Oral History with James Dye (2021)

James Dye:

We may have to avoid the issue of my mother if you want to preface this.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Okay. All right. So tell me when you were born and where? Tennessee, right?

James Dye:

No, no. I was born in Boaz, Alabama. My mother would always say, "Oh, Albertville," that's where we lived, but it was the Boaz-Albertville Hospital. And it was the Boaz side of it. That was May 11th, 1960.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

You had a birthday.

James Dye:

Yeah. I'm 26.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Nice.

James Dye:

You get that. Again, it's not the first time I've been 26.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

My mom's birthday is May the 13th.

James Dye:

Okay.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

So that makes you a Taurus?

James Dye:

Oh yes, very much a Taurus, right.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Tell me how you're a Taurus? What makes you a Taurus?

James Dye:

Well, there are people who say I am stubborn, but I think it's just strong will; 00:01:00let's try to make that positive. And artistic, maybe not a successful artist but one who likes the arts, all of that. I believe I can sing, not many other people agree with that.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Do you sing? Do you have a community where you sing?

James Dye:

No. I can't read music, that's always been a problem for me. I play the baroque recorder and lately, I've taught myself to play a keyboard, but badly.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Do you have all these instruments at your house?

James Dye:

Yeah, yeah. I even have my grandmother's harmonium. Unfortunately, it's broken and I can't find anyone to fix it.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

What's a harmonium?

James Dye:

It's a pump organ.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Oh, like with a seat?

James Dye:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). I got a little too enthusiastic and I broke one of the pedals so that's all that needs to be fixed about it, but I can't do it. I am not technically inclined. I don't know if that's a Taurean trait or not.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

So one pedal is broken?

James Dye:

Yeah. I mean, you can play it with one pedal, but it throws everything off. Working the pedals is how I can keep the beat.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

So Boaz, Alabama, and you were there for how long?

James Dye:

Well, technically Albertville, Alabama is where the domicile was. So we lived there till I was three or maybe four, when we moved to Birmingham and this is 00:03:00right after the...

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

The bombing?

James Dye:

... the bombing. So it was a very tense time in Birmingham. I remember being terrified of the KU Klux Klan. I wasn't exactly clear on the concept, but they dressed like ghosts and I was sure they were going to steal my tricycle.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Did you see them dressed as ghosts?

James Dye:

No. I mean, I have no idea what images I may have seen on television or something like that. But in fact, it was sort of a scarier thing because I never had seen them. My older cousins and my sisters would mention them, and it was terrifying. Well, a babysitting technique of my sisters was to keep me terrified. Yeah. That's one I may have to retract later.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

No. It seems like you completely retracted technique.

James Dye:

Well, I never had a babysitter who wasn't a blood relative.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Yeah. So then did you all remain in Birmingham?

James Dye:

Not for very long. I went to first grade there and then we moved to Tennessee. My father got a job in Knoxville and we were there for just a few years. And then he bought a business in Greeneville, Tennessee, which is sort of near Johnson City, and that's where I "grew up." That's in quotes.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Tell me about first grade in Birmingham. What was the demographics of your class like? Was it public school?

James Dye:

It was public school. I think there were 32 children in the classroom, 30 of 00:05:00them white, two were black. This was 1966 in suburban Birmingham. I didn't really like first grade. I can't recall that I hated it. I loved learning to read, hated math and I still do. I still like to read.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

And that's music.

James Dye:

But I didn't particularly like school and I didn't have friends. And I had grown up with four older sisters so I didn't quite realize why it was important that I have a friend who was male and that I wouldn't have even known what we were 00:06:00supposed to do because I didn't like sports and I still don't, except as we discussed earlier, hiking and badminton. And so yes, mostly, this was my introduction to people I wasn't related to.

And by and large didn't like them. I mean, I can't say that I disliked them. I just didn't feel like I had anything in common with them. And that summer after first grade, we moved to Knoxville and then second grade, it was the complete opposite. I loved school. I still didn't have a lot of friends, but I was getting more of an idea that people outside the family might be interesting, 00:07:00too. Although, members of my family are very interesting.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Good, I hope to hear about that.

James Dye:

Yeah. And they're hoping you don't.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

So school got better.

James Dye:

Well, second grade was better. Third grade, as I recall, I hated it again. And my teacher disliked me, which really struck me as odd. I mean, my first grade teacher wasn't particularly warm to me. My second grade teacher liked me and that was wonderful. But my third grade teacher, I got the real idea that she preferred smart young girls and boys were supposed to be athletic and kind of dumb. And I was certainly not athletic. And now and then, I gave the right answer, except in math. And I think my math problems got really bad in third 00:08:00grade, too.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

I feel like I had a really stern third grade teacher.

James Dye:

Yeah. But what made me mad was my sister who was just a year older than I was, had this wonderful third grade teacher. So I was actually looking forward to third grade, but I didn't get Mrs. Norton. No, I got Mrs. Thompson and I couldn't figure out why she disliked me. But she wouldn't call on me and stuff like that, even though I already knew the answer.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Isn't subtle sometimes like kids know if their teacher likes them or not. I hope that's getting better these days that teachers are faking it a little better.

James Dye:

And I'm not sure she wasn't a good teacher. I mean, I think she was just stern and the way she dealt with boys was, oh, they need a stern teacher, which 00:09:00might've been true for them, but it wasn't true for me. So yeah, I was happy to get out of third grade. And then fourth grade, we moved to Greeneville and I pretty much liked that.

I started in the middle of the fall. I mean, we moved in the fall, not in the summer, I may have gotten that wrong. So we were a few weeks into the school year when I changed schools. And I sort of was able to capitalize on being the new kid. I mean, this was not a traumatic experience because I came from exotic Knoxville and before that even more exotic Birmingham.

So that only lasted for a few weeks, but for a few weeks that was what I needed 00:10:00to be introduced to this new school and all of that. Yeah. For the most part, I liked fourth grade. This is going to get tedious, fifth grade I didn't like. Sixth grade was kind of okay.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

So did you end up graduating there out of Greeneville?

James Dye:

I did, yeah.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

What kind of business did your dad open there?

James Dye:

He started with a tool and die business.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Oh, okay. I did accounting for a tool and die business in college.

James Dye:

Okay. Then you probably know more about my father's business than I did. He of course, wanted me to take over, my parents planned for that and I resisted that right from the start. So I knew as little about the tool and die business as one could, militantly.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Was that the same kind of business he had in Birmingham? Did he move that business?

James Dye:

No, my father had actually worked not for NASA, but I'm spacing on the name of it. But my father worked for Wernher von Braun in Huntsville, Alabama, building rockets. And my father was actually one of the rocket boys who went around collecting junk and things like this that Wernher von Braun then shot into space. And yeah, I often said my boss was a Nazi, but my father really had a boss who was a Nazi.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Did you all talk about that?

James Dye:

Well, my older sisters actually met Wernher von Braun, and this is one of those 00:12:00rabbit holes I warned you about. My oldest sister has always been fascinated by miniatures, any kind of miniature. Well, my father had this little wire bound notebook that he kept in his breast pocket with all of his important addresses on it. And she thought that would be perfect for her dolls and she stole it. She stole it. Yeah okay, she was quite young, this was before I was born.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

So this is one of the stories that you hear about at Christmas, right?

James Dye:

Yeah. And she took it to school and showed it because it was so cool. Plus, my dad has this very clear crisp engineering kind of writing. He writes in all capitals and it's just uniform and my father has beautiful handwriting, I did not inherit that. So she had this and she showed it on the playground and all of 00:13:00this and then promptly lost it, as would happen. And she said, and that week Sputnik went up and she knew that the Russians had gotten her notebook.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

And it was never recovered?

James Dye:

It was never recovered, no.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Tell me the age breakdown between your sisters and you.

James Dye:

My oldest sister is eight years older than I am. And then the next sister is just a year later.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Younger than her?

James Dye:

Yeah, she was an accident. And then the next sister is two years later and then the next sister is just a little over a year older than I am.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Wow.

James Dye:

Yeah.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

That's so odd. What was it like living in a what we would call a big family now, did it feel big?

James Dye:

It did. And yeah, most of the people we knew thought we had a big family. We were often said to be Catholic when we were actually Southern Baptist, but-

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

We'll get to that later.

James Dye:

Yeah. That'll come back, that's a Leitmotif right there. I mean, on the plus side of it, I had a circle of friends or protectors. And like I said before, never had a babysitter who wasn't one of my sisters. My mother went back to work when I started school so if it was generally one or more of my sisters taking care of me.

So there was this sort of idyllic, Victorian upbringing there. I mean, my sisters would read fairy tales to us and stuff like that. And stage plays, we did all of that, costumes, the works and musicals. Oh my God. My first musical 00:15:00was Oklahoma-

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Can your sisters actually sing?

James Dye:

Oh yeah, every one of them. Well, Pam like myself, might get requests not to sing, but that doesn't stop her.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Well, that sounds pretty special.

James Dye:

Yes, I think so. I mean, I don't remember that I really was fascinated about going to see The Sound of Music when it came out, which would have been 1964, 1965. I remember we were living in Birmingham, but then I was just awestruck. First of all, I had loved Mary Poppins and Julie Andrews and my oldest sister is named Julie and I thought there was a connection there because she also played a guitar. But I very quickly learned all the songs to The Sound Of Music, my poor family.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Tell me about so that was your first.

James Dye:

Well, I can remember we went to the drive-in and I had not finished my supper so we brought my supper with me, seven people in, I believe we were in a Volkswagen. I remember I had cranberry sauce.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

I can see that this story is going to get messy.

