R. I. P. Caruso

 

R. I. P. Caruso: 1988 - 2006

Today I had to lay to rest my beloved Caruso, my feline companion for the past 19 years – one year longer than I’ve known Christian! He’d been gong downhill for the past few months and his decline rapidly accelerated over the past couple of days. The vet came to the house and I held him in my arms as the doc gave him the shot. I’m having him cremated, since I wouldn’t know where to bury him. He’s always been an indoor, city-living, apartment cat. 

In April of 1988, I was 26 years old, living on Euclid Avenue in San Francisco. Having spent the past two years living in London, Berlin and Helsinki, I was now “stable” for a while, working on my Master’s degree at San Francisco State University, so I decided the time was right to get a cat. I’ll always remember the day I got Caruso at the SPCA: He was in a big cage with about 15 other kittens. When the attendant opened the cage to let me pick one out, most of the kitties just lolled about and ignored me. But from the very back of the cage, a little orange fireball came running to the front, literally screaming at the top of his 8-week-old lungs “PICK ME! PICK ME!” He was the obvious choice. 

Back home, my little kitty’s impressive voice demanded attention wherever he went, so I decided to name him Caruso, after the famous turn-of-the-(20^th)-century opera singer Enrico Caruso. Soon thereafter, we recorded the “songs” I’ve linked to below. Just like all kittens, Caruso was always under foot, but one day he gave me a real scare. My phone was ringing and I was running to get it before the answering machine picked it up. Caruso got tangled up in my feet and I ended up stepping on his head! He seemed OK at first, but then I noticed he was being unusually quiet and still, just sitting on his chair, gazing blankly into space, a dumb look on his face with his tongue sticking halfway out. Fearful that I had given him a concussion, I rushed him to the vet. But the vet said there was nothing he could do; we just had to wait. He snapped out of it the next day, but from that day on, he had his distinctive snaggle tooth which gave him his cute crooked smile. I think I knocked his jaw slightly out of alignment.

Caruso's Debut (link to song)

Over the years, Caruso grew into the perfect cat. He was always playful and friendly. My friends were always amazed at how he would “fight” with me. He’d really look ferocious when he’d “attack” me, but he never once hurt me. I think that’s because I always alpha-rolled him from the time he was a kitty, so he always knew who the real Leo the Lion of the house was… ME! He loved to sleep with me, right up by my face, which I loved. He had several tricks which many of you probably remember, including “Escape from the Shopping Bag” and “I Must Lick!”

What Am I Doing 2 U Cat? (link to song)

As he grew older, he fattened into a big lovable sandbag of a cat, topping out near 20 pounds! He took after his daddy that way. Even in his old age, he always loved to play with his toys, and he remained incredibly affectionate right up to the very end.

I remember at one point in the late 1980’s, when I thought for sure I’d be dead in 5 years from HIV. As part of my Shanti Project training, I had to write my own obituary and will, and I remember breaking into tears as I wrote a letter to my mom and Betty, asking them to take care of Caruso after I was gone. He was my only “possession” that I cared about, that I had to worry about. Now I’ve outlived all three of them, and life goes on… 

Caruso, I’ll miss you terribly…

My Mother's Obituary

 

Jo Ann Elizabeth (Koviak) Mitchell

12 December 1936 -- 15 September 2004

Jo Ann Elizabeth (Koviak) Mitchell has left this earthly existence, peacefully departing her body while asleep at home in Seaside, CA.

Born to Tony and Mildred Koviak in St. Louis, MO, Jo Ann and her family moved to the Monterey Peninsula in 1947, where she attended St. Angela’s School and was a member of the first graduating class of Junipero Memorial High School in 1954. That December she married her husband of 25 years, Jake Mitchell, and they moved to Hawthorne, CA.

Their children came soon thereafter -- Misty, Heather, and then Jeffrey -- and Jo Ann spent the next decade fulfilling her duties as a good mother and wife. With the dawning of the Age of Aquarius in the late 60’s, Jo Ann’s cosmic consciousness blossomed, and she embarked upon her quest for knowledge and enlightenment that continues now in her afterlife. Caught up in the wave of liberation that came with early feminist ideas, Jo Ann studied to become a registered nurse, and worked full-time in the psychiatric unit of Hawthorne Community Hospital. It was there, in 1973, that Jo Ann met co-worker Betty Monaghan, who became her best friend and partner in life. Jo Ann went on to get her Master’s Degrees in Psychology and Philosophy and continued to study and develop her talents in the metaphysical arts.

Jo Ann moved with Betty to Pacific Grove in 1979, working at and eventually retiring from Community Hospital in 1992. In the 80’s, Jo Ann focused her healing talents and loving energy on people with AIDS, working with the Monterey County AIDS project, and the arrival of Jo Ann’s dear granddaughters Paige and Briley Butterfield caused her heart to overflow with joy and happiness. Over the years, Jo Ann delved deeply into advanced esoteric studies, focusing on comparative religions, astrology and the tarot. She was affectionately known as Tarotmama to many of her friends, and she was a source of support, counsel, wisdom and abundant love for everyone she knew, most recently helping family and friends through the passing of her sister Sharon Grout.

