. How did you...did you start volunteering with the arena crews? How did...what were your next steps?

KP: Well, the arena crews...when Steven took me there, I was in the arena crew, right, but there was no such thing as an arena crew. And I looked at the at the line up and I knew I didn't know even know what was happening on the line. And there was a lady named Casey Jackson, tall, good-looking woman, who said to me, "OK, this needs to go out next, be ready for that." And I said, "OK." So the first day it was rough because I didn't pole bending. You know, you need you need a tape measure. Oh, there's one right there, you know, so that was the first day and then they did it for two days, Saturday and Sunday. And then the second day, I got everything lined up and I got somebody to help me, Steven wouldn't help me because Steven was the gate guy. So Steven didn't last very long anyway. So the second day I had it all lined up. And the second day is traditionally a shorter day anyway. But it was a lot shorter because I had had everything lined up. And so. We finished the rodeo, it was it was a wonderful, wonderful two days, I was exhausted, and then the next year I didn't do any other rodeos until the next year.

And when I showed up to be a volunteer, Casey was there and she said, you know, I said, what do I do wrong? She said, "I remember you from last year and you did a wonderful job on the second day. You're going to be in charge of the arena." And I said, "No, no." She said, "Yeah, yeah." And you didn't say no to Casey. You didn't. So I did it for the weekend. I had three volunteers to help me and everybody else had had. They had these vests on to denote where they were, except the arena crew didn't have any vests, so I didn't know who the arena crew was. So but we went through it. And at the end at the end of the rodeo on Sunday night, excuse me, Casey said, "I have never, ever run a rodeo as efficiently as they did with you working in the arena." She said, "Never, ever leave the arena." And with the exception of one time when I worked behind the shoots, I've always been in the arena or I've been an entertainment rodeo clown in the arena still and.

I remember the first time that they actually called me an arena setup coordinator and I was the first of its kind and I bought some brand new jeans and they were white. How stupid was that? And I had a radio on and I wasn't going to have to get in the pens or anything. They said you don't have to get into the pens. And then a dear friend of mine was struggling with calves. His name was Carl. God bless him. He's passed away. And I got in I dropped the radio down. I got into the pen, and within two seconds I had a green streak down my leg on my white jeans. I never wore them again, ever. Not even the rodeos. But, you know, and then I got to go places they would invite me, places.

I went to the first rodeo up in Calgary, Canada, Alberta. It was a wonderful, wonderful space. The arena was here. There was a campground here where we put up tents and trailers. And then on the other side was a building that had dance floors and kitchens and all kinds of stuff. And for the entire weekend, you never had to leave. It was it was like a bubble. You didn't have to leave. And there was nobody having problems with anybody else except late at night when people got really drunk. You know, and I got to go to several of the I went up to about 15 of them and then I got involved, really involved with my church. So I was not able to to go up to two once after that when they went to Strathmore. Yeah, I never went to the Strathmore when it is just at this at this ranch, which I loved, I loved. So.

RS: So as you're getting more involved with the gay rodeo, are you doing. Did you do any events ever?

RS: That's amazing. So with your with your clowning, had you had were you just channeling your theater experience and what was what was the experience of clowning like? What was your routine like?

KP: Well, with clowning, I was the entertainment clown. When something was happening at one end of the arena, I was on the other end of the arena doing stuff like I had a six-foot PVC pipe that I could baton twirl. You know, and I had jokes, really terrible jokes, oh, my God. You know, and I made up a character. His name was Avis T-Bone MaGroin. And he was from Mooseanus, spelled the way it sounds, moose anus. And we weren't in any state because no state had Claimmus, in fact, that was on our town sign saying Mooseanus, no state will claim us. Our neighboring states were Arkansas, Texas, and Rhode Island because it was a long, long place. So, you know, so I give that give that to the people. And they would, you know, it was just all fun, you know, but I only did that I only did that about ten, ten or fifteen times. Not, you know.

When we get to my book, I'll tell you one of the inspirations I got from the book and a life lesson when I was writing the book and Roman and Jules is my first book ever. And I wrote that when I was forty-five. No. It was 2000. So. I'm seventy-two now, so that would have been. Anyway, but it was my first one, people had told me all my life I couldn't be a writer and so I would write maybe. A page, two pages and then go, well, I can't be a writer because I can't spell. And so at a late age, I wrote a short story when I worked at the at the bakery and it was 14 pages, it was a short story. People read it and they were very affected by it. So I started writing this book about gay rodeo and I thought it was going to be a short story. And it's I'm not sure how many words it is, but it's not a novel. It's a novelette or.

RS: I have it right here

KP: With? Oooohh! Oh, wow.

RS: Maybe I would say I don't know. I know a lot of people have written about this link, you know, so in book format, it's about a hundred and sixty pages. Yeah. And it has a full story arc. So I'd say, oh, it's a novella and a novel,

KP: OK, novella and a novel, absolutely.

RS: So yeah. Why don't we talk about Roman and Jules.