James Dye:

Yeah, while this guy is riding through the corn field singing, "Oh, What a Beautiful Morning," I was fascinated. I mean, I believe the movie, this was not its first run, although it may have been the first time it played in 00:17:00Albertville, Alabama. But yeah, so that was my first musical.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

What happened with the cranberry sauce?

James Dye:

I believe that I did all right with it. I mean basically, my mother was feeding me. But I think she's the one who said we don't leave the table until everyone eats, can we just take the food with us because otherwise, we would have been late, we were late for every movie.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Sure, I can imagine organizing that many people.

James Dye:

Yeah. I mean, I think by the time we got there, Gordon MacRae, who played the cowboy, was already riding through the corn cornfields, but that's okay. We didn't care about the credits back then; we weren't that artistic.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

What does your moms work? You said she went back to work?

James Dye:

As a secretary. My mother was a language maven and early on, she had aspirations 00:18:00of being an editor. The brother with whom she was closest wanted to be a writer. And so he was going to write books and she was going to edit them. Neither of them was going to get married or have children. I mean, they both ended up getting married. He had four children; she had five. So yeah, that little dream didn't work out.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Did your mom feel like I guess, she wanted to work or financially-James Dye:

I think she had to. I mean, she had worked before her first child and even up until she was quite pregnant working at a bank and I don't know in what capacity, I can't imagine my mother being a teller because I inherit my 00:19:00mathematical skills from her.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Oh, gotcha.

James Dye:

So she had worked up until that point and then raising children became the full-time occupation. But even back then, you couldn't have that many children on one salary. And so she went back to work part-time. She would be the one to collect us from school and all of that. And she would be home with us in the afternoon mostly until my oldest sister was old enough to drive. And then we were entrusted to her then, which was fine. But yeah.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

What did you think about moving around? So your dad ended up building a business, but what about the other moves? Was he searching for your work?

James Dye:

I mean, working for the Nazi, the business with Morton-Thiokol, he got laid off from that. Now his younger brother worked there for the rest of his life. So there was a period where my dad was out of work, which was a tense time.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Yeah.

James Dye:

I mean, in retrospect, I've often wondered why he would take us to Birmingham at a time when they were calling it Bombingham and it was really that's where the job was. And he took a job as a traveling salesman. So he was also on the road a lot, which was tense, but my father is a charming person. So he actually, I 00:21:00think did very well as a traveling salesman, but he didn't like being away from home that much.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

So then when you moved from Birmingham to Knoxville and that was a different job that he moved there for?

James Dye:

Well, he stayed with the same company. He sold this megamachine to a tool and die company in Greeneville, got a huge bonus for it. Christmas that year was incredible. And then, he ended up making the last four payments on that because 00:22:00he bought that business. But he liked the tool and die business and they liked him.

And one of the guys, it was owned by two men and one of them was about to retire. And so they wanted to groom my father. It got very complicated though, where the two partners had a falling out, they split the business and suddenly, my father is kind of this extra wheel, he has to find work. I mean, he's beyond 40 at this point with his oldest daughter about to go to college.

And so my father didn't really have to work hard to find work, but it was just 00:23:00having the carpet pulled out from under him. And then one of the two men who was going to retire did, and then sold what was half the business to my father. And that's when my father made the last four payments on the machine he had sold them.

But the complicated business of my father's business, he came to know this mad scientist who built welding machines and they got along because they both spoke a language no one else spoke in Greeneville, Tennessee. And it turns out that the welding business was in a lot of trouble. And consequently, this guy's 00:24:00patents were being held up by that company, and they weren't paying him and stuff like that.

And so my father, not the greatest business move, bought the welding company and set up a laboratory for this mad scientist. I mean, he was going to solve the energy crisis. This man built incredible machines, his welding machines, but that welding company was in serious problems financially, which is why my father was able to buy it.

But then my father wasn't able to salvage it and it threatened to pull his other business under. And my father went bankrupt and he had started a little business, a plating shop, which he had put his brother in charge of, who was out 00:25:00of work, put him in charge-

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

The one that did work for the Nazi?

James Dye:

No, no. This is his youngest brother who had tried a lot of things and chicken farming amongst them and had failed. So my father convinced him to come up to Greeneville to run this little plating shop, which was sort of like a hobby for my father, but that turned out to be his interest. Well, after the bankruptcy, the plating shop was the only part of the business my dad was allowed to keep, which he gave to us kids technically although, he ran it and now at 93 still runs it. So that was a hard time.

I mean, I was in school in Germany when the bankruptcy came through. So on top 00:26:00of that, I'm like the expensive child in a foreign country. So my father had a very hard time with that. And yet, the bankruptcy came about because there was no money, but my father did not want to lay any of his employees off. So there were problems with taxes and things like that.

So what my father did was, since I was not going to take over the business, he sold it to the guy who was directly under him. And then he was allowed to keep the plating shop, which he then built into the family business. We're still 00:27:00dependent on it today. I mean, the laboratory that he set up, this scientist who's been tied up with his patents and all that, the guy promptly dies, it was completely unexpected and all of this.

And his patents, his inventions in limbo. My second older sister had assisted him some because she's also a mad scientist, but he wouldn't tell her the important stuff. He was very proprietary about that, but every so often, he would give her a little inkling of what this is. And so, his laboratory, when he died, it was gone.

And yeah, a few years ago, some men stumbled across this patent for a power plant and they were just amazed and we took it to the University of Tennessee and tried to get it tested, but they couldn't get a good vacuum or a complete vacuum. The mad scientist wanted to shoot the thing into space. He said, "That's where you need to do it." It's like, "Oh yeah okay, we'll just get a rocket."

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Well, didn't your dad build rockets?

James Dye:

I was going to say, but these guys are supposedly testing it now. I mean, the patent has run out. So it's in the public domain or something like that, but they were very eager. And the technology has gotten to the point that getting that perfect vacuum, it's a lot easier than it was back in the day.

James Dye:

Perfect vacuum. It's a lot easier than it was back in the seventies or early eighties.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Okay, so can I ask one more question about Birmingham and then we'll move on to the stuff, did you ever talk to your mom about that move to Birmingham and what she felt about that?

James Dye:

I did.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Was she afraid or anything?

James Dye:

I don't recall her being afraid. Now, my mother was from central Alabama.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Okay.

James Dye:

Which was south of Birmingham. And I think she liked the idea of being closer to her family. She had family in Tuscaloosa, which is a short drive from Birmingham, and she had grown up just outside of Tuscaloosa. So I think, because it also meant getting away from my dad's family who were all in northern 00:30:00Alabama, and she didn't really get along with her mother-in-law, you know, that she sort of liked that idea. Plus, she had a sister who lived in Birmingham. And so I think for my mother, family was the important thing and her family more than my dad's. I don't think she had huge fears on that part.

Interesting thing about my mother, although her politics were very conservative, she voted for Kennedy. And I have this image because... Okay, I would have been five, maybe six months old at that point. So she was having to vote with me on one hip and four other small children, the oldest of whom was eight, in tow 00:31:00probably. She probably had my father with her, so that one or the other could keep all the kids in a clutch while the other one voted. But I always think, "Ah, I convinced my mother, at that point at least, to be a liberal."

Speaker 1:

Good decision.

James Dye:

Well, she would later vote for Obama. I like to think I convinced her to do that. I think it was really, she didn't like the choice.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Yeah. Well, so can you talk a little about the Southern Baptist? Like what role religion played in your youth?

James Dye:

Well, I mean, it was huge and, although I now consider myself a Quaker, I will still say "we" when I talk about Baptists and I think that the most important 00:32:00thing, religiously, that I took away from the Baptist church was the priesthood of the believer. This came, and that sounds lofty, but I assure you, it wasn't. One of the things about our church attendance, and my father was a deacon. I mean, with-

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

I was going to ask, did y'all go to church every Sunday?

James Dye:

Every Sunday and Wednesday, twice on Sunday. And so, we'd go out to dinner after the service on Sunday. And we would just tear the sermon apart, just these stupid things the minister said, or something like that. I mean, it was very rare when we had a minister that we held in any sort of esteem. So this is why I 00:33:00call it the priesthood of the believer, because you can tear the sermon apart and to me that does seem like part of being a Baptist was that you are your own authority and that, more than likely, anyone who was being paid to stand up there was an idiot.

Now we did have a period--this is jumping ahead to Greeneville--where a professor from Carson Newman College, that's now Carson Newman University. But two of my sisters went there... Actually three of them went, but two of them graduated. But he was there as an interim pastor and he was incredible. And he brought all this theological stuff and scientific and archaeological stuff, so 00:34:00he could hold your attention, but he was actually delivering a message that was nice that it was not tinged with prejudice, like most of the...

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

A little more intellectual?

James Dye:

It was intellectual. I can't say that any other sermon I heard from any other minister was intellectual. So that was refreshing. And that was the time when the dinner table conversation was...

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Elevated?

James Dye:

Exactly. Yeah. That's the word I was looking for, but it's still early in the day for me.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Did you do this twice on Sunday and Wednesdays all the way through high school?

James Dye:

Well, let's see. My father... I'm not sure when he stopped being a deacon, but 00:35:00that did happen. My sister, who is a year older than I was, was very much into church, but because it was a social function. I didn't see any great religiosity about her. I mean, I was, I think I was 16 and we had a minister that the whole family despised and he just got up and said, "All homosexuals are going to hell." Well, by 16, I knew I was gay. I was still kind of hoping that would wear off, that it was a phase, but I was, and it didn't bother me that the minister said that because I already had decided he was an idiot, but then the minister of music, whom we all liked, said, "Amen." You know? And that was like, from 00:36:00that moment, I was no longer a Baptist. I mean, I may have gone to church. I certainly sang. That was the best part about the Baptist church. Taurus, again, you know.

