Tag Archives: Joseph R. Diaz

My Life Story: 1982

Things to know up front:

You can enlarge the photos by clicking on them. Click the back arrow key to return to the post.

Every chapter in My Life Story includes information about me, my work, my family and my friends. It also includes information about events that took place locally and nationally, etc. that I thought important enough to include. You’ll also find that I’ve included films, musicians and recordings/videos, in addition to books that were released in a given year.

While I have included many personal photos, most of the graphic content included below is borrowed from the Internet. I do not claim to own this material. I am just adding it for educational purposes. If the owners of any of the content in the “My Life Story” series want their stuff removed, I am happy to oblige. My email address is jrdiaz@arizona.edu. Thanks!

My 1982 War Resister’s League Planner/Calendar.

1982 was an important year in my life. I was 22 years old when the year began.  I lived alone in my small apartment on 7th St, and I continued to work part time at Fry’s. I turned 23 on the 15th of January, just as my final semester at the University of Arizona was about to begin. I signed up for four classes, and they were quite demanding, with lots of assigned readings, tests, papers and lab reports. All of this kept me rather busy. 

A birthday card from my friend Tim
A birthday note from my friend Frank…
I signed up for too many classes, and ended up dropping a couple. I would still end up with enough credits to graduate in May.
This book was required reading in my class, “The Politics of the Mexican American Community”. It is a great book, one of my favorites.
Another required text. This one was assigned by Dr. Guy in my Contemporary Latin America class.
Movies with gay themes were starting to appear more frequently. This one was released on February 12, 1982.
This was also released on February 12, 1982. I loved this movie.

On top of all of this, I continued to spend time with my friends, who included Frank, Scott, Richard, Tim, and others, and to indulge myself in having fun, going out to the bars to dance and partying a lot. There were times when I felt like the partying, which consisted primarily of drinking lots of beer and smoking, was starting to have an adverse effect, and I wrote in my journal in February that I wasn’t focused enough on my schoolwork. There were even a few times when I had to fake being sick and take time off of work to catch up on school stuff. This was risky, as I could have easily lost my job by calling in sick, but I was luckily able to get a doctor’s notice (usually by making something up, like a bad back or a sore foot) each time I needed time off, and that covered me with work.

February 23, 1982: Contemporary Latin America exam

February 24, 1982: Political Sociology Take Home exam

February 25, 1982: Mexican American Politics exam

 I saved a lot of my schoolwork from this period. (To see my work, just click on each title above). Overall, I got good grades on my tests and papers, even though I was having too much fun. I was young and full of energy, I suppose. One way or another, I covered all my bases when there were deadlines to meet.

My new car, an early graduation gift from my mom, looked exactly like this. It was beautiful.

In February, my mother bought me a car. My ’64 Buick Special turned out to be a real lemon, and was always giving me trouble, so I needed to get another one that was more reliable. As luck would have it, my next door neighbor was selling her recently deceased husband’s 1964 Galaxy 500, a beautiful white, four door monstrosity with a great engine and body. I told my mom about it, and she agreed to buy me the car as an early graduation present. The former owner took great care of it. I had a lot of fun with that vehicle in the next several years.

From my sister Becky…

I received several letters from my sister Becky early in the year. Her relationship with her husband Paco was over, and by early March, she had divorced him. Aside from one or two notable exceptions (see above), most of her letters from this period are heart wrenching, and describe a very lonely, unhappy person in the midst of profound change. I was elated when she came home in the Spring. My brother Charles flew up to Washington and helped her pack her stuff and come home. Charles drove a U-Haul back with her and all her stuff.

Another gay-themed movie, released on March 16, 1982. Leslie Ann Warren stole the show.

As the semester progressed, I continued to subscribe to and read a lot of political magazines, such as The Nation, The Progressive, Mother Jones, In These Times, and the Guardian. I considered myself a socialist, and even joined the Democratic Socialists of America .

A booklet describing the mission and goals of this organization.
The more I read, the more I learned about the history of radicalism in the US. This stuff wasn’t taught in high school history, that’s for sure. I learned more by reading on my own than ever did in the classroom.

I was also starting to get interested in the Sanctuary Movement, which was founded in Tucson by Reverend John Fife and others. The following article appeared in the local paper in late March.

Sometime in the Spring, I met a young woman from Bolivia named Pamela Bartholomew. She would sit in on my Political Sociology class at times, and we became friends. She soon invited me to attend a play called “Semilla Sembrada”, by Teatro Libertad, a local political theater group.

Pamela Bartholomew
Arizona Daily Star, March 11, 1982

I attended it, and loved it. I later got to meet the members of the group, and would soon end up interviewing one of them for a paper I had to write in my Mexican American Politics class. A couple of the female members, Pernela and Teresa, had also grown up in my neighborhood and I knew their brothers. I would end up becoming a member of Teatro Libertad by year’s end.

My niece Michelle’s first son, Solomon, was born on March 28, 1982. Here’s a photo of him taken a couple of months later.

Solomon Corrales, my niece Michelle’s baby boy.

I had more papers and tests due in March, April and May. Overall, I continued to get A’s and B’s in most of them. The one class I didn’t care for at all was titled Introduction to Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. I got a C in it. Even though I had done well in previous science classes, this one just didn’t interest me at this point in my college career.

March 30, 1982: Contemporary Latin America paper on the Somoza Dynasty

April 1, 1982: Mexican American Politics exam

April 20, 1982: Political Sociology essay on American Ideology and Science

April 30, 1982: Mexican American Politics paper

May 11, 1982: Political Sociology Final exam

This was a great way to close out my last semester of college. Seeing Angela Davis on April 18 was a dream come true.
I remember inviting a woman I had met at Fry’s to this event. I had an actual date!
Az Daily Star, May 1, 1982. Just in time for summer! A new gay bar opens in Tucson on the grounds of the Tucson Inn near Stone Ave and Drachman. I had a blast dancing here and listening to live music.

I was exhausted by the end of the semester, but it was worth it! I graduated on May 15 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology, with a minor in Sociology.  I remember that I promised my parents when I quit high school that I would complete my education at the University, come hell or high water, and I did it!  It took five and a half years, but I didn’t care. I had reached one of the most important milestones of my life. I ended up with a 3.41 grade average, which wasn’t bad at all. I was the first and only one in my family to go to a four year college and graduate, and it made my parents extremely proud, and that made me very happy.

My diploma
My family threw me a big graduation party. My mom and sisters went all out and made shrimp cocktail and other delicious food. I even invited two of my professors to the party. It was a blast.
A card from all my co-workers at Fry’s.
I owe so much to my two high school teachers, Ron and Jane Cruz. They continued to believe in me and support me through high school and into my college years, and are to this day my dearest friends.

I had no immediate plans for the Fall, so I hung out with my friends and had fun. Frank and I drove up to Oak Creek Canyon at some point, and we took some photos. My dad had taken the family up there way back in 1965. He had grown up in the area, and knew it well. It’s beautiful country, and the drive with Frank was very enjoyable. I loved playing my guitar at the time, and Frank enjoyed listening to me. He was my biggest fan. Nobody else thought I played very well, and I probably didn’t, but he was a real sweetheart to me.

Playing my guitar in Oak Creek Canyon
I bought the t-shirt I’m wearing at the Semilla Sembrada performance I had seen just a month or to before this photo was taken.
Frank, my dear friend and teacher, and one of the most influential people in my life, taught me many valuable lessons.
Frank followed the teachings of Bagwan Shree Rashneesh, who as a guru, advocated meditation and taught a unique form called dynamic meditation. Rejecting traditional ascetic practices, he advocated that his followers live fully in the world but without attachment to it. The underlying premise of the book, A Course in Miracles, is that the greatest “miracle” is the act of simply gaining a full “awareness of love’s presence” in a person’s life. Frank was always trying to get me to let go of “living in my head” and he urged me to stay focused on the present moment and to live from my heart. I’ll forever be grateful to him.

I also attended several concerts over the summer, including one by the Clash in Mesa, and one by the Grateful Dead. I drove my friends Richard, Denise and Mike up to Mesa in my new car to see the Clash show, and we had a blast. Denise made some silk-screened t-shirts for the occasion and sold a bunch of them up there.

