Empty Nester

Empty Nester

Noel Laflin

6-17-17

Four months ago, to the day, Lucifer the Storm struck. It was a Friday, as I recall, and I feared for our tiny hummingbird nest swaying violently in the fierce wind and torrential downpour.

I ventured the cold and wet on several occasions to get a photo or two of mother hummer sitting atop the two youngsters - spreading her wings above them, much like an avenging angel - and clinging tightly with her tiny talons to the edges of her tightly built nest. She held the position until I could no longer see them in the dark. But as the torrent continued throughout the evening and early morning hours, I can only assume that she kept up the valiant effort all night long.

By Saturday morning, the worst had passed. I got up at first grey light to see if mother, twins, and nest were still in place.

 
They were.

I did a happy dance of relief.

Later in the week the two healthy fledglings would leave the nest and make their way in the world, which was pretty much just our back yard for the first week or two.

Our fertile myrtle of a bird hatched a second brood of twins by the first of March and we watched as the fruits of her labor flew the coup right around the first day of spring. They too hung around the yard for another ten days or so.Not to be outdone with previous efforts, mother hummer immediately began to repair her home in our old acacia tree, gathering lichen from rooftops to patch the exterior, and attach more spider webbing from nest to slender tree limbs. Soft, white, downy plant material was gathered and flown in to line the bed.

It was a longer wait before the third brood hatched, but hatch they did come May. It was another perfect set of twins, born a day apart from one another, as is usually the case.

By early June the kids made their leap of faith, leaving the nest but hanging about the yard until just a few days ago.

 
I have been holding off on the telling of this final chapter regarding our intrepid, fertile, industrious, little Allen's hummingbird and her three broods, thinking that there was just the slightest, teeniest, tiniest, outside chance that there would be more to tell. But, it looks like the current tale has come to a close as the nest has remained empty for the last two weeks and mom has not made the slightest attempt at a third set of home repairs.

But, as it’s not even officially the first day of summer yet … who knows?

Meanwhile, I have a few thousand photos at my disposal should I wax nostalgic.

Pride

Pride

Noel Laflin

6-16-17

July 2, 1978 - L.A. Gay Pride March

We carried signs decrying the bigotry of Anita Bryant and John Briggs.  But I was careful to hold my sign directly in front of my face when passing TV cameras.  My boyfriend warned me that the last thing I needed was to be spotted on the six o’clock evening news marching in the L.A. Gay Pride Festival of 1978.  It would end my career, he said.  And if the Boy Scouts of America didn’t fire my ass afterward, Bryant and Briggs would see to it, he added, only half joking.  To lighten the mood, after concluding that joyous, liberating march, we went to dance.

When I came out to my parents a little over a year later, after having just been fired from the BSA for being gay, I remembered Tom’s words.

The L.A. Gay Pride Festival of 1980 was a lot more carefree, however, as I no longer avoided the TV cameras.  I was out to both my family and new employer.  Neither gave a good god damn about where I marched or with whom I danced.

But by the end of the decade, however, Pride festivals around the world took on a much more somber tone.

 

AIDS quilts on display, just outside the large dance venues, saw to that.

In the early nineties I would lie in bed and make notations in the margins of a worn, childhood bible, writing the names of friends and former loves that had died.  I did not want to forget their faces.

I stopped the late night practice after writing Tom’s name in the margin on Christmas Eve, 1992.  I put the bible away.

Despite the times, the festivals continued to draw me in, however, as it was the one place that I could keep track of old and new friends alike, celebrating the fact that we were still alive, and toasting the memory of those who were gone.  And although I no longer felt the need to march, there was still a desperate need to dance.

I have not been to a festival for quite some time now – I leave that to a younger crowd, many of whom are just coming to terms with their own identity and pride of being.  I remember that time well. Supreme Court decisions and a tsunami-like shift in public acceptance toward LGBT folk over the last decade have also eased my desire to march, as I once did in my youth.

But I am glad that the tradition still carries on, as there is always dancing afterward.

 

Weddings

Weddings

Noel Laflin

6-14-17

There’s a wedding coming up and I am pretty excited.

I’ve always been a sucker for folks tying the knot - even the time when I missed a ceremony as I showed up at the wrong church.  Since the service was just getting under way, due to my late arrival, I took a seat in a pew in the back and settled in.  When the beautiful bride being walked down the aisle was not my old girlfriend, I quickly deduced that I was indeed crashing someone else’s party.  Kristina still chides me to this day.  But hey, I tell her, it makes for a funny memory and a good story forty years later.  That’s about the time she gets eerily quiet.

Then there was the wedding in the woods a few years back.  Guests all met up in the small town of Cottage Grove, Oregon, and followed the lead truck as it barreled deeper and deeper into the evergreens.  After successfully navigating several old logging roads we came to rest in a fairy land of tall trees, giant ferns, and a narrow trail leading down to a rushing creek.  The bride wore flowers in her hair and a simple, yet beautiful dress.  The groom, a fellow whom I have known since he was two years old, walked barefoot, dressed in a peasant blouse and trousers.  He even had flowers sitting atop his curly locks.  He reminded me, just a bit, of a jolly hobbit or elfin king.  The couple exchanged vows at a waterfall. There was no preacher. There were no groomsmen or bridesmaids. No one could really hear what was said, due to the roar of the water, but it was lovely nonetheless.  The natural scene appealed greatly to my pagan heart.

And of course there have been wonderful weddings for siblings and friends – even the two weddings in Spanish.  At the later two ceremonies, I simply took my cue from the rest of the congregants when they stood, kneeled, or sat.  We spoke a common language called alcohol at the reception, however, so all was forgiven in no time.

I have been a groom, best man, groomsman, and a guest on too many occasions to recall, a florist, a janitor sweeping up the rice outside the church, as well as the ‘Right and Revered Reverend Laflin’ for five weddings. That title is of my own choosing actually; I find it kind of catchy. Two of the couples were straight and three gay. As I pretty much use the same ceremony format, I simply have to watch out for my pronouns, as in his and hers, his and his, and hers and hers when I address the couples standing before me.  I haven’t screwed it up yet.

 

I was once even hired to guard the gifts for a friend on the night of his wedding.

I thought I had done it all.

But, up until now, I have never been the father of the bride-to-be.

In a few weeks my title will change to father of the bride.

And for that, I am pretty excited indeed.