sticks and stones

I was walking down Commercial Street last night, on my way home from work. I was excited to be outside as the weather had finally changed and the night was warm, rain free, and through the jigsaw of left over clouds a few stars peeked brightly with hints of the small and large dipper on display.

Commercial Street was once more alive, and it was just one more sparkle in the vivid tapestry of Provincetown allowing ALL people to come together and directly or indirectly share minutes of their life with total strangers.

This week in P-town, you can find a wide variety of demographics. Lots of hetero's and homo's, "opposite sex" and "same sex" couples, families with two moms and dads to families with single parents and a man and a woman.

But in this almost picture perfect environment, there was an incident, slight but noticeable that took place. In almost any other city or town one might have expected the interaction, but after all this IS Provincetown and the usual is usually unusual.

A heterosexual couple was standing in front of the Post Office apparently talking, holding hands standing with another heterosexual couple. Two sets of male couples walked down the street, I would guess unaware of anything but one another's company. The gay couple also stopped in front of the Post Office (which on Commercial Street is a very popular place to just inhale and take in the local color), held hands looked up at the sky and kissed.

No big deal, well usually no big deal. The straight couple looked at their gay counterpart and laughed. And the male of the couple said "yuck". The gay couple looked over at the straight couple and both said "did you say something?" And then the guys kissed one more time.

Upon the second kiss between the two men, the straight couple said "yuck", one more time and quite briskly , actually the male dragging the female, walked away snickering and laughing, saying in quiet enough but passively aggressively enough voice, "queers".

A few onlookers were taken a back as was I, and of course a few boo's and hisses ensued and in a few minutes calm and order came back to its rightful place on Commercial Street.

Everyone is entitled to his/her opinion, so free speech was certainly prevalent. But it made me wonder when will we begin to see the same in people and not the difference. A kiss by two people who in that moment felt like touching or holding or caressing, and "yuck" is what is needed to be said. And name calling, "queers", why is that necessary.

Makes me wonder what do people fear so much about what they do not understand. And instead of not understanding it, why not take the same energy they use for negatives to educate, inform and learn. and turn it into a positive?

Name calling! I thought as we grew in age we grew in wisdom. The childhood adage of "sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me...", just doesn't do it anymore. The names being called are just as injurious and the wounds are longer lasting. And behind the names are some loathsome dangerous inaccuracies which left unchecked lead to a whole evil actions.