Remember when.....

[FireSignFemme]

[Kätzchen]

[girl_dee]

I remember when we laid on the floor with a long cord to talk on the phone to our girlfriends

[C0LLETTE]

I remember when i was dragged out of gay bars in Montreal, beaten and arrested by the police.

[homoe]

I remember when all the windows were boarded up in gay bars! They were dark and gloomy as hell..........

[homoe]

Originally Posted by C0LLETTE

I remember when i was dragged out of gay bars in Montreal, beaten and arrested by the police.

[homoe]

I remember when you had to use a secret "password" to entry gay bars and you also usually had to enter thru a back door!

[C0LLETTE]

I remember when you had to memorise the fire exits in those dark, dingy Mafia- run bars and pray they hadn't locked the doors to keep people from getting in for free.

(Preventing a $2.00 cheated entry could cost over a hundred disaster taken lives cause we had no rights ...and no one cared.)

[homoe]

OMG that jogged my memory.....


In Milwaukee I remember the 'mafia' bagmen coming in to collect their "payoff"
making disgusting remarks about the butches who had the "best looking femmes" on their arm!

[homoe]

Originally Posted by girl_dee

I remember when we laid on the floor with a long cord to talk on the phone to our girlfriends

OMG yes or try and stretch the cord, (ours was a kitchen phone & the ONLY one) to a more "private" area to talk

[Chad]

I remember when gay bars used to put on big celebrations and serve dinners for Thanksgiving and Christmas for all the folks that lost their families when they "came out".

[homoe]

Originally Posted by Chad

I remember when gay bars used to put on big celebrations and serve dinners for Thanksgiving and Christmas for all the folks that lost their families when they "came out".

OMG YES, I remember that as well Chad...

I wonder if they still do? I haven't been to a gay bar in years!

[girl_dee]

Originally Posted by homoe

OMG yes or try and stretch the cord, (ours was a kitchen phone & the ONLY one) to a more "private" area to talk

PARTY LINES! .....

[Kätzchen]

Originally Posted by homoe

I remember when you had to use a secret "password" to entry gay bars and you also usually had to enter thru a back door!

Originally Posted by C0LLETTE

I remember when you had to memorise the fire exits in those dark, dingy Mafia- run bars and pray they hadn't locked the doors to keep people from getting in for free.

(Preventing a $2.00 cheated entry could cost over a hundred disaster taken lives cause we had no rights ...and no one cared.)

Originally Posted by homoe

I remember when all the windows were boarded up in gay bars! They were dark and gloomy as hell..........

Originally Posted by homoe

OMG YES, I remember that as well Chad...

I wonder if they still do? I haven't been to a gay bar in years!

Soooo, I remember that two years ago, come December, BFP member Virago created a forum thread about how lesbians used to congregate at certain local bars in their community, if there were any types of places safe enough to gather around. I posted in that thread and here's a link to my post:

http://www.butchfemmeplanet.com/foru...1&postcount=14

As I remember, there was no such thing in my home state of Idaho. Lesbian members of my community back then usually held posts in the community as academics, or in other fields of employment, but especially so, during the 1960s and 1970s, you could lose your job, lose your standing socially or even be arrested or held against your will in an mental institution. I imagine if it weren't for the sexual revolution during those twin decades, and the high social price paid by people who participated in Stonewall, and other similar social protests, that what social standing and privileges afforded to members of the LBGTQ community would not exist.

There was no such place for lesbian or gas to meet in the state I grew up in. We mostly held private get together by private invitation only. Of course, even later during the late 1980s, there still was no public bars where members of the LBGTQ were free to mingle and socialize without fear of reprisals.

I haven't lived in my home state since the late 1980s, but even here in Oregon, it's not always been an easy thing either, unless you count only two or three communities I know of in Oregon, where members of the LGBT can mingle free of social consequences. We used to have an Lesbian owned bar close to the Hawthorne district, back in the 1990's, early 2000's. But it went out of business. The only other lesbian owned entity that I know of in Portland, is the book store In Other Words, which used to be located in the Hawthorne district, but has since relocated to the Alberta neighborhood in the inner North Northeast sector of Portland. We still have a small collection of Women's Resource Offices at state community college campuses or at state owned universities across the state of Oregon. Private universities I am not sure about but I am guessing they don't offer any resources for women who identify anywhere on the lesbian spectrum.

At any rate..... I think Virago thread was very interesting and filled with numerous posts by members from all.over the US.

I think it's important to remember our roots and to do all we can at an local level to ensure our rights and social standing remains strong during turbulent times across the country!

Here's a second post I made in Virago's forum thread:

http://www.butchfemmeplanet.com/foru...1&postcount=28

[homoe]

Being in my mid 60's I remember families more or less "forcing"their lesbian daughters to marry a man!

[Gayandgray]

Originally Posted by homoe

Being in my mid 60's I remember families more or less "forcing"their lesbian daughters to marry a man!

Homoe, my butch is almost 75 yrs old and she definately remembers that too!

[girl_dee]

[Kätzchen]

Back in the day, when the only types of pans or pots were stainless steel or cast iron skillets? And if you were not so talented in using them properly and you scorched puddings or soups or pancakes on the cast iron griddle, you'd have to take an copper wire brillo pad (which would wreck your hands and fingernails) or later on, you'd try the SOS soap wool wire mesh pads, to scrub your pots and pans clean????

Yeah, that... heaven help you if you ruined your pricey enamel cookware too!


My oldest son finally procured some talent to cook and not ruin my pots and pans. My youngest son was super talented in wrecking all my best pots and pans.

It's just me now at home, so it's not an problem anymore, but I did not like scour pads of any kind, now or then, because you can't get them clean to use another time. They harbor bacteria and leave your pots and pans in worse shape than before being wrecked by 'talented' cooking skills.

[Kätzchen]

Originally Posted by homoe

Might of been before your time Miss Kätz but I remember these...............

No, not quite! My Aunt Mary began her career in Portland as an switchboard operator for Pacific Bell, then worked her way up the ranks to be an administrator in an department which served transitory processes for the post-switchboard era.

[Kätzchen]