She will be sorely missed by all who loved her, and all whom she loved and left behind: her beloved life partner Betty Monaghan, her children’s father Jake Mitchell, her children Misty Butterfield, Heather and Richard Borgaro, and Jeffrey and Christian Mitchell-Matthews, her granddaughters Paige and Briley Butterfield, her sisters Elaine Head and Julia Janikula and their families, her brother Michael Koviak and his family, her brother-in-law Gene Grout and his family, lots of nieces, nephews, cousins and other family members, and countless friends and loved ones whose lives were forever changed by this remarkable woman.

A celebration of JoAnn’s life will be held at the Unity Church Of Monterey Bay on Friday, September 24^th at 10am. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in Jo Ann’s memory to one of her favorite charities: the SPCA, Lambda Legal, or Planned Parenthood.

My Father's Obituary

Jake Mitchell
December 30th, 1924 - March 19th 2016

Jake Mitchell was born on December 30th, 1924, in Gallup, New Mexico, one of Reynalda Mitchell’s eight children. Pop’s father was a musician and bootlegger who went on the lam from the FBI during Prohibition when Pop was four. Pop’s family never heard from him again. Reynalda was a very poor single woman who couldn’t afford to take care of all her children during the Depression, so the youngest three, including my pop, were sent to live in an orphanage for about eight years.

After Pop graduated high school in 1942, he joined the Navy and was stationed in the Pacific through the end of the War. He stayed in California when he got back, and began working in construction, which ended up being his lifetime occupation. He met my mom JoAnn Koviak in 1952, they got married in 1954, and settled into a suburban housing tract in Hawthorne, CA.

Then Mom & Pop began popping out kids: Misty in 1956, Heather in 1959, and Jeffrey in 1961. While Mom worked at home raising the kids, Pop worked as a bricktender and scaffolder, a proud member of the Operating Engineers Union. He used to come home caked in cement. If it was hot, one of us kids would go get him an ice cold Brew 102 to drink while he took off his filthy clothes on the back steps. Mom would make sure an onion was frying so he’d think dinner was on the way, even though she had no idea what she was going to do with that frying onion!

Once upon a time, Pop was a Republican, but that stopped after Nixon. Pop used to be rather conservative and didn’t like the “naked hippies” at Big Sur during our family camping trip there in the late 1960’s! But the 1970’s was a time of great change and social growth not only for society at large, but for my pop as well. My mom, who was 12 years younger than him, was more influenced by the energy of the 1960’s, listening to Bob Dylan, while Pop was strictly an Andrews Sisters fan! Mom wanted to pursue higher education and work full-time, rejecting society’s gender expectations for women at the time. By the mid-70’s, Mom & Pop’s marriage had dissolved. Shortly thereafter, my mom met her next life partner, Betty Monaghan.

(For a while in the 1990’s, my pop, mom and Betty all lived together in the Seaside house, a successful experience in Modern Family that worked quite well for a while and made it easier for them to visit with their beloved granddaughters Paige and Briley. But after about eight years, my mother and father remembered why they divorced each other in the first place, and he moved into a little studio apartment a block away. There he stayed until my mom died in 2004. Then he moved back into the Seaside house with Betty and lived with her until she died a year later. And he’s lived there alone ever since. Not everyone experiences the benefits and delights of having had three loving and supportive parents. May they all now rest in peace.)

By the end of the 1970’s, Pop’s culture shock was in full swing. His wife had left him and was now in a lesbian relationship, his teen-aged daughters were having sex and doing drugs, while his son was blooming into a quite the homosexual as well! Yet he deeply loved all of us (including Mom and Betty) so he just learned to adapt with the changing times, in order to grow along with his family. During the Reagan years, Pop grew disgusted with the Republican party and moved further and further to the left, and at the end of his life he identified as a Democratic Socialist. His final check was written to Bernie Sanders. Pop never made a big deal about his WWII vet status, and he didn’t like the phrase “Thank-you for your Service.”  Ever since Viet Nam, he’d said we should be telling vets: “We’re sorry we made you go.” He also had lost all patience with all religion and was proud to identify as secular humanist. (Actually, he invented his own religion, Jakism, but that’s a story for another time.) He was a strong supporter of equality for all people, and supported people’s rights to do as they wish with their own bodies.

If Pop had had a different start in life, he would have made an excellent academic. He was extremely intelligent, loved to read, and engaged in his own form of self-study throughout his life. He always said he would’ve liked to have been an archeologist, and he would have made a damn fine one. Many of you know his love of crossword puzzles, and he did the HARD ones!

