00:00:00Speaker 1:
All right. So today is August the second at 10:00, probably-
Terry Taylor:
10:00.
Speaker 1:
... approximately, 10:00. And I am here with Terry Taylor. If you could please
state your full name, your pronouns, and your date of birth, if you're
comfortable with that.
Terry Taylor:
Terry Taylor, 25th of February 1952.
Speaker 1:
Another February, very good.
Terry Taylor:
And I don't care about pronouns.
Speaker 1:
Awesome. I feel much the same.
Terry Taylor:
If it makes someone comfortable, that's fine. But I just think it's kind of silly.
Speaker 1:
Right, yeah. Some people will make such a big deal over it.
Terry Taylor:
I know.
Speaker 1:
Yeah. I hope one day we can get to a point where it's not a big deal.
Absolutely. So getting some sort of groundwork out of the way, how do you identify?
00:01:00
Terry Taylor:
I'm a human being.
Speaker 1:
I kind of had a feeling it was going in that direction.
Terry Taylor:
Yeah. I'm a human being and I happen to be male, and I have a penis.
Speaker 1:
Wow.
Terry Taylor:
So there you go.
Speaker 1:
There you go. In terms of race, ability, socioeconomic status, stuff like that,
what kind of stuff stands out as important to you in your identity?
Terry Taylor:
Nothing really. I'm just a person who's lived almost 70 years now, and it's
never really been a problem for me, I guess.
Speaker 1:
There you go. That's easy enough.
Terry Taylor:
Yeah.
Speaker 1:
So how long have you been in the Western North Carolina area?
00:02:00
Terry Taylor:
I was born in Montgomery, Alabama.
Speaker 1:
Oh wow.
Terry Taylor:
My father was in the military, and we moved around for a good bit. My parents
were both from the Asheville area. My mother was from Sandy Mush out past
Leicester. And my father grew up about three miles up the road in the Billy
Cove. And my mother met my father when she came out here to teach at a school
that's no longer here, called Laurel Hill in, I think it was like about 1940 or
I think was '40, and she met my father, blah, blah, blah. They got married,
love, the whole thing.
Speaker 1:
Blah, blah, blah.
Terry Taylor:
So we always came here from the different places we were posted to visit
grandparents and stay during the summer. So it's basically always been home.
Speaker 1:
Oh, that's cool.
Terry Taylor:
So aside from, three years, when I was a kid, we lived in Japan. That was cool.
Speaker 1:
Wow.
Terry Taylor:
And then, when we back to the US, we lived in New Jersey, and then we moved back
00:03:00here and my father became a recruiter for the Air Force.
Speaker 1:
Ah, fun job.
Terry Taylor:
Yeah. And we didn't live in this house, we lived in another house over off of
Monte Vista, that was brand new in 1964 or '65, I can't remember which.
Speaker 1:
State-of-the-art.
Terry Taylor:
Yeah. And then my parents built this house in '74 when I graduated from college,
and then after they died, I moved out here in 2010.
Speaker 1:
Okay. So they actually built this place.
Terry Taylor:
Yes, they did.
Speaker 1:
Very cool. Very cool. Awesome. So kind of keeping in the same kind of realm,
00:04:00talking about your family, what was it like for you growing up?
Terry Taylor:
I was a kid. My parents, I know they thought I was strange, but then that was...
they seem to be okay with it, so-
Speaker 1:
Cool.
Terry Taylor:
... I never really... I mean, I had my typical teenage angst stuff. It was just
like, oh God, that must have been terrible. But my parents are really strict, we
didn't talk back to our parents, but that was just the way it was. That was the
1960s. It was a perfectly normal childhood as far as I can tell. High school was
fine. There were activities that I love doing. I was real tight with most of the
popular girls in school, and their boyfriends really hated me, but that was all
right. And every once in a while, one would let slip some sort of slur, and I
just would go. . .
Speaker 1:
Oh, no.
Terry Taylor:
... merrily on my way.
Speaker 1:
There you go.
Terry Taylor:
And the girls did not like it, so that was just-
00:05:00
Speaker 1:
They let them have it.
Terry Taylor:
Well, they just might, "No, that's Terry." "Okay. Fine."
Speaker 1:
Wow.
Terry Taylor:
Yeah.
Speaker 1:
That's great. I did a little bit of research and saw some of your art, did you
do a lot of art in high school?
Terry Taylor:
Yeah. We didn't have art classes in high school.
Speaker 1:
Interesting.
Terry Taylor:
I don't know. There was only one person... I mean, there were lots of us who
were... we were all creative and prom and stuff like that, posters and things,
that was fine, but we didn't have an art class. In fact, I think the last time I
took an art class was in the... I mean the very first time I took an art class
was when we lived overseas and we had art in schools there, and then part art
00:06:00classes in summer on the base. But we didn't have art classes when I came back
to North Carolina. Well, maybe we did... No, no, they were in the younger
grades. We didn't have art classes in high school.
Speaker 1:
How strange.
Terry Taylor:
It was strange, because I would have been right on it. I was on the yearbook
staff, and that kind of stuff, but no art classes.
Speaker 1:
Even then you still found stuff to-
Terry Taylor:
Oh, well I was always... My mother encouraged me to make things, except when I
00:07:00would make a mess, and then it was just like-
Speaker 1:
Well.
Terry Taylor:
And there were certain things that I could not do, because she knew they were
messy. So I-
Speaker 1:
Kind of restricted to certain media, huh?
Terry Taylor:
Yeah. I was. I was allowed to have a space downstairs in the basement to put my
stuff to work on, and I was always making stuff, always. So it was not unusual.
Speaker 1:
What would be your preferred like medium? Or did you just, just anything goes?
Terry Taylor:
I will make... Okay. For 15 years, after I taught school for about 15 years and
stopped doing that. And then I somehow got a job at a publishing company here in
Asheville, originally, in a catalog department, and after that, I made myself
indispensable, because I could make anything and I could do anything and I could
explain how to do it.
Speaker 1:
Nice.
Terry Taylor:
So then I was taken on as an editorial staff member and finally wound up writing
and editing all kinds of craft books.
Speaker 1:
Oh, very cool.
