|
Everyday people
Gays and lesbians in Southwest Virginia raise children, go to church, pay taxes, vote, work, own businesses, play -- and even bowl.
By MIKE HUDSON
The Roanoke Times
Dale Weddle is having a good night.
A tall, angular man of 47, Weddle grips his bowling ball in his left hand. He takes long, purposeful strides to the foul line and lets the ball fly. He rolls strikes in his first two frames, leaves a pin standing on the third, but recovers by negotiating a spare in the fourth.
Like a lot of once-a-week bowlers, his average this season isn't what he'd like it to be -- "129, I'm ashamed to say." He doesn't fancy himself as a great bowler. But when he's hot . . .
He finishes his first game of the night with a 169.
Like lots of people who work and play in the Roanoke Valley, Weddle looks forward to his weekly bowling night, not so much for the competition as for the chance to see friends, have fun and take a break from workday drudgery.
The only difference -- and Weddle believes this shouldn't make a difference at all -- is that his bowling league is organized for gays and lesbians and their friends and families.
"For me, it's sort of nice to come out and be who we are -- and people know who we are," Weddle says. "We're no different from any other bowler here."
That's the message that many gays and lesbians in the Roanoke and New River valleys want to convey: They're no different from anyone else. They have relationships good and bad, they raise children, they go to church, they take care of aging parents, they pay taxes, they vote, they work, they own businesses, they play, they even bowl.
"We definitely come from all walks of life," says Pat Hyler of Roanoke, a mother and grandmother who is a lesbian."We're your doctors, your lawyers and your chefs, just regular people, the laborer and the blue-collar worker."
By conservative estimates, as many as 10,000 gays and lesbians live in the Roanoke Valley, although their sexual orientation often is a secret to co-workers, classmates or others who interact with them on a day-to-day basis.
"Everybody knows a gay person -- whether they know they're gay or not," Weddle says.
Perhaps all this should go without saying. But gays and lesbians understand that many people have a far different image of them in their minds, one of furtive lives played out in Bohemian enclaves or the dark corners of society.
Many gays and lesbians respond that their critics are too preoccupied with sex.
- Sex is only one part of people's lives, they argue, and people shouldn't be defined by or castigated for what goes on in private moments between consenting adults.
Weddle puts it this way: "I don't ask heterosexual couples what they do in bed."
Weddle says he has a lot of straight friends and finds most people accepting. He recalls, however, an acquaintance who "told me she was sorry I was 'trapped in this lifestyle.' Like somebody had captured me and made me gay."
Straight people sometimes have no concept that many gays have long-term relationships, Weddle says. He and his partner have been together for 13 years. "Even though we may not be married with a piece of paper, we're in a committed relationship."
His life is full -- he works as a nurse for hospice patients, he has friends and family -- and, of course, he has his bowling night.
The Fellowship League, Weddle's Wednesday night bowling league, may be the oldest gay and lesbian social organization in the Roanoke Valley. It will celebrate its 16th birthday next month.
Charlotte Eakin, one of the original members, says some gays and lesbians enjoyed going bowling together, saw others doing the same, and decided to form a league.
It began in February 1985 with 40 members and no idea how other bowlers would react.
"We were bowling beside work leagues and churches," Eakin recalls. "And I think probably everybody was uncomfortable. But they knew we weren't going anywhere. We were there to bowl just like they were. So they became more accepting."
Over the years, she says, there have been occasional comments, along the lines of, "Who are those people?"
But there have been few problems, Eakin says.
"You know, we don't look any different," she says. "We don't dress any different. We're people. We're bowlers."
The season runs from early September to April. Currently, the league has 30-plus members, including a few heterosexuals.
"We don't discriminate," Weddle says simply.
The Fellowship League holds a runoff at the end of the season to determine the first- and second-place teams, but there's no money for the winners. Instead, it directs money to charity. Each bowler pays a nickel for each pin left standing after the first ball of the seventh frame. Those nickels add up to several hundred dollars each year.
The league donated seed money in 1986 to help the Roanoke AIDS Project, an educational program, get its start.
For Christmas 1999, the league "adopted" a family with nine children that was struggling to get by. The league gave the family more than $100 in grocery certificates, plus toys, clothes and household items. "It took us two trucks and a station wagon to haul all the goods over there," Eakin says. "We were all in tears. When we pulled up, the little children were at the window."
The bowling league is one of the reasons Roanoke is an appealing place for many gays and lesbians in Southwest Virginia.
Weddle grew up in Floyd County, attended high school in Texas and served in the Air Force before getting his nursing degree on the GI Bill and moving to Roanoke in 1979.
He believes the Roanoke Valley is moving in the right direction as far as being open to gays and lesbians. "What I find more than anything is that people just don't care" about sexual orientation.
Some people still have misconceptions, he says, but there's been a positive change in attitudes in the two decades he's lived in the valley. He's hopeful.
"I can envision a time in my lifetime when nobody has to be concerned about: Are you gay or are you straight? Are you black or white? That may never happen. But I can envision it."
|
