Jim Winters on GOT TO BE REAL

From seventh grade through ninth grade, 1977-1980, we lived at the White Sands Missile Range in southern New Mexico. The closest town was Las Cruces about 30 minutes away and further than that, El Paso Texas about an hour drive south. The army post was in the middle of the desert at the base of the Organ Mountains.

I can’t say I didn’t enjoy living there, but at that tumultuous age everything seemed awkward. There was a very high turnover of families moving in and out. Friends I had one week would suddenly move away and there would be other kids there instead who I had to get to know all over again. By the time ninth grade rolled around all my familiar pals had moved away and my closest friend was the art teacher who was my savior. He encouraged me as an artist and was my greatest champion at that time. He was an odd man, not like any I had met before, and he took an interest in me. He encouraged me to draw and we became close. He had mannerisms which were “different”. That difference found some ugly names and it didn’t take long before I too got made fun of and was called the same names.

I can still remember a girl named Ramona, a few years behind me in school, deliberately stopping me in the school hallway one day and very matter-of-factly stating “Everyone in this school knows you’re gay.” I was stunned. Everyone knows?? I didn’t even know at the time. I didn’t know what it meant to be gay other than that it was a very, very bad thing and that I should be ashamed. That I was somehow less than everyone else. I fell into a depression which lasted six months – the second half of ninth grade. I remember being so relieved when my father told my mom and I that we were being transferred to Maryland.  Escape on the horizon! That last half year of junior high, to bide my time, after school I would spend hours immersing myself in surreal pencil drawings which I tried to make scary by including skulls, creepy animals and lots and lots of fangs – on both said skulls and creepy animals.

I had another escape – music. I listened primarily to an AM radio station from Juarez, Mexico – just over the border – called X-Rock 80. They played a healthy mix of pop which then included both rock and disco. There was also a juke box at the swimming pool that played the same music. My favorite songs at that time were disco and I was very excited that the 45 singles of some of this music were available on the army post at the PX (post exchange).

Some of the singles I loved – and actually still own after all these years: Evelyn “Champagne” King’s SHAME and I DON’T KNOW IF IT’S RIGHT, Rick James’ YOU AND I, Cher’s TAKE ME HOME and last but not least Cheryl Lynn’s STAR LOVE and GOT TO BE REAL.



Of course, loving disco music doesn’t necessarily mean that someone is gay, but I think now it’s funny that Ramona and “everyone in the school” perceived something about me that I didn’t know at the time. All they had to do was look at my 45 collection to have their hunches confirmed! CHER!! In hindsight it all seems so obvious. I’m sorry now that I spent so much time feeling sad and depressed, drawing scary pictures as a defense mechanism. But the art making practice held fast and I really have Myron, my junior high school art teacher to thank for that. It was the one thing I could do that, after all that daily drawing practice, set me apart in another way - a way that people took notice of in a positive way. It didn’t matter if I was gay or not.

p.s. Ramona, I forgive you.

| Jim Winters is a California artist living in Santa Cruz, a Bay Area resident since 1992. He is part of the decorative painting team at Stancil Studios based in San Francisco.