Helen, I started to answer your questions about AIDS and climate change, then life overtook me and I am now prompted to share more. For the moment all I want to say is that many of those most at risk of catching AIDS spent years in denial and our gay friends who came through were those in stable relationships. I was writing about climate change as long ago as 1973. ‘Spaceship Earth or Fireball’. It was 1967 when I first heard eco conservationists speaking and became a believer of stable state economics. I still am. Like with AIDS, we are in denial about climate change, with a few exceptions. Many will die of that I am sure. Your excellent story was prescient by any measure. 🐰
I was a young person in middle school when we first heard about AIDS. We saw photos of young gay men with Kaposi sarcoma spots, thin gaunt, dying. I knew no one who was gay because they were closeted in my Protestant Christian community. I studied Microbiology in college and learned about Mycobacterium avium complex, PCP—pneumocystis pneumonia, not the Angel dust drug, lymphoma, & others. They plagued those whose immune systems were rendered defenseless.
Then, we were in lab, and listening to the radio when the breaking news came that Earvin “Magic” Johnson of the Lakers had HIV. We became somber. One of heroes just got served a death sentence. He had acquired it while sleeping with women on the road—and HIV awareness grew even more so than when Rock Hudson the actor had died.
I listened to a friend who worked at Manhattan in the clinics in those days. So many of his friends gone in weeks and months. It was heartbreaking.
~~~
Thanks for the amusing provoking share, Sandra. I had just read in the Farmer’s Almanac publication about polar vortexes and the warming of the earth when I read you email/post. #weather
You write about us humans so well! Well, us American humans anyway. Why notice the climate is changing when there is a Super Bowl to watch? I have all the things in the ads at half time or wish that I did. I'm good!
Love this!
Helen, I started to answer your questions about AIDS and climate change, then life overtook me and I am now prompted to share more. For the moment all I want to say is that many of those most at risk of catching AIDS spent years in denial and our gay friends who came through were those in stable relationships. I was writing about climate change as long ago as 1973. ‘Spaceship Earth or Fireball’. It was 1967 when I first heard eco conservationists speaking and became a believer of stable state economics. I still am. Like with AIDS, we are in denial about climate change, with a few exceptions. Many will die of that I am sure. Your excellent story was prescient by any measure. 🐰
I was a young person in middle school when we first heard about AIDS. We saw photos of young gay men with Kaposi sarcoma spots, thin gaunt, dying. I knew no one who was gay because they were closeted in my Protestant Christian community. I studied Microbiology in college and learned about Mycobacterium avium complex, PCP—pneumocystis pneumonia, not the Angel dust drug, lymphoma, & others. They plagued those whose immune systems were rendered defenseless.
Then, we were in lab, and listening to the radio when the breaking news came that Earvin “Magic” Johnson of the Lakers had HIV. We became somber. One of heroes just got served a death sentence. He had acquired it while sleeping with women on the road—and HIV awareness grew even more so than when Rock Hudson the actor had died.
I listened to a friend who worked at Manhattan in the clinics in those days. So many of his friends gone in weeks and months. It was heartbreaking.
~~~
Thanks for the amusing provoking share, Sandra. I had just read in the Farmer’s Almanac publication about polar vortexes and the warming of the earth when I read you email/post. #weather
You write about us humans so well! Well, us American humans anyway. Why notice the climate is changing when there is a Super Bowl to watch? I have all the things in the ads at half time or wish that I did. I'm good!
.... Please keep sharing you writing Sandra.