KP: Excellent, well I've been to, I've been to sixty-five rodeos at that point and I'd written this short story and then I thought I'd write another short story about the rodeo and then it kept growing and growing and growing and growing and to the main characters, one of them is gay bull rider and a straight bullfighter who become really close friends. And I really needed the feeling. A bullfighter has when he's going in to save somebody. So we were in Ramona, California, and the wonderful and God bless him, David Pizzuti was our clown and I had known David for years and years. And I said, "David, what goes through your mind whenever you're in there saving somebody?" And he said. "Well, actually, nothing, because I just go in and my hands go where they need to be." I said, "David, you are so full of shit." He said, "No, no, really. It's like God directs me where my hands need to be." I said, "Yeah, whatever, David."

So that day I was the latch puller. There are two people with bullfighting, bull riding. There's the guy with the rope that opens up the gate and there's the latch puller. And these were these were new shoots. So they were they were tough to get open. So I stepped in front because it wasn't coming up. And the Cowboy is going like this, you know. So I stepped in front and I opened it and I try to get back to the other side and the bull came out. And hit me in the ass and I went hit me in the wallet and when I carried it in the back pocket and I went up three feet. Landed on my feet, went to the top of the fence, went to the fence on the top of it, and I hadn't thought about it, it was like God was telling me where to go.

And I looked up and I said, "God, if I ever need that lesson again, I'm going to I'm going to believe the person." Right. And I had always had a lower back problem. And I thought I was going to be crippled the next day. And when I woke up, I didn't have a back problem and I haven't had a back problem since. So whenever I hurt my neck, somebody said, go play with the bull again! And I went, eh, no. That's only going to work once. Ramona had, we had porta-potties, of course, and Ramona's porta-potty company had a picture of the guy on the on the door sitting on a toilet. Right. And their motto was, your crap is our bread and butter. I'll never forget it.

RS: So as you're developing your story, how much of of the characters are coming out of people that you knew?

KP: Well. I changed the names to protect the guilty, except for one, and I kept his name in there, but there were a lot of things in there. The story about Seattle and what happened up there, there was not a shooting up there, but everything leading up to it, like like the SWAT team up there, that was all true. When I walked up and the guy handed me a target and said, put this on your back because they're going to there is talk. And this is how long ago there wasn't chat rooms. It was just boards. And in one of the boards, somebody had said, "My scope, we'll zero in on the pink triangle really well to shoot these faggots, you know, and so there was SWAT team up in the mountains in Enumclaw was it was funny because there were two ways to get to Enumclaw from the hotel where we were staying in Seattle.

RS: Yeah, that was one of my questions. If if not, I mean, obviously, the book deals a lot with homophobia and transphobia, and violence. And I was wondering how much of that was based on your experiences or experiences of people you knew?

I ran into this straight cowboy that thought he was going to come and get all of the money because he was straight, you know, and it was this was just a damn gay rodeo. And he almost lost his life because he was being stupid and wasn't doing everything that he did in the straight rodeo. You know, you just and you just look at them and shake their head, your head at them. It's like, yeah, you may think that this is going to be a walk in the park, but. But it's not. It's not. I wanted to mention something about protesters, we were at Annapolis, Maryland, doing a rodeo for votes for D.C., but it was in Annapolis, and it was a beautiful, beautiful area. The protesters parked their cars in in our parking lot and then went out with signs and protested about homosexuality and how dare they? And we locked the door on them and they couldn't get back into the parking lot [chuckles] because they were protesting us.

So. Yeah, I miss my rodeo, I went to a lot of first rodeos, the first rodeo up in Chicago. It was in February, but it was an indoor arena. OK, but the ground that they use all the time was outside. So they brought it in and put it on the arena. And it was it was mud. Mud, and they have these and I'm not exaggerating. One-hundred and one-hundred and twenty-year-old carriages that they were going to bring out the drag queens in to go around the arena, and they got stuck in the mud and broke the axles [laughs]. And and and I'm going to mention Clarence. Clarence was the stock contractor and he stood about five foot one and was about that amount around. And he was a good old boy and I said, “You know, I understand, Clarence, that there are some women out there underneath the mud somewhere” - he says, "Don't make me no, never mind it now, if there are men there, I'll go out." And he came out to me right there on the arena. And it was and he was such a wonderful person.

He would pick up hitchhikers and take them places. You know, he brought a lot of them into his into his ranch to help. One of them. Thought he could get a bunch of money him, killed him. Clarence was just the most caring, wonderful person in the world, and he died, and I and the guy said, "Well, you know, it was a he was a homosexual and I didn't feel comfortable with it, so I killed them because he was a homosexual." And luckily, if I remember correctly, he didn't get away with that defense. He was pretty much of a scumbag anyway, so.

RS: Well, I noticed that at the end of ruminant and Hillary Clinton is president, and I really enjoyed the epilog and had, by executive order, made gay marriage legal. And I'm wondering, you know, as you know, since you wrote this book, how the world has changed in ways that you maybe for, you know, for saw a little bit and maybe ways that that have been unexpected to you.

KP: Well, it was called. It was called. Projecting this is the way I wanted it to, you know, and if 10 years after that it would have been 2010, that would have been great, you know, and it and it came around that it just wasn't Hillary Clinton that that had to do with, you know. Yeah, it. I. To see people. That had been together thirty-five years, and if one of them died, the other one would have been kicked off the land. You know, just sickened me, sickened, and that happened, it would happen, you know.

RS: Do you think since gay marriage was legalized, that things have culturally have gotten better?