But the whole thing, I just couldn't reconcile that. And, of course at that moment, I'm starting to see, oh, this is Baptist 101 is that homosexuality is evil or incompatible, you know? And so that was a breaking point.

You know, it would be a long time after that before I became a Quaker. I mean, and I have never officially become a Quaker. I do not even know how you do that. 00:37:00I mean, I very seldom go to meeting, but I don't feel that... I sort of feel that going to meeting is somewhat hypocritical. Because going to church every Sunday and wearing a suit and all of this, that seemed... not only seemed hypocritical, but there was the biblical thing about going about in long robes and sitting in the best seats and all of this.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

[crosstalk]

James Dye:

It's like, oh, yeah, that's what we did every Sunday in the Baptist church. So, you know, I suppose I am more of a freelance Quaker.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

So back to 16, and this moment happens in church. Do you all talk about that as a family, when you go home?

James Dye:

Oh, hell, no. Oh God, no. You know, it was the fact that the minister said the "H" word from the pulpit was already scandalous. Never mind that it had the word 00:38:00sex in it, which you didn't say that from the pulpit. And we disliked him thoroughly. It's like, he would say that, but I mean, my sister, who's just a year older than I am, he had made a comment that her skirt was too short and so she really hated him. But many, many years later, she had him perform her second marriage. She was still a Baptist then but she's now Pentecostalist. So out of the frying pan into the fire. Yeah.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Well, tell me how you go from, I know this thing about myself at 16, to what 00:39:00came next. If you're willing to talk about your journey with that realization.

James Dye:

I mean I knew, I guess, that I had always been gay. I just didn't know what, I didn't know that was a word that... Well, I didn't have it in that context.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Did you have models, I guess? Anybody you knew in your life at all at that point?

James Dye:

No. When I was in high school, when I had finally resigned myself that this wasn't a phase, there was my history teacher, who was held in high esteem, but he was this tall gangly man with no sense of fashion. He used henna in his hair. He came from a wealthy family and then, sadly, he lived with his sister. I could see this as my fate. So he was like my only role model there. Now, like I said, 00:40:00he was super smart and all of this. So I liked that about him, but mostly I saw, oh, this is what I'm going to be when I'm old. You know?

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

He wasn't out at all?

James Dye:

No, no.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

It was just an I think?

James Dye:

Well, yeah, I thought. I later learned that he was indeed, but I mean, yeah. Until, he became my teacher, I was convinced I was the only homosexual in east Tennessee or the south. Outside San Francisco or whatever.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

But it doesn't have to be mid-seventies for kids to feel that way, right? I'm interviewing people who are 20 now and still like, I thought I was the only gay person in town, in western North Carolina.

James Dye:

I mean, I think it's in an urban setting...

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Oh, okay. Thank you.

James Dye:

In an urban setting, I think you might have that now. I was growing up in a small town, which these days seems very gay. It certainly wasn't then. I mean, Republican gay, not good gay. But you know, at the time, I didn't see... Of course I was also not looking.

My oldest sister's boyfriend, we were pretty much convinced was gay, and I discovered I had way too much in common with him. First of all, we were both Taurus, we were both left-handed, you know, and my mother and later, even my sister, would go on about how effeminate he was. Well, of course I wasn't 00:42:00effeminate. Yeah, I was. But, you know, I would try to stay away from him. And then I took up the recorder, the instrument, not the tape recorder.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Thanks for clarifying for our audience at home.

James Dye:

Then I learned, to my horror, that my sister's boyfriend played the recorder, you know, and all of this. So, um...

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

So why did you feel like you wanted to stay away from him?

James Dye:

Well, because he was gay. That was...

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

So, your family talked about him? Like said that out loud?

James Dye:

Oh yeah. I mean, although-

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Just the sisters? Or, you, your mom, your dad?

James Dye:

My mom, not my dad, plus my sister's relationship with him didn't seem to be going anywhere other than good friends and all that. And he went with us one 00:43:00year to the beach, and he and my sister and my parents had gotten there before the rest of us arrived. And, we get there, and my sister is just scowling and it was like, I remember her muttering, "Oh, and I'll be getting rid of him really quickly."

He remained a friend of the family, you know, after that. And he ultimately came out and became a beloved school teacher in Greene County, an elementary school teacher. And, quite obviously gay, but he would bring snakes to class and stuff like that. So the kids adored him. Yeah, but apparently the parents did, too, and, and he was very good. But, you know, my sister was just... They had been 00:44:00"dating" and yet they seemed like brother and sister. You know, all through college and all this, she had gotten quite tired of him. I think he had invited himself along to the beach.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

To the vacation?

James Dye:

Yeah. When she was quite ready to let him go, which she did, but yeah. But he became good friends with my middle sister. I'm wondering if I should give my sisters' names.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

No, that's fine. That's good.

James Dye:

Julie is fine. Okay. Linda has always been considered the middle. Yeah. She's the absolute middle. So the two of them became very good friends. Now, Linda was 00:45:00married to a man who was 15 years older than she was. He had actually been her art teacher in high school. I mean, it was after high school when they got married, and she had just had her first child, which was the first grandchild in the family, and was contemplating another one. And Bobby, which was my oldest sister's boyfriend's name, had just started teaching and all of this. And Linda, at the time, was, very Bohemian and all. And, and she and Bobby used to pal around because her husband, you know, older, they... Their marriage was rocky 00:46:00from the start. It did not last, but my sister was already contemplating her second child and Bobby had just started teaching and she said she was totally okay with him being gay. She said, but, you're never going to teach my son, and, she would chuckle with that. This was the first sister I came out to and, because I thought she was okay with it, because of Bobby, you know? And she wasn't, she really wasn't. And that was right at the time she was going from being this Bohemian to being a Pentecostalist. And there were two nervous breakdowns in the interim, that she described as religious experiences.

So, I made the mistake of coming out to her first, thinking, because of her gay friend, that she would be okay with it and she really wasn't. It turned out to be the wrong choice. But then I told her that she could tell our oldest sister, who I thought would be fine with it. Turned out to be the second bad choice.

My second oldest sister, I was reluctant to come out to, because she was married to an Episcopal priest. He was in the process, he was a seminarian at that point. So I thought she might be too conservative. And then the sister that I'm closest to in age, she had a circle of gay friends in college, but for some reason I resisted. I nearly came out to her several times and right as I was 00:48:00coming out, she would say something borderline homophobic. Like she anticipated what I was going to say, and she wanted to stop me from saying it. You know, if you don't say the word, it doesn't exist. Yeah, in the long run, it turned out to be the Episcopalian, the priest's wife, who was the most supportive of my sisters. My oldest sister was like, "There's this whole AIDS thing going around, so just don't do anything." You know, it's like, well, I'm already in a relationship.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Tell me when this was, how old were you?

James Dye:

I was 24 when I came out to-

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

This was '84?

James Dye:

Yeah, very good.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Well then, let's go down the line. How did mom and dad find out?

James Dye:

Well, you know, when I came out to Linda, the first sister I came out to. I told her, you know, because I was in this relationship, which was clearly dying.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Where were you? Were you still living-

James Dye:

I was living in Columbus, Ohio. I had just dropped out of grad school for the first time. And I was living with a classics professor. And it was a bad relationship from the start. The less said about it, the better. But I realized 00:50:00that, if I continued living with him, this was going to become a complication. I couldn't keep from our parents. And I said, "Well, surely Mom and Dad know." And my sister's eyes got really wide, and she said, "Oh no, I don't think they do." And I said, "Really." Because I was 24 years old, I had never had a girlfriend and, painfully effeminate and musically inclined.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Did you do theater too?

James Dye:

Oh God, yes. Yeah. Well, you know, Shakespeare, it involved playing a recorder and wearing tights, yeah, I was there.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Love that.

James Dye:

Yeah. And I said, "Well, they must talk about it." And my sister said, "Oh, no, 00:51:00I don't think they do." And you know, up until that point, I was certain they had these little conversations about what to do about Jimmy and suddenly realized, oh, they don't. You know, that denial is that big. So it was actually three years later before... And I had, in the meantime, gone to Amsterdam and I stayed with some friends of friends of mine and I was doing research for a play I was hoping to write, which I have since written, about a Dutch sodomy trial. So, you know, going over there and meeting these...

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Historical.

James Dye:

Mm-hmm (affirmative), yeah. And meeting these friends of friends of mine, you know, I absolutely had to come out to them because... and, you know, we got to 00:52:00be immediately very good friends and all.

And I said, you know, I've come out to one of my sisters and it was disastrous. I'm thinking about just writing a letter to... And she said, "You know, that would be a very good idea." Which is how I came out to the next two. You know, I was also out to the oldest sister, because I told the sister I came out to to talk to her.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Pass that along.

James Dye:

Yeah. And that turned out to be a mistake, too. But I had had this wonderfully positive experience in Amsterdam with a completely supportive couple, a heterosexual couple. But, you know, they were just wonderful people. They took 00:53:00me in, they didn't know me from Adam. But, because we had a common friend in Columbus that introduced us.

I had gone there with the idea I would stay a couple of days with them and it turned out I stayed most of three weeks with them. So, then I come back and, on a fluke... I'm volunteering at the Gay and Lesbian Alliance at Ohio State. And I mean, I've dropped out of grad school, but I go ahead to get a teaching certificate, another mistake in my life, as you can attest. I am a terrible teacher.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Oh, I did not think that's true. I think you're a great teacher.

James Dye:

For one lecture, okay. I, because I was doing exams and stuff like that, I had 00:54:00been neglecting my duties at the Gay and Lesbian Alliance. Of which, I was the vice president, elected, no competition. It was like, you get to be an officer and you get to be an officer. I will note all four officers were left-handed. This was another Leitmotif.

