I Remember (Part 2)

Stop #2 down Journeyman's memory lane involves this guy: Jim Palmer. I believe he was a major league baseball pitcher. I posted a picture of him yesterday near the bottom of my post. There, he's looking quite stately behind a neat little podium giving what is probably some inspirational speech to an adoring crowd. Here, he's burned into my memory as "The Underwear Guy."

About the same time as the girly porn incident I describe in Part 1 of my tale, I saw this picture. I can still recall the place, a hair salon on the 2nd floor of an old building that still stands today. Next to the color television complete with rabbit-ear antennas and tin foil on a flimsy TV cart was a stack of magazines that I began to flip through. Why a pre-teen boy was leaving through magazines waiting for his mom to get her hair done on a summer morning is beyond me. It would have been much more logical for me to watch "The Price Is Right." But there I was, and there Jim was. I stared and stared and stared, then stuck one finger in the page while pretending to keep flipping, but my finger bookmark gave me quick access to return and look some more.

In the weeks that followed, I remember seeing him laying out on billboards around town. I remember leaving through magazines at home, searching for another ad and promising that once I was grown up and could buy my own underwear, I would buy the Jockey brand. But alas, I never did buy those Jockey briefs. LOL

That incident, however, gave birth to the idea that I could look at displays of underwear at the store in hopes of catching some very nice looking guy on the package. Able to navigate the department store on my own, I would ask my mom if I could walk around for a bit on my own, perhaps to look at toys. Once safely out of her sight, off to the men's underwear section I went, amazed that anyone could look so beautiful and even taking in the sight of mannequins dressed in only tighty whities. Ugh...it's almost embarrassing to think that I found the mannequins interesting. They were plastic, for crying out loud.

Even so, the Sunday advertisements followed, where I realized several things: (1) The guys underwear section was typically just beyond the midway point of any weekly sale insert. (2) The guys got significantly less space. (3) I could look anytime I wanted in the Sears catalog always stored underneath our living room couch.

Once again, I feel foolish now, but not really because this happened or that I found excitement (no, not that type) in the men's underwear section. More because that would have been a sure tip that I was a little gay boy, but that thought never entered my simple mind. I wasn't consciencely denying that I had attractions to these guys. It was more that I figured this happened to all boys. Everyone must like the guys underwear pictures, but we were all too scared to admit it. It wasn't until years later--perhaps decades--that I learned the truth, that most small boys thought it was gross and spent their time a few pages to the left, in the bra section of the Sunday inserts.

Some people will say I simply wanted to look like these guys. They would be right. I did want to look like them, but I was also fascinated in a way I could not explain at the time. And even today I have a hard time explaning myself. That's part of why I feel so confused here sometimes. I'd like to know that what I feel is more than attraction to a picture. I think it is, but far more of my memories revolve around pictures than around actual real boyhood friends.

I guess I'm a little melancholy today. Remembering is tough, and sometimes painful. I'm glad to do it, and hopeful that someone will understand. Still, it would be nice to have a memory about a real guy than about the Sears catalog or the mannequins at JCPenney. It might make me a bit more sure of myself.

More journeying to come, my friends...