You know, I have buttons about beloved children of God, we are all beloved children of God. I want to show you a sash that was made for me. There's a whole thing about sashes in the rodeo that you can only wear a sash for so long and then you have to retire it to your to your closet. You know, I think there's like two years or something like that. I think they might have changed it by that. But I was down and I was down in San Diego and, I was doing, doing a line on the arena, and we're running a little bit late. It was a beautiful day, and I kept hearing my name being called on the loudspeaker. And I'm going, "I'm busy here. I'm busy here." And I looked around and all the contestants had lined up and they gave me this sash and it says, Miss Kelly girl. And they presented it to me.

They stayed up till 4:00 in the morning, very drunk to finish it, and there used to be used to be glitter all over it. [chuckles] And it's so old that there's no glitter. But they have they have a lot of things that, buttons and pins and stuff, and so I collected a bunch of pins and put them on my sash and this will never go out of style. Whatever rodeo I go to, I can go to it. And I have a funny story. When I had a little bit of money, which was a long time ago, I used to get things for the people that work in the arena. And one of the things is this. And you might not. It says, Proud to be Kelly crew, and then I had a pink triangle, and so I hadn't seen a lot of the people for a long time because being in Pennsylvania, it cost a thousand dollars to go anywhere from where I live. And so, I went to the gay games seven years ago and I had this proud to be Kelly crew button on there. And this guy came up and this is a guy that had worked 30 rodeos with.

He said hi, "Hi, my name's Chris." I said, "Hi, Chris," knowing full well who it was. And I had a big bushy beard at the time. He said, "How do you know Kelly?" And I said, "Um, I am Kelly." He went, "Oh, my God!" and jumped into my arms and his husband turned around and said, "What the hell's going on?" And Chris goes, "This is Kelly! This is Kelly!" And he went, "THE Kelly?" "Yah!" So he came over. The three of us are just hugging. And it was just the best, the best moment of my life. It was one of the best things. On your list, you wanted to talk about religion?

RS: I did. I wanted to especially bring that up since you had just mentioned your pins and how what role faith plays in your life.

So basically they were thinking that I was a pedophile. So we came out the other end of that. And, you know, I had written this book about rodeo. So I really felt that I could it would be very cathartic to make a play about it. So the play was about fifty percent to fifty-five percent. True. And the rest was made up and then it got produced at several different events. And I had such a wonderful response from it that I wrote a book based on the play. And they're both in the same volume and it's called All the Little Children. And. So I'm very spiritual, we are coming. We just celebrated our second year of becoming open and affirming, and that's to LGBTQA -plus everything else, disabled, you know, mentally handicapped, so and so forth, you know, and I wanted it done twenty-two years ago when I came back, but I would not have been able to do it without the people that did it this time, you know.

RS: Do you think when you came back was that, so you had mentioned it became harder to participate sort of in your rodeo life. Did a lot of that energy go into the to the church that you grew up in?

RS: I have not.

RS: Universal Unitarians,

KP: Yes, Unitarian, yes, right, and it's a combination and it talks about sexuality. And here I am being a media whore again. I wrote another book called And a Child and one of the characters, one of the substories, in that is about a transgender boy. And I thought, you know, it's not going to be affective in this really small area. And when the kids in the curriculum got to the LGBTQ, they wanted something more than the curriculum. So we went to the Gay Straight Alliance in State College and they sent over a panel of four people, four kids. And then the adviser was a lesbian. There was a gay boy. A straight ally, a bisexual girl and a transgender boy. So it was indeed something here. And I love talking about myself and I apologize.

So the boy was talking and he's doing this and crossing his legs and everything. And then the straight girl was talking about being an ally and so on down the line. And I knew most of the kids in the group. There were 10 kids and there was the pastor female. And then it was a married couple that was helping with it. And I said, hey, you kids know me. You know, I've been around for a long time. I've yelled at you for running through the church. I've been openly gay. I've not ever been afraid of telling you that that God loves me no matter what. I used to be very feminine and very. Just queer and uh and I and I found out that that isn't necessarily who I have to be. I can be anything I want to be. So I have chosen to be this. And if you don't like it, too bad. Right.

So the pastor said, OK. And I said, thank you. And Pastor started saying something and the gay boy said. Can I say something? She said, sure, and he said, I want to apologize because. I was being very effeminate because I thought that's what was expected of me. And I'm not traditionally that way and the other three went, he's really not. He said, I thought that's what was expected of me and I'd like to be my true self now. So and then we had a two hour conversation after that. It took me about three days to realize because of what I said, this boy realized that he didn't have to be anything but himself. And that made me feel so good. OK, I'm sorry. So.

RS: I know you said you've been really involved with your church even through this last year of Covid, and I'm wondering if you could talk about what this last year has been like for you both in regards to your church family and the rodeos and and just how you've navigated that as someone, you know, living in a small town in Pennsylvania during Covid?

KP: During Covid, yeah, yeah. Well, obviously, rodeos are off the board right now. I was I was honored to go up to the Calgary rodeo. And it was it was pretty much a nightmare going up there because my luggage got lost and so did I. And it was terrible. But it was wonderful. It just to be around like-minded people is just an amazing feeling. It's just. You know, and I got to I got to go around and bless the arena. You know, I had people come up to me on Friday and say, "You gonna bless the arena tomorrow morning?" And I said "Yah, I'll be here." I actually had to find cornmeal. There was no place around me. I said, "I need cornmeal." So they made sure I had corn cornmeal in the morning.

