Dianne Duncan oral history - Dianne Duncan oral history

Michelle Lopez: Okay great. Carson Wright: Is it recording?

ML: Yeah. CW: Okay, we are back with the second part

of our interview with Dianne Duncan for the Austin women's activist oral history project.

ML: Yeah, okay. I just wanted to double check. CW: Okay, we are for sure back.

ML: Okay, so where we last left off you're talking about 1969 quite a bit. How, a light

bulb went off and there was a lot of political type of protests going on.

Dianne Duncan: There was, remember, it's kind of, I'm sure you've probably heard this but

... when you were 18 if you were a boy, you had to sign up with selective service.

CW: Yes. DD: So, our brothers and our friends and cousins

and classmates were going to a war they didn't want. If your generation had to go fight in

Iraq and Afghanistan, it would change your perspective. That's all I have to say. I am

certain of that. So, that's of course where it came. Then obviously at the same time remember

in 1968 there was the Olympics, there was black power, there was the SDS stuff, and

I think it was 1969 when MLK - Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated.

CW: I think so, yeah. DD: So, I wasn't there at the time. The Tet

offenses was in '67, that was a huge turning point in the Vietnam war. That was building

while I was away at Texas Tech. Which is, trust me, was still in the boonies.

CW: Was there any sort of political activity going on at Texas Tech?

DD: Not that I noticed. CW: Okay.

DD: There really wasn't. So, the light bulb hadn't turned on for those people. If it was,

they were quietly doing it. It was too small. But it was building at Texas at that point.

It had been building for a couple of years. So, when I came back it had just exploded.

So, I just walked right in and it felt really normal to me. Because like I said I was always

looking for my people. ML: Mm-hmm (affirmative)

CW: Right. DD: And so at that point I thought sexually

I thought I was asexual. ML: Yeah.

DD: That was mine, really that's what I thought. I dated boys, I never really cared all that

much. I didn't really think about it. It's not like I'm not attracted to men on some

level but there was never any emotional connection. I've always liked men, I get along well with

men. But it just, some lesbians don't. But I'm not that lesbian. But there was never

any emotional connection for me. So, I just ... it was pretty superficial at that point.

DD: So, you've got this young woman. That's not possible to happen in today's world. Kids

are turning it and discerning their sexuality at earlier and earlier ages. But in my generation,

it's not too, and nobody talked about anything. As I've described. So, I just, the west mall,

there was a protest every day. And sometimes you go and they'd pass out armbands. It'd

be the armband of the day. You put the armband on and you protest. That's what I did. I was

majoring in things like sociology and the social sciences. So, you can imagine what

I was exposed to. It was a real eye-opener for me.

DD: The only black people I'd ever even met in my life worked for my grandmother and Alice.

There were no black people I ever met in south Texas. There was one boy in my high school.

ML: Mm-hmm (affirmative) DD: I didn't feel racist, I was just ignorant.

My family never said anything negative. They never said anything positive, but they didn't

say anything negative. So, I didn't come from that family that used derogatory language,

I just was exposed. Nothing ever felt right. So, that's all I can say. Nothing ever felt

right to me. DD: So, when I came back to UT it was like

the light bulb was on, and my light bulb's bulbs started to go on. So, I looked around,

and I found there was the YWCA, up there on campus. There was a lot of organizations that

were started up there. CW: Right yeah.

DD: And that was a great place. And a lot of the people I know, who were might've been

just a couple years older than me. I know the people who started women in their work.

Community gardens. Safe place. Center for battered women. Whatever the names were back

then, they were all started up there at that YWCA. There was middle earth, mental health

thing. Alan Poke had photography up there. There was THRAG. All of that was up there.

DD: I think I kind of fluttered around a little bit. So, I protested literally daily. So,

it was a lot of Vietnam, but that particular day there could've been an element of

something political like who you going to vote for or something. It could have been

an element of this particular group that day might have been doing it. Some, I'm thinking

the terms we would use back then. The term black liberation was around so, that's where

gay liberation came from. Feminism was literally called feminism. But it could've been Chicano

liberation. You know? We were all trying to be liberated. Women's lib. I think that came

out of the black liberation. See, that came out of California.

DD: So here again, it was more seamless, but back then it wasn't. Took over all the seep

into the cost, back into here. So, everywhere was some liberation. The protest might be

slightly different each day, but it was all whatever. Something trying to be liberated.

CW: Do you know who was organizing these protests? DD: That's what I'm saying. One day it might

be Chicano liberation or gay liberation or black liberation.

CW: Okay, but there wasn't like one group who was central to everything?

DD: No, and if it was, it didn't feel like that. We were just ... at that point it really

was focused around the Vietnam war. And then everybody else was coming in to kind of interface

with this. So feminism was becoming more apparent at that point. And that's where all these

organizations were coming in. The organizations to protect women against various types of

violence. Our children against various types of violence. Our people of various racial

ethnic groups against some kind of violence or opportunity. And it was all up there happening

on that Y. And there was also some sort of food bank thing. It's hard to believe it but

back then there was a writer called Adelle Davis, she was very popular. She was really

into making yogurt and making your own bread and organ meats.

DD: So, it's really funny. When the armadillo started, we'd go there because we could go

for a dollar a pitcher. And we'd get a basket of chicken livers. So, then we'd get our organ

meats. ML: And Adelle, is it spelled-

DD: Adelle Davis. ML: Adelle Davis. A-D-E-L-E?

DD: I don't know. She die of cancer. Probably bad chicken liver.

ML: Okay. DD: But she had a lot of cookbooks out and

that really influenced. This was the original hippy food. You make your bread and you make

your yogurt and you eat your organ meat. We were all trying to reclaim the natural ways.

Women wouldn't shave their legs, they wouldn't shave their arms and you had hippy hair, and

long hair. It was trying to invent this new culture and it was kind of all the same thing.

So, it was rebelling against all of it. It wasn't one thing, it was everything. All of

these rules of silence and this is the proper behavior, this is your box, I think if you

were into it you were into all of it is what I'm trying to say.

CW: Right. ML: Yeah.

DD: And I was young and I was energetic and I was passionate, I don't think I had a great

deal of focus. So, some of my friends had actually started these organizations were

a lot more focused than me. I was passionate and involved.

ML: Mm-hmm (affirmative) DD: Then right around that time, because it

was right after I had turned 21, and that would've been like that April, I can't believe

so many things happened, but it wasn't that great little time, because it was 1969, so

it would've been then when I turned 21, was when I came out. And this is somewhat of a

funny story because this doesn't make any sense in today's world. But that woman I mentioned

that was a couple years older and had introduced me to some stuff. She was kind of my mentor

and she knew a lot of people who were starting these organizations. By then she was in graduate

school. CW: Okay.

DD: So, she was like a mentor for me, introducing me to things and ideas.

ML: Do you remember her name? DD: Yes. Glenda Fleyharty.

ML: Glenda Fleyharty. DD: Glenda. G-L-E-N-D-A F-L-E-Y-H-A-R-T-Y.

I think Harty. I can confirm it but she was really like a mentor for me and a close friend.

She said "I want you to meet some good friends of mine, these lesbians". I said "great I've

never met any lesbians". I wasn't opposed to it, I just like ... this is the truth,

this is crazy. So, this woman opened the door and I swear I felt like I knew I didn't, but

I felt like I fell to my knees and just plopped. I like fell in love with the minute she opened

the door. So, that's how ready I was to discover my sexuality.

