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Two Sisters, Two Parades
by Michele Forsten
"That has got to
be your sister," the white-haired guy with the baton said, pointing at me while addressing my sister, Marla.
I smiled self-consciously, acknowledging him, and then, to dispel my unease, quipped, "Yeah, and I'm the younger one." My sister, who is actually six
years my junior and not on my humor wavelength, looked at me quizzically and gave a tentative laugh.
This exchange took place a year ago in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, on the morning of Memorial Day - my sister in the street with the other members of the Kings County
American Legion Band and my partner, Barbara, and I on the sidewalk, snapping photos of her before the parade stepped off.
What was my 38-year-old sister doing in the company of a bunch of older men, her music strapped to her wrist and American Legion hat perched on her head? She had
answered an ad in a local Brooklyn paper requesting "musicians of all levels" to join a marching band. Not having played the flute since graduating from high school 20 years
before, she wanted to make music and spice up her social life.
Happily, she found the men welcoming, even though she played lots of wrong notes and hadn't quite gotten the hang of marching in sync with everyone else. So there
she was on a hot day in May, getting ready to march two miles to Fort Hamilton while performing "Anchors Aweigh" and the "Marine Hymn."
Waving miniature American flags, spectators lined Third Avenue, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge looming majestically in the distance. The crowd became the most
animated when the paralyzed veterans rolled by in their wheelchairs.
All the cheers made me think of another parade and a very different group of marchers, in the June Gay Pride Parade in Manhattan. A highlight is the Parents and
Friends of Lesbians and Gays contingent holding banners proclaiming their love for their gay children and grandchildren. They are warriors, too, fighting for their loved ones' rights to
"life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
"How many people here today will also be at the gay pride parade?" I asked Barbara. "Two, me and you," I said, answering my own question. I
was grateful that Barbara was there to take some of the edge off of my discomfort.
Again, I was reminded of how different my sister and I were. Her conservative nature extends from being a member of an American Legion band to not expecting her
husband to help around the house to addressing single women as "Miss." I am a lesbian feminist. Marla talks nonstop; I choose my words carefully. She's kindhearted; I'm
judgmental. She's a kindergarten teacher; I'd go crazy if I had to spend my days with five-year-olds. Among her passions are her bowling league, "Star Trek" conventions,
wrestling matches at Madison Square Garden and going on vacation to Kutsher's in the Catskills. These activities are as appealing to me as having a Republican in the White House.
"So, are you going to the Pride Parade this year?'' I asked her a few days later. In the 20 years I had marched in or watched the Pride Parade, my sister had
never shown any interest in joining me. She replied that she felt "a little weird" about going, an indirect way of saying no.
"The only gay people I really know are you two,'' she said, meaning me and my partner. "Other than that, there was just a girl at college who I thought
might be gay. She looked at me funny, like a guy would look at you." Then, in her way of straying from the matter at hand, she added: "Now I'm spoiled by all these older men in
the band looking at me. It's good for the ego."
It would be good for my ego to have my biological family share the Gay Pride Parade with me, to see me in my milieu instead of my partner and I always having to
accommodate to their straight lives. None of my aunts or cousins live in the city, my mother has been dead more than 20 years and my father and I don't relate. That leaves my sister.
So, sister, I traveled to a straitlaced Bay Ridge street - with not a pierced eyebrow, nose or bellybutton in sight - to watch you in your parade. It's your turn.
No excuses this year. I'll be marching down Fifth Avenue on June 25. But let's call this trading of parade experiences enough of a foray into each other's lives. Wrestling matches at the
Garden? A Trekkie convention? Kutsher's? I don't think so!
[A similar version of this essay appeared in the May 21, 2000 issue of The New York Times.]
© Michele Forsten 2000
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