I have previously mentioned that I live in a senior Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) building in Chicago. There are many interesting people who live in this subsidized building, including my friend Gene.
Gene is my age, 67. He was one of the founding folks of the Chicago Gay Pride parade and is too busy with the final arrangements to grant me an in-depth interview for our building newsletter I am writing. I decided to profile one person each month so that we get to know about other tenant's lives before they became old and sometimes disabled.
Too often us old folks are ignored in the general population and it's worse if we are disabled. We should not, however, ignore each other.
The first issue of this newsletter is June, so I interviewed someone else for the premier issue, a veteran who has a bronze star and purple heart on his wall. Richard is a genuine hero and deserves recognition for that.
So Gene will be in the July or August issue.
Last year we watched the parade from the roof of our building and this year I wanted to be down on the street to get a much better view. Gene was supposed to go with me, but his mobility chair has not yet arrived.
He has a very hard time walking now. This is a double shame because Gene used to be an Ice Capades skater. He traveled all over the world with them. He was beautiful then and he's beautiful now too, in the same and a different way. He lives alone but he has so many friends both outside and inside the building.
Unfortunately I have to go to a building meeting right now. This diary is a promise, really, rather than a substantive diary. It's a promise to highlight the lives of the folks in this building.
I just wanted to say that I am proud to be one of Gene's friends and gay pride month seemed the appropriate time to say that.