Slaughterhouse Hide and Seek

My aunt and uncle have a farm, and when the children of my generation were small, there were several head of cattle on the farm (as well as the occasional pig, horse, etc). Now, growing up farm adjacent, eating animals that once had names and personalities is not that big of a deal. It is your reality. You know that meat comes from living things, it isn't made in a factory somewhere. 


The slaughterhouse on the farm was a room below what once was the summer kitchen and was at the time a garage and storage room. Cow carcasses were strung from the rafters to bleed out or age or whatever the point is to hanging a carcass from the rafters. 


The entrance to the slaughterhouse was a rickety wooden staircase from the space above and it was quite dark. This made it the perfect hiding spot when we played hide and seek. If a girl was it, you could just go stand at the bottom of the stairs, they would never even come to the door.


This is one of the best stories I told when I went to college because it trumped so many other childhood stories. Mostly because the mainly suburban kids I went to college with had no frame of reference to even fathom this. I didn't even grow up on the farm directly. I have no stories of birthing cows, I didn't milk anything until college, and that was a goat on another uncle's farm. I don't ride horses, though I have and know how to (it was better to ride Sunny down my uncle's driveway than to have to deal with the goose [seriously!]). To me, it's weird that other people don't know of these things. I've been asked if I've tipped cows. I don't know anyone who actually has. First of all, it is cruel, and second of all, you could be damaging a very expensive animal.

Everyone's an Outcast

Nearly my father's entire family lived in our town growing up. We were among the last to make the migration, completing the move when I was 6. Even so, we lived on the exact opposite side of town from the rest of the family. Literally, as far as you could get without being in a different town. This served to make us kids physical as well as social outcasts, especially me.


Being my grandmother's only male grandchild didn't help me any. I had favorite son status. My sister was outgoing, she asserted herself into the family fold of cousins. I preferred to stay close to the adults. I perceived myself to be the only lonely one.


Little did I know at the time, but my second cousins J and A were/are also gay. I think, had we all known back then, that all of us would have had a better time of it. I know now that A and J had their own struggles, their own redneck fathers to deal with. There were of course signs. A and I used to dance around in just nightshirts (no undies) in our great grandmother's basement when we were 8 and 10, respectively. A, J and I were probably all the most sensitive of our sibling groups. A and J must have known about each other, because they were close growing up. They also lived two houses apart and were first cousins. I had the disadvantage, living miles away and being a second cousin.


When I came out (years after they did), J and I grew closer. I really like J and I'm glad we finally became friends. A friendship I desperately wanted years earlier. 


My two best friends in junior high school also ended up being gay. I don't know how or why we didn't figure it out back then. I always read or hear stories about boys and girls experimenting at very young ages. My best friend and I shared a bed several times through 7th and 8th grade and never so much as looked at each other in that way. I don't advocate for experimentation at such a young age, but everyone else was doing it, why not us?