So my church this Sunday, we are celebrating the first year of Zoom Church. In March, we went to other people's Zoom churches during Easter that that last year we were asked we asked if we could go to our past Preachers' Zoom churches. She and she is in Kentucky, Louisville, Kentucky. And they said that we could. And then we I work on the faith formation team and the faith formation team said, well, you know, we'd really like to do is in service ourselves. And who wants to do it? And I went. Well, I can certainly talk, as you can tell, and I said, we can put it together, you know, is there anybody that can do it technically? And one of the guys stood up and that that's been a year ago. And the first thing I said was and we were really worried about the seniors, you know, which I am one.

But we're talking about people in their 80s and 90s that that would be very confused. And we started at 10 o'clock and at 9:25, one of the seniors got on the Zoom. And then another one came on and they've been there consistently every week except Holy humor Sunday didn't particularly like that. They thought we were going to have clowns on there and we did. But the first thing I said was, welcome to St. John's, where God is still speaking and where all are loved. I have done something that no other preacher in our two-hundred-year history has done, and that is I got everybody in the front row. [chuckles].

RS: That's a good joke. [laughs].

KP: Yah, yah. We've done is we've done this for a year. We have we have pastors that come in on Zoom from all over the country, you know, which is really neat. And I go down every Monday traditionally to sing the hymns because we worked out that singing on Zoom with an organ on the background didn't work. So two of us go down a man and a woman. Usually it's me, but we have another man that does it as well. And we do the hymns, you know, and everybody else is muted, you know. So I'm really involved in that, you know, and the children's sermon, you know, I get to do and just say I went to Cleveland the other day to see a friend of mine who is vaccinated, he and his partner that I've been talking to on Facebook for seven years. I've never met them. And I went to Cleveland and wasn't here. And on Monday when I got back, you know, for people that you really missed you in church yesterday, there was nobody to laugh at.

RS: Do you think that that's helped people get through this year of isolation?

KP: Say again?

RS: Do you think that having at least Zoom as an option has helped people get through the year of isolation?

KP: Yes, in a lot of cases, but in a lot of cases, you know, they say it's not the same. There are people that have every capability of being on Zoom and they choose not to because it's not the same, but you know what? It's never going to be the same. There there is not. There's not ever going to be a normal it's going to be a new normal, we will have we had a hybrid service where everybody was out in the parking lot last Sunday and there was some people on Zoom. You know, and then if in the Fall we have no air conditioning in our church in the fall, if we decide to go inside, you know, we will still have Zoom. Because there are people that do not want to come in the building, you know,

RS: We've seen the same thing just with teaching.

KP: Yah

RS: It's never going to be the same. But there's also a really good opportunity to for people who have mobility problems or any sorts of things that would otherwise exclude them from being able to attend, let alone just illness. That I think you're right in that this is helping create a new normal and hopefully one that we can use to create even more inclusive spaces.

KP: Right, absolutely. Absolutely.

RS: And do you feel like it is getting better? Is the vaccine rolling out OK there? How does it feel right now?

KP: Yeah, it is. We just we just had a survey and out of the 42 people that responded, 80 percent have had have been fully vaccinated. You know, now we have 60 people that we sent that out to, but the 40 that you know, and we are still maintaining six feet. And wearing masks, so, you know, it's it will never be the same, you know, who would have thought? You know, in twenty nineteen that things would come to a crashing halt.

RS: Yeah, I think absolutely this is this is a good time to be recording oral histories because this is such a historical moment and, you know, do you think when do you think you would be comfortable or able to go to a rodeo again? I know they're planning on holding some, but is that something that that you think a lot of people are excited about or are still concerned about? And how do you feel about it yourself?

KP: Well, Pennsylvania has the Keystone. I think it's Keystone. They didn't let covid stop them last year, I preferred not to go, but for more reasons than covid. We did the farm. There's a farm…farmers complex down in Harrisburg that we did our first rodeo at. And we did really well, and then the second rodeo, we were at a smaller arena, it was really nice. But the people in charge of the money messed it up really bad and the contestant didn't get their winnings. And that really that really embarrassed me, you know, because, you know, when the money doesn't shouldn't be used for anything other than the winnings and it went into the bills that even didn't get paid. So it really it was an embarrassment to me. And I you know, it's unfortunate and I don't know how to vocalize that to them, so if they have something this November, I'm not going to be going. But, you know. I guess I guess Colorado's coming up in July. I, I think that's too soon. I really do.

August I think New Mexico is having one. I, I think that may even be too soon, you know, and also I'm on unemployment, so I don't have the money unless they say here's a free paid ticket and we have your hotel. Just bring your appetite, you know, money for that. Oh, speaking of appetite, I want to tell you a story. In Phoenix, I haven't gone to Phoenix for a long time, the Phoenix rodeo there. So I went one year and being in the arena, you work late. So all the contestants had gone up to this steakhouse that they went to every year and they have a special room in the back. And there's like 40 contestants in the back there. And the staff in that room come up with a question that everybody at the table has to answer, and it's usually sexually oriented. Are you a top? Are you a bottom? Have you ever been in a three way? And you have to answer these questions.

