Faster Than a Speeding Bullet, Family Pride Opens Boston Office and Hops on Rosie’s Cruise! (Part 2)
Dustin on Jul 11th 2007
Well, I’m back from Key West–well-rested and rinsed of sunscreen! I wanted to finish telling the story of our trip down. Let’s start with the list of who was there (and by there I mean on the bus):
Jennifer Chrisler, Executive Director of Family Pride; her spouse, former Massachusetts State Senator Cheryl Jacques; their twins, Tim and Tom; Cheryl’s parents, Norman and Eleanor; Cheryl’s brother, Tom, and his friend, Brad; former Massachusetts State Senator Jarrett Barrios, his partner Doug, and their two sons; Family Pride staff members (Kent Peacock, A. Charlene Leach and I); Arielle Rosen, Family Services Manager from the LA Gay and Lesbian Center; a lesbian couple from Massachusetts, the names of which I can’t recall (don’t worry, they told me they’d forget my names, too); and a group of guys looking for a gay-friendly but not gay-crazy cruise (not everyone on the r family cruises is partnered with kids).
What a bunch! With all the political muscle on that bus you’d think we talked shop the whole way down. No, no–that bus left far too early in the morning for all that. As Arielle said to me, upon seeing me for the first time since February when I trained families through our OUTSpoken program at the LAGLC, “In case you didn’t know, this is a sleeping bus.” 
Well, it wasn’t quite that, but we did keep conversation light. Until the tire blew, that is.
We all felt the tip and grind of the bus swaying over to the left, into traffic. Luckily, the bus driver kept things straight (so to speak). Tim, the more anxious of Jenn and Cheryl’s twins, yelled out from the back, “Slow down! Slow down! The tire’s GOONNEE! SLOWW DOWWWN!”
We pulled off at a Dunkin Donuts and waited for our rescue. It came in the form of a slightly smaller, duplicate bus, with literally just enough seats for the 21 of us. I called Sara Leckey, our Development Associate and, as I mentioned last time, my new roommate in Boston. She’d gone down to New York early to visit friends again (she does that a lot) and hadn’t had to get up at the crack of dawn like the rest of us, so I figured she deserved a little teasing.
I told her that our bus’s engine had blown, that we definitely weren’t making it to the cruise, and that she, alone, would have to board and manage our many days of programming. She didn’t believe me until Jenn grabbed the phone and took my lead, building the story up. Jenn, of course, speaks with more authority than I do, so when she started telling Sara the names of r family vacations staff members Sara would have to seek out once she got on the boat, Sara shifted gears–into panic mode.
Well, I got back the phone and told Sara I’d call her in a bit to give her an update. Right now we’re just hoping to get out of the Dunkin Donuts parking lot, I said. Fifteen minutes later I gave her a call and asked, “Hey, Sara, is there such a thing as a July Fool’s?” 
We’re shoving off again so I’m going to go check it out. It’s always fun to feel the boat start to slip out of port, the horn’s shaking the deck. More to come on this story later–it’s not quite done!
Filed in general, r family vacations, staff |
