Rick Mears
Rick Mears
Clubs & Associations
Foggy City Dancers
Western Star Dancers
Quick Facts
- participated in Square Dancing Stained Glass, 2004
In Their Own Words
Thursday February 12, 2004. San Francisco's new mayor made history by ordering the city officials to issue marriage licenses to all couples. Hearing about it in the news, that night I asked Greg if he'd like to go try to get married. Not wanting to marry on Friday the 13th, we got up early Saturday morning (Valentine's day) and got in line about 8:30 am.
I was surprised to see that there were already 94 couples ahead of us! The doors were still locked, and didn't open until 10 am.
We were at the end of this line waiting almost 1 1/2 hours for the doors to open. Meanwhile the line continued to grow. People driving by would honk and yell hoots of approval. I saw one car painted up with a "just married" sign parked nearby. I got butterflies in my stomach and wasn't sure if I was sick or what. Could I go through with it? They cleared up after a little while.
About an hour later, we made it up to the front doors, around 11 am, application forms in hand, already filled out with help from some of the many gay volunteers helping to speed the process up.
Another couple in line took this picture of us. Shortly after, my friend Chip joined us to take the rest of these pictures and be our ceremonial witness.
A slow trek through the metal detectors and more waiting in a long line through the building to get to the registrars office to get the paperwork in order. Then an elevator ride up to the ceremony area in the City Hall rotunda where volunteers were marrying several couples at scattered locations. It was a lovely location for a ceremony.
Our "official" pointed out that marriage is not to be entered into lightly. But since we've been together almost 10 years, it wasn't like I didn't know what I was getting into! In fact, we just took our regular wedding bands off and traded them back for the ceremony.
I think we had a Jewish lesbian performing our ceremony, since afterwards she congratulated us with "Mazoltov!" (spelled different somehow).
The deed was done.
A pose for the camera, then back downstairs to the records department to get a copy of our official document.
Finally, leaving City Hall, marriage certificate in hand, to the cheers of some of those still outside waiting in line, which by now had grown all the way around the building to the back side, where you see us on the red carpet. We hopped on my motorcycle parked right across the street and headed home, even more legal and legit than ever before! --At least for now, and as far as any of us knows. Maybe it'll even stick legally. We might as well give it a shot. Tonight on the news they said they've married almost 2000 couples so far, people coming from all over too.
Hope you had a happy Valentine's day. We did.
What I like best about square dancing is that it is a cooperative activity.
Unlike most competitive sports and workplace activities where people are pitted against each other to see who is better than the rest (sometimes even in a mean-spirited sense) there is no such concept of winners and losers in square dancing. Everyone works together in a few fleeting moments of lighthearted fun and exercise which is actually a kind of performance art.
Like any art, it’s takes work and practice. Everyone makes mistakes, and a big part of square dancing involves accepting that fact, especially with beginning dancers. You have to be able to laugh off the mistakes of others as well as your own in the spirit of just having fun, and try again. Dancers often help each other catch each other’s mistakes and recover from them. This is a very supportive type of group activity that can make everyone feel accepted and an equal part of things.
And yes, there are times when everyone actually manages a flawless performance. Everybody wins! No one loses!
I started square dancing in a gay club with my partner of about 10 years because it looked like something we could try together that would get us out of the house a little. It’s good exercise with a bit of socializing that beats staying home watching TV. As an activity within a gay club it provides a little bit of community connection, and a sense of belonging and pride.
At first I didn’t like the traditional use of gender terms in the square dance calls within a gay square dance context, such as “ladies in, the men sashay” or “boy run around a girl”. That's because in a gay group both sexes (as well as transgender folks) dance either role they like, and even switch roles during the evening. But I got over it. Not that important.
What I did like a lot was some unique styling that gay groups across the country have developed that add a special touch of gay flair to a few square dance calls. In particular, there is a gay version of dosido that looks very elegant. And the gay version of “weave the ring” adds extra excitement to a dance hall. When I designed my stained glass window I tried to include a number of elements that make gay square dancing special to me. The first of course, is the music, which appears as a musical staff as sort of a rainbow for my partner and me to dance on. We're posed there in the middle of the gay version of “weave the ring”. I added the upper left figures doing the gay style of dosido. Finally, to balance the composition I wanted something to suggest a little of the feeling of being part of a group of dancers. So I added four dancers in a line, a very common square dance figure, to the lower right. I feel like I captured most of the elements of square dancing that appeal most to me in this design. It was a great experience learning from Dan Smith how to turn my design into reality.
Remember, in square dancing everybody wins![1]
Photos
Rick and Greg, 2004
Stained glass panel "Circle to a Wave" made by him, 2004