Well, luckily, we didn't have to go back to that because we were really late and there was me and two ladies and you walk in and there's this woman standing there and she has a six gun on her hip and a cowboy hat, and she looks, you know, she looks like Annie Oakley, except maybe one hundred years old. She's old. Looks like Annie Oakley. And, "So what are y'all here for?" "Well, we'd like to eat." "Just the three of you?" "Uh, yes mam." Looked right at me and she said, "Follow me, ladies." And we have the best dinner. I haven't eaten red meat for a long time. So. So they had really good chicken. But you could see them. You looked out the window and they were they were over a big fire pit. Cooking all this food for everybody, it was funny. But but the question that the contestants had was, are you a top or a bottom? And these questions didn't come from anybody in the audience or the contestants, it came from the staff, they wanted to hear all and people were shocked at some of the answers.

RS: I mean that brings -

Go ahead.

KP: No, go ahead.

RS: Got to say, that brings up my follow-up question of relationships in the military. But did you have any relationships at the rodeo?

KP: Actually, I didn't. Uh, out of the 133 rodeos, I've only been laid at a rodeo once.

RS: Just too busy?

KP: And that was by accident. I meant I met this guy, we went to my hotel room and in the morning I said, Oh, I've got to get out of here. He said, so do I, I'm going to the rodeo. And I went [sharp inhale] and you know what? It's not because I didn't want to. Everybody thought I was a priest or something, that I didn't have sex. And I don't, [laughs] trust me. I'm not - at all. But, you know. But it was sometimes you just don't need sex and with rodeos, I was usually too exhausted anyway. I was talking to you about death at the rodeo before in in D.C. I, I saw two deaths Uh, there was, as I said, I'm a photographer and I had the camera and I was taking pictures. And. There was a guy in the last shoot on a steer and somebody who is supposed to be holding him, you know, so if you pitch forward, they could pull him back and the person wasn't strong enough and he hit his head on the bar and he died. And I and I almost took a picture of it, and I I mean, it's what I'm used to, you know, and I pushed the button and I had somehow turned off the camera. So God stopped my camera from doing that. And another time.

RS: Yah.

KP: OK, so I mean a gay rodeo.

RS: Yeah, yes.

RS: Do you think a lot of other people I've interviewed have expressed concern that that, you know, people are aging in the association and there's not a lot of younger members coming in. And I'm wondering if that's something you're concerned about and what you think the future of the association is?

KP: Well, if we can get somebody to produce my book as a movie, I think they would pique a lot of people's interest. Hint, hint, hint, hint, hint. It you know, you've got to put that out in the universe, you know. I think it needs to be more publicized. You know, back in the 90s, you know, we were we were something of an anomaly, you know, and we were on new shows everywhere, and now it's Rupal's Drag Race that's the anomaly. And we need to become an anomaly again, you know. It's funny because. You see these big butch cowboys doing all kinds of stuff, and then at night they're dancing and prancing around and just being themselves and loving themselves and loving, loving their atmosphere. We need to we need to publicize it more. Absolutely.

RS: Do you feel like trans members and non-binary people, do you feel like they feel supported by the institution?

KP: Absolutely. Absolutely. Have you seen the movie Queens and Cowboys?

RS: Yeah.

KP: Yeah, well, my friend Travis, you know, he was so brave enough to show before pictures of him, before he was transition. You know, I really I really feel the love. Through him, you know, and like I said, the trans I you know, the person came up and said, my name is so-and-so, but last year I was so-and-so I'd never remembered that. Before he transitioned. You know, in my mind, you know. So you just you just you, I think, non-binary. Would have a better chance at the rodeo than other places. I really feel that.

KP: Well. The old adage, you are what you eat. You know. I I wrote the rodeo book, and then I wrote the play and the book, then I wrote a book about Rose Parade floats, it's called the Long Pink Line. I should have sent all of them to you instead of just sorry about that. I mean, maybe they're on maybe they're on Kindle anyway. You know, I was involved. I mean -

RS: I'll check,.

KP: Oh OK. I, I had I was walking down the street in college or Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena with a friend of mine who is a florist. And there was a pink line down the middle of the street. And I said, well, what on earth? Is that doing there in the middle of the street? He said when the floats come down the street, they can't always see ahead of them. So they have somebody in the headset saying, slow down, speed up, but they can look down and they can see the pink line and they know they're exactly in the middle of the road. I said, OK, that explains the line. Why is it pink? And. And he said, well, they tried red, but it looked like blood on the pavement. And something in my mind said, I want to know more about this. And two years later, working for the same man, we worked on three rows for eight floats and I wrote about four paragraphs, but it was before I became a writer.

So I put everything in a box. And then when I was back here, I had the box sent to me and I brought it out there and I looked at the outline and two months later I had the book. And it is truly, truly a novelette because it's you know, it's really it's eighty-seven pages, you know, but it talks about there's murder and mystery. There's there's a presidential and vice-presidential story in it. There's the way to build a float. You know, that people didn't know and stuff like that, and there's two wonderful love stories, gay love story and a senior, two older people love story. And I already have them cast, by the way, Ellen DeGeneres as the as the lesbian vice president that they attempt to kill, Bette Midler as the mother of one of the gay guys. I already have it cast right here. I'm putting it out in the universe. Yeah.

RS: Yeah [inaudible]

KP: I'm sorry?

RS: Just put it out there.

