It’s a Mrs. Malloy kind of weekend. What’s that you may ask? In Hello, Dolly!, towards the end of the first act, the widow Mrs. Malloy, having been liberated from a loveless engagement to Horace VanderGelder through the machinations of Dolly, is being escorted by Cornelius Hackl to view the 14th Street Parade. She runs into Dolly and, in her excitement about the possibilities of life, she blurts out ‘Isn’t the world full of wonderful things?’ Later on in the second act, Cornelius echoes these words in his monologue during It Only Takes a Moment where he uses the same words to describe Mrs. Malloy. Thornton Wilder came up with these genius seven words in his play The Matchmaker (they may have been in the earlier version, The Merchant of Yonkers as well but I don’t have that script in my library to check) and Michael Stewart was smart enough to keep them for the musical version. They are an exquisite reminder that the world is indeed a good place if we will just open our senses to it and live in it and experience it rather than always live in our heads. I am far too guilty of this latter far too often.
The quote popped into my head last night as I was joining my Unitarian Universalist crew for our annual appearance in the Birmingham Pride Parade. I was tired from a six hour tech rehearsal for Chitty and pulled rank and sat with the other revered elders on the float rather than walking the route which I would normally do. As we waited for the parade to start, I was mainly thinking about being hot and hungry and longing for a lie down and a good night’s sleep. But then the whistles blew, the parade units slowly trundled into formation, and off we went. As we turned the corner from 32nd street on to 7th avenue south, something magical happened. On a sultry Southern night under a crescent moon, waves of positive healing energy radiated from the crowds on the street (easily the largest turnout I’ve ever seen for Birmingham Pride by quite a large margin) and were reflected back by the marchers and a feeling of joy was infectious and my energy and sense of connection returned. The world was indeed full of wonderful things and possibilities and love.
Birmingham is not that big a city. The city itself isn’t even the biggest by population in Alabama anymore. Birmingham, Huntsville and Montgomery jockey back and forth for that title in the 200-250,000 population range. Birmingham, however, is by far the biggest metro area with about a million. We’re just balkanized in a couple of dozen independent civic divisions, (mainly created and maintained by systemic racism – but that’s another story) and it’s the economic powerhouse of the state. The structure of Alabama politics is such that power centers in a small group of landed aristocracy and is deliberately kept away from urban centers. Between this and the sociocultural hegemony of evangelical churches, it’s not an easy place to be of the LGBTQ persuasion as the recent battles over libraries stocking titles with positive messages to that community would attest. Nevertheless, there is a large and vibrant queer community – it just flies slightly under the radar.
When Steve and I moved here (with a good deal of trepidation in regards to our gay couple status), we moved into a neighborhood which we had heard had some gay folk living there. We shortly discovered that there were four other gay male and two lesbian couples on our block alone. Our zip code was one of the densest same sex household areas in the country but there weren’t a lot of visible signs. Despite moving twice, I continue to reside in the same general area and it remains heavily LGBTQ and the straight folk are nearly all allies. I have never worried about the people I have lived amongst for the last quarter century. And I think most of them were out cheering last night.
The parade had something like 160 units. Everything from reigning drag queens to tap dancers to bowlers to the dozen or so progressive churches in the area to veterinary practices to political and judicial candidates. Our parade tends to be more mainstream than the mega parades of New York or San Francisco. Fewer leather fetishes, go-go boys, and bare breasted lesbians. I’m not sure if that’s a sign of being more assimilated into the mainstream or our more conservative culture in general. My major feeling as we made our way through the crowds was what a positive message for the young people and how much easier a time they are likely to have, even in Alabama, than my generation who had to claw and fight for every little scrap of acceptance and representation.
I also was wondering about why the huge boost in attendance this year. I have a couple of thoughts. First is that 2024 has felt like the first true post pandemic year. People are not as afraid of crowds as they were a year or two ago. Covid is still out there and you can still very much catch it but case numbers remain down this summer and outdoor activity appears to be fairly safe in general. it’s well ventilated. Second is I think driven by politics. The stark contrast in vision for a future America being presented by the two major candidates running for president has got the bright blue dots in this ruby red state energized. Alabama’s electoral college votes are a given for the Republicans but the population of Birmingham is not going to gently bow down to a potential Christian Nationalist future. I think at times I need to prepare an exit strategy to leave the country should the worst of the worst come to past but then there’s a weekend like this and I think no – I am needed here as a role model for those generations coming up and to keep fighting the good fight – the one that says y’all means all.
Time to wrap this up. I’m due at the theater for 9 hours of tech today. Even though that’s a dreary and boring process for actors, we all like the end result and it true is a wonderful thing.
Life, The Universe, and Everything 