The Arizona Republic, June 15, 1982.

When we went back up to Mesa to see the Grateful Dead, I got a ride with someone. It’s a good thing, because I was flying higher than a kite that night. It was a wild, memorable, trippy occasion. I won’t divulge the details, but believe me, we all had fun.

Wow, what a show!
Released on July 26, 1982.
Released July 28, 1982.

I didn’t have a steady boyfriend, but I had a few very close friends like Frank. He and I were very tight, and he would write to me a lot as he traveled the country and Europe. He bought me the book, Be Here Now, and was a big follower of Bagwan Rajneesh, and A Course in Miracles. He loved me dearly and was my mentor. Sometime in the summer, I took a flight to Albuquerque to meet up with him while he was staying there. I remember shopping at the various record stores in the University area with him. Poor Frank quickly learned that I had a constant habit of shopping for books and records. He even found a copy of Joan Baez’s album, “Live Europe’83: Children of the 80s” for me when he went to France the following year. The record was available only in Europe at the time, and apparently, it took him a while to find it, but he did and he brought it back for me. Bless his heart.

A gift from Frank.

While I had did have strong feelings for Frank, I was also still very infatuated with my friend Scott, who was quite handsome and a very nice guy. We would go hiking together to Sabino Canyon, and he taught me how to shoot a gun, believe it or not. We didn’t really have a lot in common, as he was into things like hunting, but we enjoyed each other’s company. We also both worked at Fry’s, and would often go jogging together. Other guys that I hung around with at this time included my friend Harold, who was a choir director for a local African American church, and Michael, who turned me on to the movie, Harold and Maude. He and I clashed some, so our friendship only lasted a few months. My friends Ron and Jane, Sylvia, Dennis, Jim and Gary were still around too. I was very lucky to have so many good friends at this point in my life.

I love this movie. The soundtrack is great too.

In August, my dad and I took a road trip to Las Vegas in my new car. We stopped along the way in Superior to visit his brother Raul, and then drove through Phoenix before heading north to the Verde Valley region, where he was born and raised.

My Dad.
My dad was born in Jerome, Az in 1920. He was raised in Camp Verde.

We visited Jerome, Cottonwood and Camp Verde. At one point, in Cottonwood, we stopped by the river and he took his shoes and socks off and waded into the water. It was so cool to see that. This was where my dad spent his childhood and youth, and it was a very special moment.

The Verde River

We continued driving north to Flagstaff and visited a lady who was from a family my dad knew when his family lived there in the thirties. From Flagstaff, we drove west to Needles. We had almost made it and were just 40 miles outside of Needles when, as luck would have it, my car’s water pump went out, and the car stalled stuck outside of Yucca, Arizona, in the middle of nowhere. It was the middle of the night too, and we were stuck. My dad tried lighting a fire to get someone’s attention, and a State trooper even drove by, but did nothing whatsoever to help us. We ended up walking a couple of miles up the road to a motel that had a pay phone. I barely had enough change to make a call to my uncle’s house, and I had to memorize his phone number after getting it from the operator. It’s a good thing I was able to do that. Otherwise, I don’t know what we would have done.

My uncle came and got us, and the next day, we got the car fixed. It was a very scary situation there for a while, but we pulled through. The experience helped my dad and I bond like never before. All that walking we did was hard on him, as he walked with a limp due to a broken leg he had gotten years ago while working in the mine. I felt really bad for him, but he was a good sport.

Needles is a small town near the Colorado River. Two of my dad’s brothers settled here.

Once we had made it to Needles, we spent time with my dad’s two brothers Val and Failo, and their families. We also went to Las Vegas, but it was awkward and we didn’t have a great time. He wanted to see showgirls. I didn’t.

My cousin Clarisa later took me to Laughlin, Nevada, another gambling mecca on the banks of the Colorado River. I had a really bad experience there too. As we were walking through one of the casinos, we went through a dance area that had a band playing, and the band started mocking Mexican music and making stupid noises. I yelled back at them and flipped them off. Little did I know I was being watched. A few minutes later, we were served drinks, and I suddenly got very, very sleepy. I ended up crashing in the car, and the next morning I was sicker than a dog. Apparently the servers slipped something into my drink so that I wouldn’t cause any further trouble. I had never vomited bile before, but I did that day. It took me a while to get back on my feet. It was a horrible experience, one I’ll never forget. We later made it home without any problems, thank goodness.

Another fun concert. I just had to see Rickie Lee Jones!
Release date: September 1, 1982. One of my favorites!

I decided not to enroll in school in the Fall. I needed a break. There wasn’t much to do other than work, so I continued that and just hung out with my friends, listened to lots of music, partied and went to the movies.

This is my absolute favorite Springsteen album. It was released on September 30, 1982.
Joni Mitchell released this album on October 1, 1982. I found it to be a great album, much easier to listen to than her previous effort, Mingus.

Sometime later in the Fall, I decided I wanted to branch out a bit and find something creative and fun to do. Since I liked playing the guitar and flute, I looked around and found a music group that I liked that I thought I’d try to join. After hearing her group perform at an event, I met up with a woman named Rebecca, who was with a folk music group called Bwiya-Toli, to talk about the possibility of joining them. They played progressive folk music from Latin America. I auditioned with them, but didn’t impress the group leader all that much. I didn’t know how to play percussion and they wanted me to do that. I could play the flute and guitar, but hadn’t played in an ensemble in quite a while either. Things didn’t work out with them after all.

Released October 27, 1982. What a great album!

However, my friend Pamela soon thereafter invited me to attend a Teatro Libertad meeting. The group had been in existence since 1975, and had several major plays under their belt by the time I came along.  Earlier in the year, I had attended a performance of Semilla Sembrada,  their most recent full length play, and over the summer I became friends with Teresa, one of the members of the group. My very first meeting with the Teatro was on November 9, 1982. The group was very disciplined, and meetings were held two to three times a week. There would be no alcohol or other drugs allowed at any of the meetings, and punctuality was very important to the group.

Teatro Libertad publicity poster

While the primary focus of Teatro Libertad was theater, the group also sang a lot, and I particularly enjoyed participating in the singing and learning new songs. The acting was another story. I had always been, believe it or not, a very, very shy individual ever since I was a child, and it took all the courage I could muster just to get up in front of a group to speak. I had trouble giving presentations, for example, in college. I would just freeze at times, and usually bombed whatever presentation I was supposed to give. I knew if I wanted to stay in the Teatro, that I had to get over this fast. It took a few embarrassing moments, but I was soon participating in skits and contributing as a full member to the group.

I bought this when it first came out in November, 1982. I had a big crush on my friend Scott from Fry’s at the time, and I played it for him one day. We had a great time listening to it in my little one room apartment. I was crazy about him.
The song, Willie Moore, had been included in The Joan Baez Songbook, but I’d never heard it until this album was released.

Jesse Jackson visited Miracle Valley, Arizona on November 11, which was the sight of a controversial shootout in the predominantly Black community south of Sierra Vista. He also came to Tucson and spoke at the Mt. Cavary Baptist Church that evening. I was there and he was fantastic. Unfortunately, the writer of the article had to be a smart ass about things. It’s so frustrating that some journalists can twist things around like this and get away with this kind of garbage.

From the Tucson Citizen, November 12, 1982.
This article about local singer Mary Baker appeared in the 12/04/82 edition of the Arizona Daily Star. She would sometimes perform in the basement of the Fineline, a local gay bar that I went to a lot. Another group, a lesbian country band named “Rare Breed” would also perform there.
I attended this concert. 12/09/82.

This Ray Charles concert was alright, not great. My friend Richard was one of the people that hollered at the wrong time. He yelled out, “You bad, Ray”, and Ray told him to shut up. How funny is that? Richard told me about it later. This was the first of two Ray Charles shows I saw in the 80’s. The other one took place a couple of years later at the Temple of Music and Art. My brother Charles and I took our mom to see him. The concert was over in about 40 minutes, and was the shortest performance I’ve ever attended. We we all very disappointed.

This film premiered on December 17, 1982. I saw it with my friend Scott.