Terry Taylor:
And I even had... One time, I was at a business meeting with different craft
book publishers from around the country at some convention, and we were all at
00:08:00dinner, and there must have been 15 people, and they're mostly women, there were
a few men, but not many. And everybody was going around introducing ourselves in
this, that, and the other. At some point I had decided that I would call myself
the craft whore, because I could do anything and would-
Speaker 1:
I like it.
Terry Taylor:
... do anything. Yeah. So they said, "Okay, who are you?" And I said, "I'm Terry
Taylor." And I said, "I'm the craft whore at Lark books." And the table fell
out. And my boss was there, who was an older lesbian woman, and she almost fell
00:09:00over. She didn't quite know what to do, but she was okay with it.
Speaker 1:
Oh, yeah.
Terry Taylor:
She was okay. And when we got back, about a week after we got back, I came into
my office one morning and there was a little box on my desk. And it was a
version of the business cards that we all carried, but she had the word craft
whore in the title of what my job was.
Speaker 1:
I love it.
Terry Taylor:
I always loved that about her. She was just-
Speaker 1:
OH, my God.
Terry Taylor:
... like, "Oh, thank you. You've got it-
Speaker 1:
I hope you still have some of those cards.
Terry Taylor:
You know, I don't.
Speaker 1:
We'll have to make you some work.
Terry Taylor:
No, that was a long time, so I'm just kind of-
Speaker 1:
The craft whore days are over.
Terry Taylor:
No, I'm still a craft whore.
00:10:00
Speaker 1:
Gotcha.
Terry Taylor:
The business is no longer there.
Speaker 1:
Love that. You said you taught for a few years. What did you teach?
Terry Taylor:
I taught behaviorally disordered and incarcerated juveniles.
Speaker 1:
Wow.
Terry Taylor:
I started out at Swannanoa, when there was the juvenile evaluation center, as a
teacher's aid in the late '70s. It was hard to get a job in the '70s. And then I
found out that there was someone leaving a position at one of the other training
schools, the maximum security one-
Speaker 1:
Oh, wow.
Terry Taylor:
... down in Butner, North Carolina. And so I went down there to sub for this
woman while she had a baby, and then she decided not to come back. So I taught
there for a while. I kind of got tired of the incarceration bit of it. And they
were mostly kids like 14 to 17.
Speaker 1:
Oh gosh.
Terry Taylor:
And I really wanted to work with younger kids, and I was teaching reading, so a
00:11:00position came up in an elementary school program in Durham County that was, they
took students who had been removed from their school, and we were in an old
school building that was tiny. It was like built in like the '20s.
Speaker 1:
Oh wow.
Terry Taylor:
And we had a program where we would mainstream kids, after we got their
behaviors under control, we would mainstream them into the regular population in
the elementary school, which was like 20 yards away from us.
Speaker 1:
Oh, wow.
Terry Taylor:
So I taught there for several years, and then I came back up here and taught for
Blue Ridge Mental Health in the same kind of program, where they had all been
kicked out of their school, and we tried to mainstream them and get them back
00:12:00into this program. And I finally worked my way down to kindergarten, first, and
second graders. I mean, there were kindergarten kids who had been kicked out of
school, because they were uncontrollable.
Speaker 1:
Oh my gosh.
Terry Taylor:
After about three years of that, I went, "I can't take it anymore, and I left."
And that's when I moved into the publishing.
Speaker 1:
Gotcha. Yeah. It sounds like that would be difficult work, but-
Terry Taylor:
It was never. There were good parts to it. I really enjoyed it, in some ways.
Yeah. After a while, it was like, "Oh, I can't bear this much longer. I don't
seem to be making any effect." I mean, I felt that way. It was like, they're not
getting any "better," with the quotation marks in there.
Speaker 1:
Maybe more compliant.
Terry Taylor:
No-
Speaker 1:
Or not even-
Terry Taylor:
... better.
Speaker 1:
Better.
Terry Taylor:
Better. I didn't see them getting any better. I just-
Speaker 1:
Gotcha.
Terry Taylor:
... looked at them and kind of went, "No, they're never going to be "right."
Whatever that is.
Speaker 1:
Those are bigger problems for another time. And then you moved into publishing.,
00:13:00I kind of skipped over your post high school, college. What did you-
Terry Taylor:
I went to UNCA for two years, when the dorms were those little tiny things, you
know, there.
Speaker 1:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Terry Taylor:
I lived there, and it was a rowdy bunch of boys in there. And I think we were
the dorm that got put on probation, and we all had to go see psychologists,
because people were doing terrible things.
Speaker 1:
Oh, no.
Terry Taylor:
They were like tearing up telephones. They were getting drunk, and it was just
like, it was awful.
Speaker 1:
So you were in the party dorm.
Terry Taylor:
I guess. I don't know. I don't know where any of those people are now.
Speaker 1:
Oh, boy.
Terry Taylor:
Anyway, and I lived on campus for one year and then I moved off campus for
00:14:00another year, because I was working part-time and lived at home. And that was
not a good thing to do. So after that year, I went to University of North
Carolina at Greensboro for two years.
Speaker 1:
Oh, okay.
Terry Taylor:
And then I went to Appalachian for a year, that was after I graduated from
school. I came home and my parents said, "Don't you want to go to graduate
school?" And I went, "Well, I don't know. Sure." So I went to Boone-
Speaker 1:
Why not.
Terry Taylor:
... for a year and never did finish my degree. And I finally got a master's
degree when I was in Durham, because we had to do continuing education down
00:15:00there all the time.
Speaker 1:
Oh, interesting.
Terry Taylor:
And this woman who taught at North Carolina Central University, which is one of
those HBC's, is that right? HB, Historically Black Colleges. I think it's HBCU
or something now, is that what it is now?
Speaker 1:
I'm not sure.
Terry Taylor:
I don't know. They change all the time. But at any rate, she said, "Would you
like to get your master's degree?" And I said, "Well, sure. But I really can't
afford to do it." She said, "Oh no, I'll give you a scholarship, if you'll
come." Because they were seeking "minority" folks to go to school. And I just
went, "Well, sure."
Speaker 1:
Sure.
Terry Taylor:
And so I did that in about a year and a half.
Speaker 1:
Nice. And what did you study at all those places?
