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OLYMPIA VI

A UNIQUE

SCOUT JAMBOREE

At times it resembled a panoplied mediaeval tent city; at times it looked like an ankle-deep cranberry bog. There were moments when the whole weekend took on the aspects of a scout jamboree and still others when the scene looked like a mechanized version of the best of "Ben Hur."

It was the Centaur Motorcycle Club's annual run. Olympia VI, and there were trumpets, athletic competitions, bike and buddy-rider events, outdoor cooking, sound and light shows, a myriad of cocktail parties, fantasies fulfilled, fireworks, a swimming pool awash in Brigadoon dry ice for a night of hot disco, 200 men and lots of rain. It was Culpepper, Virginia and a weekend to be reckoned with.

There are as many kinds, styles and combinations of runs a word instantly recognized in the motorcycling worldas people who attend them. They range from the primitive to the elegant but all have several things in common: they are for men, they are put on by clubs, and they offer a chance to meet new faces away from the everynight bar

scene.

Because of Olympia VI's location on top of a Blueridge foothill, some particularly severe rain storms during July and August (which managed to stay through the weekend), and a road which occasionally resembled an overland trail, all guest vehicles were parked at the bottom, in a nearby field, where a registration table and welcoming beverages were set up:

Shuttle vans plied the increasingly impassible road laden with tents, poles, sleeping bags, pillows, assorted leather equipment, one lawn chair, duffle and bike saddlebags from early Friday evening through the night.

The rain stopped and the movie equipment was broken out to show the film "Ulysses' (the one with the cyclops, not the Joyce version). The Centaurs officially welcomed their guests with a sound

and light multimedia presentation, whose finale was a torchlight parade under a starless sky. The jock hop disco warmed up the bodies and there were even those Esther Williams types who provided in-pool entertainment

of questionable competence and sobriety. Stag films were replaced by some live-action under the adjacent trees.

Saturday saw a change of location from the mountaintop to the valley for a day of obstacle courses, discus, jousting on motorcycles, a unique drag race that the Washington Academies would have appreciated, buddy rider events and hot air balloon trips. A box lunch in the field, serious bike christenings, attire which ranged from boots and tube socks, souwesters and ponchos to levis, gym shorts and bathing suits a noon-time cocktail party on an Olympic theme, all made a gray day considerably brighter. There was a tugof-war and a swim relay back on the mountain, and a series of cocktail parties through the evening, whose themes were imaginative and impressive and whose libations were lethal. A banquet for the gods was prepared just in time for it to drizzle on the poolside diners. Most were undaunted and feasted on. This was a formal dress

evening: leather, lumberjack, paratroop, uniform, boots, bike caps, cowboy hats. Somehow, the blend and mix all made sense.

The rain stopped in time for the Olympia awards ceremony, opened by a nude torchbearer. Fanfares heralded

Lifestyle

Coming Out

INTO THE LIGHT

Fifty-six-year-old Arthur was a successful professional man. His world was abruptly shattered one day when someone said to him, "You like boys don't you?"

That question was all it took to crush Arthur, crush him under the weight of all the fear he had carried for so long. He feared not only for his profession, but for his loving, caring wife (who never quite understood the private unshared mystery in Arthur's personality) and his three now mostly grown children.

This gentle sounding man spent a month following the devastating question getting up the nerve to pick up the phone and cry "Help!" Building any kind of relationship with another person over the phone is really difficult, yet Ma Bell provided the only link between Arthur's deep fears and some sense of calm and rational reality.

"How will my wife and children handle the truth about me?" Arthur wondered agonized really as he fled from the sting of that question: "You really like boys don't you?" "I wanted to shout 'Yes!' but I laughed it off and buried the pain deep inside with all the other pains I have stored up all my life." All those pains, so carefully concealed were waiting to be activiated by the next insensitive comment or question.

For the first time, now, Arthur heard the voice of someone not condeming and insensitive, and he gained the courage to say, "I'm a homosexual, and I never told a single person in my entire life until this moment. What do I do? I am so alone and frightened. I can't continue to live in this darkness."

That phone call was just the beginning. There were many more calls afterward, many in the middle of nights of

pain and great darkness, and others in the midst of days of darkness. Later Arthur and I had what was for him a real first-person, face-to-face meeting. Arthur was talking with another person who was unafraid to say "I'm a homosexual."

Now Arthur began the long, hard walk down the road into the light of being honest, of standing in the truth. The walk was not easy, but Arthur was walking it on his own.

Next, Arthur met with several people who were gay, and he experienced the joy of discovering that they were really quite a lot like him, and that they faced many of the same problems.

Finally, with his newly gathered strength, Arthur shared who he really was with his wife and family. "I began to feel that life had new meaning. I knew I wanted to share the wonderful revelation that is now my very own: No one has to live in darkness; there is light enough for everyone." Arthur experienced real joy on that day when he discovered his new light was also light for his wife and family, as they uncovered the deep love for each other found in shared honesty.

Arthur wondered how many others were still trying to work up the nerve to pick up the phone or walk into a meeting with other gay people. He began to think he could be on the other end of the phone to listen to someone's else's cry for help.

After 56 years, Arthur felt really good. He was just beginning to like himself, to love himself. Arthur didn't even worry about finding a relationship with another man. He had found one with himself. Rev. Larry J. Uhrig

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