One of Dunner's posts reminded me of something I wrote as a preface to a short story, probably in about 1983 or '84, when Middle America was responding in it's inimitable way to the emergence of children with AIDS wanting to attend public schools.
Why?
And, so ... the good American mothers whose corpulent girths are well-earned from good lives lived caring for their men and their broods (Do you see the children now? Right now? Sucking their thumbs and clinging to the bottom hems of red or white or blue down-filled parkas which their mommies wear over Middle American broad shoulders and big breasts?); the good mothers with curlers in their hair and carrying homemade placards (“Johnny, where’s the green magic marker for Chirssake!”) which are thrust in front and above their pincurled heads housing brains which got them out of high school and into the sack; oh, the good mothers shout, “NO AIDS ... NO AIDS ...,” as they follow one another in a little circle (their broods a-wagging behind them) upon the sidewalks of Anytown, U.S.A. Ah, yes, and I wonder -- a twinkle in my eye -- after counting the kids clutching the moms, which one of you ten precious pups will become the scourge your mommy now fears, ‘cause if I’m not mistaken, buckaroos, your mommies ain’t half as afraid of AIDS as they are of queers.
p.s. You might want to take a look at this biography of Ryan White.
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