St. Louis Pride Fest 2013

St. Louis Pride Fest
June 29, 2013

Yesterday evening I heard on the local news about the St. Louis Pride Fest 2013 taking place in downtown St. Louis in the park in front of the Soldiers Memorial. I had considered (since my successful trip into St. Louis on Tuesday) to go downtown and be a tourist for a day. This was the impetus that got me to make the trip.



This is a trip of more personal history with this city, which I left exactly half a century ago this month – a virgin, heterosexual boy of 18 years. I have had half a century of varied experience since.

The festival had quite a good crowd by afternoon and it appeared to be dominated by mostly lesbians, many of them quite young looking.



There were the usual showy guys in drag or whatever costume they found, and young men in undies.

 

There was a local Pride Flag, which is taken from the St. Louis flag (of which I was not aware since it came into being in 1964 after I had already left the city)




Entertainment during the day was by a Gay Men’s choir.




And, on the other end of the block a very energetic Lesbian band, where ppl were dancing to the beat.



I was surprised to see a small display of the Names Project. Since the advent of effective life-saving drugs in 1996, I thot this homage from the days of certain death to ppl with AIDS had ended. There were no panels on these local quilts with deaths since ’96, tho we all have friends who have died of that disease since then.

 

What was most enjoyable in my ppl watching was seeing those who were just celebrating the fact that they could show affection to their loved one without derision and with acceptance of our Rainbow Community.






This Pride Festival was very timely; held near the anniversary date of the Stonewall Riots of 1969 in NYC that started the gay rights movement in the turbulent civil rights era in the U.S.

It was also the week that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the federal law discriminating against same-gender ppl who want to marry denied them equal access and was unconstitutional.

And there was that personal 50 years of my own growth that made this a very pleasant day hanging with like-minded ppl here in my original home town.

 

It sounds like it was a really fun day for you. I'm glad your visit coincided with the festival

 

I really don't think those cut-off jeans are appropriate. By the way, is there a particular reason you spell photo as 'foto'? Also, have you been to the 'pride' in London?

http://londoncommunitypride.org/festival/whats-on/2013/pride-parade/

 

The ONLY reason to take that foto was because where in the world could you ever find 3 ppl wearing cutoff shorts, clearly out of style since the '70s. Assuming your weren't referring to the length of mine - but I go commando in cutoffs and ... well I would be hanging out if they were any shorter.

I think using 'ph' to make an 'f' sound is silly. So do the Spanish and Turks and Russians and probably many other languages less compromised than English. So, I use the fonetic spelling of fotograf.

Only been to London once in 1975 and only got to spend a day because NY was snowed in. Spent it in the Tate & Natural History museums. (I may have been wearing cutoff jeans then too)

 

Being a completely out and proud gay man, I have never been to a gay pride event. I simply never found the time or the motivation, it seems. Definitely something I plan on doing on of these days.

 

I realized that this was a makeup event because one year my sister wanted me to come up here in April and I missed our Gay Pride in Miami Beach that year. So this year I got to experience two events.

 

I can understand using what ever spelling you like, informally, but for more formal situations I think a correct use of the English language is appropriate.
The shorts issue is perhaps a controversy we should not get into again.
It always seems like you prefer the hot weather, so I understand why you have not been to the UK since 1975.
There was a heat wave then wasn't there? or was that 1976?

 

Oh, I'm sorry. I phorgot that posts on a phorum board on the Internet was a phormal writing situation.

 

I meant for e.g linkedin.