Occupy Woolworth?

“I’ll have a cup of soup, a grilled cheese sandwich, a cup of coffee, and my civil rights, please”





More at the link.

1960 was at the very beginning of the civil rights movement, yet only 52 years ago.

Greensboro was also the site of a racial massacre nineteen years later ...

The article says that some of the events at the Inauguration were held at the Smithsonian exhibit with the actual counter. We've come so far... then I read birther stuff...

Woolworth's.

In 1978 I and some friends (17-18 years old) drove to Colorado for Thanksgiving break to visit a friend who had moved away and was serving his sentence senior year of high school in Littleton, CO. During a trip to downtown Denver, we had lunch at the lunch counter in the Woolworth's! Blue plate specials all around! Yeah!

I had to use the restroom before we moved on to our next point of interest and required a stall to complete my business. There were rather large (3-4 inch diameter) holes in the partitions between the stalls, but I thought nothing of it until I noticed a young man looking through the hole to my left. I was all, "Wait, what the..." until I realized the Men's room, in the basement of the Denver Woolworth's, was a glory hole. I harumphed a bit and, sotto voce, announced that I was actually using the stall for it's intended purpose.

Him: "Oh, sorry."
Me: "No problem."

End result? He exited his stall as I was washing my hands and slunk out of the restroom. Saw him in the mirror. Very cute guy, my age, 18-20...wouldn't have kicked him outta bed for eatin' crackers.

My point? The young man was black. I am white. Woolworth's in 1978, in Denver, had a great blue plate special and was a place where young gay men of any race could hook up...or not. But gay in public was still a no-no. Ironically, after driving through the blizzard of '78 and finally getting back to San Jose on the evening of November 27th, I got in my own car to head home, turned on the radio to KGO, and heard about the deaths of George Moscone and Harvey Milk.

The hook? I came out to my friends the next day, with the Woolworth's encounter fresh in my mind. I got hugged. A lot. Woolworth's and civil rights play a role in my personal stream-of-consciousness.

Sorry, that was long and all me, me, me, but I've never told that before. Seems I needed to say it. Carry on.

I'm afeered to ask what a glory hole is. So I won't.

Since you didn't ask, I won't tell. I will say, for the record, that knowing is not doing and I never did. eww.

Any glassblower knows what a glory hole is. It's an opening to a hot spot (i.e., a furnace) from which s/he can retrieve molten glass or into which s/he can put glass to be reheated while performing glass blowing operations. Thus, I guess you could say it is an in-and-out process governed by the heat of the moment -- all of which effects the stiffness of the glass.

If blowing glass is not the objective, it might mean something similar, but different. I dunno.

That was perfect.

**adds Piffle to x-mas card list**

You can google it. You will quickly learn more than you ever wanted to know.

Just like "Santorum"

That was a great story.

Today is the 47th anniversary of Bloody Sunday where peaceful demonstrators were tear gassed then beaten by state and local law enforcement personnel in Selma, AL. I posted a couple of images in another thread a couple of days ago.
viewtopic.php?p=352554#p352554


The following link has additional information regarding the event.
http://encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/A ... ?id=h-1876