When the word came that George Harris had died earlier this week, I was seated at my desk. I got up and made my way the few feet to the framed poster board, an enlarged version of my logo from my 60th birthday party, which everyone was invited to sign. There, above my left eyebrow, is George’s note to me.
Karl and I met George close to forty years ago. Of course, we met him with Jack Evans, his partner and eventual husband. Karl had recently retired from the U. S. Navy, and our social circle was becoming more couple-oriented upon his return to Dallas following a two-year final tour of duty. Jack and George were one of the couples we met around that time.
For the next thirty years or more, it seemed everyone who knew Jack and George referred to them as if they were one name: JackandGeorge. “Did you see JackandGeorge at Black Tie last night?” “JackandGeorge invited us to come over for chili on New Year’s Day.” That sort of thing. I think it was partly because while the rest of us had only been together for a single digit number of years at that time, they had already been together for well over a quarter century. But it was also because their longevity as a couple gave the lie to the idea that gay men could not sustain a healthy, loving relationship.
If I tried to catalog all the organizations that Jack and George either established or supported, participated in or whose leaders they mentored, I would have no space left to talk about anything else. They at least touched everything in the Dallas LGBTQ community, as well as more members of that community, either directly or indirectly, than can be numbered.
Jack and George were a match, for sure, but they weren’t a matched pair. Jack was taller than I was, and George several inches shorter. Talking to them at a party could be like watching tennis played on a ramp. Look up at Jack with the twinkling eyes, lean down to George to catch every witty word spoken in that Southern molasses accent, and then look back up at Jack to see his eyes twinkle even more.
As it turned out, Jack and George had been together just over twenty years longer than Karl and I. When we hit our 30th anniversary, they were already at 50. Alluding to that accomplishment, George said to me at our reception, “Well, you’re going to have to make it to 50.”
It seemed like a challenge, and I said that I wasn’t sure I had the good genes to make it that far. “Oh, gurl, you’re more than halfway there, and you’re still a chicken.” Chicken, for those who don’t know, is what an older generation of gay men called what I believe today are referred to as twinks.
George had a true talent for cutting through nonsense. Years ago, we were all at a pool party together. Jack and George were the oldest ones there, and Karl and I were at least in the top decile. The four of us were standing around the table chatting as the younger, near-naked men came in from the pool, to the powder room (I use that word advisedly), and back to the pool. Some would disappear into another room or upstairs. Our four heads were swiveling, and George finally looked around at us and said, “What the hell are we doing here?” There was no good answer to that question, and in short order, we all left together.
When Jack and George had their wedding in Dallas a few years later, it was a joyful event. Just a few months later, on the day when same-sex marriage became the law of the land, Jack and George were the first gay couple to be married in Dallas. That, too, was joyful. The attendant publicity made them the poster boys for gay marriage, with them appearing in People, The New York Times, and in television interviews. George called that day “the highlight of our lives.”
I never tired of hearing them talk about the old days, not just the ones we had shared, but the years before in Dallas going back to the early 1960’s. Even after Jack died, lunch with George would blend a mix of remembrances with some often pungent comments on what was current.
Oh, and about that comment on my birthday poster from George? I think he should have the last word.
What he wrote was simple and to the point. “You’re still a chicken!”
