Two men and a baby
I met an old newsroom buddy for lunch Saturday in South Pasadena. His wife (another old newsroom buddy) was visiting her mother, making this a good time for him to meet up. He brought their toddler daughter.
The three of us ate at a sidewalk table outside a cafe on Mission Avenue. It wasn't long before your self-conscious correspondent began wondering how this pre-election scene looked to anyone passing by: Two men and a baby.
My friend played with his daughter, tickling her, picking her up, handing her her glass of chocolate milk, picking up her doll, placing her in or out of her stroller. I sat there on the bench beside him, trying to carry on a conversation with him. I'm not much with children (the aloof father in our little trio?) but watched her when my friend went back inside for more milk.
There's a lively sidewalk scene on Mission, to which I couldn't help thinking we contributed. What did everyone think as they strolled or jogged past? Were we an argument in favor of Prop 8 ("look at the two men with their child!")? Or an argument against (ditto)?
Meal concluded, we set off for their apartment. We stopped at a pharmacy so he could buy toilet paper, soap and baby shampoo, leaving the bachelor cooling his heels in the aisle with the stroller. Then we all waited in line, my friend dealing with the cashier, me inching the stroller forward, keeping his baby from grabbing candy.
On the way out, my friend's arms laden with toilet paper, it was left to me to follow behind, pushing his (our?) baby home in the stroller.
Um, not that there's anything wrong with that.
I wonder if we influenced anybody's vote -- and if so, which way?
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A journalist for more than two decades, David Allen has been writing a column for the Daily Bulletin since 1997 and blogging since 2007.He lives in Claremont.
E-mail David here or read columns here.
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David, you needn't be concerned about an outing with your male friend influencing anyone's vote on Prop 8 (Prop H8?). I'm pretty sure most folks had their minds made up as soon as the proposition was introduced.
I would like to think that, for every observer wondering about your sexual orientation, there were some who were just thinking, "What a cute little girl!"
["Outing"...? -- DA]
Oh, David ...
I would just hope and pray that people have enough "upstairs" to realize that Prop 8 is pure and simple discrimination. Love is love, no matter what. I have been actively campaigning for the NO on 8 side. I am just waiting for the outcome.
Ann
Dave, you would make a fabulous, fabulous gay man.
[Aw, shucks. -- DA]
Just too weird to even think people would wonder about you two while walking by. You've got to be kidding?
[Yes, why would anyone, days before an election issue concerning gay marriage, read anything into two middle-aged men with a baby in a stroller? I envy your apparent lack of self-consciousness, the plague of my existence. -- DA]
["Outing"...? -- DA]
Oops.
David, although your outing shouldn't have, as a sign of how messed up our society is, it probably did cross some people's minds about what their stance is on Prop 8. Ann said it is discrimination, which is probably true, but it's right discrimination.
In any case David the answer to your question is now history. Out of curiosity...did you support Prop 8?
Baby Prams
[Nope. -- DA]