As the year came to a close, I knew I needed to make some decisions about my future. I decided to take the GRE exam and to go back to school. I considered going in to social work, and my friend Frank even wrote me a letter of recommendation, but I also thought about law school. I couldn’t make up my mind, and it took a while to figure it all out.

I knew one thing for sure. My feelings for my friend Scott continued to deepen, and I wrote him this song. I was crazy about him.

My Life Story: 1981

Things to know up front:

You can enlarge the photos by clicking on them. Click the back arrow key to return to the post.

Every chapter in My Life Story includes information about me, my work, my family and my friends. It also includes information about events that took place locally and nationally, etc. that I thought important enough to include. You’ll also find that I’ve included films, musicians and recordings/videos, in addition to books that were released in a given year.

While I have included many personal photos, most of the graphic content included below is borrowed from the Internet. I do not claim to own this material. I am just adding it for educational purposes. If the owners of any of the content in the “My Life Story” series want their stuff removed, I am happy to oblige. My email address is jrdiaz@arizona.edu. Thanks!

Rolling Stone Magazine, January 1981

As the year started, I was getting close to getting my bachelor’s degree. Having passed the midpoint with only a handful more credits to go, I had hoped to finish by the end of the year, but would have to continue through the Spring semester of 1982, as I ended up dropping some courses along the way. I continued to work at the grocery store too, and began the year still living with my parents, but that would change soon enough.

Ronald Reagan had just won the presidential election in November, and my friends and I all braced ourselves for the coming onslaught of conservative government policy, which included backing dictatorships once again in Central America and busting unions. Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority was more popular than ever, and things didn’t look good for the gay community or other minority communities either.

School started January 15, my birthday, the day I turned 22. I had already taken one jogging class the previous semester and attempted another this semester, but the class was held too early in the mornings, so I dropped it.

During the Spring semester, I took three sociology classes.  My teachers in these classes were  J.T. Borhek,  Gary Jensen, and Stanley Lieberson, (who would move on to Berkeley, and then Harvard).  The reading assignments, particularly in Borhek’s class, were rather dense, and included The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism by  Max Weber, The Communist Manifesto, by Karl Marx, and Suicide: A Study in Sociology, by Emile Durkheim.  I did my best to wade through these, but sometimes I had to re-read things again and again to comprehend stuff. I enjoyed reading about ethnic and racial groups much more than the heavier theoretical material.

Text used in Dr. Lieberson’s Sociology class, “Minority Groups”.

I was completely immersed in my school work. I loved my classes this particular year, as I had started to move away from psychology to the study of sociology, which became my minor. I was particularly interested in minority groups, politics and social movements. It was easy being more serious about my studies at this point because I found the subject matter so interesting. My grades improved a lot at this time. At one point, I got the highest grade on a test in my class on minority groups, and Dr. Lieberson awarded me with the following book. A couple of my fellow students didn’t like that Dr. Lieberson had done this, but I sure was a happy camper.

My reward for getting the highest grade in my class.

I also got an A on a paper I wrote for Dr. Borhek’s class, “Sources of Social Theory”. The paper was titled “The Chicano in America Today: A Sociological Analysis”. (Click on the title to read the paper). I didn’t get a new typewriter until the Fall semester, so I very carefully wrote this one in cursive. It got some water damage, but it’s still readable.

A birthday card from my sister Becky. I turned 22 on January 15.

In Central America in 1979, the Sandinistas had taken power away from the previously U.S. backed Somoza regime, and other nations in the region were also clamoring for freedom. El Salvador had been suffering under a brutal dictatorship and had witnessed in the previous year the killings of the ever popular Archbishop Oscar Romero and four Catholic nuns who had started a land reform school. In early January, the civil war started to escalate, and the FMLN, the revolutionary rebel forces, was on the offensive.

By this point in my life, I was starting to refine my political views, and they were definitely left of center. I was quite sad and depressed that Carter had been defeated and that Ronald Reagan had won. I could not stand the man, and have never thought he did our country any good whatsoever. I felt that the freeing of the hostages in Iran had been a publicity stunt that Reagan and others within the Republican party had engineered with others in the Middle East to give him more credibility and make him more popular. There were definitely some shady deals made to make this happen, in my opinion. Jimmy Carter had been a great president, but Reagan’s shenanigans made Carter appear weak and ineffective in the end.

Reagan was inaugurated President on January 20, 1981, exactly 40 years ago.
This happened the same day Reagan took office.

At home, life continued to be a challenge. I decided it was time to leave again, and this time it was for good. Around the third week of January, I found a small studio apartment in back of a professor’s house on 7th street, a block east of Campbell. I had to practically beg the man to let me rent the place, and assured him I was working and in school. It was humiliating, but I loved the location. It was perfect, and the one big room was all I needed. The one thing it didn’t have unfortunately, was a stove, but I managed. My mom and dad’s house was just a mile away and I could always pop over there to eat and do laundry. Mom wasn’t happy, of course that I had left again, but I couldn’t take it living at home. People were in and out of the house all the time. My parents were always bickering and babysitting the grand kids, and two of my brothers were always there just hanging out. My brother Fred and I never got along, and as time went on, our relationship deteriorated further and further.

My little apartment on 7th street. This is a more recent photo. The place was in better shape when I lived there, and there wasn’t a gate there either.
Rosalie Sorrels performed at the UA Stduent Union on Friday, January 23, 1981. I was there.
The contra wars started as soon as Reagan took office.

Reagan, in response to the allegations that Nicaragua was supporting the rebel forces in El Salvador, quickly stopped providing aid to the leftist Nicaraguan government and started aiding the “contrarevolucionarios”, or counterrevolutionaries, instead. These forces consisted of former members of Somoza’s military, who, from their home base along the Honduran border, began to fight to regain control of the country. In the ensuing months, Reagan would secretly authorize more and more funding to this clandestine force, popularly known as the Contras.

It would take me a while to “discover” Rosanne Cash. This album, her third, was released in February, 81. One of her best. It includes “Blue Moon With Heartache”, one of my very favorites.
Reagan waving to the crowd just before getting shot.

From Wikipedia: “On March 30, 1981, United States President Ronald Reagan was shot and wounded by John Hinckley Jr. in Washington, D.C. as he was returning to his limousine after a speaking engagement at the Washington Hilton Hotel. Hinckley believed the attack would impress actress Jodie Foster, with whom he had become obsessed. Reagan was seriously wounded by a .22 Long Rifle bullet that ricocheted off the side of the presidential limousine and hit him in the left underarm, breaking a rib, puncturing a lung, and causing serious internal bleeding. He was close to death upon arrival at George Washington University Hospital but was stabilized in the emergency room, then underwent emergency exploratory surgery.[4] He recovered and was released from the hospital on April 1.”

I was at home in my apartment when I heard the news about Reagan getting shot. Thinking back on it now, I wouldn’t wish that kind of thing on anyone, but Reagan was such a slimy politician, at one point I was hopeful that we’d get someone else to run the country. My fears about the kind of damage Reagan would do to our country came true soon enough. I discussed the shooting with my friend Tim, who had dropped over that day. I couldn’t help telling him what I thought. He and I spent a lot of time together around this time. He would bring his guitar over to my apartment and we’d discuss the class we were in together and the papers we wrote. I never felt attracted to him. He was completely straight, and had his share of girlfriends. He certainly was handsome enough to have lots of them, but he was quite skinny. Not my type, really. He was just a friend.

I made some other new friends around this time in my life, and they included Jim and Gary, a couple who had been together for many, many years. Jim was an artist who grew up before World War II in Southern California, and he met Gary in the bay area when Gary was very young. They lived there for many years. At some point, Jim also spent time in Europe studying art. After they moved to Tucson, they owned an art gallery in town, but then sold it so that Jim could devote more of his time to his art. I met Jim at a bar called the Graduate one day while I was playing pool. He noticed that my hands were big and had prominent veins, and he asked me if I would be willing to model for him while he worked on a sculpture. I agreed to do it. I went to his house way out on the far west side and sat still with my hand relaxed, but stretched out, while Jim did his sculpting. We hit it off and became friends. His partner Gary was also nice.

