It was an early summer evening when Mickey Powers walked from his Lakeview apartment to the lakefront near the totem pole to read, as he often does.
He spotted two twentysomething Latino men sitting side by side on a bench, and one had his legs draped over the other man, and they were kissing intimately.
An array of emotions raced through Mickey's 66-year-old body.
He thought that he personally would never be so open, in public, with his affection for another man. He's too old-fashioned, he said. And years ago, if they were kissing in public, they likely would have been arrested or attacked, or something more severe, Mickey said.
But on this night, as Mickey watched others in the area, no one even looked twice at the lovers.
"We've really come a long way," Mickey said, reflecting on how gay life has progressed. There was a time, which Mickey witnessed first-hand, when gay men couldn't and wouldn't even touch each other in a gay bar. There was a time when two men needed two women to join them on the dance floor if they wanted to dance, even at a gay bar. Today, we're talking about same-sex marriage.
The world has certainly changed for the LGBT community. Mickey, originally from Chicago's South Side and a Lakeview resident for the past 20 years (though he's moving to Edgewater by the end of the summer), has had a front-row seat on the world—good, bad and indifferent.
"I'm not ashamed of who or what I am. But years ago…" said Mickey, cutting off his sentence. He came out in 1965, first telling his mother's hairstylists.
"One day in the 1980s, I was driving with a friend of the family, and we drove past two men holding hands on Belmont Street," he said. "I thought he was going to fall out of the car. He was shocked. Today, that'd be nothing.
"Today, I don't hesitate to hug and kiss anyone on the street when I see them, yet we couldn't do that years ago."
Mickey tended bar in the Chicago area for 20 years, including 15 years at The Nutbush in suburban Forest Park. He also worked at a bank and in the travel agency industry.
He is now retired, single, smiling and reflective on what he's watched in the LGBT world, specifically, gay bar life, dating back to the 1960s, when he first was a customer.
"Years ago, I think there was much more camaraderie in the bars, with all of the dancing. The bars were a lot of fun back then," said Mickey, who also worked at The Hideaway in Forest Park for less than a year, and at The Lucky Horseshoe in Lakeview from 1992-96.
"People were more hiding themselves back then, meaning, people often would walk into the bar with their collars up, wearing hats, with sunglasses [on]. Many people didn't want others to know that they were gay, but once they got inside, all hell broke loose and the fun would begin."
Mickey said the The Nutbush regularly had security guards in the parking lot to protect its customers, and poppers were a common sight inside the bar.
"You could not touch anybody in the 1960s, nor buy a guy a drink, [even in a gay bar]. Dancing was out [for same-sex couples]. If I wanted to go dancing with a fellow, we would have to take two girls with us, and pretend that we were dancing with them."
Mickey came out to his mother's hairdressers at age 18, and they took him to his first gay bar.
"I still remember walking in [to a gay bar for the first time] and thinking, 'This is fabulous; this is where I belong,'" Mickey said. "The [gay] bars then basically were [almost all] straight-owned.
"My memories of the 1960s include the different bars: Finocchio's, The Chesterfield, The Annex and others. When I first started going into Kitty Sheon's, there was a woman at the door named Pat; she was so nice. It was a really exciting time for me, coming out in the '60s."
He went to The Nutbush on the day after Thanksgiving 1976, and was friends with its owner. Then on New Year's Eve, he was back at the bar, which stayed open until the following morning. Mickey was in drag that memorable night—and he ultimately lost a shoe, ripped a mink coat, "and was a mess," he said, laughing. A photo from the night is framed and hung at his home.
In February, 1977, Mickey started working at The Nutbush, at the request of its owner.
"I never envisioned that I'd work there for 15 years, but I loved it. The people at The Nutbush were like family to me," Mickey said.
The Nutbush closed three years ago and has since been converted to an auto service center.
Mickey drives by it nowadays and reflects. "I think of all the wonderful times that I had there and the wonderful people who I met," he said. "Many of them, though, are now [dead]. Thankfully I still have a lot of photos from when I worked there."
Mickey endured the early years of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, when countless customers died from the disease. Mickey is grateful, though. "I did not lose a ton of close friends to AIDS," he said.
"I enjoyed the 1970s the most. The '80s were a lot of fun for me; there was a lot of partying and drinking," he said. "I enjoyed the bar life in the '70s the most because it was the disco era and there were wonderful parties. The 1980s were filled with a lot of illness and death; maybe that's why I didn't think it was so wonderful. The 1980s were a fun time, yes, but also a sad time."
Mickey said it wasn't until the 1990s when LGBT bar customers came and went without worrying about being spotted or outed. Gay life became more acceptable in the 1990s, he said.
"My immediate, close friends did not come down with HIV/AIDS, though of course there were many who I met at the bar who were diagnosed with HIV, and yes, many ultimately died," Mickey said. "The bar was affected, certainly, but not me personally. No one extremely close to me died, so I was very lucky."
Still, Mickey long has done extensive fundraising for Chicago House, which assists people with HIV/AIDS.
Mickey was called "Grandma" one day at a gay bar in the 1990s, and he quickly and immediately rejected the tag. He's too proud of the path he's paved—for others—to be insulted, which is how he took it. He replied, "I'm one of the ones who paved the way for you to dance down Halsted Street."
Clearly, Mickey is an LGBT pioneer, along with others from his era.
That said, Mickey laughs when he goes to gay bars nowadays. "I feel like a fossil," he said.
"When I see Boystown, I just think of what it was years ago. I remember when Sidetrack opened, and it was one storefront, only one bar," he said. "Halsted Street and Boystown … that used to be a nasty neighborhood, not what it is today. And over to Lake Shore Drive, too. It's changed greatly, thankfully."
Mickey has battled bone-marrow cancer for 12 years. He had a stem-cell transplant 11 years ago that "has changed my life," he said.
Mickey now often gets fatigued quickly, "but I cannot give up. My job is not done here," he said.
So what else do you want to do, or what is there still to do?
"I'm not sure. My life is not over, yet," he said.
He is considering taking French or Spanish classes, which he saw are taught at the Center on Halsted. "I think that would be wonderful for me," said Mickey, who also plans to travel more, including at least one more trip to Paris.
"I don't feel bad when I'm at the bars nowadays; I just feel … older," Mickey said. "I wish, years ago, I could have done things that gays can openly, freely do today, such as, holding hands in public. Even now, if someone came into my life, I still couldn't walk down the street holding someone's hand, though; it just isn't me because I'm from the era where you had to be more proper and so forth."
More Mickey Powers:
—Said he had several memorable relationships
—Is an active fundraiser for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society
—Describes himself as "outgoing, gregarious, loving, and old-fashioned"
—Mickey is amazed at the growth of the annual Chicago Pride Parade: "I walked to the parade this year, but left [before getting to the route] because it was too crowded. It was so mobbed; I couldn't take the crowd. I never, ever envisioned the parade would grow to what it is today. Never, ever."
—The quote: "I don't think I could handle [same-sex marriage]. I'm too old-fashioned; it just isn't me." He also said, based on his past, he never could refer to a partner as "my husband."
—Mickey said his role model in the 1980s and 1990s was Phil King.