But, so having done my exams, I'd go into the office and I'm trying to make up for all the time I wasn't there. I was answering the phone, the hotline and this guy calls and he said, I have a ticket to San Francisco, a round trip ticket. I can't use it. I can't get a refund on it. Your organization has helped me a lot. I want to donate it. He said, and I know it's spring break, so someone ought to be able to use this. And I said, actually, spring break was last week. I will 00:55:00try to find someone to take this ticket, but offhand I'm the only person I know who can.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

[crosstalk].

James Dye:

I did go to my best friend, who I knew would not be able to take off from her job, you know. She was not able to. So I go to San Francisco for a week. I never had any interest in the state of California at all. Growing up, I knew San Francisco was "where the gays are", but I wasn't gay, I was homosexual. You know? So I didn't... I had a real problem identifying with the community. But what I loved about San Francisco... First of all, I left Columbus, Ohio with something like four feet of snow on the ground, and this was in April, and I arrived in San Francisco and there are flowers blooming and birds singing. I had 00:56:00no idea how cold it got in San Francisco, all the time, because that one week I was there was an aberration. And I go to the Castro and these two women are talking and one said, "What brings you out?" And she said, "Oh, I just came to get political literature." Well, everywhere I had ever lived, if you saw someone with pamphlets, you ran the other way. Here, people were giving them out.

And I saw this one couple and I stared at them and I even kind of followed them because they just seemed so out of place. I couldn't figure out what it was until I realized, they were a heterosexual couple and they were holding onto each other white-knuckled. That was like, they were the odd people out and suddenly I loved San Francisco.

I go back, I'm sitting in the student union, with one of my fellow officers from the Gay and Lesbian Alliance, and I told her, I went there, not expecting to 00:57:00like San Francisco, thinking it would just be sunshine and tan people. And I almost didn't come back. And, she says, "Well, you know, if you're serious about it, I've always wanted to move to San Francisco." We were having lunch and, by the end of lunch, we had decided, why did we want to stay in Columbus, Ohio? There was nothing there. And I was coming out of a second bad relationship and I really wanted to get away. So that summer, we packed up and moved to San Francisco.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Did you drive?

James Dye:

Well, I don't drive. The world's a safer place because I don't drive. But she did. But there was the whole thing about coming out to my parents. I'm now 27 years-

James Dye:

About coming out to my parents. I'm now 27 years old. I'm out to all my sisters. I am out to the city of Columbus, Ohio.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Right.

James Dye:

But, so I go home, my parents know I'm about to move to San Francisco. My father is lending us his van, an extended loan. And my sister married to the Episcopal priest. He's now new seminarian and all of that. I go and spend a night with them trying to remember where they lived. They didn't live in Greeneville then. And that night, she said, "It's time to come out to mom and dad." And I did not sleep that night at all because it would have to be the next day because then 00:59:00I'm going to San Francisco and I don't remember why, but my mom and I are in the car, she's driving and we get down to the end of the driveway and she said, "We need to talk."

I said, "Do we?" Cause... She said, "I know your gay." I said, "Oh, how do you know that?" She said, "Pam told me." Well, Pam didn't tell me she had told my mom-

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Which one is Pam?

James Dye:

She's the second one.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

What second one?

James Dye:

She's the Episcopalian. And I actually don't think she did. I think my mom had already figured this out and just felt because I was about to move to San Francisco, which is Sodom on the west coast. My mom was very stern and all of this at that point. But she said, "But I want you to know that I love you and all of this." And then she asked me if I wanted therapy, which I said, "I'm 01:00:00beyond therapy, mom."

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Like mental health therapy, or like conversion therapy?

James Dye:

Well, I'm not sure that she was making a distinction at that point. I mean, this is 1987. So, I told her I didn't and she was sort of okay. I do not remember my father's reaction. He was mostly just very quiet. A little bit later, after I'd moved to San Francisco, I came back for the March on Washington and then went over to Tennessee to visit my family and was all excited because all this gay stuff and I'm talking 90 to nothing to my mother about gay stuff and my father is very stern, he said, "Can you change the subject?" Which is like... that put a damper on things.

But that summer, my parents came out to San Francisco to retrieve the van they 01:01:00had lent us, which I had christened the Prairie Queen. It was an awful van. It did however, manage to get us out there. But they came out on the train with my aunt and uncle and it was right at the time of the gay pride parade. And I told my parents, "You do not have to go, however, I'm marching in it because I'm with this group that supported the people who stormed the Supreme court." I was one of the cheerleaders from the back. I wasn't about to get arrested. And they said, "Well, your aunt really wants to see this." So, they went and then-

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Is this mom's sister?

James Dye:

No, no, no, my mother's sister-in-law. And so they went and I come around to 01:02:00their hotel afterwards and my mother has what we call her "Aunt Glennie face" on. Glennie was her pious sister. And I said, "Well, how was it?" And she said, "Those men were naked." I managed to miss all the naked men, but my mother... And then my father gave me the ride home again in the Prairie Queen, but he didn't know we called it that, and as I'm getting out, it's just the two of us. He said, "Gay people... they're like the boy Scouts..." I'm thinking, "okay, where are you going with this?" He said, "you get rid of the riffraff and it's a 01:03:00damn fine organization."

My mother had seen the men in G strings and the bare-breasted women and all of this, my father had seen the boring gays in business suits and the lesbians in smart pantsuits who were also marching there. My father saw all the boring parts, I always say. My mother sees Carnival in Rio. And although my father and I don't talk about gay stuff, my father and I don't talk about sex, he's always been the more supportive one, the more... I mean the quiet one.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Right.

James Dye:

I know he has to be incredibly disappointed. First of all, that I'm gay plus I 01:04:00didn't take over the family business. I went out of my way to let him know I wasn't interested in the family business. But he has always been the pillar of strength.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Okay, I have a lot of questions but I recognize we're like an hour in. So if you're tired or anything like that-

James Dye:

I'm not, are you? You've been polite. You haven't yawned yet.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Well, you, in an offhand way, mentioned this like activist part of your life. I'd like to talk about that. Like storming the Supreme court and stuff. I'd also like to hear about Germany and college life. And so whichever one of those directions you want to go with first-

James Dye:

Strangely enough, my parents, who are not activists, big time not activists, got involved in the antinuclear movement when I was in high school and right after I started college. And TVA was building a reactor near Rogersville, Tennessee-

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Oh.

James Dye:

That was frightfully close to our home. And this was right when Three Mile 01:06:00Island had its semi meltdown. My sister, who's a year older than I am, and I were in college at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, so 70 miles from Greeneville. And my parents come and collect us in the middle of the week. We go back to Greeneville. My father has this tank of helium in the dining room. There are all these balloons and these little flyers with a radioactive signal on them or that fan... that's the icon. And these flyers all said, "This flyer was released at the site of a proposed nuclear power plant. If an incident happens such as at Three Mile Island, radiation would reach you."

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

What a smart strategy.

James Dye:

Two of my brothers-in-law were the driving force behind this. But this was when 01:07:00my father was getting involved with the mad scientist and all that, who had solved the energy crisis and so there was a little tinge of capitalism in this, but my mother was seriously concerned about the health effects. They had just had their first grandchild and the scary stuff about strontium-90 being absorbed like it's calcium and all this really scary stuff. So we spent the evening attaching these flyers to helium-filled balloons. In three vehicles, we drive up to the site where they're building the reactor and release them. And then, one of my brothers-in-law, who was a pilot, took up a bunch of these flyers up in an airplane and circled over the site, which is already invading proteted airspace, 01:08:00but the reactor wasn't online yet.

So, I guess he wasn't in danger of being shot down, but he releases them in a circular pattern and then we hear absolutely nothing from this, but that same brother-in-law was involved in some chamber of commerce thing or something and he goes out to the site of where they're building this reactor and is chatting... schmoozing with the people and he said, "Have you had a lot of protests?" And he said, "Well, you know this is Tennessee. Nobody's going to Oak Ridge, nobody's going to protest here," he said, "Oh. I'm surprised. Nobody's trying?" He said, "Oh, there's a little group from Johnson City, you know... And then one day there were just all these balloons and flyers." And it was a moment of triumph. That reactor, as I recall, never went online. So, I like to think 01:09:00that we did that, but that's really the only time I can think of my parents being activists of any sort.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

When did that come in for you? When, I guess when you stormed the Supreme court?

James Dye:

Well, that was the first. I may have overstated storming the Supreme court. Like I said, I knew people who did.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Tell me about that. What year was that?

James Dye:

It was the first few months so obviously in San Francisco, after my friend Clara and I moved there. I was volunteering for the March on Washington. They had an office set up, which they shared with the NAMES Project, the Quilt. This was the first time that would be exhibited, but there was a little corner in that office that they allowed us to use. And it was a group called Queer and Present Danger. Somewhere I still have the long sleeve t-shirt I had with the Supreme court logo 01:10:00on it and-

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

If you ever find it, I'd love to borrow it when we do our art exhibit. That'd be kind of a cool thing to put on a-

James Dye:

It's starting to decay, but I-

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Nobody would really care. We'd just put it on a mannequin.

James Dye:

They were really nice plus they were long sleeve, which as I learned for San Francisco, that was important. Yeah. I don't know about those scantily clad men in the gay pride parade, it's cold in San Francisco. But at that point, I wasn't yet working in a law firm. So I didn't really have any experience that a friend of mine back in Columbus had just started working as a paralegal and I did everything she did. So that kind of stuff.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

This is kind of, this is late eighties, like 80?