KP: Absolutely. I, I work I used to work with seniors and special needs people, and there was this wonderful lady who had muscular dystrophy, who was non-verbal. But you knew when she was happy when she was sad. And one year, I must have seen her as a mermaid. For Halloween, because I had this vision of her that there was a mermaid trapped in her body. And there was, you know, and I just started writing that story, it's called The Birth of a Mermaid, if you want to look that up and you can. But, you know, it's just something that that connects with me. I have up here a sequel to my And a Child. When the boys - I'm sorry - And a Child was the story about two boys who meet in middle school, one being raised by lesbian parents, one being raised by two gay men. Did I tell you about that already? No. OK, and they become fast friends and they on down the line. They try to get a gay-straight alliance in their high school, and they run into problems, you know, and and the sequel will be shall lead them and that's when they go off to college, you know, and it's right up here. I just need to get it right here. You know, it's tough to do. It's tough to do and it's easy to do. You know, so I just need to do that. Maybe this will get me, get me going again.

RS: And when you came back to Pennsylvania, what have you done for for work outside of writing and doing those things and taking care of your mom?

RS: I feel like a lot of people are experiencing this, particularly with the pandemic. You know, just trying to figure out the next thing.

KP: Right.

RS: Everything has been hardened and also the way in which that people have sort of reconnected with their artistic selves as well,

KP: Uh huh, yah.

RS: Trying to -.

KP: Yah.

RS: To do something that feels good.

KP: Right, yeah, yeah.

RS: Everything feels hard right now.

KP: It does. It really does. And, you know, and, you know, I live with my cat, that's it. You know, I don't have anybody else to at least once a year before the pandemic, I had to clean up the house for Memorial Day because everybody came to my house for I didn't have to do that last year. I sat on Memorial Day on my porch waiting for people to walk by so I could call it a parade.

RS: Yeah, I mean, I really actually think the holidays were so hard this year, like the days, the days that we usually celebrate. Even I have two young kids and even then it was hard, like I had to really dig deep to, like, do something big for them. Yeah, because it was, it was hard.

KP: Yeah.

RS: So I'm wondering if you want to show your pictures and talk about them a little bit?

KP: I was trying to figure out how to do that. Hold on. Hold on a second. [long pause] I think I got got it hold on. [long pause] Oh. OK, this thing. I told you I told you that I, I used to give little trinkets to people. And this is in the arena, we called it the Kelly crew and crew was spelled with a K. So I had reverse K's and then the pink triangle and the black triangle. And were you familiar with the Black Triangle before you read it in my book?

RS: Yes.

KP: OK. All right. So I did that. And then. So I'm sure that. Might take a few minutes, I'm sorry.

RS: No, I'm just really impressed how well versed you are in Zoom.

KP: I think the next one is. A group of people - you'll see, hold on. Oh, no [laughs] no, this happened to be. Just a silly picture that somebody took of me, I learned I learned early on that I really needed to have a sweat thing under my hat because I have no hair, obviously, and there's no hair up there to soak up the water. So I had something. So that was that was one of my entertainment clown things. I purposely skipped. Oh, sorry. I purposely skipped arena thirteen picture - hold on. Now, this this was at the farm place down in Harrisburg, and I was. I was the assistant arena director. Only because I had the biggest mouth [RS laughs] and it was a really bizarre space and I had to shout around corners to get the horses to come up, and that was me holding, holding the gate closed. And as you can see, I have a little belly, a big belly there. And I had a hat that said end hunger. So I did that. And they normally take a picture of all the women at, at rodeos. Oh, oh, I like this picture hold on. This is, this is my butch picture oh where'd it go, oh, there it is. That's up in Calgary.

RS: That is an amazing outfit.

KP: Isn't that great? Now this vest. See, I told you I was jealous about the vest everybody had. I made these vests for all the arena crew, and I made like 30 of them, OK? And everybody went, all these are so stupid. These are so stupid. And they took them home with them. So I don't have it. If you look really closely on this, it has a - hold on the second. It has a little horse things on it

RS: That's amazing. I feel like that's a shirt that Garth Brooks would have worn. It's great.

KP: Oh yeah. There's a shirt. I have a shirt here, you know. You know who Roger Bergmann is, right? OK, I have a shirt to sitting right here. I'm pretty sure this is the shirt. That Roger Bergman has. And when I saw him wear it, I wouldn't wear it again because, you know, that's so rude that somebody else would wear a shirt that you have. It's a vanity thing, you know. Let's see. Almost done, hold on. [long pause] No, that's. I, I have led such a blessed life. Meeting all these people and being surrounded now, this one. This one was. Oh, no, that's not right. Stop sharing. Oh, here it is. You can't see it very well, but these are all the people. At the gay games. And I'm the only one and I'm right here, can you see where my arrows pointing?

RS: Yes. [laughs].

RS: And what year did you move back to Pennsylvania?

KP: I moved back in in 1998. We. And from then on. It costs an arm and leg to get anywhere, so. See you like this vest so much I'm going to show you another picture. And that's the shirt that that no, actually, I think it's a pink shirt, but but the shirt that I just showed you, that's the same shirt. I have to I have this black felt hat that I used to put pins on and the first rodeo they had at Palm Springs, I was running through the chutes where the calves came in and I hit a bar and all the pins scraped my forehead all the way back. So all weekend long, I couldn't wear a hat because I had these scabs [chuckles]. It was needless to say, I don't have any pins in my hat and ever again, so. So that's it.