DD: Now at that time, there were only two bars in Austin. There was the Pearl Street

Warehouse on 18th and Lavaca, and there was a place called The Apartment up on 29th and

kind of Rio Grande. That was called The Wrinkle Bar. Mostly older men would go. I think I

went there a few times. But everybody went to the Pearl Street Warehouse. Everybody went

to the Pearl Street Warehouse. And it was crazy. There were drag shows, there were,

it was just insane. It was also air conditioned. CW: Nice.

DD: Back then it was hot, and most of us didn't live in places that had air conditioning,

so we went there a lot. You got to understand I'm protesting by day and going to the Pearl

Street Warehouse at night. I'm doing all of it at the same time. So, I'm kind of floating

around between protesting doing feminist kind of things or now at that point then, I made

it through my passions end up being an out lesbian. So, that wall that goes around campus

wasn't there at that point. Irwin built it. CW: Right.

DD: So, whether he built it to keep us out, keep us in or keep them out or visa versa,

who knows. But we would all sit up there and cruise. You know? This was like, and I was

like a kid in a candy store. CW: Right.

DD: I discovered candy, I liked it. I like candy. So, I'm doing all of it at the same

time and my path is not that different from a lot of other kids. That's one of the things

I want to say. You're talking to somebody who did all of it, but I don't think my path

was really that different than your average kid. But I was very passionately into whatever

I did and not shy about it either. That's just my personality. I can easily throw myself

into it, both for good and for bad. ML: Yeah. So you said the Pearl Street Warehouse

was a place that a lot of people congregated, was there any separate place where LGBT community

congregated or ... DD: It wouldn't be called LBJ, LBG, whatever-

ML: Yeah. Yeah. DD: No. Back then it was gay. It was only

gay. ML: Yeah.

DD: There was no LGBT, what are the other initials now?

CW: QIA plus. DD: There you go. What's plus now?

CW: Just anything. DD: Anything. So, we've now added, yes. It

was gay. If you were a lesbian you were gay. If you were bi, you were gay. If you were,

I had never heard of the term transsexual or gender, no. We didn't, I hadn't heard of

it. Literally never heard of it. There was some transsexuals, we called that. And I remember

the first transsexual I met was in San Francisco. And that would've been in the late 70's. And

it was a man who was transitioning to a woman, and I was at a house, and we were playing

some sort of board games or something, and somebody said something about this woman sitting

next to me that's transsexual. I looked at her and I was like okay. Let's see. Huh. Her

feet do look bigger than a woman might be for her size. Her hands and I thought "oh

is that how you tell?" DD: I wasn't opposed, I didn't feel weird,

I just had never been exposed. And in fact I remember in San Francisco when I moved there

in about '75, I had never met in my life or been exposed to a mixed race family.

CW: Really? DD: Yeah. It didn't happen.

ML: Mm-hmm (affirmative) DD: Or if it did it was so uncommon that you

know, so I remember I met this woman, and she was white but her son was black because

her husband was black. And they all had different names. That was unusual. So, I remember meeting

them. This is in San Francisco in the later 70's, can you believe it? It just seems kind

of ... that's a picture if I want to paint. The boxes were very firm. This is the way

the culture is. So, I'm sure if I were black or Jewish or whatever, but for a white middle

class, and I call it by today standards maybe a little upper-middle class.

DD: I was raised generic Christian. For that kid, here's my box.

CW: Right. DD: That's just the way it was. And like I

said other cultures I'm sure had their boxes. I remember one time I was thinking about other

races boxes. Those two black people that I was exposed to that worked for my grandmother,

one was her yard guy, and there was a woman that did house stuff. I remember one time

I must've been about 13, 14, so that's like mid 60's. After JFK but before I was still

in high school. So, I asked my grandmother about, she had blacks around there, about

some of the racial things going on. And I remember she said "I always treat my negras

well". Negras. DD: That was the term nobody in my family

ever said the N word in that way. "I always treat my negras well". Just then, it was just

like on cue, this woman comes in kind of "Mrs. Lumba do you" and the guy comes in and says

"Mrs. Lumba" I looked at him and I thought, a light bulb went off and I thought "I'm sure

you don't talk like that in your home. You all have an agreement that this is the way

to behave with each other and it's all screwed, and nothing's going to change until all of

you die". CW: This was in Dallas right?

DD: Yeah, I must've been about 13 or 14. There's such a vivid memory. That realization it's

like you've got your set of behaviors, and we have our set of behaviors, and we have

an agreement about that, we're going to behave and none of it's real. It's such a vivid memory

for me. ML: Yeah.

CW: Do you know of any other people in your life who have had a similar set up with those

type of race relations? DD: We didn't talk about it. We didn't talk

about anything. What did we talk about? I don't know, just normal kind of stuff. But

you didn't talk about anything outside whatever the normative behavior was for your group.

You just didn't talk about it. So, like I said if there were people who felt like me,

and I'm certain there were, I didn't do it. DD: So, just the few times I was exposed to

it like hearing Bob Dylans music, hearing The Beatles or hearing some jazz, it was just

like "oh my god", there's people out here who are not like these people, when am I going

to meet them? I mean, nobody did. CW: What was it about The Beatles that was

different? DD: I think some of it was energy. There Elvis,

who was southern and so there was a little weirdness about that. Not, that I didn't like

Elvis, but it just didn't feel real authentic to what I want. They felt different. They

felt they had by today's standards their hair wasn't long, but it was long, the music sounded

different. They felt different. CW: Was it a similar thing with Bob Dylan?

DD: Well his lyrics. CW: The politics?

DD: Yes. I was looking for that. I was one of these kids who was ripe for politics because

I was very aware that the Mexicans I was around were treated differentially, the poor people

around, even if you were white like a migrant, they were treated differentially. Women were

treated differentially. I was acutely aware of that. I didn't know what to do with that

information, I just observed it. When I saw Texas, if you were a Mexican and you spoke

Spanish in school, it's your native language, you were beaten and sent to the principal's

office. CW: Wow.

DD: That's the way it used to be. I don't remember when it changed, but that's what

it was like where I was. And I was aware of just the inequities and the poverty and I

just didn't know what to do about it. And then the Benson's, I remember one time, they

were the rich families. One time I was out with Donny Benson, who's father, the Benson's

it was like the way a lot of families were, they owned everything. There was the Benson

that owned the bank, the Benson that owned the insurance company, the Benson that owned

the chemical company, the Benson that owned all the orchards. They just kind of owned

everything down there. CW: Mm-hmm (affirmative)

DD: And you could interface and do things for and with the Benson, but they owned all

the little pieces. Like a little southern plantation thing with our extended family.

So, they had a ranch, and we'd go out there all the time because there were the horses,

and these were my neighbors and whatever. I remember Donny and I were in the backseat

of a car, and he had I guess a shotgun, he had some kind of rifle, I don't remember why.

Nobody thinking about it. His family did a lot of hunting. There was a room that was

bigger than this entire building of animal heads and stuff from Africa.