James Dye:

This was 87. Yeah. This would be, I think, the second March on Washington. I missed the first one, but I really don't know how, just in the course of 01:11:00volunteering for the March on Washington, I came in contact with this group. Queer and Present Danger and there was a woman asking about... now I do remember. This woman asking about it and I said, "Well, you know, there's a group. That's going to do civil disobedience there and get arrested." She said, "Oh, I can't get arrested." And I said, "Well, you know there are other things you can do, like be a cheerleader." And she said, "Well, I might do that." She said, "but I'm taking my bar exam. And I just don't want to have an arrest on my record." Which seemed to be like... wouldn't that be a kind of good arrest? So 01:12:00little I understood about the law but, and it was some months later that I started my first real job in a law firm. So that March on Washington was wonderful.

First of all, I was reunited with all the friends I had just left from Columbus and it seemed like a huge... suddenly everyone was gay. Just before I get on the plane to go to the March on Washington, this guy, I only barely knew, to die for cute, points straight at me and said, "Your picture was in Newsweek.

Okay. Now, if you remember back to when I came out to my sister, the very first time, one of the things we had talked about, she said, "You should never tell mom and dad. Never." I said, "Well, that's fine. What are you going to do when I end up on the cover of Newsweek magazine?" I said Newsweek and now this guy's pointing at me and said, "You were in Newsweek magazine." I go to the newsstand and apparently I was in last week's Newsweek magazine because the Newsweek I bought, I couldn't find anything like that. But I go to the March on Washington and then I go to my-

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Did you ever find it?

James Dye:

Well, that's what I'm getting to. Then I go home and of course my parents subscribed to Newsweek magazine. They're in the library, which is the euphemism for the bathroom's stack of Newsweek magazines, I gave them. It was amazing how 01:14:00it just fell open, where the staples are and right where the staples are, there's a crowd shot in front of the Mission Dolores Basilica in San Francisco when the Pope was visiting. And there is this blond person in a bright red outfit, just dead center in this crowd shot. The bright red outfit I was wearing was one my mother had gotten me when I went to Europe so that I would seem more European. The Pope had come to visit and I had gone as part of a protest. I thought, "Oh, I'll wear cardinal red that'll really stand out." I quickly make off with this copy of it. I don't know that my parents ever saw that, but it was just... And I mean, by that point I was out to them anyway but you know, I-

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

that's a whole extra layer.

James Dye:

Yeah. This was a double whammy. Gay and going after religion. I wish I could find that copy of Newsweek magazine. Somewhere I have it because I never throw anything away, but you know, that in itself creates. Well, I can tell you the edition and all of that and I found it online, a copy of the cover, but I couldn't find inside it. Yeah. Some library somewhere has it. Yeah.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

So tell me about college. So you graduate, you graduate high school and then you went to school with your sister-

James Dye:

I went to the University of Tennessee, my sister was a year ahead of me.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Okay.

James Dye:

And the interesting thing... Well, eventually I would major in German. I was 01:16:00going to major in English, but then I was put in advanced placement English and all this, and I get a B, and I get a B, not because my grammar was bad or anything like that, but because my professor had no sense of humor at all. She could not get my jokes. Which I have to think speaks negatively of her intelligence, because I don't want to admit that my jokes were that weak, but so since I did so poorly in English, I sold out to the Germans.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

You got a B.

James Dye:

I got a B. So I went over to the Germans.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Is that why you went to Germany?

James Dye:

I went as an exchange student to Bonn. Loved, well, I mean... Bonn at that time was the capital of West Germany, but it was still mostly a wide place in the road. What I liked about it though... I mean, if I had stayed there the full year, then I very likely would have come out then and there because even though I didn't see any gay people, it seemed like a safe place. Plus again, I was from an area that they were very few people from the American south in Bonn, even 01:18:00though, I had to pretend I was from Iceland so that people wouldn't speak English to me.

I did take an English translation class to sort of do it backwards, which was taught by this English guy. And so, I got into the Anglo-German society, which was... It was a fun group and all of that. But, he was just always trying to get idioms from me and things like that because you know... Basically I ended up co-teaching the class because it's like, "I'm not sure what they say in America." And it's like, "Well, I don't think I'm a representative of America generally, but in the south, we would say this." But, I remember him talking about pedestrian malls, and no one knew what those were.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Pedestrian mole.

James Dye:

And I said, "Well, you know in my hometown, there's a pedestrian zone." Said, 01:19:00"You have those in America?" And I said, "Strangely enough in this little town in Northern Alabama..." Albertville, not Boaz. Boaz will never have a pedestrian mall, but Albertville did. I said, "Yeah, we call it as a..." Oh no. He called it a "pedestrian precinct." And I said, "Oh, in America, we use that mostly for a police beat." He said, "Well that's just strange." But yeah, that was probably the most fun class I had. You know?

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

And you said you were there not a full year? You came home early?

James Dye:

I did. I came home early because my mother was ill, and my mother had been against my going to Germany all along.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Why? Just of fear or?

James Dye:

Because she was my mother and she had really made it quite miserable at home because she was just constantly worrying to the point that my father had taken me aside and said, "Go to Germany, enjoy yourself. Don't worry about your mother. I'll take care of her." But it was just something that he said to me, God forbid mom ever hear that and I went and contacting my mother was very difficult because West Germany was one of two countries on the planet where there were great limitations on making a collect call. In fact, you had to physically go to the post office and make the call. Yeah. The other place was Malta. East Germany, you could've made a call with a credit card, but this was 01:21:00the only way in West Germany. And so I would have to toddle off to the post office at midnight or late at night anyway and there was a series of phone booths there.

And then you had to plead with the operator to give you a collect call to... So I wasn't calling often enough for my mother. I was living in an attic and didn't have a phone and most students couldn't get a phone. It's quite complicated or it was at that time anyway. But as an emergency, I'd given my mother my landlady's number, but I had told her strictly, "Don't call this number..." And then one night, my landlady's on the stairs and she says, like, oh my God. It's my brother-in-law, who spoke some German and he said, "Oh yeah, your mom's 01:22:00really wigging out. You know? So you need to call her." And I say, "Okay, tell her I will call her tonight. You know, and get off this phone. This is my landlady's phone. What are you thinking?" Yeah. So, it was very difficult.

Plus I was a student. I didn't have time to write lengthy letters and all that. And so, one time, I called and my sister answered the phone and she said, "Now, I don't want you to be upset, but mom's in the hospital. Well, she's been in the hospital for a week. She's in a lot of pain." And I immediately, the next day, I go to the international student office and I withdraw from the university and all of this.

I was going home at Christmas anyway, but I just decided, "Okay. This is not working." But I knew I could not tell my mother that I came home because I was 01:23:00worried about her because that... She really didn't want. So I told her, "Oh, there was something with my papers and all of this, and, you know, did mix up." And things like that. But she didn't buy it at all. But I think she decided, because she always thought I was an idiot, that I just flunked out, couldn't handle it, my German wasn't good enough. You know, all of this. My mother hated the German language and stuff. She spoke French. I'm the only one of her children who did not study French. French was awesome. She met my dad in a French class. So.Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

So did you just say like about six months, I guess?

James Dye:

I stayed six months, and then I came back and I couldn't go back to school 01:24:00because all my courses were off. I couldn't immediately go back to the University of Tennessee because I would be in the middle of things. And so, I'm sitting around the house trying to get a job and it's like, "Why didn't I just stay in Germany?" My mother was not pleased that I had come home, my mother was not pleased that I went to Germany there, but I really can't talk about my mom right now because it's too raw. She passed away at the end of May.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

You did say if you would stay you feel like you would've come out there and even... Is it that you saw other LGBT-James Dye:

It was more than the gay thing. I can't say I have lots of friends, but I was as 01:25:00close as I've ever been to being popular, you know?

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Nice!

James Dye:

Well, I was popular because I was an oddity. From, the south and I wasn't a raging Republican and you know-

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

And you lived by yourself, but in the landlady's house?

James Dye:

Yeah. And my landlady was really quite wonderful, but we kept our distance. I mean, I had to use her shower, but we still used the formal form of address. She would boil my socks and underwear because that's what Europeans do, you know. But other than that, I did the rest of the laundry myself. But, I had to admit this was a nice perk but it was... That was interesting. Being in Germany. I 01:26:00mean, I wish that I had had a better sense of history when I went there because my landlady had actually grown up in the Netherlands. Her father was working for Krupp during World War II and it was just like, "Oh, wow." I mean, the stories she must have had I think, in time we would have gotten to where she would have talked more about it. But yeah. I mean, one of my brothers-in-law, called her right when I got back from Germany that I had come back because of my mother. And so I continued the lie with them. I said, "It's my papers were not in order. 01:27:00He said, "Yeah. And you must never tell your mother. Otherwise," this is the brother-in-law who's the priest. When I think about it, I moved back from San Francisco because of my mother. Again, I didn't tell her that. There were other reasons too,

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

When did you move back?

James Dye:

2004.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Okay.

James Dye:

I was in San Francisco for 17 years. If that math does...

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Where did you move to, when you moved back?

James Dye:

Up to Asheville.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Oh, okay.

How did you pick Asheville?

James Dye:

Well, one of my Pentecostalist sisters had mentioned, "Have you considered moving back?" I came home every year at Christmas. I said, "No, no, I can't see 01:28:00any reason for doing that." She said, "Well, I was just thinking you might consider Asheville."

We'd been to Asheville when I was a kid, gone to Biltmore. It's like, "Well, I want to go to one mountain town instead of the one where our parents live," although Greeneville has nothing like Biltmore House. Then I'm talking with a guy online who lives near Asheville, saying, "Oh yeah, it's very liberal town," and all of this. At that point, my lover had died. I had been in the same job for 10 years. My Boss was in...

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Were you still working in an attorney's...

