hello folks,
i was lucky enough to be able to finish a pre-interview with jerrod. he is a dear friend and the source of the idea for this documentary. some might think that this looks like a final interview, but i like to approach each interview as if it is “for the final exam”.
This is very early stages of this project and many changes are in the future but i wanted to share this so people who might wish to be part of the project down the road will see the tenor and direction. if you feel you have a story from this time that you would like to share…
thank you all,
mister norm
transcript of interview
00;00;02;00 – 00;00;12;18
Jerrod
It was about losing people. And if you didn’t see someone around, you just didn’t have to ask. They’d obviously were in hospital or they’d passed away.00;00;12;18 – 00;00;34;01
Jerrod
Well, when I was in my time, I was in my 20s and 30s at the time. It’s quite young and oh, I am a lot of inhibitions at the time because I had very a lot of hangups about my sexuality. Then, and I drank a lot. Probably saved my life, all those inhibitions, because I didn’t.00;00;34;01 – 00;00;38;13
Jerrod
I had troubles meeting people I had to have or actually have a written invitation to say hello.00;00;38;13 – 00;00;52;18
Jerrod
My earliest recollections were going to the Halo club and a great big poster with this woman wagging her finger that said A tisket a task and a condom or a casket. It seemed quite powerful at the time.00;00;52;18 – 00;00;57;27
Jerrod
I lost a few friends, especially one that I remember that I was going out with that I quite loved.00;02;03;23 – 00;02;38;15
Jerrod
Lonely society was hadn’t come around yet. and there were all these preacher shows about Aids being God’s punishment and actually, it seemed to me they were gloating that people were dying. And it made me very angry. And it was very hurtful because people like my boyfriend and his name was Kevin, and others that had passed away hadn’t done any wrong.00;02;38;15 – 00;02;55;25
Jerrod
They were just gay men trying to do the best they could in the world, in a very difficult situation. And being diagnosed with HIV at the time was like breast cancer in 1972. It was a death sentence and everybody knew it.00;02;55;28 – 00;03;28;28
Jerrod
The gay community was working very hard on education or trying to because nobody else was. The health units were coming across. They seemed to be a little bit concerned. Well, they seemed to be a lot concerned. But at the time, even the medical community was afraid to touch you. I was in the hospital for something else. And because I was gay, they put me in a room that had a sign on the door that I might be exposed, which was just really bizarre.00;03;31;06 – 00;03;51;13
Jerrod
While there was the one club in London in the beginning called the Halo, the home of all Association of London, Ontario, and it ran dances. Its windows were all bricked up and they used to talk about the day the windows wouldn’t have to be bricked up. You’d go to Kitchener and they had a little tiny bar that was off a alleyway in Toronto.00;03;51;13 – 00;04;14;09
Jerrod
I recall they used to have to park garbage trucks across the street from the Saint Charles, so that people wouldn’t throw stones at Halloween. It was, a very prejudicial society and a lot of hatred in it for what they didn’t understand or didn’t didn’t want to understand wasn’t the case. They didn’t understand. They just didn’t want to.00;04;16;14 – 00;04;36;17
Jerrod
I give a lot of credit to the Middlesex Alcan Health unit. They really tried to do some teaching and some instruction and be ahead of the game. They were the very first out of the of the, what do they say in horse racing out of the gate? Yeah.00;04;38;18 – 00;04;51;26
Jerrod
Well, I lost a boyfriend who I cared about very much. I remember going to the funerals of a few friends. I just stopped going to funerals because they were too depressing and too upsetting, and they were constant.00;04;54;03 – 00;05;19;14
Jerrod