Jim Knox

Jim had been an actor in Hollywood at one point and was very handsome, even as an older guy. He and Gary had a big record collection and they were crazy about Judy Garland. I remember having conversations with the two of them about wanting to “change the world.” They chuckled at my youthful idealism, and encouraged me to do it, but I knew they thought I was “very young”.

I spent a lot more time with my old friend Richard this particular year too. He had also made some new friends who lived near his new apartment, which was on 9th St. near 4th Ave. Their names were Mike, Denise, Jimmy and Merricat. Denise and Mike were both artists, as was Merricat. She made beaded jewelry,  and either lived next door to Denise or was her roommate at one point.

Denise and Mike
A gift to me from Mike

We all partied together frequently, and while there was always beer and marijuana around, at times we did other heavier things, such as hallucinogenics. Richard had become a big fan of the Grateful Dead, and such people are known as Dead Heads and acid freaks. I enjoyed the music, but never considered myself that big of a fan, although I did try the drugs once or twice.

This is a great live, acoustic “double album”. It has some great tunes on it, like the one below.
Chuck Berry performed at Spring Fling on the UA Mall on April 3, 1981. I vividly remember the show. It was very short.
I was lucky to have seen Chuck Berry in person, short show or not.

Doing acid and other psychedelics was sure an interesting experience! One could easily have a bad trip if the setting for the “party” wasn’t mellow enough. I went through this myself once or twice, and afterwards realized that I shouldn’t indulge so much in the heavy stuff. While I was in much better shape psychologically than I had been when I was 18, I still had issues at 22, and the drugs sometimes brought those issues out into the open in a very creepy way, and I would find myself in a downward spiral. If it weren’t for a friend of mine who saw that I was sinking one evening at one of these parties, I’m not sure where I would have ended up. She calmed me down and made me relax on the couch and told me, “remember this is just temporary. It will wear off”. Wow. That sure helped.

Seeing her perform live was a dream come true.

As far as dating was concerned, there wasn’t anyone steady. I continued to go out to the bars to meet other guys. I had a lot of fun, and still liked to dance, but was really tired of the bar scene after a while. It all revolved around the pretty people, and around drugs and alcohol. I was young, and indulged myself, but I wanted more. I’m glad I had some stability. Working half time and going to school were my two big priorities, and I never let the partying get out of control. My mother’s favorite saying to all of us was that “you have to learn how to paddle your own canoe,” and that lesson was embedded deep in my psyche.

Bob Marley died of cancer on May 11. It was a sad day the world over.
My gpa went up a lot this semester. Once this one was over, I had two more semesters of school left.
I had my own subscription to this magazine. Refugees from El Salvador were starting to make their way to the U.S., and the Sanctuary movement was just getting off the ground.

Word was slow to get out that gay men in big cities like New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles were starting to die from combination of pneumonia and a rare strain of cancer called Kaposi’s Sarcoma, but by early June, the Centers for Disease Control had published the first official report on Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, or AIDS, and by July there were over 40 reported deaths. As time went on and word spread about the disease, gay men became further targets for discrimination and violence, and they began dying at an alarming rate, particularly on the east and west coasts. The world would never be the same. By the middle of the decade, at least two of my friends, Dennis and Leonard, had contracted the disease, and both eventually died. A lot more friends would die through the 90’s as well.

The first report about a mysterious illness affecting young gay men…

Around this time, Frank Weill, my old religion teacher from Salpointe, and I bumped into each other at a bar one night, and we started spending time together. He had left the church by then, but still did spiritual counseling for a lot of people. He would become a very close friend in the next few years, and I learned a great deal from him.

My good friend Frank.
The news of Sister Clare’s death on July 30th shocked everyone in Tucson and Arizona. I didn’t know Sister Judith, but she was constantly at Clare’s side. Clare was my teacher in high school, and she was very kind to me.
Released in 1981, this is another 2 lp set of music from the Bread and Roses Festival held at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley. Great music, but only available on lp.

Summer dragged on. I was working constantly, feeling unsure of myself and unhappy about my sexuality, but still going out and messing around and partying a lot. I felt lost and alone, especially after my buddy Tim took off and went back east for the summer. I couldn’t wait for school to begin.

Sure enough, Reagan started busting the unions. The PATCO strike was a major event in American history. The workers that were fired weren’t allowed to get re-hired in the industry until the late 80s/early 90s.

Dylan was starting to write secular songs again on this album. It was released on August 10, 1981 and included the great tunes “Lenny Bruce” and “Every Grain of Sand”.

Before school started, in mid-August, I took a little vacation, and booked a flight, one of the very first I’d ever taken, to Seattle, to go see my sister Becky, who lived in Lacey, a little town just east of Olympia. She and Paco had moved across the country the year before, where he was able to find work with relatives. Becky and Paco were having lots of problems at this point, but I didn’t care. I wanted to see her and I needed to get away for a little while. They would soon split up and by early 1982, she was back home with the family.

This was the airline I chose to go visit my sister.
My plane landed in Seattle. My brother-in-law and sister picked me up at the airport and we headed south to Lacey.
Lacey was just east of Olympia, Washington’s state capital.
The town of Lacey had lots of trees everywhere.
My sister drove me around the area. It was very lush and green. It also rained a lot!
The view from the top is amazing. I’ll never forget it.
We took this photo up in the Space Needle.
This place is always a lot of fun. I’ve been to it several times, but this was my first time and I was awestruck.
We drove Highway 101 to Port Angeles and caught the ferry to Victoria.
This looks exactly like the ferry we took.
There were flowers everywhere. Victoria is an absolutely beautiful place.

The Royal British Columbia Museum was amazing. We wandered around for hours, it seems.
I picked this up either in Victoria or Seattle. Bob Marley had died earlier in the year. The group “Reconstruction” played a lot in the Vancouver area. I used to have this up on my wall in my apartment.
Paco and Becky drove me up to Mt. Rainier one day and we climbed up as far as we could. I left them both in the dust, as I was in very good shape at the time.
It was time to head home and get ready for school to start.
Release date: August 20, 1981. Included are the songs, “Hold On, I’m Comin’,” a duet with George Benson titled “Love All the Hurt Away”, and You Can’t Always Get What you Want. Great album!
I loved my classes this semester.

I had a great time this semester. My classes were interesting and I learned a great deal in them. I particularly loved my class, Collective Behavior and Social Movements. The professor, Dr. Diane Bush, was a wonderful teacher. My History of Women in America class was also very good. I was the only guy in the class! I’m still friend with my professor, Dr. Karen Anderson. The class on Mexican American Culture was taught by Dr. James Officer. He was another wonderful teacher and was the author of the book, “Hispanic Arizona”.

Released on September 4, 1981. I love this album.
This movie premiered on September 18, 1981. I don’t think I saw it right away. It’s now a cult classic, very campy, very gay…
This film had very little scenery, but it held one captivated the entire time. I loved it. It was released on October 11, 1981.

When the film Zootsuit came out, I decided that I would take my mom and dad to see it when it was playing at the theater in El Con. Mom and Dad were a young married couple in the mid-40s and the music and the fashions of the era were well familiar to them. They enjoyed the film a lot. I did too.

Mom and Dad, still together after so many years.
A review in the local paper of the movie, Zootsuit. Oct. 16, 1981.
I used to own this poster, but like a fool, I gave it away to someone very undeserving. I should’ve kept it.
Released on 11/12/82. This film was way ahead of its time.
Released on 12-8-82. A heartbreaking movie. Amazing.

By the end of the semester, I had written a series of papers on the Gay Liberation Movement for my Sociology 313 class titled Collective Behavior and Social Movements. They were called “take home exams, but were really very long essays. Here’s the entire set of them.

“The Gay Liberation Movement Part I (Take Home Exam #1). Sociology 313: Collective Behavior and Social Movement. Dr. Diane Bush. September 15, 1981.

“The Gay Liberation Movement Part II (Take Home Exam #2). Sociology 313: Collective Behavior and Social Movements. Dr. Diane Bush. October 29, 1981.

“The Gay Liberation Movement Part III (Take Home Exam #3). Sociology 313: Collective Behavior and Social Movements. Dr. Diane Bush. November 30, 1981.

“The Gay Liberation Movement Part IV (Final Exam). Sociology 313: Collective Behavior and Social Movements. Dr. Diane Bush. December 14, 1981.