DD: So, I'd walk in there, and I just thought "this is just weird". I would never say anything,

I just knew it was weird. CW: Mm-hmm (affirmative)

DD: I didn't like it and it was weird. So, he has the man stop the car, rolls down the

window, they had a little lake, and they had some deer out there on this little island,

the lake. He just pulls the rifle out, he's about 10 or 11, and kills a deer and says

"okay now we can drive off", and I thought "man that is just crude". I mean, I just have

these memories of something's not right. I don't fit in, and I don't like what I'm seeing.

CW: Right. DD: But where was I supposed to go? So, to

turn on the television and see The Beatles, it was just different. It was like wow okay

I like that. Or hearing Bob Dylan singing, it's like wow he's talking about some things

that feel right to me. CW: Right.

ML: Mm-hmm (affirmative) yeah. So, when you were 21, did your family know about you coming

out or was it just like coming out in general when you were on campus?

DD: No, people didn't come out to your family, you'd come out to your friends.

ML: Okay. DD: But by then I changed my friends. I mean,

I remember going to a high school girl and she had gotten married early and had a child

and stuck in San Antonio just visiting or something, we went over and were having some

beer and she made some sort of racist comment, I believe she even used the N word. And I

just thought, okay I'm never going to see you again. I didn't say anything I just got

up and left and never went back. DD: So, you understand it was a matter of

me cutting myself off from these people because we didn't have anything in common, didn't

have what I wanted, and I wasn't giving them what they wanted either.

CW: Right. DD: And when I would do stuff, another racist,

I didn't understand people couldn't mix see? Like that birthday party I said I couldn't

invite a Mexican to, a good Mexican friend. So, when I went to Texas Tech I was dating

a boy who was Japanese. About as nice a guy I ever dated. He was just really a great guy.

He was from San Antonio, he had gone to a different high school. Would've been like

a sophomore then. We made plans to go out over Thanksgiving. And the first night he

met my mother, picked me up, nice boy, we went out, I don't know what we did, it didn't

matter. He brought me back, I had a curfew, blah, blah, blah. And my mother was up and

she was just like "oh Diane, oh Diane. Alan's such a nice boy but you can't date him." I'm

like "what?" DD: "You know your father fought the Japanese

in World War II" and I'm like "yeah, and we beat them it was a long time ago, what's the

problem?" ML: Yeah.

DD: "Well you know you just can't." "Well, you think I'm going to tell that boy that?"

I was embarrassed. And the next night we had another date it ended up being our last date

because I couldn't be truthful. It was ridiculous. He brings flowers. So, here I am, this Japanese

boys, bringing me some flowers for a date and I can't invite him in my house. I swear

to god, it was like one of these Porky's revenge movies. I just take the flowers, throw them

in the house and walk out. Because I was too embarrassed to tell him what happened.

ML: Mm-hmm (affirmative) yeah. DD: That was so ... the boxes were so little

and nobody talked. CW: Right.

DD: So, I didn't know I was doing anything wrong.

ML: Yeah, so your parents didn't know anything about your political life-

DD: No, and when I did start to do a lot of protesting, my mother said to me at one point,

she said "you're my daughter and I love you, but I don't like the choices that you're making

so let's agree to not talk about them". That's what she told me.

ML: Yeah. DD: And I said "okay". And she said "when

you come home would you please shave your legs?" I said "okay". I can deal with that,

so we just never talked about it. So, my mother and I always got along, and I think I must've

been about 25 or something, a few years later when my mother started asking me about this

woman, this one, yeah, uh-huh, uh-huh. I figured, when she wants to know about my love life

she will ask, and then she did, and I told her. I waited until she was ready to hear

it. CW: Do you think that was pretty common with

your friends? Did they have similar experiences? DD: I just think yeah, people weren't coming

out in the same way. You were out with your friends and what you did was change your friends.

If they didn't like it you didn't come out to your friends.

CW: Mm-hmm (affirmative) DD: That was just the way things were. You

just wholesale changed everything. CW: Right.

DD: Moved into a different world where there weren't these same rules and restrictions.

And yes I do believe that was common, nobody talked about anything.

ML: Yeah. CW: Right.

DD: And when you did, I had a couple of good friends in college, men, there was a smaller

community. You know now, if you're a young lesbian you might be hanging out with other

lesbians, I don't really know but I'm guessing. But you understand we all hung out with each

other. It was smaller. And it was men and women, birds of a feather flock together kind

of thing. Nobody was out to their family. Because their family did not want to know.

Okay? DD: Two of the men that we hung out with,

and I shared a house with them many times, they were Texas boys. You know where they

met? When they were 14 year olds hooking themselves on park benches in LA. So, if you came out

at that point, I don't know how they came out or how their fathers found out they kicked

them out of their house. That was the message. CW: Wow.

ML: Yeah. DD: My father beat my brother, my brother's

a straight as he can be, but beat him because his hair, your hair, that would've been considered

long. CW: Wow.

DD: I mean the rules, the gender norms were so restrictive at that time.

CW: Mm-hmm (affirmative) DD: You just, girls were this way and boys

were this way. And people of a certain class or ethnicity, they are this way. The normative

behavior was so strong. Like I said, if people were having premarital sex, they weren't talking

about it. ML: Mm-hmm (affirmative)

DD: It's different when I came out, but now you're out. So, we were all hanging out with

each other. There was no male bar except for The Wrinkle Bar.

CW: Mm-hmm (affirmative) DD: It was like men and women, we were students,

we were not students. We were just all hanging out with each other living in various combinations.

It was just very flexible. CW: Mm-hmm (affirmative)

DD: The sad truth is when I run into women now or people I knew from that age or men,

because you know that entire generation of men pretty much got wiped out by AIDS. You

know what our main conversation is? Oh, how did survive, how did you live? Why are you

even alive? That is the main topic of conversation when I run into people. The men died of AIDS,

I know people who've been murdered, I know people who've been murdered by police because

of drugs, I know people who've been murdered by their partners. I know people who've died

of Hep C. I know the boy I went to the prom with in high school walked out on Loop 410

in San Antonio and loaded out of his guild and died, was killed.

DD: Most people, I don't know how I lived. It just wasn't my time. Most of my young friends

are dead. So, I experienced death at a very early age.

CW: Mm-hmm (affirmative) DD: They got killed in Vietnam, they got killed

in car wrecks, drugs, it was just, we just got wiped out. I swear. When I run into men

especially it's like "whoa, how did you survive?" We're right up front with each other. It's

like this guy Dennis Paddie, he was the one that told me, and I did not know this, I ran

into him at Central Market, and he was about, this was somewhat I think perhaps an interesting

conversation. Because he said, I ran into him at Central Market he said "did you know

that the gay liberation conference we had was the first gay conference in the nation?"

He's a writer. I said "no". CW: Wow.

DD: No, I don't know. He said "I thought you were such a punk". He said "you just came

in and acted like you were in charge" I said "Dennis, I was just a kid". And he's talking

about the political aspects. The things that were happening in New York as a gay man. But

as a young lesbian was totally different because switching more into the gay thing, for him,

he was not only being a gay but he was an adult man. He was in his later 20's. He was

very in touch with what was going on in New York and the riots that were in New York.

For my friends and the young women, you know what we were protesting was gender norm behavior.

DD: Whether as a woman, or whether as a young gay woman. Because if I go to a bar and I

want to ask somebody to dance. I'm not asking them to bed. I'm not buying them a drink.

It's like, there's some music on, you want to have a dance. Let me tell you something

what it would look like. I look like a young hippy chick, a young hippy chick has long

hair, at least yours if not longer. And if I go up to a woman like you and I ask you

to dance this is what I would get. No thank you.