Let’s sum up by saying that Pop was a dedicated husband, an unconditionally-loving parent, grandparent, and great-grandparent, and a hard-working, long-living human being. He had a good heart and soul. Many of us are mourning his loss today. If you wish to ask for a ghostly visit (which he said he’d be willing to do if it’s possible), please do so right away so that he can quickly depart this astral plane and get on with whatever happens next. Fly freely, Pop! Love and Peace to All.

~ Amen ~

 

If you would like to make a charitable contribution in Pop’s memory, these were two of his favorites:

Animal Friends Rescue Project:  https://www.animalfriendsrescue.org/AFRPDonation.php

Americans United:  https://support.au.org/donate

 

Moral Foundations Questionnaire

Moral foundations theory is a social psychological (Links to an external site.) theory intended to explain the origins of and variation in human moral reasoning on the basis of innate, modular foundations. It was first proposed by psychologist Jonathan Haidt (Links to an external site.) in his book The Righteous Mind (Links to an external site.).

The five foundations are:

• Care: cherishing and protecting others; opposite of harm
• Fairness or proportionality: rendering justice according to shared rules; opposite of cheating
• Loyalty or ingroup: standing with your group, family, nation; opposite of betrayal
• Authority or respect: submitting to tradition and legitimate authority; opposite of subversion
• Sanctity or purity: abhorrence for disgusting things, foods, actions; opposite of degradation.
  

Learn how much you value each of these moral foundations by completing this Moral Foundations Questionnaire (Links to an external site.). First you need to register. If you're not yet 18, please fudge your birthdate so that you can take the survey. The registration process will ask you quite a few questions about your religious and political beliefs. Please take your time and think carefully about these questions, doing your best to understand and answer them. Remember, you are contributing to scientific research!

After registering, click on the link at the top/center in blue that says Explore Your Morals. The second study listed is the Moral Foundations Questionnaire. Click where it says Take Study to the right.

Once again, be deliberate and thoughtful while considering the questions in the survey.

When you finish, read the information on the results page and see your results chart. Right-click that image to save it as a .png image file.  Then submit your image file here.

See the example below (which are my results, by the way).

 

One of My Career Highlights.

You gotta love that 3rd paragraph! (The student had written an entire paragraph arguing that gays and lesbians shouldn't be allowed to get married because their parts don't fit together correctly.)

Santa Monica City Busline #7

From Sights and Insights, Monterey Peninsula College. Allston James, Editor. May 1983.

Back when I thought I might be a writer, or photographer, or both. Strange semi-autobiographical journaling that blends Dragnet style narration with my favorite song lyrics of the day. This was shocking stuff for Monterey Peninsula College in 1983.

A Young Man's View of the AIDS Epidemic

Back in 1985 when I was working on my B.A. Degree at San Francisco State, I was taking a sophomore composition class and for some inexplicable reason, the professor didn’t require us to reference any texts in our essays. In fact, I don’t remember reading anything at all in that class!  His whole schtick was “Multicultural Composition” and he encouraged us to go out and explore the subcultures of San Francisco, which I took as reason enough to make nearly everything I wrote gay, gay, gay. And he loved it. That class was an easy A. Anyhow, after over 30 years, I just reconnected on FB with the subject of this essay I wrote for that class, a man named Heinz Peter Furter. I had just met him at the time, but we went on to have a fabulous two-continent affair -- sometimes here in CA, sometimes in Berlin -- that went on till 1987 or so, and then we fell out of touch. Until now! It’s sort of a lame essay, but my teacher loved the first person, so I went for it. A bit embarrassing too, as I’m so young, so earthy-groovy hippy-dippy-trippi, so self-confident, as only a 24-rear-old can be. Now I'm nearly 60 and don’t know shit.  Anyhow, it’s sort of fun to remember what it was like to be a young gay man in San Francisco in 1985.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Jeff Mitchell 

Eng. 214 - Multicultural Composition 

San Francisco State University 

28 May, 1985. 

A Young Man's View of the AIDS Epidemic 

As a gay man, the AIDS epidemic has given me considerable cause for thought and reflection, not only on how it is affecting me personally, but also how it might affect the entire gay population as a sub-group of society. Accordingly, this health crisis has resulted in a change in my personal sexual habits, but a change is occurring in other areas too. Suddenly, the way I intimately engage myself with another man is potentially deadly. The psychological and emotional effects of this situation are causing a new awareness to develop within me regarding the inter-connectedness of love, intimacy and sex, and I'm sure this awareness is developing within many other gay men as well. Although the AIDS crisis is a horrible and terrifying thing, this new awareness I speak of can only result in a great surge of spiritual growth for gay men, those of us who live, and this spiritual growth can only be for the betterment of the whole of humanity. 