I did well this semester overall. I was just about done with school, with just a few credits left to complete. My grade point average continued to improve this semester.
I loved this movie. It was released on December 17, 1982. I saw it with my friend Scott.
This movie was released on Christmas Day, 1981. I loved it.

As the year came to a close, I had made more new friends. I became friends with Scott, a guy I met at Fry’s. I developed a very heavy crush on him and we spent a lot of time together for the next couple of years. I started dating women again too. I had hooked up with my friend Merricat sometime in the Fall, for example. She and I fooled around some, and I even took her to a Christmas party some friends from Fry’s were having. Merricat came to the party dressed like a modern day hippie, with a beaded headdress and a long flowing skirt, and my friends from Fry’s got all freaked out and even asked me, where did you find her? She was such a nice person, but we didn’t last. I was gay, and that’s all there was to it. While I fought my attraction to guys, it overpowered my desire to be with women. It took a few more years and a few more awkward sexual experiences with women to finally let go of any notion that I was attracted to them or could sustain a relationship with one. But in the meantime, I kept trying.

My Life Story: 1980

Things to know up front:

You can enlarge the photos by clicking on them. Click the back arrow key to return to the post.

Every chapter in My Life Story includes information about me, my work, my family and my friends. It also includes information about events that took place locally and nationally, etc. that I thought important enough to include. You’ll also find that I’ve included films, musicians and recordings/videos, in addition to books that were released in a given year.

While I have included many personal photos, most of the graphic content included below is borrowed from the Internet. I do not claim to own this material. I am just adding it for educational purposes. If the owners of any of the content in the “My Life Story” series want their stuff removed, I am happy to oblige. My email address is jrdiaz@arizona.edu. Thanks!

I started the year by continuing to work at Fry’s as a cashier/stocker and going to school full time. I was busy as ever. John was busy too, and we continued our lives together, living in our guest house on S. Warren. My classes included two sociology courses for the first time, and I ended up loving them.

Courses I enrolled in during the Spring, 1980 semester.

 When my birthday rolled around, John threw me a party and invited both my new friends and some of my old friends to the gathering at our home. Unfortunately, that was like mixing oil and water. I was hurt and disappointed at my old friends, as they clearly didn’t want to mingle with my new friends. I suppose they felt threatened or something by the fact that one or two of my friends were just a bit too effeminate. It must have made them quite uncomfortable, as they stayed in another part of the house the entire time they were there.  Homophobia was rampant back then, and it took many years for some people to come around and accept other gay people as they were. It hurt to know that my own friends didn’t really accept my chosen path.

Birthday cards from my 21st birthday.

One of our “very gay” friends, Leonard, hailed from the upper Midwest and before moving to Tucson trained horses on a farm in Michigan. He moved to Tucson to get away from his old life and he became a hairdresser, and lived his life as an openly gay man. He and his partner Virgil, who had gone to junior high and high school with my brother Fred, were a lot of fun. Leonard gave me a “perm” at some point, but I let my hair grow out after the first one. Perms were something John liked getting. My hair was curly enough on its own, but they were a big thing at the time. Everyone was getting perms. My sister-in-law has a photo of me with my perm all grown out, but I don’t have a copy of it. She took the photo just before she cut my hair.

Sometime at this point, I got very ill with the flu. It was the worst case of the flu I’ve ever had in my whole life.  I was delirious with fever and weak as could be, and was sick for days. At one point, I even wanted John to take me home to my parent’s house, so that they could take care of me. I wanted my mommy! Somehow I managed to survive it, but the flu that winter killed a lot of people. I truly did feel like I was going to die.

Flu season hit me hard. I almost died. I don’t remember if I caught it before the new year or shortly afterwards, but I know I was still living in the guest house on S. Warren with John. I’ve never been sicker than I was this time around.

As a 21 year old, I continued to identify primarily as a Chicano and as a bohemian/hippie type, but as I began to experience life as a gay man, my perspective broadened. I was becoming immersed in “gay” culture, hanging out with other gay people, either at the bars or in other social settings where my partner and I found ourselves. I continued to learn as much as possible about the history of the gay community, about “camp”, drag and gay sensibility. I also learned a lot about gay icons like Judy Garland and Joan Crawford. I learned about gay subcultures too. There were different groups of gay men for example, such as those into the leather scene, men who identified as “bears” or “clones”, and women who were separatists, and about “butch” and “femme” roles. Overall, I learned that there is a great deal of diversity within the “gay” community, but I didn’t identify with any specific group, as my radical political leanings, my ethnicity and my anti-materialistic outlook, kept me from feeling like I fit under any specific “label” or belonged to any specific group, so to speak. A lot of the other young, gay Latinos I encountered were into the disco scene and harder drugs like pills and cocaine. I found them superficial and cliquish, and didn’t relate at all to what they were into.

This movie was released on February 8, 1980. I went with John to see it. It wasn’t a great film, but Richard Gere sure had a great body.

Critics panned this movie, but who cares. Richard Gere appears in the nude! That’s all it took for us to want to see it. It was one of the very first films to show frontal male nudity, and while that particular scene lasted just a few seconds, it was, shall we say, quite revealing! Richard Gere was gorgeous.

Released on February 15, 1980, this movie was boycotted by a lot of gay civil rights groups and was trashed by a couple of local film critics (see article below). It was an intense film. The soundtrack was great and was produced by Jack Nitzsche, a longtime fixture in the rock music scene and one time husband of Buffy Sainte Marie.
From the February 16, 1980 edition of the Arizona Daily Star. (Click on the article to enlarge it so it’s readable).
The soundtrack is amazing. I really like all of the music on it.
Willie DeVille — Pulling My String

While I do not like violence in films, this movie was much more than that for me. It was authentic in so many ways. The New York leather scene came to life in this movie, and while the plot of the movie was creepy, the scenery, the music and the men in it made it quite fascinating. I’m glad I got to see the film, although I could understand why various gay organizations were boycotting it. There was nothing else about gay culture out there at the time in popular culture, and this movie was unveiling a segment of gay culture that was quite hardcore.

Released in February, this was Linda’s attempt at tackling new wave/punk music. As always, her voice sounds great, but the critics panned the album. I loved it.

Here’s a live version of Mad Love, the title cut.

My love for Linda Ronstadt all these years has been unwavering, and I made sure to buy each new disc that came out, especially in the 70’s and 80’s. I didn’t care much for the Gilbert and Sullivan stuff or the opera material she covered later, but I loved everything else. My hip friends thought I was too “corny” and bland in my tastes at times, especially because I loved Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, Rita Coolidge, James Taylor and Joan Baez, artists one could easily characterize as “middle of the road”. They just weren’t “cool” enough. I shied away from hard rock, disco, metal, funk etc. I liked what I liked, and I was beginning to develop in-depth knowledge of American soul music, jazz, and urban folk music. It would take a few years before I immersed myself in Mexican rancheras, mariachi music, and other forms of Musica Latina, but once I did, there was no turning back.

Sissy Spacek is one of my very favoriate actresses. She was amazing in this film and even sang all of the songs herself. The film premiered on March 7, 1980.

I had been listening to country music for a while when this came out. I never cared much for Loretta Lynn at all, but the movie was just great because Sissy Spacek was so incredible. I loved listening to country music, especially the local group, The Dusty Chaps, The Byrds when Gram Parsons played with them, Freddie Fender, Willie Nelson, Pure Prairie League, and of course Emmylou and Dolly. There’s a line I draw, however, in my own head, regarding this genre of music. It can get very corny and too “all-American” and too Southern and redneck-like all too easily. I’m definitely very picky when it comes to this stuff, but still, some of my friends just don’t understand how I can even tolerate it at all. For me, it goes back to when I was a child. My uncle Nato would take me with him at times to his local watering holes like the Cactus Room or the Wooden Nickel, and there on the jukebox would be a mix of Mexican music and country music. It was always there in the background and I listened intently.

My second visit to Disneyland was a lot of fun. John and I rode on the Matterhorn, Space Mountain, the Pirates of the Caribbean and other rides. We had a blast.
The t-shirt I’m wearing is a “generic” t-shirt I bought at Fry’s. Generic products were all the rage at the time, but they, in my opinion, were never as good as the products produced by the major food labels.
I rode on the Matterhorn this time around.