DD: See, as a young woman with long hair, I can only dance with a butch dyke with short

hair. The rolled up thing. So, we were rebelling against that. That was our motivation. It

was this normative behavior, and I feel like no matter where I went that I was rebelling

against this normative behavior as a woman. I'm supposed to marry, I'm not supposed to

do what I want to do. The only professions that were allowed to me were nursing, being

a teacher, being a secretary. There were no other, you know. I was athletic, all my mother

wanted me to do was to be a gym teacher. I swear, it was just ridiculous.

DD: As a young woman, as a lesbian, I want to be out, and because I have long hair, I've

never been super femme, but I was also not a big macho dyke either. I was rebelling against

any kind of normative behavior. CW: Right.

DD: And that's for as young women, we were going to gay liberation. That's what we were

rebelling against. Normative behavior. Gender normative behavior.

CW: But even within the gay community. DD: Yeah men, who are older, there was a political

aspect to them. They were already out. CW: Right.

DD: They were already adult men. But my friends, we were young. We were just kids. Some of

us were students and some of us weren't, but it was this gender normative behavior. We

didn't like it. And in fact, when we'd go to San Antonio or to go to other, there was

clubs, huge clubs all over Texas. There was one called the ... what was it called? The

Country, and it was in the country. It was like an old armory. Have y'all heard about

this place? CW: Mm-mm (negative)

DD: I'm going to guess now it's kind of like maybe where the medical center is. Sea World.

CW: Okay. DD: That area, there was nothing out there.

It was some old armory, and it could literally hold several thousand people. Gay people,

men, women, all over Texas would come there to party. And would have drag shows every

single weekend. And different types of drag shows. High drag, low drag. It was crazy.

But in Austin if I go to a bar and ask you to dance, we just have a dance. But, if I

go to San Antonio, it's military, it's more conservative, I go and ask a girl that looks

like you to dance, what is she going to do? No way.

ML: Yeah. DD: So, me, I always had a bit of a big mouth,

we'd get in trouble in some other cities. Because the Austin crowd, we were fighting

against that norm. But even in San Antonio, even in Dallas and Houston, they still had

that gender normative behavior. That's what gay liberation meant for us.

CW: Right. ML: And so in the liberation conference you

were talking about with Dennis Paddie, was it in Austin?

DD: It was in Austin, I don't know how it was publicized. I don't think it was publicized

by me, but maybe some of these older people. I don't remember exactly where it was held.

Somewhere. But it was just like a little conference and we kind of got together and we talked,

and we had little workshops and we partied and there were people coming from around the

country. In fact I met a young woman there, actually I didn't know it at the time but

was married. So, I guess she was exploring her bisexuality. But they were from Boston.

DD: So, switching somewhat gears, I don't really remember too much about this, but I

got to bring it back at least in terms of my story, because it was all one thing. So,

as I am still protesting and what really lit a fire to student protesters was the killings

at Kent State. That just poured the gasoline on the fire that was going on. Okay?

DD: So, I got involved with a group called the Baritone Bret Gorilla Theater Group. And

it was just like an organized protester. And I was the out lesbian. In that context I wrote

for The Rag. I was the first lesbian to write for The Rag.

CW: Okay. DD: I didn't write a lot because we went,

I think I read it was May of '70. So, remember I'm coming out '69. All of this is happening

in that time frame, it was like really compressed. So, in '70, May of '70, was Kent State.

CW: Mm-hmm (affirmative) DD: And in '71 I'm with the Baritone Bret

Gorilla Theater going up to Washington for what turned out to be the largest anti-war

demonstrations. I think it was 1970. April 24th and Mayday. There's a lot of documentation

about it. So, I'm with these people up there, and Mayday was one where the purpose was to

shut down various government. Like the state department one day or the Pentagon to have

all these actions. And I was looking it up, something like 12 or 13 thousand people were

put in jail. They turned the DC stadium into a jail.

CW: Wow. DD: Okay. I told you I was going to tell you

a story about this. Because this changed me. So, I remember one time they were throwing

tear gasses and we were running, we just put stuff in the street and tried to block stuff.

There were protests and marches every day. I remember one time I found myself at the

beginning of a woman's march in Washington DC, which I had never been into before. And

the FBI were taking lots of pictures, and I'd come say "we're from Washington DC, please

come join me to lead this poor" I'd lead us to an alley. There was no help.

DD: So, it was like in your face all the time. But I remember one time running through a

hospital to get away from police. As I'm running through literally because there's no security.

I'm literally running down the hall, a corridor of a hospital, people inside are cheering

me. Like doctors, nurses, "yeah go on, get them", it was that kind of, we felt supported

with a lot of people. But there were people who always didn't agree with us.

DD: So, here's what happened. One day I was doing this action, we were putting stuff in

the street, scaffolding or whatever. Washington DC is one of these cities that was garbage

cans and stuff that's bolted to the ground on corners. Stuff like that. So, we're putting

the scaffold in the street and there was an older woman, maybe she was my age now, I don't

know, but she looked like a sort of woman who worked on her feet and was aging quickly

all of her life. Maybe worked in a store or a lunch counter kind of place. And the scaffolding,

it was totally unintentional. But it fell over and pinned her up against one of those

things. And she made a moan that I will always remember as long as I live.

DD: And it was a moan not only of pain but it was the pain of a life that was unfair.

It was like ... it's hard for me to describe. It was not just physical pain. It was this

emotional pain of more shit's happening to me and this is my life. And something snapped

in me and I thought, it's just something snapped. It changed me and my relationship to what

I was doing. Period. Because I realized that the direction I was going, I was putting myself

in situations where innocent people were going to be hurt, and I was not okay with that.

That was not going to work for me. And I didn't have any solution to this but, remember I

said I met this young woman who was in Boston? DD: I went from there to Boston, I had dropped

out of, no I didn't drop out of school. That was the semester that I was really stupid

and walked away from five classes. So, when I left UT this time I had five F's on my record.

And I went to Boston, and I worked selling newspapers and helping part of the underground

railroad smuggling soldiers into Canada and hawking newspapers and just living on a sofa.

And I did that, it wasn't too long maybe two or three weeks or so.

DD: But I got a phone call, my mother told me she called me and told me that my brother,

I guess I must've called her periodically, there was no cell phones. That my brother

had been in a life threatening car wreck and I needed to come home. So I did. That would've

been I guess in '71, and I think I went into, if I look back, into kind of an introspective

depressive kind of period of my life. I didn't really know what I wanted to do or how I fit,

because I didn't really want to protest. DD: In fact the protest things were really

kind of petering out because I remember how I talked about how every day we would do stuff.

My friend Duane who was one of these young men, Duane Berry, B-E-R-R-Y, one of these

young men who was kicked out of his home at 14 and was hooking at LA. We often lived with

each other. If you'd met us you would thought we were a married couple, but we weren't.

It was just our energy. And he was a writer. DD: And we were early bartenders. We were

working at a bar at 15th and Lavaca, and we weren't doing anything just whatever. But,

some gay people went in there to dance and somebody tried to kick them off the floor.