Terry Taylor:
I studied, what was it I was in? It was special education and I think I
concentrated on reading. I think that's what it was.
Speaker 1:
Okay. That very nicely flows into the work that you did after.
Terry Taylor:
Yeah. Because then I had to do a thesis paper, and I did it on books for young
00:16:00children, no, for young adults and children that featured gay characters.
Speaker 1:
Really?
Terry Taylor:
This was a long time ago. I don't remember anything about it, except I did it.
And there weren't that many books that feature gay children at that time, that
was like, somewhere in the mid to late '80s, I think, mid '80s.
Speaker 1:
I'm trying to think. I don't know of any books like that off the top of my head
from that time. I can-
Terry Taylor:
I want to say one was a Judy Blume book, but I don't remember anymore.
Speaker 1:
Gotcha. Okay.
Terry Taylor:
I'm glad I remembered that.
Speaker 1:
That sounds like a really interesting project.
Terry Taylor:
It was. It was something that she just went, "Oh, sure. You can go ahead and do
that. That's fine."
Speaker 1:
Yeah, whatever. Go for it.
Terry Taylor:
She was a real Southern white lady teaching at a black university.
00:17:00
Speaker 1:
Interesting.
Terry Taylor:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Speaker 1:
So let's see. So we've talked a little bit about your work. If you would be
comfortable with it, can you tell me a little bit about like your coming out
experience, whatever that means to you? I know that can take several different forms.
Terry Taylor:
Yeah. It does. Okay. Well, I think I knew I was gay... Well, I knew I was
different. I mean, I knew I liked man from the get go. I mean, there was
Superman and Charles Atlas ads and all that shit. And then, at some point when I
was in college, at UNCA, when I was living at home at UNCA, I just went, "Okay,
this is not... These guys in this dorm, these are just... No, this is not going
to be good."
Speaker 1:
This is not my crowd.
Terry Taylor:
Which is why I think I left. But I knew that at least one of my classmates was
gay. And at that point it was sort of like, the information that we had about
gayness was like from the Joy of Sex, in the original version of it, not the
00:18:00later amended versions, but the original.
Speaker 1:
The original.
Terry Taylor:
And it was just like, "Oh, well this does not sound pleasant." But at any rate,
I met someone, a woman that I had gone to high school with, who had moved away
and she came back to school at UNCA. And I just remembered this the other night.
I was talking to a friend of mine who I've been friends with since I met him in
1972, he was in school at UNCA and he was an art major. And she took me over to
his room and we sat talking, and he was macrameing, I don't remember anything else.
Terry Taylor:
And then, I didn't see him again until I moved back here in '74, and I ran into
00:19:00him at a gay bar, there you go, in Asheville. But I think the first gay bar I
went into was in Greensboro. When I moved to UNCG, somehow I got a roommate who
was at UNCA when I was there, but I don't think I knew him then. But anyway, and
he was gay. But I did not like him at all, because he was quite grandiose and
00:20:00thought he was Jackie Kennedy. That was his ideal in life.
Speaker 1:
Wow, okay.
Terry Taylor:
And so he was my roommate and, oh, no, this is not going to [inaudible]. So
somehow I hooked up with other gay men on campus and that was fine, and lived
with one guy for a couple of years, which was fine. But the first gay bar I ever
went into was in Greensboro.
Speaker 1:
Interesting. And what year was this approximately?
Terry Taylor:
Okay. 1972, fall of 1972.
Speaker 1:
So what was that like, that first trip in there?
Terry Taylor:
It was just a bar.
Speaker 1:
Oh, okay.
Terry Taylor:
It was filled with a lot of people. Everybody was smoking and drinking, and
there was a little dance lower in the back. And I didn't think anything... I was
like, "Well, okay, this is just dandy." It was kind of a dive, but-
Speaker 1:
Well-
Terry Taylor:
... it was fun. But at that time, also, there were lots of other gay bars in...
Maybe in '73 or... Yeah, it must have been '73, a big dance bar opened up in
00:21:00Chapel Hill, there were a couple of gay bars in Raleigh, and we were always
driving up and down 85 going out. But we mostly hung in Greensboro.
Speaker 1:
Interesting.
Terry Taylor:
The one the winning in Chapel Hill had a big lighted dance floor, and I remember
we went there after we went to see Bette Midler in this tiny little club in
Raleigh. I mean, it was not much bigger than probably... Really, it was tiny. It
00:22:00was packed.
Speaker 1:
Oh, wow.
Terry Taylor:
It was great.
Speaker 1:
That sounds really fun. Oh, my gosh. I can't imagine.
Terry Taylor:
And then when I came back here, I knew there was a gay bar in Asheville that
used to sit on the corner where Haywood and Patton intersect, right before you
get to the expressway?
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Terry Taylor:
Right about where the bus stop is there now, there was a little building that
was a bar there.
Speaker 1:
Oh my gosh.
Terry Taylor:
And when I was living in Greensboro, people would say, "Where are you from?" And
I said, "Blah, blah, blah." "Oh, we went to this bar there." And I'm just like,
"Okay." And they said, "It was the weirdest fucking bar out I've ever been to."
Speaker 1:
That seem pretty on par, for-
Terry Taylor:
Yeah.
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Terry Taylor:
So at any rate, when it came back in '74, I went to the gay bar that was on the
00:23:00corner of Hilliard and I can't remember the cross street, Asheland. You know
where that little white convenience store is there on the corner?
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Terry Taylor:
Well, across the street, there's the tire place, and there's an empty lot. On
that empty lot, was a gay bar.
Speaker 1:
Huh? Okay.
Terry Taylor:
It was called BJ's After Dark, two floors. We used to park in the parking lot at
the... because everything shut down in Asheville after five o'clock, so we could
park at the convenience store there. And I went in one night and I ran into my
friend, Ron, who I had met at UNCA just one time.
Speaker 1:
Right.
Terry Taylor:
Yes.
Speaker 1:
Okay.
Terry Taylor:
Okay, and a friend of his, who was an artist. And we've been tight ever since then.
Speaker 1:
That's cool.
Terry Taylor:
They live in New York now, but one of them was from here. Ron's mother was from
00:24:00here and his parents moved here when they retired. So we have never been out of
touch in like almost 50 years.