You really get to know someone when you travel with them. This trip was a real challenge at times. John and I argued a lot, but we made it through without killing each other. Something wasn’t clicking after a while with us, however. Perhaps I was too immature for him. I have always been a big “baby”, and there were episodes on this trip where I whined a bit too much and got him really frustrated.

I remember we drove by lots of shipyard buildings and we stayed at an old hotel adjacent to Balboa Park. The hotel didn’t have showers, only bathtubs. Somehow, while bathing one night, I managed to get soap in my private parts, and it burned for days. I was totally miserable and in pain.
This was my second visit to the San Diego zoo. I had previously visited there in 1969, over 10 years earlier, with my sister and her family.
We drove to La Jolla and visited the beach there.
Black’s Beach is in the background. Getting down there was a challenge.
Black’s Beach, one of the very few nude beaches in the country at the time.
At the beach.

At one point while we were living on S. Warren, our little house was broken into, and the thieves took a bunch of stuff, like my lawn mower and a battery that was in the porch. They also took jewelry and other stuff from inside the house. I was completely traumatized by this when I found out, and I called in sick at work. The boss reluctantly let me stay home. Working at Fry’s was not always a piece of cake. One had to be on time at all times and if you called in sick, you needed a doctor’s excuse. It’s a good thing we had a union. It did what it could to help protect our rights.

My union pin, 1980.

I bought this album, titled “Running for My Life”, shortly before we broke up, in late March. Ms. Collins had stopped drinking and started taking voice lessons. She underwent an amazing transformation, and this album was gorgeous. It was released on March 28. The song below is just beautiful.

John had a very liberal attitude towards sex, and didn’t believe in monogamy. I preferred it, however, but reluctantly went along with how he wanted things. One day after school, I noticed that he had a pile of record albums stacked against the couch, including the one above by Judy Collins, that had just been released. I asked why they were there, and he said he’d gone to our friend Kidd’s house to listen to music with him. However, I knew that he would never play any of his records on Kidd’s stereo because Kidd had a crappy record player needle, and John was a big audiophile who took good care of his albums. I told him that didn’t make any sense, and after I continued to question him, he finally revealed that he had been seeing someone else, closer to his own age and that he really liked the guy. He said he loved both of us and that he still wanted to be with me and to also see the other guy. I was shocked and heartbroken. I went outside, got on my bike, and rode it for what seemed like hours, trying to gather the strength not to cry and thinking about what I was going to do.

Our relationship was over. I could not continue with John knowing that he was falling in love with someone else. I called my sister Becky and told her what had happened. I was crying and upset, and she got mad, and told me I needed to get a grip. I was so surprised. I thought she’d be supportive, but she was not going to coddle me this time around. She made me face reality and told me that “the show must go on”, and while it was hard to hear at that point, in the end, she was right, and it helped. I spent 8 months of my life with this guy, and just like that, it all went down the drain.

I moved back to my parent’s house sometime in April. My mother, who had been trying her best to lay off the alcohol, saw that I was a mess, and likely realized that I was indeed gay. That was all it took to get her started on the alcohol again. She likely blamed herself for me having turned out gay, as she spoiled me a lot when I was a kid. My sister would even yell at her at times, saying “no le chipilees tanto. Va a salir joto!” (Don’t spoil him so much. He’s going to turn out queer!). I felt so bad, and blamed myself for the fact that she was drinking again. My poor mom loved me to the moon and back and couldn’t stand seeing me hurt, but she was happy I was home again. I stayed with my parents until the end of the year.

I got 3 A’s and an incomplete this semester. My gpa continued to climb.

I spent the following months at home, working and going to school. I also started going out again, hitting the bars and meeting other guys. I was footloose and fancy free and partied a lot. I also worked out a lot, and began jogging. I was in pretty good shape overall. It’s a good thing I stayed active, because I could’ve gained a lot of weight drinking all that beer!

I bought a camera around this time and started taking pictures. The photos below are ones I took over the summer months in our back yard at home.

My great niece Estrella and nephew Gabe in our back yard at home.
Mom worked day and night.
Mom and Dad in the back yard.
Irene and Anthony.
My sister Becky had moved with her husband Paco from New Jersey to Olympia Washington some time in 1979 and Mt. St. Helen’s erupted in mid May, 1980. It was located just over 60 miles south of Olympia. The eruption took the lives of over 55 people and was a major event. Becky sent me some volcanic ash, which, to this day, I still have.
There are a lot of good songs on this album, but this is my favorite.

A few years back, my friend Rose turned me on to Joan Armatrading, a British musician who wrote her own music. I wore this album out and ended up buying most of her other material too. Me, Myself, I was released in May, 1980.

Another May release, Emmylou’s bluegrass album included a lot of gospel songs. She would later record an entire album of gospel titled “Angel Band”. I listen to it every night before I go to sleep.

Here’s the title cut, Roses in the Snow.

Released on 06-06-80.
Released on June 10, 1980. Another great one by Bob Marley.
A great song and one of my favorites.
Released on 06-20-80.
Shake A Tailfeather, by the great Ray Charles.

I was very happy to see that Aretha Franklin had a cameo appearance in the Blues Brothers movie. For me, her performance was one of the best parts of the whole film. This was the beginning of what was to be her great “comeback”. She was done with Atlantic Records, and in 1980 signed a contract with the Arista Records label, which was run by Clive Davis. He was a legend in the music industry, and would later go on to strike it super rich by signing Whitney Houston to the label. It would take Aretha another five years and five more albums before she struck gold again with Who’s Zoomin’ Who and the smash hit, “Freeway of Love”. She was definitely on her way!

I wasn’t as crazy about this album as I had been of Mr. Browne’s earlier efforts, but he was one of those artists whose music I just had to have. Released on 6/24/80. The next song, On The Boulevard is great. All of the songs are great, actually…
Released in July, this was a great concert movie. I particularly enjoyed watching James Taylor and Carly Simon sing together. Bruce Springsteen stole the show, however. This would mark the beginning of my fascination with him and his music.
My Fall, 1980 list of classes. 13 units was about all I could handle at a time. I dropped the Spanish class.

At this point, I was transitioning from a focus on psychology to one on sociology. I particularly enjoyed my jogging class and the Philosophy in Literature class. I dropped the Spanish class early on, as I didn’t care for Dr. Leo Barrow, the instructor. He would later be censured by the University for giving marijuana, in various forms, to his students. Had I stayed in his class, I would have been treated to marijuana-laced cookies. Oh boy!

From the Arizona Daily Star, 4/27/82 (click on article to enlarge the text)
This novel by Dostoevsky was required reading in my Philosophy in Literature class, as were works by Sartre (Nausea) and Kafka (Metamorphosis). I loved the class.
This book was not required reading, but I bought it anyway. A lot of it was a bit over my head, but I plowed through it anyway.
Even though I was spending a lot of time at the discos at this time of my life, I would every now and then wander over to the Cup, on the UA campus, to hear folk music. It was here that I first encountered Jim Griffith, playing the spoons alongside a local bluegrass band. I loved this place, but within a year or so, it had closed.

I clearly remember receiving this album in the mail at my parents’ house when I was living with them after my breakup with John. It was sold by the Book-Of-The-Month Club, and I was a member at the time (1980). Holiday first recorded “A Fine Romance” back in the 1930’s but the version below is from the above album, “Music for Torching,” which was released in October, 1955.

Released on 9/19/80. It’s a hard one to watch. Very sad. Didn’t know Mary Tyler Moore could act so well.

My philosophy in literature class included discussions of Jean Paul Sartre’s works. This book contained the essay, “Existentialism is a Humanism” by Sartre. The essay itself wasn’t required reading, but it was what I was reading on my own at the time. I considered myself an “existentialist” by this point, and was far removed from my former religious beliefs. Over the years, I’ve flip flopped from being a believer to being an outright atheist to being agnostic. These days I find comfort in having faith in a higher power, and saying my prayers each night helps me sleep without getting nightmares.