James Dye:

In a law firm, yeah. My boss was insane. He had a court case coming up and I was the paralegal assigned to that. This would mean not only working with this insane man, but riding with him in his Porsche to Santa Cruz on that windy little road.

I had never ridden in a car with him, but just his general demeanor would make me think, you don't want to be in a car with this person, let alone be in a court case with him.

Now this case, I'd worked with him on it many years before it had gone on appeal, and all of this. Then there was a lull in the proceedings. So, for a few years, I didn't have to work with him at all. Now, I was going to be forced back into that. In this case, it had tentacles, it was awful.

The office manager had left, having gotten her real estate license. We were talking about my house, which I had a mortgage on it and all of this. She said, "Do you realize how valuable your house is?" And I said, "Well, when I bought it, I thought it was extremely expensive, and that I was going to regret this, but my lover talked me into it, who was so good money.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Is that true or sarcasm?

James Dye:

That's sarcasm.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Okay.

James Dye:

I'm sorry, sarcasm mode on, yeah. Jeffrey Davis, not good with money, although did amazingly well without it.

I was talking to her because she had just gotten her real estate license. I was 01:31:00like, "Well, ha ha, if I wanted to sell my house, the house that abuts mine, which is the same floor plan and everything, I noticed it's on the market." I didn't know about looking these things up on the internet. The internet was still basically cuneiform then.

She said, "Your cost has probably gone up in value, now, it's been 10 years." I said, "Yeah, like how much?" "Four-fold!" I realized, if I sold my house, I could get out of San Francisco, which at that point, all of my friends had either died or moved away.

San Francisco, at least the San Francisco I experienced, was a place where people didn't really put down roots. A lot of young people came and went. When I 01:32:00was young, relatively young, it was nice. But then also, San Francisco was changing rapidly. The worst sign was a Starbuck's went into the Castro. The Castro had always been independent stuff, wonderful outdoor cafe there, the Cafe Flore, or as my friend Clara called it, the Cafe Hair-do.

Yes. There was a lot of attitude there, but it was nice. Now you just have a Starbuck's that, at that time you couldn't sling a dead cat and not hit a Starbuck's. It was sad to see. I haven't been back to San Francisco since I left, but my understanding is that the Castro...

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Really? Since 2004?

James Dye:

Yeah. My understanding is the Castro has just become a plastic and neon strip 01:33:00mall. It's very much changed from Harvey Milk's activist neighborhood.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Absolutely. Then you moved to Asheville 2004. Did you buy a house?

James Dye:

Yeah. Yeah. I was able to buy a house, because of the obscene profit I make. I had researched everything about Asheville, except the job market. I had some wonderful interviews with attorneys here, who were fascinated by the fact that I had worked in civil rights law. These interviews would go on for over an hour, and I thought, "Wow, I totally have this job." Then they don't even call back. 01:34:00It's just awful.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Do you think it was that you were overqualified, or was there...James Dye:

Well, I don't know why they thought I would require a lot of money. I was not demanding a salary, but they just never called back. It was weird, because I interviewed with two firms which actually merged later, with different lawyers, which is the same thing. They were fascinated. Then, of course, they weren't going to be doing civil rights law. There aren't many opportunities to do that this side of the Mississippi.

Then on a fluke, I find there's an opening at Lambda Legal in Atlanta and they snatched me up very quickly. Little did I know that the lead attorney at Lambda 01:35:00was good friends with an attorney I had worked with in San Francisco. I didn't know her very well, but apparently she put in a good word for me and I was hired right away.

Then I'm trying to balance working in Atlanta and having a house in Asheville.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

So you had to go down there to work, I guess?

James Dye:

Yeah, uh-huh (affirmative). I loved the work at Lambda. It was weird because most of my job was being on the telephone. I hate the telephone. Partly it's that, when I answer the phone, I'm referred to as "ma'am". My mother, whose voice was in my exact same register, said she had the same problem, except they always called her "sir". If I answered the phone at my home, people thought I was my mother.

As much as I hated the telephone, this was, this was really incredible. People 01:36:00would call in, and there was really nothing you could do, in most cases because the law simply did not exist to protect LGBT people.

I was there right when the marriage cases were going through, you could legally marry in Massachusetts, when I started, and then...

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

That's in 2006?

James Dye:

Well, let's see, I started at the end of 2007, so it's 2008. Yeah. While I was there, just the state legislative actions brought about marriage equality in most of New England. Then we won a case which established marriage equality in Iowa, and I remember talking to the attorney who headed that case. I said, "When 01:37:00history books are written, this is going to be the one, because a place like Iowa..."

Of course, it turns out Iowa actually, as conservative a reputation as it has, actually has a good reputation on civil rights law. If you think about it, marriage equality really is conservative if you want to conserve the ideas in the constitution of equality, and all of that. I loved working for Lambda. I hated Atlanta and the stress of...

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

How did you get down there? You don't drive.

James Dye:

Oh, by bus. My sister took me when I had to move my stuff in, and moved me back when I came back.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

You kept your house here?

James Dye:

Yeah. And I rented it out to a friend of mine. The stress of it, plus, I had 01:38:00moved back to be closer to my parents, and visiting them was actually harder from Atlanta than it had been from San Francisco. That's why I left Lambda, although I continued to do freelance work for them, I ghost wrote some things for their publications. It's been a few years now since I've gotten any work from them.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

When you came back, what year was that? To Asheville.

James Dye:

2010.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Okay. So you worked there for a couple of years?

James Dye:

Yeah.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Then, what was it like in Asheville in 2010? What do you remember about trying to set up your community here?

James Dye:

Well, I remember...

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Did the attorneys start calling you back? Did you get a job or did you slide into retirement?

James Dye:

I did get a job briefly working for the ACLU on their marriage equality action.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Okay.

James Dye:

Yeah. Don't write that one down. It didn't last.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Okay.

James Dye:

They weren't really clear on what they wanted me to do. Then I worked at a law firm here, which I will not name, doing their conflict of interest system. I really disliked the law firm. It's a huge one. I had done conflict of interest work, in the first law firm I worked with. That part of it was fun, realizing that the lawyers did not take that seriously at all brought up some ethical issues.

Surprisingly, they did away with my job. Since then, I've been working part-time 01:40:00for the family firm doing records stuff and international standards, things that they have to do, which is a headache. It's enough to keep the lights on.

In that law firm, which I won't name, there was a lot of homophobia. As much as they pretended to be progressive, I was the only openly gay person there. I knew there were other gay and lesbian people there, but they weren't out.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Was there pressure when you moved back here in 2010, to be closeted, or more closeted?

James Dye:

Yeah, which surprised me. I wasn't, I don't think I caved to that pressure. When I went to work at the law firm here, I didn't tell them I was gay, but I gave 01:41:00them the pink resume. It was like I had just come from Lambda legal. I depended on Lambda to give me a reference. My immediate boss, it was fine. I didn't, in the interview or even till sometime after I was working there, some things slipped that I was gay. Would anybody not think I was gay? I really think the first impression people have...

There were strange bubblings up of homophobia there. I guess it was just that I had always worked in law firms in San Francisco, and then Lambda...

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

And in the field, right?

James Dye:

Even though those law firms mostly had heterosexuals, here and there, there was 01:42:00the gay attorney, or lesbian attorney; more lesbian attorneys usually. It just surprised me that there was not just this homophobic element, but this overpoweringly politically conservative, deeply religious element. Like, didn't Jesus preach against lawyers? Why would any religious person become a lawyer? Yeah. They can't spell the word 'hypocrisy.'

More disturbing was that a huge law firm with different departments, and my job was only to generate reports about conflicts of interest, or potential conflicts of interest. Then to make it easier for the lawyers, I would take a highlighter, you're actually able to do this online which was cool, but some of the lawyers 01:43:00you actually had to print things out and physically take a highlighter, you know? It was just amazing to me the number of lawyers who resisted the work I was doing.

Conflict of interest. You don't want to have that. That would look bad if that... conflicts erupting all over the place because they had different departments. Plus, one of those departments involved wills and trusts. These are people who have a will that they may have authored 10, 20 years ago, but it's still on file with you. Now you want to sue them? This seems like a huge conflict.

I was never empowered to say, "You cannot do this," because I'm not a lawyer, but the lawyer who requested it was supposed to resolve the conflicts. I don't 01:44:00have faith that they did that. I don't have proof that they didn't.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

When you moved here, you were by yourself, right?

James Dye:

Mm-hmm (affirmative)

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Tell me about dating. Surely you were trying to date when you got here. Let's get to the real stuff, James.

James Dye:

I am a dinosaur. Nobody cares about my dating. Dating is awful, but being in a bad relationship is worse.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

True. That's a very smart piece of wisdom.

James Dye:

I'd have to say that I don't think I get lonely anymore. I went through a lot of feeling sorry for myself when Jeffrey died.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Y'all had been together for how long?

James Dye:

Almost three years. I called my sister, my oldest sister, her husband passed 01:45:00away a few years after Jeffrey died. She and her husband had been together much longer, had two kids, and all this. I had called, and my sister lives on the Nolichucky River, nowhere near civilization. I got no answer; this was a Sunday afternoon. I just kept calling, and kept calling, and finally, what I think was pretty late, she answers and I said, "Where have you been?" Both her kids were in college at that point.

She was all by herself. She said, "Oh, it was so nice out, and I didn't have the kids here, so I took the kayak." I went, "You went kayaking on the Nolichucky River by yourself?" She said, "Yes, because I finally have the freedom to do that."