Speaker 1:
That's wonderful. Oh my God.
Terry Taylor:
It's a little scary.
Speaker 1:
No. No. It's good. Hearing you talk about just how all across the state,
different bars were like, people knew about them, it was all connected.
Terry Taylor:
And when I was in school in Boone, we would drive over to Johnson City for
Pete's sake. And there was this one, during the day, it was like a dive bar for
just regular people. But at night it was a gay bar. It was the strangest place
ever. And then, we used to drive to Charlotte, because Charlotte had bars, blah,
blah, blah.
Speaker 1:
That's so neat that... Now you would think things would be a little bit more
00:25:00connected because we have ways of keeping in touch. But just to hear about how
much more connected things were like in the '70s and '80s.
Terry Taylor:
Well, I don't know whether they were more connected or not. I mean-
Speaker 1:
Well, yeah.
Terry Taylor:
And then when I... When did I do that? I guess in the late '70s I went to...
There was the group at, I don't know if the group still exists or not, called Closer.
Speaker 1:
Was that here?
Terry Taylor:
Yeah. You look it up, it was at All Souls Cathedral.
00:26:00
Speaker 1:
You know what? I don't know if it's the exact same group, but I know there is
one that still meets there.
Terry Taylor:
I'm sure there is.
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Terry Taylor:
But it's like an AA group, isn't it?
Speaker 1:
Yeah. They had a lot of programs, I seem to remember, anyway.
Terry Taylor:
At any rate, I went to some of those things and arranged for a gay poet, who
lived in Highlands, Jonathan Williams?
Speaker 1:
That sounds familiar.
Terry Taylor:
Yeah. Anyway, he came and gave a program there, because-
Speaker 1:
Very cool.
Terry Taylor:
... I asked him to. Because I knew him from folks that I knew in Asheville,
because Asheville used to be a small town.
Speaker 1:
Right. That's really cool that you would like advocate for him to have a spot.
Did you do a lot of community work like that?
Terry Taylor:
No. I was too busy. I was young-
Speaker 1:
Fair enough.
Terry Taylor:
... I was running around and working, and having my own life.
Speaker 1:
Right. That takes up a lot of time, doesn't it?
Terry Taylor:
It does.
Speaker 1:
One question that I like to ask people about is, their spirituality, if they are
00:27:00spiritual at all, or if they're not?
Terry Taylor:
I'm supposed to be a Methodist, and growing up, we went to church. Well, I don't
remember going to church much when I was really little. But when we went to
Japan, I remember we went to church every Sunday morning. And then, we didn't do
that so much when we were in New Jersey for a couple of years. But when we came
back here, we started going to church every Sunday morning. And I was expected
00:28:00to go to church every Sunday morning, until I went to college. And then it was
just like, "I'm not going."
Speaker 1:
Gotcha. Yeah. I know for a lot of people, religion and family can be a subject
of tension, but-
Terry Taylor:
Yeah. And it wasn't really. I mean, they were disappointed that they didn't want
to go to church, you know?
Speaker 1:
Right.
Terry Taylor:
And eventually they stopped going to church too. There you go.
Speaker 1:
There we go. Let's see, when I was doing my research on you, I-
Terry Taylor:
That's scary.
Speaker 1:
No, no, no. Don't be scared. I saw some of the art shows that you had... Not
really art shows, but like just gallery displays and stuff, recently. Can you
tell me a little bit about the stuff that you're doing now? The collages?
Terry Taylor:
Well, they're based... Well, for years and I do mean years, since from like, I
00:29:00think probably about '75 or so, my friends, Ron and Ed, and I, we were always
inseparable, and they had a studio downtown, and spent a lot of time there, and
I'd piddle around different things. And we discovered that all three of us had a
fondness postcards. And I had always kind of collected postcards, but it got to
be serious then. And that was, you could go to the flea market and just score
lots and lots of stuff, lots of postcards.
Terry Taylor:
And then I started going to, on Carolina Lane, it was where the Asheville
Postcard Company was. And it was run by this little old man, Mr. LeCompte, who
was like, I think a 100 years old, honest to God, chain smoked the entire time.
And it was in this really small space with big, tall shelves and boxes filled
with all the postcards that they-
Speaker 1:
Wow.
Terry Taylor:
... had published, plus postcards from other companies that they had acquired
00:30:00for some reason, I don't know why. And he would let us go in and say, "Okay, you
can look around. You can choose." And we would just go wild and buy postcards,
tons and tons and tons of postcards.
Speaker 1:
Like a kid in a candy store.
Terry Taylor:
Yeah. So I kept continuing to buy postcards for years, and then when I moved
back up here in '90, I think sometime in the mid '90s, I decided that... I knew
that the Buncombe County Library had a small collection postcards, so I donated
all of my Asheville postcards-
Speaker 1:
Oh, wow.
Terry Taylor:
... to them, which expanded the collection. The man who was in charge of
00:31:00cataloging them, just cursed me, every time I'd come in with more postcards. I
loved Lewis, but he was a painter in town, and he worked at the library. At any
rate, kept doing that, and I still buy postcards for the North Carolina
collection. It's just what I do. It's like, I'm just... You see one image, and
then, oh, here's a variant of it. For some people it's like, yeah, that's a
photograph like the Long [inaudible] up on... what street is that on? You know
up near the [inaudible]. And most of the postcards you see are those, it's all
sort of the pinkish sort of building. And it's all taken from one direction.
Well then if I find one that's-
Speaker 1:
Different angle.
Terry Taylor:
... A, is not pink, and there's only one that I found that is not pink, I
found... But at any rate, I buy them and I give them to library, because I think
it's important. I'm not so sure that they think it's important, anymore, but
it's a visual record of what Asheville and Western North Carolina look like. So
00:32:00anyway, at some point I got rid of all of those... I got my Asheville postcards,
and then I started getting rid of the rest of the postcards. And then I decided
to just start collaging them. And then I decided, "Oh, I think I'll cut them up,
and make quilts out of them." And then I, falalalala.
Terry Taylor:
So that's how that sort of came through. It was like an outgrowth of a long time
process of collecting postcards. And believe me, I've had more collections than
I can... I mean, I collect things, it's bad and I'm trying not to do it anymore.
Speaker 1:
Well, it can be bad or good.