We knew who they were, but they were not our friends. They were not there for us. We were

bartenders. Okay? But the management tried to kick these people out and there was some

sort of tussle and police were called. And it made the newspaper, and then the management

found out that we were gay, and assumed that whatever, then we were fired. That was after

all of these demonstrations, and it was kind of hysterical.

DD: It was like people had so much pent up demand, you technically would sign up and

do two hour shifts or something. They closed that place down. So, one two hours it might

be some ... this group. All these groups had been protesting, they just got pissed off

and closed this place down. Duane and I were part, but we were just there. We got fired

because we knew some gay people who got kicked off of a floor. But that is what it was like

then. DD: But everybody was mad. If you can think

of it, it might've been like the something workers group. Or women against violence or

Chicano feminists. Whatever. You'd sign up, and you would go there, and you'd protest.

Don't go to this business, they were unfair. And that business folded up, we shut them

down. CW: That's cool.

DD: It was cool. But there was a lot of pent up demand.

CW: Yeah, yeah. DD: But at that point I was in an introspective

because I didn't know what to do and where to fit and frankly I kind of sunk into a period

of serious drug use and depression. Eventually came to and that's when I went to San Francisco.

In that way I would say kind of am like a, I can't think of anything I didn't experience

in those few years because I experienced a change in the culture, and I was involved

in all kinds of organizations, to me it was a fairness issue. Like I said, if there was

something going on and it was unfair, I was going to be protesting.

ML: Mm-hmm (affirmative) DD: And there always was. But then I kind

of went into my shell after that. With that woman, it just changed the way I, it didn't

change the way I felt about anything, but it changed the way I wanted to interface with

it. So, by the time I went to San Francisco I can honestly say at that point I worked,

I did well at work. I partied but certainly not the way I'd ever partied in the past.

If somebody said I said "well that was a disco, I was a disco dyke". There was about eight

gay bars, and I just, I was disco dyke. In the 70's, that was pre AIDS. So I just had

a good time and then I came back here and went back to school and changed careers, whatever.

DD: But I never ever, my passions never changed. I know activists who still do a lot of stuff,

but I've never wanted to go back and do that in the same way after that incident with that

woman. Like I said I can still hear her voice. And I'm not okay with it. I don't judge other

people, but I was not okay. ML: Yeah.

CW: You were saying when all the groups came together to protest that one bar, was that

kind of thing common? Was there a lot of? DD: No, I think it was a pent up demand. After

there was the Kent State, there was all the Vietnam stuff, and all of the liberation,

gay liberation, women's liberation, Chicano liberation, black liberation, everybody was

wanting to be liberated, so there was all that going on in the context of the Vietnam

war. And then were was Kent State that lit a match to the fire. And after Kent State,

what is it, Vietnam, we started to lose '72, things started to change, that was when Nixon

won. DD: I remember I was McCarther delegate at

the state convention, and I specifically remember when that happened, that was my first time

I could vote, and I remembered thinking "ah, this is as far left as we go right now, I

wonder how far right we will go". I have such a clear memory of that. Cause my mother was

always telling me, one of the things she'd say "you know, I don't really like what's

going on right now, but you, you know what? I know it will change". That's what I thought,

okay. This is it for now. We're going in that other direction I don't want to go. But that's

where we're going, I wonder what will happen. We're not going to trade, and so the rest

you know more about. DD: But that to me, the '72 election, that

was right around that time. So, I think there was a lot of pent up demand. When this injustice

happened which happened to involve women and children and gays and this club, male aggression

toward women and also with gays, it's like you just had this entire sense of community.

It's like pent up rage like "what are we going to do?" Around the time of that election and

I think that's really all it was. CW: Okay. Prior to that incident, did you

experience any other persecution towards the gay community in Austin?

DD: It wasn't too bad here. It was when you got outside. Because here, remember birds

of a feather flock together. So, I'm picking people who feel similar to me. And they're

the similar age. So, my friends were of various colors, shapes, and sizes, and we felt okay.

In fact the woman who ... this is one of these things that so and so pointed to so and so

to put in this. But the woman who pointed, got me involved in this, was interviewed yesterday.

And she's black. She's like a sister, I've known her since the older 70's. We've been

close, she's like a sister to me. DD: She lived out in California. In fact when

I moved out to California I stayed with her. And various times we stayed with each other.

So, things have just changed. She sold her condo there and decided to retire. She's an

architect. She's lived out there for 40 years. So, she moved back here last year. Anyway,

she hated Austin. She hated the racism here. She has lots of stories about that because

she was a black woman coming here to Austin at time when there were not many black women,

especially women who were, it's not that she comes from a family of privilege. Her father

was a truck driver and her mother was a maid. DD: But during the times of segregation when

they were segregating the schools, and it was in high school, because the segregation

Brown vs. Board of Education might've been 1954, but they were still integrating Texas

in the 60's. CW: Right.

DD: It started young and kind of worked it's way up. You probably know more about that

kind of history. So, she has lots of stories about what it's like to be a part of that

integration. Coming from a black high school to an integrated high school. Because of that

she was like one or two in her class or something, she got a full ride to UT because she went

from it, that was part of the deal. We'll protect these black kids from these schools

and put them in mixed schools, and here we're going to give these couple of kids free rides.

She was the first person in her family to go to college.

DD: But she has lots of stories about that. She's like my sister. She's the one that introduced

me. Because her stories have more to do with being a black woman. But as she told them

in her stories, she had to, for her, she was black and a woman and gay. And what I've noticed

when you've got these triple things like that, people tend to have some emotional resonance

towards something. And she said what she noticed was within the black community they were homophobic.

So, her allegiance has always been more as a lesbian. Because the black community was

homophobic also. ML: Mm-hmm (affirmative)

DD: And I guess to me it was because I come from a political family, it's always about

any kind of injustice anywhere. I don't care what it is. I just don't like any of it. But

I can't say, well I identify as a lesbian but I've always identified as politically

left. From such a very early age. That's very important to me. Didn't have those terms back

then. All I knew is, this sucks, that's not fair and ... okay.

ML: Yeah. DD: Anyway, so

we were all hanging together, so being in Austin no I didn't really notice anything.

CW: Okay. DD: When we got out of Austin, even talking

about going to that bar. I can't even ask a young woman to dance.

CW: This is at the country in San Antonio? DD: In San Antonio, but it was the same in

any city. I tell you a couple stories. I remember one time Duane and I were in San Antonio,

and we were staying with my mother, and we went to a bar, remember they got a lot of

military people, the women are military dykes. And they kept coming up asking me to dance.

And we're just drinking and drinking and laughing because it's like, they can't figure us out.

A man and a woman sitting there drinking in a gay bar. And this woman would ask me to

dance, all of them, and I would just say thank you. We'd just laugh and we're just drinking

and okay. I'm sure we were quite drunk. DD: At one point some woman comes up to me

and says "what are you?" Like you have to have a role. I said "why don't you pick one

and I'll take the other". You know? So, it was like that. I was rebelling against this

role. And I remember one time we went to Houston, we'd go to other cities to party. That's where

I noticed it. We were out of sync with this gender norm behavior.

CW: Right. DD: So, we'd go to these bars and it was the

same thing. I remember we were waiting in line in the bathroom. What woman hasn't gone

to a bar has to wait in a line at the bathroom, there's never enough bathrooms, right?