I realized from my sister, I can go to a museum, or to a zoo. I can go to the zoo, and I don't have to go to the amphibian or reptile house, which just creeps me out, but I can go and just look at the animals I want to look at, or go to a museum and look at the Flemish masters; don't bother with that modern crap. There was a certain freedom that came with that when people have asked me about, "Well, would you consider being in a relationship?" Now it's like, I don't know that I could compromise my interior decorating. I feel very strongly about my interior decorating. That didn't answer your question, but I meant to evade it.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

I know dating now is all online, and COVID just changed everything in that 01:47:00regard, too. Yeah, yeah.

James Dye:

I've gotten very picky about people. I don't want to say I enjoy being a widow, but there is a certain freedom that comes with it. I suppose it underscores the dysfunctionality of my relationship with Jeffery, but there was an aspect of it that seemed repressive, not something Jeffrey was doing, but the institution. It wasn't a legally recognized marriage, but that's what it was.

I felt much less creative and I didn't write anything at all during that period.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

That's really interesting.

James Dye:

Well, I was also working a lot.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Busy.

James Dye:

Jeffrey's health issues really only became serious in the last year, but there was...

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Did you do a lot of care taking?

James Dye:

I don't know that it was very good. Jeffrey was an awful patient. Awful in a good way. He could be cantankerous and all, which is good for the patient, not good for the nurse. He was only in the hospital at the last, and unfortunately, 01:49:00I spoiled him then to the point that I could not sit down in that uncomfortable chair in the hospital room with him and get 20 minutes of sleep without him wanting something.

Of course, he can't get up. He's got tubes all over the place. I had always been jumping up the moment that he needed anything, or I anticipated, or is he still breathing? That kind of thing.

I certainly made myself miserable. He was in the hospital for about a month before he passed. At the end of that, I was a physical wreck. I slept the first sound sleep in a month, and then woke up feeling guilty that I'm enjoying sleeping.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Yeah.

James Dye:

With my mother's passing, I also realized that I'm sleeping very poorly because there's this idea I need to get up and do something, or I need to check on her, or I need to check on something, can't remember what, and then you remember she has passed.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

How was your experience in the hospital, did you have any kind of issues or discrimination?

James Dye:

With Jeffrey? No. This was in San Francisco at Mount Zion, and he had specifically picked out Mount Zion because he had heard the AIDS ward there was very good. It was superlative.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Wonderful.

James Dye:

The nurses, very nice. There was one nurse who did not like me, I would say she 01:51:00was really homophobic, but she liked Jeffrey. Of course Jeffrey could charm anyone, so that was probably it. I was thoroughly installed there. I was living there. I probably wasn't terribly pleasant.

I don't remember being as rude to her as she was to me. There was a German nurse who worked there, and when Jeffrey was kind of out of it, she and I would talk in German. She was concerned that he was becoming addicted to his painkillers, and all that. He had told me, "Wake me up at this time because I get a pain pill then." It was getting towards that time, and he was asleep, and the German nurse came in and I said, "Well, it's time for his pain medication." She said, "He's sleeping really well." I said, "Yeah, it's like the first time in a long time 01:52:00that he has." She said, "I think we can delay the pain medication." It was between us, a little conspiracy. It's like, "Well, if your medical opinion..." She's like, "Yeah, we'll do it later. It would be bad to wake him up right now."

That was wonderful that the nurses were always concerned was I getting enough to eat? It's like, "He's the patient." It's like, "I can go out, I don't have to eat hospital food." Although their hospital food was actually very good, too.

Jeffrey actually loved being in the hospital, just the attention was part of what he liked.

Do you have questions? I mean, I'm spacing on anything more to say about...

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Let's talk about that time. This is a very '87... What was that time like as somebody who, at that point, knew that he was gay?

James Dye:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). One of the startling things about going to San Francisco was the number of guys with Kaposi's sarcoma that you saw on the street. I had done volunteer work in Columbus, Ohio, with their AIDS project. I have two guys, and the first one died the night after I'd seen him. The second one lasted a little over a week.

In both cases, I became friends with their mothers.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

And what were you doing?

James Dye:

In-home care.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Visiting and...

James Dye:

We went through all this training and stuff like that. With the first guy, he was on his way out when I met him. There was nothing I could do there, although I became friends with his parents. They're the ones who sent me to the Netherlands. They didn't send me, but I stayed with their friends in the Netherlands.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

That's nice.

James Dye:

Yeah.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

What was the name of this project called, or the organization?

James Dye:

The Columbus AIDS task force.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Okay. They did training for your work?

James Dye:

Yeah. A lot of their training materials were from the Shanti Project in San Francisco. I don't know if they're still in existence, but they were until recently. Then I go out to San Francisco.

Whereas AIDS seemed like there were a few cases here and there, the Castro was absolutely, plus, with Kaposi's sarcoma, isn't very visible.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Right.

James Dye:

Then Kaposi's sarcoma mysteriously disappears, and no one's ever explained that. It seemed to come in waves, something like that. By the time I met Jeffrey at the Cafe Flore, there were already treatments for AIDS. They were based on AZT, or they weren't calling it that at that time, I want to say DDI or something. It was basically the same thing. Jeffrey took a shoebox full of drugs every day, and he was religious about that.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Did y'all have difficulty getting any of those medications?

James Dye:

No. He had a great doctor, then there was Mt. Zion. Just the whole support system was incredible.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Did you do some activist work around HIV and AIDS in the same time period?

James Dye:

I had done some before I met him. Jeffrey wasn't really much of an activist when I met him, but after I took him to some political thing. It wasn't an AIDS thing, but it must've been a gay rights thing. We went to Sacramento. I remember it was at the time of the Anita Hill hearings, but we had something. He got the bug. Then the Iraq war happened, the first Iraq war or by Iraqi standards, the 01:57:00second. I'm at my office and I had just heard from someone who had a radio that activists had taken the Bay Bridge in protest of the war.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Of the war.

James Dye:

And no sooner has she told me that, my phone rings. It's Jeffrey. He said, "I was on the bridge." It was like Jeffrey's best friend in Indiana, conservative Republican and all of this. They went back years. It was just amazing how once the liberal bug hit, he was there. He insisted that we go to a protest, I think, that same night. I knew people were going to get arrested. I, at the time, was 01:58:00involved in a protracted lawsuit against the city of San Francisco on behalf of ACT UP, but I was one of the plaintiffs. So I told Jeffrey, I can't get arrested, especially not doing activism. Do we need to stop?

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

No.

James Dye:

The demonstration-

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

I just wish they'd stop washing dishes.

James Dye:

I know. I only do that once a week. Not that much, on as needed basis. But the demonstration got to the federal building.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Is this still about the Iraq war?

James Dye:

Yeah. Some people in the front break the windows, really ugly, stained glass windows, but they were really ugly stained. The federal building in San Francisco is really ugly. So I say to Jeffrey, "Okay, this is getting bad. I think we've probably got a little bad that time. All these torches are lit and all of this, and you see these people who are quite serious. The demonstration starts moving. I believe the torchbearers were. So they start leading and the whole crowd goes the other direction from them. So the torch people have to catch up with us. But then they're trapped in an alley. Understand that as liberal a city as San Francisco was, I'm not sure how things are now, but the 02:00:00police department at the time had more complaints against it than the police force of Birmingham, Alabama with Bull Connor and the water hoses and all of that. But I maintain more people in San Francisco would complain. But the police force-

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

[crosstalk].

James Dye:

No. Frank Jordan was in charge then. So the police trapped us in this alley. I can walk... Actually, this is a thoroughfare, pretty wide street, but they had us at both ends and the voice comes over the bullhorn saying, "Everyone in this demonstration is now under arrest." It's like, "You can't do that." But we're right next to a parking garage. Suddenly, I look at the arm that blocks traffic, 02:01:00a bunch of people have taken that and they've just lifted it off, and the whole demonstration surges through this parking garage. That way, although technically, I was arrested, I was not captured.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

[crosstalk].

James Dye:

I don't know if I'm still at large or not. That was a long time ago. I was very pleased to see the social conscience that Jeffrey developed, I don't think until the Iraq War he had ever exercised that muscle. He was so angry about that war. It was nice to see that kind of empathy. He really had a great gift for that. He 02:02:00never passed a beggar on the street without... He didn't have two sous to rub together, but he'd give one to... He always did that. That was probably something he had always done, but the Iraq War and then local politics became very important to him, and of course, gay politics too. That was a really nice thing. I think, although Jeffrey and I didn't have a whole lot in common, he was okay with my interior decoration, so that worked. But on that point, we were compatible.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Yeah. You mentioned earlier something about gay Republicans. Tell me what that... Distinguish that for me. What does that mean?

James Dye:

I'm seeing it more and more. I find it disturbing, maybe gay libertarians, but mostly gay men who don't like to talk about politics. Then I discover why they don't want to talk about politics, because they're borderline fascists. I'm astounded that I've discovered a community like that in Asheville, of all places. I want to take them by the lapels and say, "Look, don't you realize how, sure, fascists like to wear uniforms and all of that? But they will absolutely 02:04:00kill you." There is no place for gay people in a fascist government. I thought that the existence of Donald Trump would cure them, but I'm afraid it has instead emboldened them. I don't know what their numbers are and all of that, but I had gone to a Halloween party with a mask on. It was outdoors and all of this and mostly gay people there.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

During COVID?

James Dye:

Uh-huh (affirmative), just last Halloween. Suddenly, the masks come down. Even though it's Halloween and people were in costume, you could totally wear a mask. But it was outdoors. I had to think there could be some people that are 02:05:00immunocompromised or they have... Then I start talking with a woman. I don't know her sexual orientation, but it becomes clear to me that she thinks COVID-19 is a hoax and all of this. It's like, "Oh, my God, who have you been listening to?" Then I realized that the gay men here too are also of that mindset. This is before the vaccine for COVID-19, but I seriously doubt they would get the vaccine. It's Halloween, you're supposed to be scared. This was really scary.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Sure. I would have been terrified.