Terry Taylor:
Well, and I tend to like sell the collection at some point I have to get rid of
this. And at my age, now, it's like, oh, I have to get rid of these things
00:33:00because I don't want my nephews, they're probably the ones that have to deal
with it, I don't want them to feel like, "What the hell am I going to do with this?"
Speaker 1:
Well, it'd be nice if this stuff could go to somebody who appreciates it. Like
you said, you donate the collections that you have.
Terry Taylor:
And I do. And it's not that I don't give my nephews something. I recently took
some pottery down to Georgia last week, and it's a folk pottery made by a woman,
by the name of Georgia Blizzard who made these pots and fired them in the way
that the Cherokee did them. They're not high fire pots, and they're very
expressive. There's a couple sitting in right there. Here I'll show you one,
just a minute.
Speaker 1:
I'd love to see it. Oh, wow.
00:34:00
Terry Taylor:
That was the first one I ever bought from her. She had stories for every one of
them. This is another one, which I particularly am fond of.
Speaker 1:
Wow.
Terry Taylor:
And she lived up in Virginia. At any rate, I took all the pots I had, except for
these two down to an auction company in Gainesville, Georgia, because I knew
that my nephews probably weren't going to be interested in. So I saved these two
for myself, and my nephews are going to get these and they can decide what to do
with them then.
Speaker 1:
There you go.
Terry Taylor:
So collection are just, I've had-
Speaker 1:
That's kind of your thing.
Terry Taylor:
... tons of them. Yeah.
Speaker 1:
Feel like that's a good compromise of like, I'll keep one or two pieces and pass
00:35:00the rest along. I think that's really good. So you mentioned your nephews, I
neglected to ask about your siblings.
Terry Taylor:
My brother lives in that house down below.
Speaker 1:
Oh. He's right over there.
Terry Taylor:
Parents gave my brother two or three acres of this... There were originally, I
think, like 18 acres up here.
Speaker 1:
Oh, wow.
Terry Taylor:
It stretches all the way back up this way. It goes up along this fence line and
there's a farm over on that side. And he bought this property in the mid '70s.
And then when my brother got married, when they had their first child, they
00:36:00built this house, that house down there.
Speaker 1:
Gotcha. Okay. And you can get along with your brother pretty good?
Terry Taylor:
As well as... He's very good.
Speaker 1:
Cool.
Terry Taylor:
He and his wife are just... They don't ask any questions.
Speaker 1:
There you go. Sometimes that's the best approach.
Terry Taylor:
I'll be talking about Rex or I'll talking about... Nothing, phases them anymore.
Speaker 1:
Okay. Now, who's Rex?
Terry Taylor:
Rex is, I guess, he's my boyfriend now. I think we're really just really tight
friends. He lives over-
Speaker 1:
You don't have to put a label to it.
Terry Taylor:
... in Tennessee.
Speaker 1:
Oh, okay. But does he come visit sometimes?
Terry Taylor:
I love him to death. He will not come over and spend the night, because he has
to sleep in his own bed, unless we're away on vacation, and then he's okay. But
he doesn't like to be away from home more than three or four days.
00:37:00
Speaker 1:
That's fair. Yeah.
Terry Taylor:
And I'm used to it now. It kind of bothered me to begin with, and now it's like,
oh, I don't care. It's all right.
Speaker 1:
Gotcha. And how long have you been... Well, whatever?
Terry Taylor:
Yeah. I think it's about 11 or 12 years now.
Speaker 1:
Oh, wow. Okay. Very cool. Is he an artist?
Terry Taylor:
No.
Speaker 1:
Okay.
Terry Taylor:
No. He's constantly puzzled by what I do, which is okay. I mean, he goes,
"Okay." He doesn't... But if I'm make him something, he's okay with it.
Speaker 1:
Well, yeah. Okay.
Terry Taylor:
But he just doesn't understand the desire to make stuff.
Speaker 1:
Oh, huh?
Terry Taylor:
I made him a potholder one year, and he refused to use it. He still refuses to
use it, but he has this hanging on the wall, because he thinks it's pretty.
00:38:00
Speaker 1:
It's a decorative potholder.
Terry Taylor:
Yes. Yes. That's the kind of man.
Speaker 1:
Gotcha.
Terry Taylor:
He comes from a very different world than I do, East Tennessee, that should
explain it.
Speaker 1:
That says a lot.
Terry Taylor:
Yes, it does.
Speaker 1:
I wonder if he wants to interview, and I'm like-
Terry Taylor:
No. Although it'd be interesting.
Speaker 1:
Yeah. I don't know, we shall see. Let's see. Is there anything that you had
wanted to talk about? I know in one of the emails it said something about,
"Think ahead, if you want to talk about anything specific," so this would be a
good place for that.
Terry Taylor:
Is there some sort of... have folks talked about the different gay bars that
were in town?
Speaker 1:
I haven't heard that from anybody. I haven't listened to all of the interviews
00:39:00that have been done either. But as far as I know, we don't have that kind of a
story, which, that's something we need.
Terry Taylor:
Yeah. I wish I could remember the name of that bar that I told you about that
was at corner of Haywood and Patton. I just don't remember. But there was like
BJ's After Dark, which is on that corner that we talked about, and it burned down.
Speaker 1:
Oh.
Terry Taylor:
It's mysterious. And then there was one that was right on Patton Avenue, if
you're facing the Public Service Building, it was to the right. A little tiny
place, it only lasted for a year or two. And this was in like 1979. Yeah, at
least '79, maybe '78, '79. It didn't last too long, called Treetops.
Speaker 1:
Treetop. It sounds kind of familiar.
Terry Taylor:
And that's about the time that, O Henry's, in it is original place on Haywood
00:40:00Street opened, but it wasn't officially a gay bar until after like '82 or so. It
didn't really have the bar downstairs-
Speaker 1:
Interesting, okay.
Terry Taylor:
... until then. And then there was place that was where Hairspray was. There was
a place on Wall Street where Jubilee is, that Craig, what is Craig's last name?
Craig, oh, I think it was called Craig's. And it was kind of a music venue and
for a while, it was like kind of your typical lighted floor disco place, and
00:41:00then it became just a music venue. And then there was a place underneath where
Hairspray was, that was a bar for a while, and that's in like the early '90s, I
think. And then when O Henry's moved to, well, Haywood, it's still on Hayward
street, but further out.
