This Book, by Steve Gunderson and Rob Morris (with Bruce Bawer), was one of the few non-academic books that I kept in my dorm room at the University of Wyoming, the last year that I was a graduate student.

It was published in September 1996 – so just after I had graduated with my Bachelor’s and as I was starting my Master’s.

This was just after the summer that I spent coming out to myself – so while others around me knew that I was gay, it wasn’t until the summer of 1996 that I dealt with the subject myself. I had the perfect job for introspection: I spent that summer delivering The New York Times to residential addresses and shops all over Denver. The job involved getting up unreasonably early, filling the car with newspapers, and making sure that they newspapers all got to the correct places before the deadline.

I was good at the job – but it did not require much thinking, so I was left listening to 96.5 KXPK, The Peak, and to thinking. Lots and lots of thinking.

But I digress: at some point in 1996 or 1997, I became aware of Steve Gunderson, the gay Republican Congressional Representative from Wisconsin and, at some point, I acquired this book. I liked the book, back then – and have hung onto it, even though it has been awhile since I last read the book.

Heck, according to Wikipedia, Steve Gunderson now married, but not to Rob Morris. (Google is not necessarily your friend: googling Rob Morris turns up the fact that he committed suicide in December 2013; R.I.P.)

I do not recall why I thought the book was worthy enough to be a leisure book on my shelf in the dorm room. Perhaps it was a form of coded signaling: anybody visiting my dorm room who knew who Steve Gunderson was would get the hidden message? Maybe?

This book represents an era when I made a concerted effort to vote for at least on Republican in any given election – a constraint that I no longer hold myself to for two reasons: (1) George W. Bush and Donald Trump have proven that Republicans cannot be trusted with the presidency or, likely, with many other offices; and (2) I only get to vote for Federal offices – so I get to vote President, Vice-President, Senator(s), and my Congressional Representative. Most Republican candidates in Indiana are vile creatures who should not be elected (see my US Senators and Congressman); to be fair, not many of the Hoosier Democrats are worth voting for either, but they do less damage.

Now I am only babbling.

During the Covid-19 crisis, I am going to try and make a point of writing a blog post about an object in my home.

We’ll see how long this lasts.