RS: Were you ever sort of seriously injured at a rodeo, working on the crew?

RS: Well, I think I have exhausted my questions for now. Is there anything extra you want to add?

KP: Look at my list. You know, I think I've exhausted my list as well,

RS: So one thing I always like to ask everybody is whether you consider yourself a cowboy?

So, the refrain of it is, if you lead, I will follow, I will follow your lead and at the end of the song, in true life, he just left me on the dance floor. And we never saw each other again. And to this day, he's still around, he's still alive. He lives in San Diego. I haven't seen him in probably eighteen years, and I still pine for him every day. And you know, we're always told that you love somebody that you have sex with. You don't have to love - you don't have to love somebody just because you have sex with them, you love them because you love them, they're your heart and he could never understand that because he's a physical person. So he took me out of his life. And I think that dance was a dance that showed him that he loved me, but he couldn't accept it, and that's been 17, 18 years.

RS: Do you think that's a lot of where your book comes from? About that scared love?

KP: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. In fact, he was the inspiration of the love between Roman and Jules. And all I got to say, it's his loss because I have so much love in my heart. And I want a husband of my own, not somebody else's husband - although, there's a book out called Still Straight. And it's about it is probably a doctoral thesis that this guy wrote about 60 straight men in the, in rural situations. Let me let me get you the guys then it's called, Still Straight: Sexual Flexibility Among White Men in Rural America. And. I'm trying to get to. I think the last name is Silva. Still Straight. I found it on Kindle.

RS: That sounds amazing.

KP: It's amazing, you know, how people. Very, very straight, but need to be with a man. For a lot of reasons.

RS: Do you think? That pining for him made it difficult to find other partners?

KP: There's nobody around here, you know, when I first got back here for two or three years, the Penn State had potlucks for gay men. And I went to that and everybody had a partner. You know, and I was singled out, you know, I was all by myself single and I, you know. It's unfortunate and you know, I, I, I pined for him, but - I know you don't want to hear this, but I'm 72 years old and I'm still very sexually active, which is why, you know. I went and got tested again because, you know, last weekend I went to Cleveland, but, you know, and I was both vaccinated and, HIV negative, so.

RS: So do you think that the development of gay dating apps or hookup apps have have helped for rural men or rural women to at least, like, know who else is out there? You can check your smartphone.

KP: Well. I only slipped three times, four times during the pandemic. And two of those times was through a dating app, and it happened to be both of them on the same day [laughs with RS ] TMI, TMI, did you know Craigslist, you know, when they took that stuff off of Craigslist? You know, my sex life hit the dirt. You know, and and I and I feel like a snob now, but, you know. I was very biased against married men. And then reading this still straight, I realize what their impetus is, is that the right word? To having sex with a man and I and I feel that I've snubbed up in a lot of people because of that, you know.

RS: So do you use Grindr or

KP: Grindr and and the other one, uh Scruff? Hmm, that's what I have.

RS: Scruff, yeah.

KP: Yeah, Scruff. And then there's Doublelist. But that I haven't gotten anything from that.

RS: So, I mean, I'll be honest and say in a lot of my straight female friends feel the same way in rural America, just like any men who are here and straight, like our already paired off and face things. We're also in a college town and so they don't want to use the dating apps because their students will be on it. There's a lot of there's a lot of stuff to navigate. And it's interesting to think about in terms of the rodeo sort of offering a a place where you could be relatively assured of the person you're hitting on, you know, was gay and having some of those spaces die out in it, and these apps emerge. But sometimes even with the apps, you're still at a rural place you don't know.

KP: Absolutely. Absolutely. And, you know, I'm just praying somebody contacts me and then tries to blackmail me so I can turn them in because I feel like I'm all afraid and everything. And then when they when I bring the money, you know, I hand on the money and then the police come out and go, you're busted! [chuckles]

RS: Yeah. I mean, it has it got does it feel safer now using the Internet to find people than it used to?

He had no clue who I was. So I'm not playing your game." So I, and it turned out that the guy, the guy's ex-partner that was pissed at him turned him in. So I had talked to my friends who had read my book. And I said, "How are you doing?" She said, "Well, I want to tell you, I want to thank you for something." I said, "What?" She said. "Have you read this story about the bathroom sex?" I said, "Yeah, I heard it on the news or read it in the newspaper." She said, "I want to thank you for me not being nearly as shocked as I would have been had I not read your book." [laughs] You know, you find out things, you know.

RS: You find out things. Now, I say, I think me being a young woman in college when the oh, now I'm going to forget his name. I'm from Idaho. And it was the, you know, politician from Idaho was arrested in a bathroom. And that was very much I was like, what's cruising? And many of my gay male friends had to explain the facts of life. Right.

KP: Absolutely. Absolutely. You know what I thought was funny? When whenever the pandemic first started and the CDC said, if you are going to have sex habits through a hole in the wall without saying gloryhole, have it through a hole in the wall. Well, if you insist,

RS: I give it CDC recommended.

KP: Absolutely. And this was while Trump was in office. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to swear in front of you.

RS: Oh, yeah? Do you think so? I started collecting oral histories right at the 2016 election.

KP: Ooh-ho [shudders].