I was in a "dirty bookstore" looking at porn, images of men engaging in anal intercourse. "Unsafe Sex". It had been so long since I had even considered doing such an act myself that I felt as if though I was looking at something from a distant past, something one might learn about in a Gay History class. I thought to myself, "See how we used to make love." 

I am involved in a non-monogamous relationship, in which I may enjoy sex outside of my relationship with David, and still consider him my primary source of emotional and intimate contact. My "lover", if you will. It is a situation that works well for us. 

I met a man from Berlin. He has a lover there of seven years, and they too have a mutually agreed upon "open relationship" in which they are free to engage in sex outside of it. This was Heinz's first visit to America. America: The Land of the Free, and the Home of the AIDS. Heinz and I spotted each other in a bar, were attracted to each other, and ended up at my apartment. But before we even left the bar he asked me, "Is safe sex OK with you?" I had never had that question put so directly to me before. Of course, I told him that would be fine with me. 

It hasn't been that big of a deal for me to give up fucking and sucking. Those were physically fun things to do, but I find that the most pleasurable part of sex for me is that extreme feeling of bonding and unification that occurs. And yes, this CAN happen without sticking your penis in an orifice. Heinz and I had some of the most intense and satisfying sex that I have ever had, but there were mini-crises all along the way. When men make love, there comes a point when the next logical step is penetration, in one form or another. This is when a gay man is forced to make a decision that may virtually affect his very life. I don’t think I've ever wanted to take that next step as much as I wanted to that night with Heinz. But my higher self, my common sense, and the fact that there was no pressure from Heinz made it easier to control these urges. The urge that I did have a hard time controlling was my urge to kiss. Since saliva is now considered to be a questionable carrier of the AIDScausing agent, French-kissing is classified as "possibly safe sex". So being as AIDS-conscious as he was, Heinz would not kiss me anymore than a dry brushing of the lips. Now this, I had a hard time accepting. Because of some fucking disease that they don't know the cause of, won't fund the research to find out about, and some say is God’s way of punishing homosexuals, I can't kiss the person I'm making love to! Just imagine if every person, gay or straight, were being asked to make the re-adjustment gay men are being asked to make. Imagine telling a newlywed couple, "Enjoy your honeymoon, but you can't fuck, suck, or kiss!" What will be the long-term-effects of these restrictions placed upon gay men? Those who can't adhere to them will simply die off. The homosexuals who survive this plague will be those who have been able to rise above their sexual urges to explore and create new ways of human expression and intimate contact. 

Heinz and I talked about this. In his broken English, he told me about the deep, committed and satisfying love he had for his mate back home. Though they both engaged in safe sex outside of the relationship, the mutual love and respect they shared caused their relationship to have a more stable foundation than most heterosexual marriages do. Because of this love, his love for himself, and even his love for me, his new-found American friend, Heinz had an easier time than I did making choices during those "mini-crises" when we were getting it on. 

We talked a lot about priorities. What's more important, satisfying that "now" urge, or being able to kiss our lovers without worrying about if there's disease on our lips? We talked about the chain of caring and love we'd created. Not only had we protected ourselves and each other, but our lovers as well. This knowledge filled me with a good feeling, better than anything I may have felt had I decided to engage in unsafe sex. Instead of the warm closeness that Heinz and I were now sharing in each other's arms, we probably would be hastily buttoning up our jeans and saying a rapid goodbye, our minds racked with worry over what we may had just done, not only to ourselves but to our loved ones also. 

Heinz left the next morning, back to Berlin. Though I may never see him again, the short time I spent with him made a lasting impression on me. It put into motion my thoughts concerning this whole AIDS crisis. The closeness I shared with this man, and the implications of what we did have changed my feelings on the purpose and possibilities of a "one-night—stand". Since they can't be the out-and-out sexual free-for-alls they once were, I see them now as a chance to have an extremely intimate encounter with another human being, an opportunity to give and receive the love we all have in us and is meant to be shared. Whereas before, everything was so penis-oriented and getting off was of primary importance, the emphasis can now be placed on using the time together as a chance for real human closeness, no matter how brief that time may be. 

Something inside me tells me that these little episodes of shared love and intense human exchange can only benefit the human race as a whole. I think that every loving encounter between two people puts that caring energy into motion, and it multiplies and snowballs throughout the consciousness of all people. Those of use who survive this plague will be able to go on and define this new way of being with people. We've had the sexual revolution, and the opportunity that gave us to explore and expand our limits in that area of human relations. Now, for whatever reasons, it is no longer safe to use all forms of sex as a way of expressing ourselves. So be it. Let it go. With the emphasis taken off of sex as our primary form of intimate relations, we are now free to explore and engage in the many other ways there are to be nice to each other. 

Heinz, in 1987 or 1988

Heinz & Walter, in 1987 or 1988

Me and Heinz in my mother & Betty's den,
in 1987 or 1988