ML: Yeah. DD: And I was of course drunk, and I've always

had a big mouth. And there was this woman who I remember she was color coded, she had

cowboy boots on kind of an aquamarine kind of color but very macho. And her girlfriend

was like this washed out Bridgette Bardot thing, bleached blonde trashy looking. I mean

they would look ... so, I don't exactly what happened but I said something probably I'm

sure inappropriate. This woman pulled a switchblade on me in the bathroom. But there were a lot

of people around. I just went "oh, how butch". Of course everybody laughed at her.

DD: So, that's where I noticed it. When we get out of our little cocoon of Austin, I

would notice it. But here in my little cocoon it felt pretty safe. When we went home to

our families it was not okay, I was told not to talk about it.

CW: Mm-hmm (affirmative) ML: Mm-hmm (affirmative)

DD: I don't know anybody who was really out to their family. We were ourselves so our

family, it was one of those things because remember we were coming from a situation where

there was an agreement not to talk about things that were different. That was the society

that all of us were in regardless of whether you were black or Hispanic friends in Mexico

it was the same thing. That was a way in which it was the same no matter what your socio-economic

religious ethnic group was. There was an agreement, nobody talks about anything.

ML: Mm-hmm (affirmative) yeah. DD: And I actually know a lot of people who

when their parents push them about stuff, and say "well you're hanging out with such

and such" and they'll say "yeah, well birds of a feather flock together" and their parents

were just kind of like, I don't know how I can tell you that, they wouldn't believe you

if you came out sometimes. "Oh it's a phase. It's not real." Well why are you hanging out

with them? Well, birds of a feather flock together. People would say this to their family

and still their families wouldn't get it. It was bizarre.

CW: Yeah it is. ML: Yeah. So, within your friend group, you

were talking about one of your friends who identified more with lesbian politics and

stuff like that instead of more African American politics, and you also said your friend group

was very diverse as well right? DD: Yeah, absolutely.

ML: Is there like any other type of people that were kind of similar to other than what

you just described? Who like was probably identified more with being gay than politically?

DD: Well, all my friends once I came out, they were gay, but because I was still protesting

there was that political group. And because of that and because of that woman I told you

at Glen Foot, then there was the feminist group and the people up there. So, I was moving

among all those groups. CW: Gotcha.

DD: The purely social ones that came out was mostly gay people at that point and going

to the bar. But you know we were also going to Armadillo where there was a mixed group.

And I was totally comfortable in that. Because I had friends who were more in the feminist

realm, and I had friends in the more gay realm, which is male female.

CW: Right. DD: And I had friends that were more in the

political realm. So, I was flexible I would say amongst all those groups. I felt totally

comfortable. I didn't feel a need to pick whereas my friend CT felt like she needed

to kind of pick given where she was coming from. But, I didn't feel that way. So ...

ML: So Armadillo, was that a bar? DD: Really? Y'all don't know? Oh Google it.

ML: Okay. DD: Armadillo world headquarters.

CW: I feel like I've heard of that. DD: Oh my god. How lucky was I to experience,

it was special. It was up there on Barton Springs Road, there's the bank there. It was

owned at that point by the guy who owns Thread Gills, he built this. And it had a huge outdoor

garden, and it had a stage. And music. So it was like, a place where, this is a time

about when Willy Nelson moved from Nashville to Austin.

CW: Right. DD: So, he was very well known as a musician

and as a writer but obviously he was not in sync with their political system. So, he moved

back to Texas. He was here and he was bringing in people like Waling Jennings and that was

then bringing in all the old black blues singers, Etta James, the BB King's, who were those

people. Kind of the outlaw country. CW: Right.

DD: That's the Armadillo. And the blues. But Annie Turiac would come through here, it's

like, Bette Midler first got her start singing in gay bathhouses in New York with Barry Manilow

and a singer named Melissa Manchester. So, somehow or another they decided they would

do this tour. Somebody was paying for it I'm sure. And they performed at Armadillo. Don't

ask me how. But the stage was like this, but if you sat down it kind of went like this.

DD: So, I literally was underneath the stage but then you stood up so I'm like this. So,

you just go in there. There's beer. I don't think I had any but it's just like beer, you

just smoke your joint right there on stage. Bette Midler literally came over and took

my joint and [crosstalk 01:05:49] CW: As you're like leaning on the stage.

DD: Yeah, in my hippy drag and my cowboy hat and yes. So, I was part of all of that. And

it was cheap, I don't remember how we did it. But we went out all the time. It was either

Pearl Street or Armadillo. But it was where what we called the Austin sound, that's where

it was born. That's outlaw country, that was the first, one of the worst experiences of

my life was Willy Nelson's first fourth of July picnic. It was in the middle of, it felt

like a million miles. But it wasn't. I know right now it's like up in Dripping Springs.

There was no road, there was no highway, there was no water, there was no bathroom.

DD: We're stuck in line and it's dusty, it's hot, we get out there, they weren't prepared

for 30 thousand people or what it was that showed up. I mean, everybody who was anybody.

Chris Christopherson was there. You know, I don't think Johnny Cash was, but Wailing

Jennings, all the old people. It all happened. It was born at the Armadillo.

CW: Right. DD: Okay. That was a horrible day. They weren't

prepared for us. It was our little Woodstock. CW: Yeah.

DD: I don't know what they thought but they were not prepared for us. We were all just

passing out. No water, no bathrooms. They got the drugs, we have the drugs, no water,

no bathrooms. It was not fun. I think that was my first and only Willy Nelson picnic.

CW: Yeah. DD: That was the Austin scene.

CW: Right. DD: So, I was doing that too.

CW: Do you think the outlaw country scene had an impact on the political scene, the

activism going on in Austin? Or is it more just a purely social thing.

DD: No, I think it was kind of the other way around. At first when you first were doing

political activism, that's a good question, it's smoking dope. You were assumed to be

a hippy. That's what you assumed. When outlaw country started, those people started doing

dope and it gave us, we started going to the same places. And in fact, there was a place,

I loved this place so much and I loved this woman. She's one of the most interesting people

I ever met. Her name was Virginia. She had a café on first street called Virginia's

Café. DD: It was very small, she was the only person

there. It was her place. It was a lunch counter and she'd couple little tables. And she was

a remarkable human being. She had as good a memory as any human being I ever met in

my life. There was an older man that was always there. I never knew whether it was her father

or her husband. She had this kind of flawless complexion and beauty that was timeless. And

as a young person you kind of don't know how old somebody else is. So, I really didn't

know. DD: She had that perfect beautiful handwriting,

that's old fashioned. People don't write like this. They didn't write it back then. It was

southern style. You pick one of the three meats and three of the vegetables and she'd

give you a plate lunch. And somebody turned me onto that and when I went there, the reason

why I'm saying this, it was a truck stop for working class guys. Now here the hippy's show

up. So, this is early 70's or something. And I remember she would talk to me, I was polite,

I was raised to be polite. And that was important to her.

DD: And I liked her food, and she was appreciative. So I would sit at the counter, we would talk.

And I remember what she said to me one time. She said "you know, people say they don't

like these hippies, but I don't feel that way. They like my food, and they're polite,

so they're welcome here". So, it was separated. I think what outlaw country did was put dope

and music and hippies and working class people together. Then you started seeing, you used

to be able to tell, I had a little bit of long hair as a hippy.

DD: Then guys started having longer hair, and they were working class guys. They were

truck workers. I think it was somehow it was dope and music that put it all together.