Aretha’s first album for the Arista label, simply titled “Aretha” marked the beginning of a new era for the Queen of Soul. She had minor hits with “United Together” and “What a Fool Believes”. The album was released in late September.
Released October 10, 1980.
This two disc set came out in mid-October. After watching Springsteen’s performance in the No Nukes Concert film, I was hooked and just had to have this.
Springsteen sure can write some memorable tunes!
The Reagan era was about to begin. Fun, fun, fun.
I loved this album, but always skipped Yoko Ono’s songs. Never liked her, never will.
The death of John Lennon shocked the entire world.

I remember where I was when I first heard the news about Lennon’s death. He was a real hero to so many people. His new album was doing well, and everyone was happy to hear his voice again on the radio. What a tragic day and such a tragic loss. I loved his early solo albums, and, of course, his Beatles songs. So much for there ever being a Beatles reunion now.

Jimmy Carter loosened the grip the U.S. government had on the governments of Nicaragua, Guatemala or El Salvador while he was president, and for a short while Central America was able to get rid of some of its dictators like the Somozas in Nicaragua. That would all soon change once Reagan took power the following year.
I loved this movie. It was released on December 19, 1980.

I ended the semester having made a new friend. Tim M. was a student from New Jersey, and we met in one of our sociology classes. He had very long brown hair and played the guitar. He loved Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen, and we’d try our hand at singing duets like Two Of Us by the Beatles. We’d hang out together a lot in the next couple of years, and I was later a member of his wedding party. After college, he became a cop and then an FBI agent. We eventually lost touch.

I stayed with my parents until the end of the year. The past 12 months had been a roller coaster ride. My relationship with John ended, and then I started going out a lot again, meeting different guys here and there, but not really connecting with anyone in particular. All that, combined with work and school kept me on my toes. While things were as crazy as ever at home, I at least felt safe there and was able to assist my parents by helping them with their bills and keeping the yard clean. I didn’t have much privacy, however, as my brother Fred was always breaking into my bedroom and taking my clothes or rifling through my personal belongings. My parents didn’t like that I’d sometimes not come home at night either, and they became very suspicious about my activities. I could never, at this point, bring myself to tell my mother or father directly that I was gay. I just figured they knew, and we never talked about it.

Stay tuned for “My Life in Pictures: 1981”.

My Life Story: 1979

Things to know up front:

You can enlarge the photos by clicking on them. Click the back arrow key to return to the post.

Every chapter in My Life Story includes information about me, my work, my family and my friends. It also includes information about events that took place locally and nationally, etc. that I thought important enough to include. You’ll also find that I’ve included films, musicians and recordings/videos, in addition to books that were released in a given year.

While I have included many personal photos, most of the graphic content included below is borrowed from the Internet. I do not claim to own this material. I am just adding it for educational purposes. If the owners of any of the content in the “My Life Story” series want their stuff removed, I am happy to oblige. My email address is jrdiaz@arizona.edu. Thanks!

1979 would be another remarkable year. I started the year out deciding that I needed a break from school. When I quit Salpointe in 1976, I did so on the condition that I would finish college, so I knew this was temporary, as I did not want to break my promise to my parents. I had already completed 54 units of courses and had a solid “B” average by the end of the year, and was nearly halfway done. While I was becoming wary of pursuing a profession in psychology, it remained my chosen major. I took the semester off, in part, to think about what I really wanted to do as I continued my education, and to earn more money.

Life went on. I continued working as a stocker/cashier at Fry’s and living in my little one-room efficiency apartment. I pulled back some from the partying and bar hopping, but didn’t stop completely. I had been “out” almost a whole year, since March, and while I met a few guys here and there who I thought I really liked, I hadn’t yet met anyone who I dated on a steady basis. That would change as the year progressed.

During the last couple of years of her life, my grandmother Josefa became ill with Alzheimer’s disease, and my aunt Mary took care of her. Her husband Fernando decided that he was moving the family to Los Angeles where he had found work after he had been laid off from his job here in Tucson, so aunt Mary put our grandmother in a nursing facility. My grandmother begged my mother not to leave her alone there, so my mom decided that she would take care of her at home. It was a huge burden on my mom and dad, but mom could not stand seeing my grandmother suffering in a cold hospital room all by herself. She took care of her for nearly a year.

Josefa Rascon 1903-1979

My grandmother died at the house on January 13, two days before my 20th birthday. She was 75 years old. She had always been very kind and sweet to me and was the only grandparent I ever knew. (I am working on a separate blog entry about my grandmother and her family. Stay tuned). This was the second death in my family within the past six months, and this one hit particularly hard. I was grief stricken. My aunt Dora, Uncle Armando and their daughter Tish came back to town for the funeral, as did Aunt Mary and her family. It was a sad time.

My grandmother’s obituary.
My Aunt Dora, me and my mom, January 1979.
My birthday this year was overshadowed by my grandmother’s passing, but at least my brother Charles’s kids remembered it.

A month or two later, my sister Irene’s son Anthony was baptized at St. Ambrose Church. My mom and I were his godparents. After church, we all went to mom’s house and had a little celebration. Carlos and Elaine were there, as were others. In contrast to our previous family gathering for my grandmother’s funeral, this one was a happy occasion.

My dad, Irene, Anthony my mom and I, with my sister-in-law Elaine in the background the day we baptized Anthony.
Estrella, Anthony and Edessa
Mom and I were Anthony’s padrinos.
This record was released on February 28, 1979. I still love it. It has such a “punk” sensibility.
Such a creative use of words….

Sometime in March, I decided that I was going to move back home. I don’t remember exactly why I did this. It might have been to save money. I let one of my  cousins sublet my apartment, and stayed with my parents until later in the summer.

Released in early March, this was a great movie. My radical leanings only continued to grow at this time. At some point, I became a union steward at work. Released on March 2, 1979.

The great blueman John Lee Hooker played at the Night Train on March 18,1979. I remember it like it was yesterday. I got shake his hand! Wow!

In my journal at this time, I wrote a lot about not really knowing where I was headed with my life. Even though coming out was a major milestone, I was still lonely and longed for a companion. I was tired of the bar scene and all the so called “fun” I was having, and of working all the time. I missed school, too.

Released in April, 1979. This remains one of my very favorites.
There are some tunes that only Emmylou can do justice to. This is one of them.

I continued to listen to lots of music and to go on shopping sprees for albums and books. Several albums were released in the Spring, including discs by Rickie Lee Jones and Emmylou Harris. Dylan also released a two album set, titled “Bob Dylan at Budokan”, a live recording of concerts he gave in Japan, with the same band that Richard and I saw him perform with at the McKale Memorial Center on the UA campus a few months earlier.

Released April 23, 1979. My friend Richard and I rushed to the local music store and bought copies the day it was released.
So much energy!
Because I took a semester off, I had to re-enroll at the University of Arizona. I started back up in June.

At the end of May, I met a guy named John. He was an Italian-American from New York who moved here after having served in the Air Force. He was 10 years older than me, but we hit it off. We dated regularly during the first month or so of our budding relationship, then at some point in the summer I decided to move in with him. I also re-enrolled in school and took a psychology class during the first summer session, followed by a full load of courses in the Fall. My grade point average was slowly starting to improve.

This recording, released in 1979, includes music performed at the 1977 Bread and Roses Festival. Included are performances by Buffy Sainte Marie, Jackson Browne, The Persuasions, and Malvina Reynolds. It’s a great album.
Universal Soldier, by Buffy Sainte Marie.

At some point in the Spring, I was transferred from the store I worked at on 22nd near Alvernon to another store on the south side of town, way out on the Nogales Highway. I wasn’t the only Mexican transferred. The new manager of our store, D.W. Green, was an avowed racist (he had a confederate flag in his office), and he tried to transfer all of the Mexicans out of “his” store. My friend Richard ended up getting transferred to the far southeast side at the same time. I didn’t like the manager at my new store, and when I let him know that that I was planning to take vacation time, he declined my request. I decided then that it was time to quit, so I left Fry’s for a short while. It took just a month or so for me to go back, however. I went to my old store and asked to be re-hired. In the meantime, D.W. Green, who also had a cocaine problem, had been caught stealing money from the store’s safe, and was subsequently fired. I was quickly re-hired and stayed with Fry’s for another 7 years, long enough to be vested in the company’s pension plan.

