GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE OCTOBER 1, 1995

COPIER SERVICE

& SUPPLY CENTER

SERVING YOU SINCE 1977

"Your Complete Parts, Sales, Supply & Service Center"

INC

NEW & USED COPIERS TO FIT ALL YOUR NEEDS

WE BUY, SELL & LEASE COPIERS

Service & Supply Specialists for most makes and models of COPIERS, FAX MACHINES, and

LASER PRINTERS including;

ADLER ROYAL CANON GESTETNER HARRIS/3M

LANIER HEWLETT PACKARD

MITA MONROE OLIVETTI

KONICA ROYAL MINOLTA

PANASONIC PITNEY BOWES -

RICOH SANYO SAVIN SHARP TOSHIBA XEROX

SUPPLIES FOR ALL MACHINES

Service Contracts Available For Many Models Remanufactured Copier & Laser Toner & Drum Cartridges

398-7755

7711 BROOKPARK ROAD CLEVELAND, OHIO

FAST SERVICE ON ALL PERSONAL SIZE COPIERS

Ask for Terrie or Todd

FOR THE FAMILY THAT'S NOT QUITE NUCLEAR.....

ABOVE THE FRUITED PLAIN

Noise in the peanut gallery

by Aubrey Wertheim

Picture the coiffured hedge, the suburban cloister that is Westlake, Ohio. Picture the well-funded, professionally-muralled middle school in which it takes such understandable pride. Attend to the reports for AfricanAmerican History Month droning on in Mr. Noll's second-period science class.

Beneatha Tremont is concluding her presentation on George Washington Carver: "And besides all his agricultural contributions, according to this book in the library, Dr. Carver was, well, you know, gay."

At every desk, glazed eyes slam up like floodlamps. Sweat pelts from Mr. Noll's face faster than his blotter can absorb. Bucky, the lone Science Department guinea pig, freezes on her wheel.

Only the bell breaks the collective deepspace silence and jettisons the students out of the room, in the hall, where they seize the first students they crash into. Within three minutes, the news is reverberating in every available ear at Westlake M.S.

By lunchtime, great show is given to ejecting, from box or bag or cafeteria tray, peanut butter sandwiches, peanut butter cookies, anything suspected of mere trace elements of the now-dreaded goober.

Even innocent pecan sandies are hurled into garbage cans with a violence usually reserved for health snacks sweetened with fruit juice.

By the end of the school day, students, faculty and related personnel known or suspected to be gay, lesbian, bisexual or simply cool with the issue find crude peanut graffiti on their lockers, carrels, gym baskets, cars... Everybody races home.

Imagine a group of outraged parents meeting that evening in the spacious but uninspiring community room of Westlake Unitarian (ecumenically neutral territory). An ad hoc committee-Stop Questionable and Ungodly Education of Little Children— is formed and by-lawed.

SQUELCH demands and secures a meeting

COMMITMENT Vows

I perform ceremonies outside the traditional fold with sincere respect for each couple who love, honor & cherish each other.

Please call Rev. Renee Goodman 216/247-2772

with the middle school principal, superintendent, and school board.

The Superintendent is shocked and appalled that perverts are held up as American heroes. A full review of the science curriculum is pledged.

School board members are mortified to hyperventilation that educational media is being purchased which exposes Westlake young to sodomite role models. A Community Review Committee (made up of parents and religious leaders) is mandated to oversee all library material.

Standing alone, the principal denounces this "self-righteous closing of the middle school mind" and vows to fight any "nutcase crusade" bent on destroying the educational integrity of her institution.

The following morning, she discovers her windshield shattered by a tray of still-cooling, half-baked peanut brittle.

Things get uglier.

A rash of product-tampering strikes stores who refuse to remove peanut-related products from their shelves.

The town council cancels the construction of several Habitat for Humanity, houses given their affiliation with a former U.S. president whose objectionable farming roots could not be overlooked.

seml

Jack-booted, torch-wielding mothers of SQUELCH hold a wildly popular book-burning of Carver biographies seized from school and municipal libraries. When a gigantic effigy of Mr. Peanut (a group project of Westlake Boy Scout Troop 792) is hoisted onto the blaze, crowd response might have set a Guinness record for reactionary clamor, but everybody was too caught up to think about it.

Following the removal and replacement of the principal and all but three of its thirtyseven teachers, Westlake Middle School has finally, blessedly been restored to academic calm.

At a compulsory assembly, a pre-eminent historian, graciously pplied by the Heritage Foundation, restored Carver to his standing as Legendary Scientist: "We mustn't malign a lifetime bachelor for merely relishing occasional wrestling bouts with favorite male students. This great nation boasts a proud heritage of much-misunderstood men of genius. Look at Horatio Alger. Look at Bill Tilden...”

To smooth the transition, FBI agents are temporarily placed in every class, discreetly crouching behind classroom flags to note any lesson-plan editorializing or inappropriate pupil inquiry.

Let us listen in on third-period American History as students recite their assignments for Twentieth Century Champions of Liberty. A strangely self-confident Beneatha Tremont stands to deliver her report.

"J. Edgar Hoover," she begins, "was a man of contradictions..." ✓

Above the Fruited Plain is a regular column by Aubrey Wertheim, a writer based in Oberlin.

Housing values at match our famil

یقرانی

Realty One

A K

call John to da....

• 991-8400

• 975-2056

According to statistics, 298 days out of the year in Cleveland are

Vacation anyone?

cloudy.

Greca RoadTras el

2111 South Green Road, 216 381-8080 Open Weekdays 9-5:30, Saturdays 10-2