Speaker 1:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Terry Taylor:
Yeah. That first little bar BJ's was just like, it was strange. It was run by
some folks, by gentlemen who was a hairdresser. And the upstairs, BJ's was for
Billy Joe, who was a black drag queen. He had been in the Navy, lived in town.
His mother ran an after hours place over in the Montford-
Speaker 1:
Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.
Terry Taylor:
... that was fairly popular. I never went, but BJ, she-
00:42:00
Speaker 1:
But it was there.
Terry Taylor:
... was something else.
Speaker 1:
I wonder, in your ear collecting of the postcards, have you spotted any of those
bars? In... No.
Terry Taylor:
Mm-hmm (negative).
Speaker 1:
I know that's a very like curated-
Terry Taylor:
No.
Speaker 1:
... view of Asheville.
Terry Taylor:
Where did I say this one time? And I don't know how I saw this. I think Buncombe
County Special Collections has a scan of a matchbook cover from Treetops Lounge.
Speaker 1:
Oh wow.
Terry Taylor:
I have to... Do you know Katherine Cutshall?
Speaker 1:
I don't.
Terry Taylor:
She's a UNCA graduate and she got her master's degree in 2019. And she was in...
00:43:00I think her major was in local history. And then she got some degree that had
something to do with special collections, I don't know what it was. She worked
with the folks in Special Collections at UNCA, a great deal.
Speaker 1:
All right, yeah.
Terry Taylor:
I'll go online and see if I can find that, because it was... And I don't know
where I saw it. I truly don't, and it was online somehow. And I asked the guy, I
contacted him and said, "Do you have any things from Asheville?" And he had this
one thing and he showed it to me and I just went, "Oh my God, can I have that
00:44:00scan please? Because it's like, this was a big gay here. It was like a gay bar
at some point, here in Asheville." I'll have to look and see, I don't remember
exactly how that all went down anymore.
Speaker 1:
Gotcha. That's another part of this project is, we're trying to collect as much
archival material, stuff like that, like the matchbook or flyers for things from
back then.
Terry Taylor:
Well, then you should try and look and see about... Oh, well, here. [crosstalk],
that's easy.
00:45:00
Speaker 1:
Oh, yes, technology.
Terry Taylor:
How gayish, yeah. Okay. So that's me at, basically, four, maybe five. Do you see
what I'm doing?
Speaker 1:
You're posing.
Terry Taylor:
Do you see what I'm wearing?
Speaker 1:
Oh my goodness.
Terry Taylor:
Do you see what I'm wearing?
Speaker 1:
Wow. There's the heels.
Terry Taylor:
The heels. Yes. My mother's high heels. That's my favorite picture. All right,
what's this one? In the late '70s, there was a place called Sky City, it was a
00:46:00department store here. You know where the Sav-Mor is on Patton Avenue?
Speaker 1:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Terry Taylor:
That was Sky City.
Speaker 1:
Okay.
Terry Taylor:
Okay. They had a photo booth, and I used to go in and we all did, there was a
crew of like artists in town, we all used the photo booth, it seemed like that,
so that's-
Speaker 1:
Oh, my goodness.
Terry Taylor:
... me in the 1970s sometime. This is me, which is kind of weird.
Speaker 1:
Very [crosstalk]
Terry Taylor:
That wall there, is... That building right there is the old Sears building,
which is now the Social Services Building, which is right across the street from
the bus station. That's a whole other story. Oh, this is in the late '70s at the
very first Preservation Ball that the Preservation society held at the Grove
Arcade. And I don't know who the photographer was, but he set up... And it was
00:47:00supposed to be a costume ball. So this is my friend, Ron, and we decided we
would do an Asheville history thing. So my t-shirt said-
Speaker 1:
Oh, how cool.
Terry Taylor:
... "Zelda died here."
Speaker 1:
I was looking at that. I love that.
Terry Taylor:
This one was, "Susan Hayward wanted to live here," because there's... No,
there's this postcard of Susan Hayward on the top outdoor gallery of the Battery
Park Hotel that has Susan Hayward looking out over downtown Asheville.
Speaker 1:
Oh, my gosh.
Terry Taylor:
And Ed's said, "Thomas Wolfe wanted to come home again," or something, I don't
remember what it was.
Speaker 1:
It says, "Slept here."
Terry Taylor:
Slept here, that's it. That's it, "Thomas Wolfe slept here."
Speaker 1:
Oh, my gosh.
Terry Taylor:
And so we were all decked out.
Speaker 1:
I love those.
Terry Taylor:
This was like a red chenille bathrobe that had one of those big peacocks on the
00:48:00back of it.
Speaker 1:
Oh, wow.
Terry Taylor:
Yeah. Any way, that was-
Speaker 1:
You don't happen to still have that outfit. Do you know?
Terry Taylor:
No. I don't know where that t-shirt went.
Speaker 1:
Now are these the photos that you had emailed?
Terry Taylor:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Speaker 1:
Awesome. Oh, mu gosh. These are great.
Terry Taylor:
this my friend, Ron, again, and me, and that's when we lived up on the Manor
grounds, up above the Manor. That's me at haystack. [inaudible].
Speaker 1:
Oh, wow.
Terry Taylor:
That was, yeah, I did a book called the Mustache Book, one of the last books I
did at Lark, and they decided they'd call me the curmudgeonly crafter, because I
was kind of curmudgeonly. That's me, that's something I've made it [inaudible].
This is my manly broach that I made. I went to Haywood Community College, as
well as.
00:49:00
Speaker 1:
That's the manliest broach I've ever seen.
Terry Taylor:
Yeah. And you have to read all the little things down.
Speaker 1:
Oh.
Terry Taylor:
Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 1:
Nice. I love that.
Terry Taylor:
That was one of my collections.
Speaker 1:
Oh wow. Wait, what are they?
Terry Taylor:
tin can furniture.
Speaker 1:
Tin can furniture.
Terry Taylor:
People used to make tin can furniture.
Speaker 1:
I didn't know it existed, but now I love it.
Terry Taylor:
Oh yeah. There you go.
