On one hand, two over-fifty, gay, married men holding hands while one of them waved a small rainbow flag is a political statement about gay life, gay liberty, and the pursuit of gay happiness; on the other hand my imagining of the moment involved fast-paced 1970’s disco, and gauzy rainbow on the edges—I’m pretty sure in my vision we weren’t marching so much as gliding. So probably more fabulous than what was going to happen.
This year the Pride Celebration was moved up from August in Alton Baker Park to June in the Lane County Fairgrounds. Of course this caused controversy. I prefer having Eugene Pride in June when it’s typically cooler; and I’d much rather march in the rain at the end of grass pollen season than under a 95°F August sun in the middle of wildfire smoke season. Security was also a concern: it’s easier to put up fencing around the fairground venues than it is a city park. The security measures also meant a bag-check for non-clear bags and no signs, banners, or flags larger than 11X18 inches.
Mark wanted to skip the rally at Kesey Square and just join the 10:30 parade from the square to the fairgrounds. Since dealing with the car would probably be a rigamarole, we opted to walk downtown—which takes about twenty-five minutes. Between yoga, looking after a neighbor’s animals, dealing with some of The Child’s childhood
Somewhere along Willamette Street my paper ticket to Pride worked its way out of my back pocket.
We got to Kesey Square at 10:32. It was quiet. And empty. An abandoned, pink, open, VooDoo Donuts box did its best tumbleweed imitation next to the statue of Ken Kesey. I still don’t know if the parade started early, or if the rally decamped to a different march staging area.
We walked west on Broadway Street toward the fairgrounds and met some other folks also looking for the march.
Mark noticed my rising Sun-in-Capricorn-Moon-in-Virgo-You’re-Doing-It-Wrong-This-Is-Why-We-Can’t-Have-Nice-Things sense of frustration and advised me to breathe out frustration and breathe in calm. Or something. We found a bakery with chocolate brownies, macarons, and coffee for Mark.
As we were paying, someone behind the register took in my black T-shirt with a Progress Pride flag on it, my Rainbow flag, and very likely my Hair and asked for a social media photo.
Fortified with the photo-op and some little white bags of baked goods, we soldiered on, ever westward.
As we neared Franklin Street, I caught the sounds of drums, and we could see police blocking off streets. We were just in time to insert ourselves into the tail end of the parade and jockeyed for a space between various other groups based on whatever it was their signs and banners read. No one resurrected the chant, “Hey-hey, ho-ho…”.
I waved my little Pride flag. “Hey, Mark,” I said. “Give me those bags.”
“I can carry them,” Mark said.
I eyed the small cup of coffee in his other hand. “But I wanna hold your hand.”
“Where’s your brownie?” he said.
“I snarfed it as soon as we left the bakery.”
I held the flag and the bags in one hand and Mark’s hand in the other. It was nice for about sixty seconds until I had to let go of Mark’s hand to push my hair out of my face. Which prompted mock-protests of a typical Leo nature from Mark about being abandoned.
Five blocks later the parade transmogrified into a fairground entrance line. After an interval of shuffling, during which I realized that I could display my ticket on my phone, we made it through the Event Center back entrance doors and emerged next to a stage where dancers we wanted to see were scheduled.
We sat down in the audience section and got blasted by loudspeakers during a sound system accident.
Mark thought having Pride in the Fairgrounds venue made it seem like a combination of the Eugene Holiday Market or Boat/Home Show, which was a little cramped and overwhelming for him. He would have liked vendor booths arranged circularly around a central performance area instead of the grid layout they used. He also missed being able to picnic on the grass (which is hard to have inside).
I did like being in the shaded, if not air-conditioned, indoors; but it would have been nice to have picnic tables set up.
The dance groups were entertaining and interesting.
Prompted by the experience with parade, I made a point of asking someone at the information table where the after-party dance was going to be held (since the location wasn’t clear). We bumped into four folks we knew and had quick updates with them.
And then we were done.
We walked back home.
I spent the afternoon digging through an unorganized collection of mostly papers looking for my party ear-plugs. I found them behind some coffee-table books on Ancient Egyptian Art.
Around 7 p.m., I drove to the 21+ after-party dance event, which was located next to the Lane County Events Center, in an old Quonset hut. In some ways, it was a throw-back to the dance floor, twenty years ago, at Perry’s on Pearl; only with newer songs. And much less clothing. With go-go boys.
The music was danceable, and I was glad for the earplugs. I had fun, and I was dancing by myself in a Quonset hut filled with people. I thought about braving the long line to purchase a soft drink or mocktail, and wound up paying $3 for a 16oz bottle of water. I danced to the four quarters, and stayed in my body. I danced and danced, and only realized the music kept on playing a half-hour after the dance’s official end when I looked at my phone.
The crescent moon hung above the western horizon as I walked past folks breaking down chairs and booths; past the deflated rainbow arch at the Event Center front entrance; through the main parking lot and over a creek, to where the car waited in auxiliary parking.
