You didn’t have far to go for band practice.

Did you know the Bias family?

And a total river rat. Our family lived within a block of my grandparents, great-grandparents, and a great-great aunt on Williams St. That makes us four generations of river rats.

PHS grad 1975, member of the 74-75 District Champs Baseball team and the Mighty Trojan marching band. Moved away for education and then came back and ran Throckmorton $ Associates until I sold it in 1993.

So were you a river rat or a hilltopper?

You’re from Portsmouth, Ohio?!?

No friggin’ way! What an incredibly small world!

I agree that he said it, and I probably read too much into the phrase, but alot of people who are re-entering the closet don’t think they are! This reminds me of man in the town I grew up in. He went to a faith healing service and was supposedly healed of his poor eyesight. He even stopped using his glasses and started singing the praises of the healer and God. One day later he was in an auto accident because he had stopped using his glasses. It was determined his eyesight hadn’t really gotten any better, he just BELIEVED it had.

I’m glad that Rich and his mom had opportunities to continue to work toward and/or within their relationship while they were still in different places.

One of the things I appreciated hearing during the Love Won Out conference recently was Mike Haley responding to a question about “What if my adult son/daughter is worshipping in a pro-gay Christian church?” His answer was neither extremely affirming nor denigrating of the church, more to the effect that “If your child is seeking God, why not appreciate that and listen to what’s going on with them, even when tempted to second-guess or demean their path as misdirected or wrong?”

His response, like the one you describe here, spoke to me of emphasizing relationship and commonality without giving up personal beliefs or convictions.

Good stuff….

Doesn’t the phrase “walking away from the lifestyle” usually mean walking away from problems like drug abuse/addiction, alcohol abuse/addiction, sexual addiction, etc – none of which are unique to the gay community? I find it interesting that so many self-identified ex-gay people talk about having all these problems, but the way they chose to deal with it is by blaming the problems on their sexual orientation and then, often, re-entering the closet – it would be an interesting world if straight people did this, wouldn’t it?