RS: And people in gay rodeo were really split. You know, there were there are many people in gay rodeo who hold pretty deeply conservative beliefs and who would tell me off the record that they had voted for that administration. And then there were other people who were very concerned and anxious. And, you know, I'm wondering how you felt the last four or five years. How that changed the landscape politically, especially in rural America, for LGBTQ people.

KP: Well, I was, I was angry for four years, for six years, actually, because he started, you know. I was really, really, really angry. And on January 6th. You know, I was sickened. I mean, I was physically ill. You know, it bothered me and it scared me, you know, and, you know, thank God they didn't get in to any of the senators because, you know, they would have had blood in their eyes and they would have killed anybody, not just Democrats. They would have killed anybody. And then on the twenty-first. Lady Gaga sang and everything was all right. Garth Brooks sang, it even got better. Garth Brooks said the reason why he came out of jeans was because Lady Gaga had taken his first look. I love him. I love him.

RS: Tough not to love. I really think Garth Brooks is tough not to love. He's loveable.

KP: Oh, yeah. As you know, his sister is gay. Did you know that?

RS: I did not know that. Yeah. I actually went to a Garth Brooks concert up in Spokane and almost got into a fistfight with someone who used a slur that I did not appreciate. And it makes me happy to know Garth Brooks sort of supported my decision to.

RS: So do you think with everything politically happening and obviously we're a deeply divided nation, are you hopeful that things are going to continue to get better? Or are you worried that there will be another backlash that will sort of keep pushing us backwards?

KP: I would hope. Especially with people being taken care of. That there's not going to be the backlash and also, and excuse my French, the motherfuckers that that are changing voting laws, they just signed something in Florida this morning. You know, I've already voted. We vote on the 18th. I've already voted, and it's already in there now, you know, I just. If you're going to create laws to have less people vote, then. You know, you're not in the right, and they just figured out, Georgia just figured out that it's actually going to affect the Republicans worse than it's going to affect the Democrats. From what I understand what I was reading this morning. It's like, oh, well.

RS: Yeah, America is one of the only democracies in the world that doesn't guarantee voting based on citizenship.

KP: Right.

RS: Which I, I think that should maybe change someday.

KP: Well, and also, Doug Emhoff is that is that the second husband's name said, "Why did you feel the importance to be vaccinated?" And somebody said, "Because I'm in a country that doesn't have universal health care." You know? By the way, he's a cutie, isn't he?

RS: Sorry, I'm a big fan of Kamala. I'm sorry. I'm a big fan of Kamala Harris.

KP: Oh, me too. Me too. See, see, I would have sex with that. She could kick my ass, but she's married.

RS: Darn it. All the good ones are taken.

KP: Absolutely. Well, maybe they're not taking it all the way. Read get straight. No, straight. Still straight. Still straight.

RS: So, yeah, this has been absolutely wonderful. And so I wanted to ask if it's OK if we contact you, do you only want that to be about transcription or is it OK to reach out with other questions?

KP: Absolutely. As you can tell, I'm an open book. I've told you about my sex life here today.

RS: Thank you.

KP: And I'm not even sure I mean, I'm shy about nothing.

RS: That's wonderful.

KP: You know, it's you have to be an open book. I was I was never more proud than went two kids in in our church [cries] going to get emotional, thanked me from the pulpit after they graduated - one was a lesbian and one was an asexual - thanked me for guidance. I mean. I am an open book. I'm trying to think if there are any other books that I've read. Oh, I wrote I wrote a Christmas story called So a Preacher and Santa Walk into a bar [giggles].

RS: Well, I'll be reaching out to you for a list of all of your writings so I can

KP: Excellent, if you'd like me to send you some. I certainly will do that.

RS: Thank you so much. This is really just been wonderful. And I do hope we get to meet in person someday.

KP: That would be wonderful. I wanted to ask you. And you're married.

RS: I am married.

KP: What's your husband do for a living?

RS: He is an I.T. professional, so he works in. So we live in a small town called Moscow and right across the border in Washington, is a small town called Pulman, where Washington State University is. Oh. And I work at the University of Idaho. And and so he works at a manufacturing company out there. And yeah, he he's much more employable than I am with three degrees. Yeah. But yeah, we were very happy here. And as I think a lot of what you shared today is how important your work is for young people in your state, in your town. And that's a lot of what we're committed to here is just making sure, you know, young people in Idaho know that they're valued and they're loved and they're that we want them here. We don't want to lose them to [inaudible].

KP: No matter what. No matter what. Absolutely. I mean, when I was a child, I thought I was the only person that had the same sexual attraction.

RS: Yeah. And we just yeah, we want to make sure that that doesn't happen to another generation of Idaho kids, so, yeah.

KP: Idahoians?

RS: Idahoans. Oh, OK. Yeah, I think my children are the fifth generation of Idahoans?

KP: Oh wow!

RS: And on and on my spouse's side, they'd be the seventh generation. So.

Oh WOW.

KP: It goes deep. So I really understand your story of going home and living, you know, being in the house you grew up in and being with your mom. That means a lot to me.

Yeah. Yep. She was the finest kind of person in the world.

RS: She was lucky to have such a great, committed son.

KP: Oh, thank you. Thank you so much.

RS: Well, I'm going to end the recordings.

KP: OK.

RS: And thank you so much for your time.