Speaker 1:
Oh my goodness.
Terry Taylor:
Yeah. That's another Lark thing, did a book on napkin folding.
Speaker 1:
Oh wow.
Terry Taylor:
But anyway, you should have all of those.
Speaker 1:
Those are fantastic. I will make sure to... when we get the transcript up, I'll
try to include those photos, because otherwise the recordings kind of like, "Oh,
ooh, ah."
Terry Taylor:
Oh, what is that.
00:50:00
Speaker 1:
Those photos are great though. Let's see. So we've talked a little bit about the
history of Asheville. What do you think about the gay or queer community in
Asheville now? Do you have much interaction?
Terry Taylor:
I know nothing about it.
Speaker 1:
Gotcha.
Terry Taylor:
In fact, yesterday, I was just thinking like, what are the gay bars in town? The
only thing I can think of is like O Henrys, but I know that Banks Avenue-
Speaker 1:
Bank Avenue?
Terry Taylor:
It's there where... It's on south slope, which I know what was there before, but now-
00:51:00
Speaker 1:
Gotcha.
Terry Taylor:
... it's like, I have no earthly idea.
Speaker 1:
It changes so fast too.
Terry Taylor:
Banks Avenue, I think it was like 2019 when Katherine was doing something, UNCA
I had a booth at the Pride Festival, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Sometime
there we had a timeline or photographs or something that the library, Buncombe
County Special Collections has on gay Asheville. But at any rate. Banks Avenue,
I keep hearing about some place on Broadway.
Speaker 1:
I know there's Scandals. I'm not sure where-
Terry Taylor:
Scandals?
Speaker 1:
Yeah. I don't frequent the bars.
00:52:00
Terry Taylor:
I don't either.
Speaker 1:
I'm too much of a home body.
Terry Taylor:
Well, I mean, I just don't go out anymore. I had no idea Scandals was... See?
Speaker 1:
Yeah. Like I said-
Terry Taylor:
Actually, I mean, I don't think it makes any difference anymore, which is the
way it always should have been or well, actually, was. I mean, groups of us
would go like to the, it used to be the Hilton, now, it's right there at the
interstate, across the street from the Radisson. We used to frequent that bar a
lot. And there were other bars in town that we'd go, but we mostly just went to
BJ's. It's like I don't feel a connection at all. It seems to be a thing of the
young, I don't know how to put it any other way.
Speaker 1:
Yeah. I kind of hate that it's that way, and that's one of the things with this
00:53:00project, we're trying to bridge the gap between different generations, because
we want to record these stories, because they're truly valuable to not only our
community, but I think the Western North Carolina overall community, because
it's part of our history.
Speaker 1:
But I was thinking maybe that's... You had talked about the different bars and
things and how it's not so much a thing anymore. I mean, we still have a few
bars, but the community is now outside of that in a lot of ways.
Terry Taylor:
I guess they... Now, of course, like the rather more flamboyant... I mean, I
just have to put it this way, drag queens and stuff like that, flamboyant folks
00:54:00may not feel comfortable going out anywhere else. I personally just go anywhere
I want to and always have and never really thought about it.
Speaker 1:
Gotcha. So there's sort of a not really passing privilege, but like a sort of
anonymity, maybe.
Terry Taylor:
I guess it's just, I just never... I mean, I'm a gay man, but I don't really
think of myself as a gay man. I'm just a person. And I go through my life, and
my life is probably a lot different from a lot of other people, but that's just
the way it is.
Speaker 1:
Right, yeah. Yeah. I think, I'd like to move towards a world where everybody can
just be themselves and not worry about that. But for other people, the labels
and things are really important.
00:55:00
Terry Taylor:
Yeah. I wish I understood that, and I can't. I mean, I can, but I just don't. I
mean, it's just like, you are a human being and I like you just the way you are.
It doesn't make any difference to me what pronouns you use, or I'm sorry, you're
offended if I called you, I don't know, I'll call you a dyke.
Speaker 1:
That's fair.
Terry Taylor:
You know?
Speaker 1:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Terry Taylor:
It's like, it was a term that I grew up with, and it wasn't pejorative. It was
just a description. I mean, when I went to school in Greensboro, they had only
let men go to school there for two years, before I got there.
Speaker 1:
Oh, wow.
Terry Taylor:
So there were lots of lesbians. Actually, no, they preferred dykes.
Speaker 1:
There you go.
Terry Taylor:
It was just like, okay. Yeah, that's fine. You weren't permanently branded with
that name. It was just the easy way to just describe someone.
00:56:00
Speaker 1:
Gotcha., Just a word. Yeah.
Terry Taylor:
Just a word. And it certainly didn't... I mean, lipstick lesbians, that was one
of my favorite ones, we loved that one, but I don't understand why you have to
be named anymore.
Speaker 1:
Gotcha. Yeah.
Terry Taylor:
I mean, for me, it just... I mean, I went through life just being myself and I
don't understand why it's so important.
Speaker 1:
Gotcha. Yeah. I guess that's one of those... It's fascinating to me to see how
language evolves over time. Dyke used to just be a descriptive word, and for
many people it still is, but some people are like, "Oh no, no, you can't say
that if you're not..." There's like rules-
Terry Taylor:
If you're what?
Speaker 1:
... that apply to it now. Yeah.
Terry Taylor:
I can say it. I'm different just like you are. And some people might call me a
00:57:00faggot, some people might call me a queer, and I never... I think maybe in my
entire life, maybe, I've heard those words maybe three times.
Speaker 1:
Oh wow. Okay.
Terry Taylor:
And they were from like little angry children or teenagers who were saying,
"Hey, you faggot." It's like, yeah. My favorite thing to do when a kid would
call me that was just look at them and go, "You know you have to be one to see
one." And that shut them up, right quick, because they were like going, "Okay,
what does this mean?"
Speaker 1:
Short circuited their brain-
Terry Taylor:
Yes, it did.
Speaker 1:
... a little bit.
Terry Taylor:
Yes, it did.
Speaker 1:
I don't know. The way I kind of approach it is, if a label or a term feels good
to somebody, then great. If it doesn't, you don't need one, you know?
00:58:00
Terry Taylor:
Yeah. I'm sorry, I'm too old to bother with trying to figure out which pronouns
to use with people, when sometimes it's just a matter of genetically, you might
be this.