I listened a lot to Joni Mitchell in this period of my life. She had started out as a “folkie” but then became more daring in her musicianship and by 1979, was recording jazz. I had all of her albums. The album, “Mingus”, was released at this time. My record collection only continued to grow, as did my book collection. I loved reading both novels and non-fiction.

Mingus was released on June 13, 1979. The critics had a really hard time with it.

I was also still close to my friend Sylvia, although I could tell that she didn’t approve much of  my “new” lifestyle. She was still very much into wanting to be a nun at the time. My other friends, Jim and Judy moved to Missouri, and Rose and Teri had drifted away several months earlier. It was more my doing than theirs, as I was busy celebrating my new found freedom as a gay man, and I didn’t respond to their letters as consistently as I had before. Ron and Jane were still around, and I remember at one point I worked for Jane at her bookstore, Campana Books. The two of them have always been supportive and reliable friends. I’m forever grateful.

This album was released on July 1, 1979. By this time, I had all of Joan Baez’s records.
Baez wrote this song using song titles from tunes she recorded way back at the start of her career in the early 60’s.
I clearly remember how nervous I was when I bought this book. It was at the UA affiliated bookstore on Park and University. It was one of the very first gay books I ever bought.

My friend Richard and I, while not as close as we once were, continued hanging out together too. We partied a lot, and listened to music together. Our friends, Ron Burch and Sandy Hernandez, decided to tie the knot, and their wedding was a lot of fun. Richard was Ron’s best man. They had been friends since grade school, and at this time Richard lived with Ron and Sandy in a house just south of Speedway near Alvernon. We had lots of parties there.

The wedding was a blast. Sandy is on the far left, followed by Richard and Ronnie The young woman in the photo with Richard was Sandy’s Maid of Honor. I never knew her name.
Christopher Street was a gay arts and culture magazine published in New York in the 70s and 80s. The UA library had a subscription to it, and I copied the article on Joan Baez. It was a great article, filled with photos and lots of interesting quotes. Unfortunately, the photocopy I made way back when faded over time, and for years I’ve been looking to replace it with an original copy of the magazine. I was finally able to purchase a copy of the magazine in March, 2021.
This is one of the creepiest movies I’ve ever seen. Released on 8/15/79.
Slow Train Coming, Dylan’s first gospel record, was released on August 20, 1979.
This album was well recorded and sounds just great.
I continued taking classes in psychology, since that was my major, but I also took several elective courses in literature, and did better in those classes than I did in psychology. The weight training course was fun too, and by the end of the semester, I was looking rather buff, and feeling very good about it.
I loved this album. It was released in August, 1979.
I love this song.

John and I lived in an apartment on Elm St just east of Tucson Blvd. for a short while, but we left because some guy walked by our front window one afternoon, glanced over, and saw us kissing on the couch, and it freaked him out. Later that night, he showed up again, sounding very drunk and very angry, yelling at us at the top of his lungs to come outside. He wanted to kill us, or so it felt. John and I were fearful for our lives. The next day the landlords asked us to leave.  We could have protested, but we feared for our safety. We got out of there as fast as we could, and moved into a guest house on S. Warren, a couple of blocks south of Broadway near Campbell, that belonged to another gay man, and things felt much safer there. As I’ve said once already, being gay back then was sure a lot different from what it’s like now.

John and I at his staff picnic at Randolph Park, Autumn, 1979.
Playing volleyball in the park.
It was a fun day…

Being 10 years apart had its disadvantages, but was also beneficial in many ways. I was very happy and in love. John had a lot of friends and over time, they’d become my friends too. These guys were usually several years older than me, and I learned a lot about gay history and culture from them. We saw lots of movies together, including The Rose, La Cage Aux Folles, and the Rocky Horror Picture show.

This was such a fun movie! The original…
I think I saw this at the Loft on 6th St. It played there on Friday nights at midnight and had a big cult following.
Dennis Krenek was a friend of John’s with whom I remained close even after John and I split up. He was an occupational therapist, and I interned with him at the Southern Arizona Mental Health Center while in college. He died of AIDS in 1986.
Aretha Franklin, La Diva. Released September 6, 1979.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFNmlEdXVj0
Aretha wrote this song.

By this time, I was also a big Aretha Franklin fan, and was starting to acquire as many albums of hers as possible. She started out recording for Columbia Records in the very early 60’s and then switched to the Atlantic label in 1967, the year she hit it big with her single, “Respect”. This recording, her last for the Atlantic label, was released in early September, and was a major flop. It would take a change in management and record labels and a few more years for Aretha to bounce back from what was considered a low point in her recording career. This album included two disco songs that didn’t go anywhere at all, lending creedence to the popular phrase, “disco sucks”.

This album, released in September, 1979, is fantastic. Bonoff wrote several songs that Linda Ronstadt recorded for her album “Hasten Down the Wind”, including “Try Me Again” and “Lose Again”.
This is just one of many great tunes on this album.

John was a big music buff too, and he loved jazz and Frank Sinatra. He turned me on to singers like Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday, and I too became a big fan, (but I drew the line at Sinatra. I couldn’t stand him). We also listened to new music like Pink Floyd’s The Wall, Supertramp’s Breakfast in America, Bat Out of Hell, by Meatloaf, and the recent album by The Cars. I still loved my Bob Dylan, however, and bought Slow Train Coming as soon as it came out. In December, one of John’s friends got us front row seats to see Dylan live at the Tucson Community Center Music Hall. It was an incredible show, with some very talented musicians. Dylan played all of the songs from Slow Train Coming, and the singers he had with him were amazing as they belted out one gospel tune after another.

Once John introduced me to her music, I fell in love with Lady Day, and began to collect all of her recordings.
I fell in love with her and learned all I could about her within a short span of time. It kept me busy!
This article came out on September 13, 1979 in the Arizona Daily Star. It features my high school teacher and friend, Jane Cruz and her bookstore, Campana Books.
I loved this bookstore. I even worked there briefly one summer.
Released on October 2, 1979, this Bob Marley album remains my favorite of all. The song that follows is also my favorite.
The first National Gay Rights March on Washington drew between 75,000 and 125,000 participants. The goal of the march was to bring attention to the fight for equal rights and protection against discrimination for gay people.
She was the best disco diva of them all. This recording is filled with one hit after another. Released on 10-15-79.
We just had to see this movie when it came out in early November. Bette Midler was idolized within the gay world.
A review of Dylan’s December 9th show. I was in the 2nd row! Wow!
The Clash were exceptional. I usually didn’t listen to punk or anything too hardcore sounding, but their politics were spot on. This was released on 12/14/79.
My grades were continuing to improve, and by the end of the semester, I had enough credits to move from sophomore status to junior status. I was on my way!
Released on 12/19/79. A great film with incomparable actors.
John turned me on to Sarah Vaughan. These were recorded in August and September, and soon thereafter released. I bought both albums sometime in 1980, I believe, after John and I broke up.

By the end of the year, John and I had lived together for almost five months. We were both very busy. I was working and going to school, and John had two jobs. We clearly loved each other, but it wasn’t all perfect, however, and the relationship had its rocky moments. John was sometimes bossy and moody, and I had a hard time standing up for myself at times. Nevertheless, my dream to have a “lover” had come true, and we did have a great time together. I was happy, and did well in school and continued to work at Fry’s as the year came to a close.

My cousin Tish sent this Christmas card to me from California. When she came to town for my grandmother’s funeral at the beginning of the year, I asked her about the Harvey Milk assassination, which had just occurred the previous November. She told me she had attended the vigil for him and said there were thousands of people there, all with candles lit, and that it was a beautiful sight. She was one of the only family members who knew I was gay at the time.

Harvey Milk vigil, San Francisco.

Overall, 1979 ended on a high note, as things were going well with John and me. I had new friends too, that included Dennis Krenek, Leonard Brown and his partner, Virgil, and others such as Kidd, Leonor and Shirley. These were all people that John had introduced me to, and they were all very nice.  My old friends Richard and his brother Albert were still around too and I’d hook up with them occasionally, but John and I didn’t hang out with them together much at all.