CW: Right. DD: Yep, absolutely. It was interesting.

ML: Yeah, did you see any of those working class people supporting the protests?

DD: Absolutely not. ML: Okay.

DD: Absolutely not. In fact, I always had work study jobs and I remember one time I

worked at some office by the west mall, one of those buildings, something was in there.

I would say it had something to do with graduate students or something. Doing some clerical

work. But there was a fair number of middle aged women in there who had sons who were

in Vietnam. And remember I'm wearing the little band of the day. And oh, it was like walking

into a war zone there. They got me fired, I didn't mind, I found another job. It was

no big deal, it was work study. DD: But no, you know. There was that element

around but we kind of kept to ourself. But once at the Armadillo we were all uniting

and watching the music, and everybody now was smoking dope.

CW: Mm-hmm (affirmative) DD: And eating at Virginia's Café. In fact,

the last time I went to Virginia's Café, I had moved to San Francisco, I hadn't been

back in four years, and I went there. And no joke, I swear to god, I walk in and that

woman not only remembers, she remembered our last conversation.

CW: Really? DD: I was like how could this be? I didn't

remember it. And everything was organized all over her tables was very symmetrical.

Three of this, two of that, she was an amazing human being. And I remember I'm sitting at

this counter and these two young men, they kind of look like frat boys sat down, and

I didn't pay any attention to him. They had their lunch.

DD: But I guess she didn't like them and the way they acted. They paid the bill, it's a

lunch counter and she leans over and she says "I don't like you and I don't want you to

ever come back to my place" and she leans in and "I will remember you" and these boys

were like. And I looked them and said "yeah and she will too".

CW: Wow. DD: But yeah, I loved that place, I never

knew what happened to her. When I came back moved back again it was gone. So, she was

a very interesting human being but that place where we started to mix together. There was

always working class people obviously. They didn't want to be around us and we didn't

want to be around them. We just weren't. CW: Gotcha.

DD: But the Armadillo. You go into Armadillo, it's outlaw country or rhythm and blues and

the pot is flowing everywhere. End of sentence. Anything goes. And in fact one time CT was

with me, my friend that I was talking about. We went to see Etta James, they busted her

for doing heroin or something during intermission. It was just over. They said "shows over, taking

her to the police". CW: Wow.

DD: It's like "what?" It was crazy times. CW: That's wild.

DD: But it was short-lived. It was gentrification. Some bank bought them out and zoning and it's

the typical Austin story. CW: Yeah.

DD: But there's a lot of artwork, you can Google it. It was a big deal. Willie Nelson

for a dollar a pitcher. CW: That's amazing.

DD: It was a lot of fun. CW: I want to take it back a little bit to

the Gorilla Theater Troop. DD: Yes.

CW: Sharing more about that, what kind of activities did you all do here in Austin?

DD: In Austin? I was kind of a late comer to that. Like I said I remember I wrote because

I was an out lesbian, and there was that conference, I can't exactly tie it together. I don't really

remember too much of anything, I mean the most anything I remember was it's about the

time I was writing for The Rag, and it was just protests. We as a group went together

to Washington DC to protest. CW: Right.

DD: 11 hippies in a VW bus. CW: Was was the name of the group again?

DD: Baritole Breck like the writer Gorilla Theater Group. And some of those people were

a few years older than me and they were not, I was the only lesbian, I was the only gay

person in that group that I know of. How I got involved in it, I have no idea. I really

don't remember. But we went there to be involved in these actions. To shut down the government.

And for me at that point ... my heart was really in the social sciences,

things may be different now. But at that point if you were majoring in one of the social

sciences you had to have two years of language. CW: Yes.

DD: Still do? CW: It depends on the language. I have to

be in three semesters of Spanish. But you got to have some sort of foreign language.

DD: Well, it doesn't run in my family. We all suck at it. So, I've taken it a lot and

I've failed at many. So, I had to find another major. So, I was transiting around UT trying

to find some other field to be in. I knew I was not going to go in education, because

I was not going to be a PE teacher because that's what my mother wanted me to do. So,

I ended up in journalism, and that may be how I got in the Baritole Breck Gorilla Theater

Group, because I was taking some journalism. DD: So, one of the motivations for me was

to go to a place where news was being made and see it being made.

CW: Mm-hmm (affirmative) DD: And to see what was written about it.

And so this is what I learned. We'd get up early, we were staying at somebody's parents

house in Bethesda and we'd go in to do these actions in various governmental agencies,

there's plenty written about Mayday. CW: Right.

DD: And April 24th, which is, they're very important in terms of Vietnam history. There's

plenty written about it. We'd go in and do these actions, and then we'd go back to Bethesda,

and then I'd turn on the news so that Walter could tell me what was going on. I was shocked,

I had no idea. What I saw and what I saw in the national NBC or whatever network, was

not the same thing. It was an eye opener for me.

CW: What was different about it? DD: I was seeing support from when I was running

down the hospitals and stuff, I was seeing support from people in the Washington community.

They were making it sound like we were outside agitators, didn't feel like that. It felt

like we were representing the people who lived there. We just kind of projected as young

people who were outside agitators, unhappy with the system. It was a lot deeper than

that. Yeah, we were young, but the young are the people who fight the war. Like now, I

mean I'm 70 years old but I have the same allegiances and passions that I used to. But

I'm not going to be out there on the front line, but you know what, I'm going to give

you money to these people. You know? I'm going to draft to Beto.

DD: My fervent goal is that somebody under 70 runs for president. It's like give me a

break. You know, my generation needs to support the next generation. It's like I want us to

get out of the way. But they talked about it like we were these outside agitators. And

I felt like we were representing the people and we were not coming there to cause problems

but we were to highlight hypocrisy in these agencies. This is what the Pentagon is doing

to create this war. This is what the state department is doing to fund this, you know

what I'm saying? That was our attitude. CW: Right.

ML: Yeah. And so, you getting involved with journalism also kind of led you to The Rag

or? DD: I'm thinking that probably is that. The

Rag and Baritole Brick, I'm thinking maybe. And god only knows who I met up there because

I was around the Y a lot doing volunteer work in a very varieties organization. If I didn't

have any money I'd go over there and cook food and eat at that soup kitchen. I was just

around. ML: Yeah.

DD: So, that probably is how I got into it. ML: Mm-hmm (affirmative) are there like any

things you want to bring up about The Rag, your time there? You remember?

DD: It wasn't like there there, it was like I wrote articles as a lesbian, what it was

like. I haven't read it, I'd be too embarrassed to read it at this point, it's like what would

I have said as a 20, it's one of those things like ... I don't want to know. As a 21 year

old young person, what would I have said. Like I said I was passionate.

ML: Did anyone write to you? [crosstalk 01:21:22] DD: Yes I did get some letters like that.

It just frankly embarrassed me to tell you the truth. Because I may be passionate and

I'm social but what I realized is I've noticed I'm really an introvert. So like a lot of

people, alcohol and drugs was a social lubricant for me.

CW: Right. DD: But I didn't understand that at the time.

CW: Right. ML: Mm-hmm (affirmative) were they mostly

lesbians writing to you? DD: Oh yeah.

ML: Okay. DD: It just embarrassed me.

CW: Do you remember any of what they would write to you about? Was it supportive, or

were they trying to open a bigger discussion? DD: I don't think they were trying to open,

it was more like fan mail. CW: Okay.

