Pilgrim Pride

I changed out the pumpkin flag that was up for Halloween (31 trick or treaters, by the way) and put up the cornucopia for Thanksgiving this morning. I mean, you ought to see the little drawer down in our basement where we keep all of our holiday and special occasion flags--all neatly in chronological order, folded, and ready to go the next time around. Totally gay. The larger rainbow flag came to live with us this last summer after we found it at Portland Pride. It's huge, colorful, and really looks cool against the green paint on the house. I've always sworn off having one without any very good reason...but the BF wanted one and it really does look good. We try to hang it out every chance we get. But this morning, for some reason, it hit me: Do you think the Pilgrims and early settlers of the 1600-1700's could have possibly co-existed with "we alternative types" among their pioneering ranks? Reminds me of a book that my friend MJ wrote a few years back dealing with just that...naughty life in the 1700s in the hills of the Northeast US. I'm pretty sure that they didn't identified as GLBT at that point--can you imagine the Monday Night Meeting of the Plymouth Rock GLBT Pilgrims? But you know, "Pilgrim Pride" has a definite ring to it. I'll bet there were plenty of lesbians and gays, keeping all to themselves.....I mean, you can't stick ALL of the women together in their sexy, tight full-length dresses, sleeves to the wrist, and hats tied beneath their pale white chins in one village, with the guys all off to war, and expect nothing to happen. Days of Our Lives and Another World were not around yet...they had to do something all afternoon to occupy their time. (My god, does this sound sexist or what??) And what about those sexy, sinewy dudes all off to battle in the steep hills and narrow valleys--gone for long months at a time, all by themselves, no good looking wilderness chicks in sight, working together in tight quarters, sweating, bleeding from wounds, tying up each other's injuries, sacking out on the ground during very cold, wet nights around the crackling fire. Staring up into the inky black sky at night, wishing that the totally hot mountain guy in the next sleeping bag (do you suppose that Coleman sleeping bags were around then?) would scoot a little closer. Oh my gosh, it could get pretty crazy--and I'll bet it did! So, yeah, I think it's OK to fly these flags together......Co-existence rocks, doesn't it? It always has.