"And The Truth Shall Set You Free..."

Photo courtesy Patrick Haggerty, via NPR

Be Proud And Not Sneak: Dad's Advice To His Gay Son In The '50s

'Don't sneak. Because if you sneak, like you did today, it means you think you're doing the wrong thing. And if you run around spending your whole life thinking that you're doing the wrong thing, then you'll ruin your immortal soul,' says dad to son

Sylvia Tan
June 29, 2014

Patrick Haggerty, who grew up as a gay teenager in the 1950s in rural Washington, shared an important lesson about self-acceptance from his dad, a farmer who turned up in his school wearing dirty jeans and boots.

Haggerty, who is now 70, said he didn't know he was gay at the time, but says his father who he described as the 'patron saint of dads for sissies' knew what direction he was headed.

In a story he shared with OutLoud, an initiative by StoryCorps to preserve the stories of LGBT people, he said his father visited him in school after his brother told him that Patrick had covered his face with glitter prior to his performance during a school assembly.
When his dairy farmer father showed up, Patrick hid.

'It wasn't because of what I was wearing,' Haggerty says. 'It was because of what he was wearing.'

During the car ride home, his father called him out on his attempt to hide.

'My father says to me, "I was walking down the hall this morning, and I saw a kid that looked a lot like you ducking around the hall to avoid his dad. But I know it wasn't you, 'cause you would never do that to your dad,"' Haggerty recalls.

Patrick finally said, 'Well, Dad, did you have to wear your cow-crap jeans to my assembly?'
His father replied, 'Look, everybody knows I'm a dairy farmer. This is who I am. Now, how 'bout you? When you're an adult, who are you gonna go out with at night?'

Then, he gave his son some advice:

'Now, I'm gonna tell you something today, and you might not know what to think of it now, but you're gonna remember when you're a full-grown man: Don't sneak. Because if you sneak, like you did today, it means you think you're doing the wrong thing. And if you run around spending your whole life thinking that you're doing the wrong thing, then you'll ruin your immortal soul.'

Patrick continued: 'And out of all the things a father in 1959 could have told his gay son, my father tells me to be proud of myself and not sneak.'

'He knew where I was headed. And he knew that making me feel bad about it in any way was the wrong thing to do,' he adds. 'I had the patron saint of dads for sissies, and no, I didn't know at the time, but I know it now.'

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"Fear Eats the Soul"