ML: Okay, cool. DD: It felt a little more personal, a little

more like fan mail. And it was cut short because that's when I went to Washington, that's where

that woman got hurt. Then I went to Boston, that's when my brother got hurt. So, when

I cam back I just went internal for a while. ML: Yeah.

DD: And it wasn't pretty. So, I don't really know. I imagine that, I'm guessing that was

the end of Bertolt Brecht, that was the end of writing for The Rag, that was the end of

a lot of stuff for me, because it was just ... just cut. But yes I did get letters, and

I just remember feeling embarrassed. ML: Yeah.

DD: And no, I've never read it again. And there was some stuff for meetings in The Rag,

but see I didn't really hang out at The Rag. Most of those people were a little older than

me. CW: Right.

DD: A lot of them were young adults. I was what, early 20's? I was a little bit younger

than most of those people. At that age two years could be a lot.

CW: Yeah. DD: How old are you guys?

CW: I'm 22. ML: 21.

DD: Yeah, so you're about the same. But you know what I'm saying? A 19 year old is totally

different than where you are. CW: Yeah.

ML: Yeah. DD: And a 24 year old is totally different

than where you are. ML: Yeah.

DD: At my age you don't notice it. But at that age it's a big difference.

CW: Right. DD: So, they were just a little bit older,

they were more like grad student types, just a little bit older. So, I have no idea.

ML: Yeah, I just want to bring it back a little bit, so you were talking about your friend

group, you said they were both non-students and students, so you guys were within the

same age range? DD: Yes. That was true.

ML: Okay. DD: Definitely there were people who were

a couple of years older than me, some were grad students. And a lot of people, maybe

they went to school part-time or had been involved at UT. We were all sort of involved

and around UT. Even those bars we were talking about in the conference room were all around

UT, but Austin wasn't as big as it is now. I lived in a lot of different places, but

I don't think I ever lived south of Altdorf or north of about 38th. Or west of Burnett,

you know what I'm saying? CW: Yeah.

DD: Or east of, one time I did live out toward Airport a little bit, but the core was kind

of small, smaller. And I lived in a lot of different places because there was a lot of

lower rent properties. If you see something that's new, which mostly things are around

there, I promise you I could've lived in what that was. In fact I lived in an apartment

with the infamous Duane Berry, where it was an old house, but became the Dobbie Mall.

And I remember it was un-air conditioned it was hot. But we could walk over to Pearl Street

because it was air conditioned. CW: Right.

DD: So, some of our reasons we were going out was because it was too damn hot to be

in our place. And I remember, this just tell you something about what it was like, it was

kind of fluid, I remember one time Duane and I were sitting around and he was saying, we

had a friend named Judy Elmquist, and she died of cancer, I wasn't here, but about in

her 40's she was down at A&M. So, Duane's dead, Judy's dead, like I said most of my

friends of that age were gone for a variety of reasons. And Duane said "is Judy living

with us right now?" I said "I don't know". Well she's around a lot. I said "the other

day I saw her wearing some clothes saw her on campus" said hmm. We're like being a detective.

DD: So, we're like going around trying to figure out if Judy's living with us and finally

we find a hair dryer and we decided her hair dryer's here, she must be living with us.

It was just like that back then. We were all young. And we were just like, okay. Somebody's

dog would show up and we'd be like "you want to stay here for a week or two?", it was very

fluid. You know? ML: Yeah.

DD: One time I lived in this little lean two. It's like a one bedroom, it's much smaller

than this. Half this size. Everything was in one room. A little bathroom, place, but

everything was in one room. And Duane loved country music and was a writer, and he liked

to tell stories and he would get drunk and he would just tell me all these stories about

all these poor black women, the singers. Billy Holiday and Tammy Wynette and her husband,

would just get drunk and cry in her beer. He was that guy.

DD: I guess we decided I was going to drop some acid and go spend the weekend at Duane's

place. He didn't live that far away and I had a car. It came on a little too quickly.

It wasn't acid, some mushroom or something, something psychedelic, and I remember I opened

my one little closet that was my pantry and my closet, and this rat jumped out. Things

were a mess. This rat jumped out, I picked this box up and it trailed about three feet.

Okay? The tail. And I thought "oh my god". I thought "I'm too stoned to deal with this"

and I just dropped it and I just walked out. You know what? I just never went back. Just

left whatever I had. Just go to the equivalent of Goodwill and start over. It was just like

that. DD: I think that's something you can't do

except when you're very young. ML: Yeah.

DD: So, everything was very kind of fluid. ML: So, there's no like dorm life or anything

like that? DD: No, I lived in a boarding house for one

year, and then I lived in an apartment with a girl that I had known from my church group.

And that was when she was going one way, and I was going another. Because that's when I

came back, and been in San Antonio, as soon as I came back. So, I shared an apartment

with her, it's like whoa, wow. That relationship was severed pretty quickly. And then I lived

in a house over on Pearl Street close to 29th, big house. And it was five bedrooms, five

people. And men and women. I remember my mother was appalled, she said I couldn't tell my

father because he wouldn't approve that I was a woman living in a house with men. I

said "we all have our own bedrooms, this is not unusual". That was that weird back then.

ML: Yeah. DD: So once I came out, that was my social

life. But here again. Anyway, I don't really. What else come to your mind? Did I answer

your question? ML: Yeah, just kind of general living situations,

you said it was very fluid. DD: It was pretty fluid.

ML: Okay. DD: And maybe you have a girlfriend or boyfriend

or something and you go live with them for a while. Or they come live with you. It was

very fluid. But I think that's more common among young people. It just was fluid. Nobody

really thought too much about anything. And nobody told their parents anything, but the

parents didn't want to know. I don't know if that's changed. But these things are so

totally different now. DD: And that's the thing I would say, y'all

don't understand how different your world is. In a good way. I know there's a lot more

stressors on young people, but ... it gives you, to me, so much more opportunity to create

the world you want. We were expected to live in the world and to choose the world and be

the world our parents created, and their parents created, and their parents before them. To

me it's like the beauty of where you are right now is you are free to invent the world you

want to live in. DD: My message to young people is create the

world you want to live in. Be the world, that you want to be. And enough of all of this

bullshit from my generation or other generations. Because it's your world, y'all create it,

let people like me back you up because we will.

ML: Thank you. DD: That's how I feel about it, we will back

you up. Physically if necessary, but financially for sure, and with whatever support you want.

But, I am just so excited by not just Millennials, but you're young enough to be what gen, you're

right there. CW: Gen Z I think is what I've heard.

DD: I love it, the New York times had a piece, it was so great, I think it's still in there.

Just one picture. 50 pictures with just a sentence or two of Gen-C's talking about who

they are. And the language is so different. It's language that no one my age or people

of my generation would ever do. It's like I keep wanting somebody to ask Trump how he

feels being a cis-gender man. You see, they don't know what the language is. The language

has changed. DD: These young people, they talk differently.

They're just describing who they are, and it's in such a different way. It's just totally

different. That language to me, means that you guys are going to create a different world.

ML: Yeah. DD: We had a box. We had sets of boxes, and

our choice was to be in the box or just, you get to create your own boxes is how it looks

to me. Be careful what you pick. Right? But I think its great, I love it. This old person,

I'm here to say, that most people I know, we are ready to back you guys up. And I just,