The Early Years - Part 3

I've been trying to write chronologically but sometimes it's not possible, because I'll think of something that I want to write about and it's earlier than what I wrote about the previous entry. Such is the case today. This actually pre-dates the arrival of Dennis into my life.

After moving to the Detroit metropolitan area in December of 1976, my journey as a gay man among other gay people started then. I had never lived near a large city before, and even though Detroit had its drawbacks, it was a great place for me personally to come out as a gay man. Because the Detroit metro area is spread out for miles around, never once in my six years of living in the area while running errands did I run into anyone else that I knew. Not once. Compared to San Francisco now, it seems like I run into someone I know almost everytime I go out on an errand of some kind.

The volleyball team, summer 1978

It was during the spring and summer of 1977 that I came across a group of volleyball players in the Palmer Park region of Detroit, just north of Six Mile Road. The immediate neighborhood was known as "the gay area" of Detroit, so I assumed that the group was composed of gay men. I was correct and ended up joining them. I hadn't played since high school, but I had been a pretty good setter at that time, so I figured it would all come back to me. Being of small stature, I knew I'd never be a spiker but I was good at setting them up. I ended up being part of a great bunch of guys, something that I had lacked while growing up. I looked forward to each Sunday that summer, hoping that the weather would cooperate so we could gather once more for spirited volleyball. Many times after play was over, we'd go as a group to eat or take in a movie.

Hard to stay dry on a canoe trip

In September that year, I found out that one of the traditions the volleyball team had established was an annual canoe trip on the Pine River outside of Cadillac in the northern part of the state. I had never canoed before but looked forward with anticipation to giving it a try. Cadillac is only about 50 miles south of Traverse City, where I primarily grew up, so I knew that even though it was September, nights could get quite cold, so I packed accordingly. After getting off work on Friday, I drove to Dan and Bruce's house, as I was going to ride up with them in Dan's pickup. The three of us were to be the first to arrive, secure the campground site on the river, and get things ready for the onslaught of guys. You never knew how many people would show up; everyone arrived at various times throughout the night. Once we got up Saturday morning, Jack had already built a fire and was getting ready to prepare breakfast. Jack was the "queen bee" of the group and could always be counted on to be in charge of the kitchen, even out here in the woods. The aroma of coffee and food brought everyone out of the tents into the cool morning air. After counting heads, we realized that we had 15 total but there's usually only two per canoe. Everyone turned and looked at me. Jack said, "Rick, since you're the smallest one here, you'll get to ride instead of paddle. But since you said earlier that you've never canoed before, this might be the best for you as you'll get a chance to see what it entails and be ready for the next time."

"Sounds okay to me, Jack. I won't mind riding," I said, a large grin on my face.

We all piled into some cars and drove to the canoe rental place. They drive you to a starting point, then you canoe to your campsite on Saturday, followed by campsite to end point on Sunday. It was all very organized and I was quite impressed. I rode with Jack and his partner on Sunday; because of three in a canoe, we were the slowest canoe. It was nearing noon, and Jack said, "Not too far around the next bend or two, we'll be stopping for lunch. It should be fun."

Little did I know that the guys had a surprise for me. As we rounded a bend in the river, I could see all the other guys already on shore. Dan spotted our canoe and shouted, "There they are." All twelve of them ran to the shore, lined up and started bowing while shouting, "Hail to Queen Cleo of the Pine River." All of us burst out with laughter, but from that point forward, I was "Cleo" as far as the volleyball team was concerned. I seldom heard my name from anyone in the group from that time forward. It's one of the reasons why the volleyball team will always hold a special place in my heart.

Rick claps after good play

Between Autumn 1977 and Summer 1978, the volleyball group got more organized and found a like-minded group of players from Chicago. Between the two cities, we organized a two-city tournament, to be held Memorial Day weekend in Chicago. That first year, it was held in an outdoor setting and for the life of me, I cannot remember the name of the park in Chicago where it was held. Somewhere north of Wrigley Field, I'm pretty sure about that. But wherever, that was the beginning of an explosion of gay volleyball teams around the country. We had laid the groundwork for the first national volleyball tournament made up of gay men, which was held over Memorial Day weekend in 1979 in Chicago. This time it was an indoor venue and if I remember correctly, we used the gym facilities at DePaul University (don't quote me on it—that was a long time ago and this memory of mine can only bring up so many details). More than 20 teams arrived from around the country, from as far as Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle, to Houston, Atlanta, Indianapolis, Columbus, Minneapolis, and Madison, in addition to the teams we brought from Detroit and the ones representing Chicago. It was a wonderful experience; from that, we started having smaller regional tournaments. I ended up playing in Madison, Columbus and Atlanta, and in the summer of 1980, we hosted our own regional tournament. Our big event that weekend away from the volleyball courts was a swim party at one of the local bathhouses. We rented the entire place for a four-hour period and it was just volleyball players. I'm fairly certain more than swimming went on during the event.

It was during this time that Dennis and I were getting to know each other. He had moved into the upstairs of my house as my renter and over the summer we realized that it was turning into more than a landlord/tenant relationship. Dennis always said that he knew from the moment he saw me that I was "the one" but I didn't have that instant realization. He told me later that he had been getting very frustrated with my obliviousness to his charms, but as we all know now, he did break through my walls.

My previous entry in the blog told about our honeymoon in New York. After we got back from that trip, we were scheduled to go canoeing with the volleyball team. It was Dennis's first time on this annual canoe trip and it didn't turn out as well as the previous times, as rain spoiled the weekend. But we made the best of it, even creating make-shift raingear from garbage bags because we didn't have any raingear with us. The trip was in October, so that could have been part of the reason because weather was very iffy at that time of year.