Well, you certainly didn’t feel very supported, especially when you had people out there picketing, Aids, funerals. Not so much in London, but it was happening. I didn’t even notice it happening in London, but I knew that it was happening in other cities. That, you know, God hates your child and your child is burning and all kinds of nonsense from the very far right at the time.00;05;19;16 – 00;05;30;13
Jerrod
it was very, very hurtful and certainly central like this opposition between the gays and religion, which was foolishness.00;05;33;10 – 00;05;58;07
Jerrod
Okay. There were very dark days. I remember I carried condoms with me. Although I had sex very rarely. I didn’t do anything that you could transfer bodily fluids because I was too scared. fact, it was very rare that I did anything, and everybody was scared. I, I was afraid to go to gay bars. Half the time I remember I.00;05;58;07 – 00;06;05;01
Jerrod
What the Halo used to have people that would walk you home if you asked.00;06;05;04 – 00;06;11;27
Jerrod
You wouldn’t get beaten up because people waited in bushes for people.00;06;13;00 – 00;06;33;25
Jerrod
Yes, it was very effective, but it was also, as I said above, the health unit, the first out of the gate to do something about it. And that was education. And they started out Aids committees. I remember I was on they started one that I was starting that I would help to start my 30s. The Aids Committee for Saint Thomas Elgin.00;06;33;27 – 00;06;42;11
Jerrod
And one of the people there said, why don’t they have a breast cancer committee? Well, as the nurse pointed out, because breast cancer can’t be avoided in this can.00;06;44;15 – 00;07;04;22
Jerrod
Swades committees were starting. They were pretty well starting very quickly. And the need for them to get it more education out there and, to try and be a little bit proactive. I was working at the help center at the time in Saint Thomas. That’s why I was asked, because I was an okay man in that the help center.00;07;04;24 – 00;07;08;04
Jerrod
So I often got asked to be on these committees.00;07;09;12 – 00;07;22;07
Jerrod
It was like being in a deep, dark hole. I was afraid, I was afraid for my friends. I was afraid for myself. It seemed like Armageddon was on us.00;07;24;06 – 00;07;38;23
Jerrod
I found the important part was that we lost a lot of very smart young people who could have added so much to our society that aren’t there anymore. And I don’t want them to be forgotten.00;07;40;05 – 00;07;52;02
Jerrod
Because society wanted to forget about them, because they did nothing.00;07;52;04 – 00;08;15;04
Jerrod
Oh, yeah. That reminds me of, the mayor of London, Diane Haskett. Not that I’d mention names who chose to not print proclaimed Gay Pride Day and made a big to who about it. And she was taken to the Human Rights tribunal, where she lost and still insisted she was right. And instead of supporting her population and her people, she chose to attack them.00;08;15;07 – 00;08;25;17
Jerrod
She was a demagogue. I remember it was Jack Burckhardt who turned around and called her a demagogue.00;08;25;20 – 00;08;41;11
Jerrod
The health unit seemed to be doing a lot where the politicians in the city, except for one Board of Control member, Diane Whiteside. She was very supportive, but she was very labor, and labor was very supportive.00;08;41;13 – 00;08;47;12
Jerrod
Of all the organizations, organized labor seemed to be coming out as supportive.00;08;50;02 – 00;09;00;23
Jerrod
On part of our city. Governance. Part of our churches. I’m part of all the people that should have been supporting you or against you.00;09;04;12 – 00;09;17;02
Jerrod
It was an active attempt to avoid dealing with it, and there was a smugness. It’s not going to affect me. It’s only going to affect gay men.00;09;17;05 – 00;09;38;14
Jerrod
Oh, they do. Until you look at Africa and other places where that simply is not the case. I remember on TV they tried to blame this one. Poor air steward, of spreading Aids all over North America. Patient zero. And I never saw such stupidness in my life. And when I look back on it is even more stupid.00;09;38;21 – 00;09;47;29
Jerrod