James Dye:

Uh-huh (affirmative), yeah. I sneak off home, but it was just... I had known the people there for a few years or most of them, but it was like, "Oh, yeah, we never talk about politics. I wonder why that is?" I would not want to talk about politics.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Do you think that that shift is related to race? Is that related to the mask wearing and all that?

James Dye:

Actually, they didn't appear to be racist. There were some people of color there. Mostly, they appear to be very good on the racism front, but then there's this undercurrent. I don't think they're on the more Republican side. I'd say gay Republicans, but I think they're more libertarians, but it's just that feeling of they've made money and they've been pulled into that whole... It's 02:07:00very disturbing because otherwise, they look like hippies and all. You'd think that they'd be cool. I just made an assumption that they're good socialists and I don't have to talk about politics, but oh, good. Let's talk about art. It worries me. Also this feeling, "Okay, I'm the socialist here. I need to get the hell out of town, get the hell out of Dodge." It's sad because I think probably back in the day, they were liberal or marginally liberal, but then-

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Money factors in too.

James Dye:

... they made money and now, they're worried about those capital gains taxes. God, they'll kill us. It's just, "Oh, wow," the assumptions I had made. That was 02:08:00terrifying. I had encountered real, gay Republicans, as in Log Cabin Republicans in San Francisco. We had Harry Britt organize a group, Harry Britt who was Harvey Milk's successor on the Asheville, on the San Francisco city council. He had organized a group as a coalition. I had brought a case forward because a man in San Francisco had been discriminated against by Western Union. Although California didn't have an anti-discrimination law that included LGBT people, the city of San Francisco did. So this idealistic, totally heterosexual lawyer had 02:09:00taken it on. It turned out the case fell apart because the guy didn't want it published that he was gay. It's like, "Okay, that's what the case is about." So that fell apart, but Harry Britt had organized this group, so you had a coalition, the Alice B. Toklas Democratic Club and just the whole spectrum. Then there was a guy from the Log Cabin Republicans. This guy from the Log Cabin Republicans insisted on sitting next to me.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

He sniffed you out.

James Dye:

Oh, my God, he's clad in polyester. I could not cross my legs enough in the direction away from him. But I cannot imagine in any way that I gave off a 02:10:00conservative vibe, but I guess he thought he could recruit me or something. I'd wanted him to stay away from it, and yet decades later when the issue of LGBT people in the military comes up, I have to acknowledge that it's the Log Cabin Republicans who spoke to the injustice of that and who carried that until the law was reversed.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Don't ask, don't tell.

James Dye:

Yeah, because it is a very conservative issue. It is a very constitutional issue, inequality, so yes. Now and then, we have to say something nice about 02:11:00fascists, but not too often. You don't want to make that a habit. But the Log Cabin Republicans were totally behind that and good liberals, we want to do away with armies anyway.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

One last question and then I'm going to... Because I probably have worn you out. We're over two hours.

James Dye:

No, you haven't worn me out, but I can understand if you're starting to.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

You make yourself as an artist earlier. I know you're a writer, but could you talk a little bit about your art? What are you inspiring to and what are you-

James Dye:

It would be writing because music is just something for the mice and me.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

The mice, is that what you said?

James Dye:

I don't have a mouse problem at all, trust me. But no. I remember starting to 02:12:00write early... I could barely read, but I was bored out of my skull in church, and so I started coming up with little stories.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Were you a journaler too as a young person?

James Dye:

Not really. The stuff I commit to paper and now, whatever that medium is, it's the computer, not really. As I warned you before you started this project, my life is really boring, so I can just imagine what my journal would be like.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

I hope everybody listening to James's interview sends him an email that says, "Your life is not boring."

James Dye:

Well, I thank you. But this is an abridged version, two hours abridged. But no. 02:13:00So fiction mostly.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Nice.

James Dye:

I started out with playwriting. Didn't really do very well with that.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

But you did finish your Dutch.

James Dye:

I did, and it was horrible, and I have to redo it completely. It only took 30 years to write it. I was talking to a guy in town who is a successful author and said, "Oh, I finished my play, so I'm very proud of that." He said, "Didn't you say it took 30 years." I was like, "Yeah, well." Not going to set any speed records to that, but it involved reading a lot of 18th century Dutch. Dutch spelling was only standardized after the Second World War, so I had to teach myself Dutch and then try to build back what did Dutch look like then.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Wow. What's your writing habit? You get up and write at a certain time every day?

James Dye:

No, no, no, no. I'm not going to give writing advice to anyone except don't do what I do because...

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

What is it that you do?

James Dye:

I'm not a disciplined writer. Also, some would say not a published writer. The occasional op-ed, they'll run because of good grammar. A nod to my mother on that point. Most of my writing occurs in my head and I catch myself talking to myself. I've walked a lot and I have to be careful or I will be talking to myself. Or if I'm writing a play, I'll be acting it out. It will be that episode from, "I Love Lucy," where she's writing a play and keeps acting it out and then 02:15:00running back to the typewriter. When you're walking on the bike path,-Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

So you do carry a notebook or anything?

James Dye:

... a lot of people avoid. I do. I do.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

And you write things down in there as you go?

James Dye:

Uh-huh (affirmative), yeah. I carry a much smaller one usually, but I thought I might have to take notes here.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

I'm meeting a professor, I must take a piece of paper.

James Dye:

Yes, exactly.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

So you're still writing screenplays sometimes?

James Dye:

No, not screenplays, no. Plays on a computer screen, so yeah, I guess you could say that, but no, Hollywood hasn't contacted me. I submitted the play. It was rejected and it should have been. It was a hurry... When I was talking to the author, I said, "It was a really hurried job." He said, "Yeah, 30 years, hurried. Wow." Okay. It was a long time before I got a lot of the source material. Harvard will print it up for you for a price. Actually, their prices 02:16:00were very reasonable. I was aware of these books back when I went to the Netherlands in 1986, but I couldn't get them. I'll say something nice about the Internet: I can get them. I can access these records now.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

So you did go in person and study there to look. Did you go into libraries or where did you go?

James Dye:

Yes. Oh, God, yes.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

[crosstalk].

James Dye:

The most fascinating one was the Van Leeuwen Bibliotheek, which no longer exists, but it was an LGBT library.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

The whole library?

James Dye:

The library was the size of this area,-Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Got you.

James Dye:

... which is just a small area for the radio audience. But they did have a lot 02:17:00of rare books. You had to go up to the cage and this very nice woman would bring you the book. She even made photocopies of a few pages for me, gratis from these 18th century books. We're talking early 18th century, fragile. I said, "I feel like I should pay you something." I had told her I was writing a play. She said, "Oh, send us a copy of your play." It was like, "Oh, yeah, because you can add that to your collection. Of course." Unfortunately, the Van Leeuwen Bibliotheek doesn't exist anymore. So alas, they don't have a copy of my play, which I'm quickly reworking anyway.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

So you are reworking it?

James Dye:

Well, so much of my writing takes place in my skull, but there's really no evidence of that, but yeah. I remember I was talking to a friend when I was 02:18:00finishing it off and she asked that question, "What are you doing?" I'm writing this play about this 18th century sodomy trial in the Netherlands and all this." She said what I always dreaded, "It sounds like The Crucible." It's like, "Well, that's the problem. It's too much like The Crucible." Only, unlike The Crucible, my play wasn't very good. So I'm having to rework it with a gimmick so that it doesn't look like The Crucible revisited. Though really, with Trump, you need to revisit The Crucible. I feel like that's a very timely play. At the time I was in it in high school, I thought, "Wow, this is a dinosaur. Who's going to...?" McCarthyism, we'll never see that again, or Salem witchcraft trials. How many times have you heard Mr. Trump say "witch hunt"?

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Right? Do you think Trump's going to run again? What do you think about that?

James Dye:

I fervently hope the man is just going to disappear. I do feel that we're seeing that, but I'm not sure that the residue isn't a problem, that the January 6th riot... I have to wonder, these people want to replace democracy with what? Do they not realize that what they want to replace it with, is going to take away their freedom to demonstrate at all. I think the country has weathered the storm. I am hopeful that we're through the worst of it now. There're people 02:20:00resisting vaccination on political grounds. That's disturbing. How many of them have to be hospitalized before they realize? How many have to die before that movement realizes how stupid such a choice is?

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

I like residue. I like the way that you say that. I think that's really a wise way [crosstalk].

James Dye:

It's not a nice thing to say about people,-Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

No, not at all.

James Dye:

... because-

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

It makes sense though.

James Dye:

I do question what motivates people in this regard. I can understand they're not liberals. They're not even middle of the road, but what do they seek to gain? These are not the 1% who are going to profit by those tax breaks, not at all. 02:21:00They're not going to be able to get away with not paying taxes. That has always come down heavily on the 99% in terms of being prosecuted for non-payment of taxes and things like that.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

Right.

James Dye:

Most of them are "Backthe Blue." They're for the police force. They're for the armed forces and all this. It's like, "Well, you pay for those with your taxes." Police officers are notoriously underpaid as are fire persons and members of the armed forces. It astounds me. Plus, I don't think they're genuine in their 02:22:00feelings either. Some might be, but for the most part, I think... It's like they say, "It's not a grassroots movement. It's an AstroTurf one." There's an artificial basis for it that really what they want to do is subvert any progress that the Democrats, who are now very conservative, very middle of the road, any progress they might make lest it be chalked up as a democratic victory as opposed to a victory for people.

Amanda Wray, Interviewer:

James, thank you so much. This has been delightful.

James Dye:

Oh, well, it's sweet of you to say that.