Speaker 1:
Right. I think-
Terry Taylor:
Or physically I should say.
Speaker 1:
Yeah. I think what it all comes down to is just, respecting each other. I want
to show respect to other people, whatever that looks like for them, so if that's
pronouns, if that's, you don't want me to use this word, then I will respect
that. If you don't care about labels and you think all of that's silly, I
respect that as well. I think that's what we really need to all remember, is just-
Terry Taylor:
Yeah. It's just like, I just go, yes, that's who they are.
00:59:00
Speaker 1:
Yep, we're all-
Terry Taylor:
And in my head I know you're another person, and you may lean one way or the
other. That's all I care about, and I don't really care.
Speaker 1:
It's just that basic respect and just live and let live.
Terry Taylor:
It's just... Yeah. It's the militancy that I think I object to the most.
Speaker 1:
Gotcha. Okay.
Terry Taylor:
The political correctness. If it's like, okay, all right.
Speaker 1:
I think that that can sometimes overshadow some of our more pressing issues-
Terry Taylor:
Yes.
Speaker 1:
... shall I say? Yes.
Terry Taylor:
I agree.
Speaker 1:
Yeah. Although, I'm trying not to say something as trite as, things sure are
better now, but they are in a lot of ways. We've made-
Terry Taylor:
Oh, yeah, in a lot of way.
01:00:00
Speaker 1:
We've made a lot of progress legally and culturally, which it's got us to the
point where we can have debates over what kind of language to use, and-
Terry Taylor:
If you wish to have those debates.
Speaker 1:
Exactly.
Terry Taylor:
I really don't care.
Speaker 1:
Yeah. I'm just trying to look at it from like, it's nice that we can be precise
about these things that we're not so concerned with, getting basic human rights.
Although for many, that's still an issue. But getting back on topic, is there
anything else you would like to share as part of your story? Because this is
really about you, I don't want to throw in too much of my two cents.
Terry Taylor:
No, I think I'm all right.
Speaker 1:
You're good. Awesome. Well, thank you so very much.
Terry Taylor:
You're welcome.
Speaker 1:
This has been such an educational experience.
Terry Taylor:
I didn't tell you anything that you didn't already know, did I?
Speaker 1:
You absolutely did.
01:01:00
Terry Taylor:
Uh-oh.
Speaker 1:
I love hearing about the history of Asheville's gay community and gay bars. That
was fascinating.
Terry Taylor:
All right. I'll tell you one other thing.
Speaker 1:
Okay.
Terry Taylor:
Okay. All right. So remember this is like 1970s, 1960s before anything.
Speaker 1:
Gotcha.
Terry Taylor:
The main way that guys used to hook up, this is really interesting. They would
cruise around downtown in their cars at night when nobody was there, and the
circuit ran around the Grove Arcade past the post office to the Downtowner, and
then circled around the bus station, and then came back. It was a big loop. And
on any given night in town, you would see cars driving around in circles, with
01:02:00people hooking up.
Speaker 1:
Oh, okay.
Terry Taylor:
Well, it was a little scary, but I mean, just in terms of, occasionally, the
police would come through and things would die down, but most of the time the
police sort of left everybody alone.
Speaker 1:
Gotcha. Okay.
Terry Taylor:
And then the bus station was... there was the bus station and in various and
sundry public restrooms that people could hook up in, which is... I assume
that's still happening, but I have no idea.
Speaker 1:
Oh, I'm sure it is.
Terry Taylor:
I'm sure, yeah. We called it the cage.
Speaker 1:
The cage.
Terry Taylor:
You'd drive around the cage. And just that little sort of area-
Speaker 1:
Little circuit.
Terry Taylor:
... was like... And I remember, at some point, I think I came out to one of my
cousins at some point, early on in the '70s or something, or maybe the '80s, but
01:03:00at any rate, she's just saying something, and she said that a man that she knew
had said that all the gay people drove around in front of the courthouse to try
and pick up people. And I just looked at her and said, "No, they don't.
Speaker 1:
No.
Terry Taylor:
They drive around and pick... it's in front of the post office and around the
Grove Arcade."
Speaker 1:
Get your details straight.
Terry Taylor:
"Don't listen to what John tells you, because John doesn't know shit."
Speaker 1:
Like, I got the real info.
Terry Taylor:
"I know what's happening out there, so-
Speaker 1:
Oh my gosh.
Terry Taylor:
... just there you go." But it was like before the bar, sometime after the bar,
not much after, but it was, the thing to do, was just drive around. I put many
miles on my car doing that.
Speaker 1:
And how would you... would people just hang out by the side of the road, like, "Hey"?
Terry Taylor:
Or they'd follow you or you'd nod and then you'd pull up. And there was nobody
01:04:00downtown, basically-
Speaker 1:
Gotcha.
Terry Taylor:
... in those years. And so it really-
Speaker 1:
Oh my gosh.
Terry Taylor:
Nobody bothered you. You did try to go somewhere discrete though.
Speaker 1:
Right, oh-
Terry Taylor:
You didn't do anything on the street, but-
Speaker 1:
... no, I mean, but civilized.
Terry Taylor:
Yeah. Yeah. But also people who were staying at the Downtowner Motor Inn, they'd
also leave their curtains up and open or stand in the doorway. It was, I mean, I
think everybody who came into town knew that that was what was going on down there.
Speaker 1:
Wow.
Terry Taylor:
Why is all this traffic going on-
Speaker 1:
Don't worry about it.
Terry Taylor:
... late at night? Yeah, don't worry about it.
Speaker 1:
If you know, you know. If you don't know, you don't need to know.
Terry Taylor:
And if somebody says, "Oh, I never did that," and they're of a certain age,
they're lying.
Speaker 1:
Liars.
Terry Taylor:
That's it.
Speaker 1:
Well, thank you so much.
Terry Taylor:
You're welcome.
01:05:00
Speaker 1:
We will get this transcribed, send it to you for review, and I will be sure to
include those pictures, because those were fabulous. But, again, thank you so much-
Terry Taylor:
You're welcome.
Speaker 1:
... for your time.
Terry Taylor:
Not a problem.
Speaker 1:
Thank you.