I forget the poor man’s name, but, he was blamed for spreading Aids all over North America.00;09;48;01 – 00;09;54;26
Jerrod
But it was reported on by intelligent newscasts.00;09;54;28 – 00;10;05;10
Jerrod
Showed where he flew from the city to this city. And to try and blame one poor sucker for this whole pandemic was I remember those were the things that were going on. It was just absurd.00;10;07;25 – 00;10;13;21
Jerrod
And they tried to blame the immigrants from Cuba.00;10;13;23 – 00;10;18;15
Jerrod
And in the city of Miami, there’s a starting point.00;10;20;18 – 00;10;40;20
Jerrod
Well. Ultra conservatives, ultra religious conservatives. Let’s not forget the Phelps family, who’s famous for being just plain out of this world. And the Westboro Church, which was picketing gay funerals and they were very busy. And people like them.00;10;40;23 – 00;10;46;23
Jerrod
And they seem to do this with total immunity.00;10;46;25 – 00;10;56;22
Jerrod
Under free speech, which, love it, like it or lump it. I’m glad Canada and like the States that way. it was hateful.00;10;58;26 – 00;11;14;16
Jerrod
Well, I brought up the Mayor of London because it is a London story who, made herself quite famous by denying Gay pride Day for religion in the 90s.00;11;14;18 – 00;11;31;27
Jerrod
I, which was the height of the Aids epidemic pandemic. and it truly was a pandemic. It, I can’t remember the exact numbers in London. I remember they were high.00;11;35;05 – 00;11;43;12
Jerrod
Yes, it was once you. If you found out you had age to start making your plans.00;11;43;14 – 00;11;59;15
Jerrod
today it’s a little different. And they have Aids, undetectable and all kinds of things because of the drugs that they have today. And it worries me today because people have gone back to sex without protection and it’s still out there.00;12;01;20 – 00;12;18;09
Jerrod
Well, that’s when the gay pride started to head off. I remember the first one I was in, 4000 people marched from the halo down by City Hall and over through to the, I think we went to the fairgrounds, but there were 4000 of us, which was, which felt made you feel very safe,00;12;21;20 – 00;12;33;14
Jerrod
I remember that particular gay pride. And, it was on Pall Mall Street outside Halo. It was quite a good time, and I was particularly proud of everybody that did get out and did go in that March.00;12;35;23 – 00;12;53;05
Jerrod
I think a lot of that had to do with supporting each other and, supporting our loved ones that were dying and, showing the world that we cared. And there was more than 1 or 2 of us. I mean, it just wasn’t funny. Uncle Bob. It was everybody.00;12;56;06 – 00;13;01;29
Jerrod
It really brought gay men out of the closet.00;13;04;29 – 00;13;19;08
Jerrod
okay. I do remember at that particular gay pride, I’m trying to remember the year was 92 or 93 because, the organizers marched us past City Hall saying, that’s behind us now.00;13;19;11 – 00;13;29;22
Jerrod
And some of the big liquor companies were starting to advertise that gay pride, which I found quite impressive, that they were there and were being supportive.00;13;30;26 – 00;13;42;13
Jerrod
In London. I think it hit London as quick as it hit anybody else.00;13;42;15 – 00;13;56;24
Jerrod
As I remember it well into the early 80s. Maybe the late 70s. Even.00;13;56;27 – 00;14;09;17
Jerrod
As I remember it, as far back as when I was 20, which would have been 79.00;14;09;19 – 00;14;14;14
Jerrod
It was part of life.00;14;14;17 – 00;14;22;26
Jerrod
Because it didn’t seem like I’d ever go away.00;14;22;28 – 00;14;35;05
Jerrod
Well, it seemed to last a very long time. For years and years and years. And it was. It was from 79. And what 95 that this thing was in its heyday?00;14;37;28 – 00;14;45;01
Jerrod
I mostly don’t want young people to forget that. And that is very important. And those were their forefathers, those were their ancestors, those were their aunts.00;14;45;01 – 00;14;58;12
Jerrod
And their uncles and their grandfathers that were dying. And also not just dying. Those were their grandson, uncles and grandmothers and grandfathers that were standing up and saying, enough is enough.