"The Views To Love..."

"We Were Always There..."

"Same Gender Loving People - No. 5137"

"Love At Home..."

Positive images of people like me... The truth of the matter is that we all need to see people like ourselves. So everyday, I'll post a photo, drawing or some other artwork that depicts Same Gender Loving People as what we are... Only Human.

"Just For Fun..."

"The Truth About Love..."

True love cannot be found where it does not exist, nor can it be denied where it does.

- Torquato Tasso

"The Truth Today..."

I am very much a history buff... Did you know it was on this date exactly 50 years ago today, April 3, 1973 that the very first cellular phone call was placed between an employee at Motorola and AT&T's Bell Laboratories. The long time industry partners spent the next 10 years perfecting the systems and equipment that in 1983, Motorola and AT&T launched as the first commercial cellular service in the U.S.

Those of you who are old enough, or who watch old movies and tv will know that mobile phones pre-dated 1983's launch of the Dyna TAC, but what made the Dyna TAC truly revolutionary was the new concept of cellular connectivity. Prior to the introduction of what we now call 1st Gen cell service, most major U.S. cities had mobile telephone service, some as early as 1946. These predecessors to today's cellular networks had severe limitations in that at most only about 2000 users could be on the system at any one time. Also the power hungry equipment needed to connect to the network in the early days completely filled the trunk of the vehicle. Even as solid state electronics were introduced, the transceiver unit was still the size of a large suitcase and it still took up a huge portion of the trunk. These early phones were simplex systems, meaning only one party at a time could talk.  There was a "push to talk" button on the handset.

Above, the in-car control unit of a 1959 Motorola mobile phone

By 1964, the size of the units had shrunk considerably when the IMTS (improved mobile telephone system) was introduced... Although the units were still large and power hungry, they now featured direct dialing (before, the calls were completed by mobile operator) and were fully duplex (meaning both parties on the call could talk at the same time).  Notice that both the 1959 and 1964 models have key switches... If you had one of these, you wouldn't want anyone else using it, since the costs to be on the network was incredible high and in some markets $2-3 per minute ($20-30 today), in addition to the $2000-3000 up front cost of the unit, or up to $120 a month if leased from the phone company.

"The Artist's Corner..."

Brenden Sanborn

"The Views To Love..."

"We Were Always There..."

Len and Cub

Leonard “Len” Keith and Joseph “Cub” Coates fell for each other in early 20th-century New Brunswick, at a time and place where queer relationships were taboo. Their story was almost lost forever—until a collection of tender photographs brought their romance into the light.

Len was born in 1891, and Cub was born 8 years later. They grew up in the rural New Brunswick village of Havelock in the early 20th century. The two were neighbors, and they clearly developed an inseparable relationship. Len was an amateur photographer and automobile enthusiast who went on to own a local garage and poolhall after serving in the First World War. Cub was the son of a farmer, also a veteran of the First World War, a butcher, contractor, and lover of horses.

Their time together is catalogued by Len’s photos, which show that the two shared a mutual love of the outdoors, animals, and adventure. Photographs of Len and Cub on hunting and canoe trips with arms around each other’s shoulders or in bed together make clear the affection they held for each other. Their story is one of the oldest photographic records of a same-sex couple in the Maritimes.

Unfortunately, these adventures would cease when Len was outed as a homosexual by community members in the early 1930s and forced to leave Havelock. Cub, however, remained seemingly untainted by scandal and stayed in Havelock until 1940, when he married Rita Cameron, a nurse born in Chatham, and relocated to Moncton after the Second World War. He would go on to become a prominent figure in New Brunswick’s harness racing circles before his death in 1965. Len never returned to Havelock, residing near Montreal before succumbing to cancer in 1950.

The photos were donated to the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick decades after his death by Havelock resident and local historian, John Corey, who had purchased the albums at the Keith family’s estate sale in 1984. Growing up, John heard stories of Len and Cub from his father, Roy Manford Corey, who had been a classmate of Len’s. When John donated the albums [to the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick] in 2011, he described the pair as “boyfriends”—a term noted by the archivist in the collection’s finding aid. The archivist also noted, after a conversation with John, that Len had been “driven out of town for being a homosexual” by a group of Havelock men. This anecdote is written on an envelope containing a photo of one of the men responsible for Len’s outing.

Len’s photos of their life tells the story of their relationship against the background of same-sex identity and relationships in rural North America of the early 20th century. Although Len was outed and forced to leave Havelock in the 1930s, the story of Len and Cub is one of love and friendship that challenges contemporary ideas about sex and gender expression in the early 20th century.

H/T: Historical Pictorial