Note: Some anecdotes are not funny, but can be interesting nonetheless.
Gays and Lesbians
• Marion Dane Bauer once invited fellow young adult writers to submit short stories for a book about gay teenagers. Bruce Coville wrote “Am I Blue?” — which became the title story of the book, whose full title is Am I Blue? Coming Out from the Silence. Mr. Coville is a happily married heterosexual, and his story is about a narrator who is beaten up by the school bully, Butch, because Butch thinks that the narrator is gay. An effeminate fairy godfather named Melvin visits the narrator and gives him the power of seeing whether someone is gay. A person who is totally gay will be dark blue, and a person who is wondering if he or she is gay will be light blue. The narrator’s skin is light blue, and as he looks around he sees that a man whom everyone “knows” is straight is dark blue and he sees that a woman whom everyone “knows” is a lesbian is not blue at all. When the narrator looks at Butch, he sees that Butch is dark blue.
• Buffy Summers, the lead character of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, made headlines, including in the New York Times, when she slept with a lesbian in a comic-book story in 2008, although Buffy creator and writer Josh Whedon says that Buffy is not lesbian, but only experimenting. Of course, the Buffy character Willow is lesbian, and Mr. Whedon has long been a friend of the gay and lesbian community. When Willow came out as lesbian in the TV series, a homophobic former fan posted a message on the Internet saying that he would never watch the show again. Mr. Whedon responded, “We’ll miss you.”
Good Deeds
• In 1949, at age 12, young people’s author Peg Kehret got polio, and she spent a lot of time in hospitals. Her parents visited her, and they met her roommates, including one girl named Alice who had lived at the hospital for 10 years, ever since she had gotten polio at age three. Alice’s parents could not afford to take care of her, and so she had become a ward of the state. Alice very seldom got visitors, but fortunately Peg’s parents often visited her, and they promised to bring treats to the other girls as well as to her. Peg’s parents asked the other girls what they wanted, and they wanted such things as marshmallows and candy and comic books. Alice did not respond to the request for a treat, and Peg realized that Alice had lived in the hospital for so long that she didn’t know about many things that children considered to be treats. Some of Peg’s roommates also joked that fellow polio victim and roommate Dorothy wanted a tall, dark, handsome young man. The following week Peg’s parents returned with the treats, including a pink lipstick for Alice. As for Dorothy, Peg’s tall, dark-haired, handsome, 18-year-old brother (he had recently been voted Campus Dreamboat by a sorority) paid her a special visit and gave her some licorice.
• In Holland, Miep and Jan Gies hid Jews from the Nazis. To get the food necessary to feed so many people, they made many trips to different stores, where they purchased small amounts of food because they were afraid to draw attention to themselves by purchasing a large amount of food all at once. However, a grocer saw how much food they were buying, so he began to give them extra vegetables. Later, they discovered why the grocer was so helpful to them. He also was hiding Jews, and unfortunately, he was caught and arrested. The Jews that Miep and Jan Gies were hiding were also discovered and taken away to concentration camps — only Otto Frank survived. Miep and Jan Gies gave him the diary of Anne, his daughter, which they had saved. He had it published, and The Diary of Anne Frank became an international best seller.
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Copyright by Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
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