KRJY Announcer  0:01  
Portions of the broadcast day on KR JY St. Louis are pre-recorded. Joy 96 FM,

John Hilgeman  0:18  
Good morning. This is John Hilgeman welcoming you to Lambda Reports, a program by and for the lesbian and gay community in the St. Louis area. Our guests today are Cathy Johnson and Bill LaRock from the NAMES project, who recently traveled with the AIDS Memorial Quilt on its Canadian tour. And I'm wondering, Bill and Cathy, could you tell us a bit about where the tour took you?

Cathy Johnson  0:43  
Sure. Bill and I both flew from St. Louis, where we obviously live, and we flew to Toronto. And from Toronto, we drove to Winnipeg, and then to Calgary and to Vancouver, which ended the Canadian part of the tour. And then we drove back to San Francisco, and I went on to Anchorage, Alaska to do the final display there.

John Hilgeman  1:06  
Okay, I'm wondering, you took this big tour, and the Quilt is a very powerful experience. And I'm wondering what kind of stories or experiences that you had on the tour that kind of struck you, in particular.

Bill LaRock  1:22  
Well, really, there were a number of them, I think just in general. One of the things that moved me the most was the volunteers that came out to help with the display. It was a little different than it was here in the States, because most of the Canadians really had never seen the Quilt before. They'd heard of it, they'd seen pictures, but they hadn't experienced it firsthand, and yet, the dedication of the volunteers in every city we were in was just incredible. In Vancouver, in particular, people were lined up three hours before we opened on the final day of the display in the rain to see the Quilt. And one of the most moving things for me, it was also one of the strangest, in a way, but was the last night in Vancouver that the Quilt was on display. They had a gala benefit, and the volunteers just started singing in the art gallery, and there was a piano playing, and they started singing Somewhere over the Rainbow, and just sort of spontaneously as a group, went into the area where the Quilt was being displayed and walked through it and sang to the panels. Was certainly one of the oddest things I've seen, but it was also one of the most moving, and really said a lot about their personal involvement and commitment to the Quilt.

Cathy Johnson  2:43  
Yeah, I agree that certainly the most personally powerful was the involvement with the individual people. And there was one, there was a woman in particular that I was very involved with in Calgary. And one of the things that we heard when we got into Calgary, Calgary was different. It was our only middle of the week display. So we drove in on a Tuesday, and we did set up Tuesday night, and the display was only on a Wednesday and Thursday, which was very different. It was also different because it was in their municipal city building, which would kind of be comparable to our city hall. So we had a lot of foot traffic in there for people who were coming to see it, not necessarily to see the Quilt, which was interesting because it had a very different exposure. But when we got in on Tuesday night, there were 10 or 12 Calgary panels. And what we were doing in Canada was we would display the single panels that were made in each city and then carry them with us to the next city, until we got to Vancouver, which was the last city, and then they would be returned to Halifax, which is the home of the Canadian Quilt, just as San Francisco is the United States Quilt. And we got into Calgary, and we were told when we got in, the word was they're not giving up their panels. They don't want you to have their panels. And we sort of just said, Okay, well, let's see what happens on Thursday. 

And in addition to that, there was one panel that said on it, it was a picture of a rose. It was a large flower, a large panel, and all it said on it was, "Thank you, love you, miss you." And I walked up to it and I said, Well, this is nice, but is it a panel? Who was the panel for? There were no initials, no name, no indication that this really was memorializing a person, which, of course, is what the Quilt is about. So I met the woman who had made the panel, and one of the kind of odd things about that is, even though I spent a lot of time with her, none of us ever learned what her story was. We never found out what her relationship was to her friend who had died, her friend who she made the panel for, had died a year and a half ago, and that was something that was also much different than here, than we see in the States, that they had sort of grieved separately and privately, but had never had a kind of open acknowledgement of their losses. And that's something that that the panels and the quilt did for them. Well, it ended up at the beginning, there was no way she was putting a name initials first. Or last, anything else. 

Well, by the end of the tour, I had spent a lot of time with her, by the end of the display there, and I asked her if she would consider putting her friend's either first name on or initials. And she said that she had, in fact, had given it a lot of thought, and could understand that to not have a name on it meant that her friend wasn't memorialized in the way in which she wished, and that, in fact, she had planned to take it home and brought it back the morning that we left, delivered it in a package with a rose, a single rose on the top, with her name on it. And she was one of the ones who also wasn't giving us her panel. By the way, all of those people did give us our panels, and that was really a wonderful experience to be a part of. 

John Hilgeman  5:43  
How did you feel about, this must have been a very emotional thing, because I know when, when the Quilt was here, how powerful it was, and to travel with the Quilt to so many different cities. What, were you on a kind of a roller coaster?

Bill LaRock  5:59  
Well, it wasn't an easy thing to do. It was an incredible pace. You know, we'd be on the road for eight to 10 hours. We'd get to a city, we'd set up, usually the same day that we got in, and then we'd start work the next morning. So it was an incredible pace, and that was difficult, and the emotions were always different from city to city. I mean, some were were very excited and involved, and others, you saw more grief and more detachment in some cities. In some cities, it was more of a curiosity than it was sort of a personal memorial. So you were always having to readjust your emotions and yourself to those sorts of venues. So that wasn't the easiest thing in the world. 

Cathy Johnson  6:47  
Yeah, I found it to be very emotional, but in some ways, it was much different than I had anticipated. A lot of people here, I think, felt, felt that it must have been tremendously draining, and it was, I mean, as Bill said, the pace was incredible, and it was kind of ever changing. We'd have long days and evenings in a city, and then we'd get on the road for 10 or 12 hours and sit in a car or a van or a truck, as the case may be. And that required a lot of adjustment, but I also found it to be tremendously joyful, also, and there was a lot of laughter along with the tears and the sadness and the grief that we experienced through the volunteers and through the people visiting the Quilt, but also it was a chance to work through for myself some of my own feelings regarding friends and people that I've lost as well. In a number of cities, I read names, and I read a lot of names and people here in St. Louis, and that was really a good experience for me. So it really covered the full range of emotions, but it was an incredible experience for me, probably one of the, if not the best thing I've ever done in my life.

John Hilgeman  7:55  
You've each made panels, right? 

Bill LaRock  7:56  
  Yes, we have.

John Hilgeman  7:59  
Can you say a little bit about the people that you made panels for.

Cathy Johnson  8:03  
Well, the first panel I made was for really has to do with how I got involved with the Quilt. Initially, a friend had died. It's was two years ago this past June, and he died very quickly, and didn't tell any of his friends that he had AIDS. So it was only after he died, he went in the hospital on a Wednesday, and he was dead on Sunday. So there was a small group of us, five or six of us, that made a panel for him that was displayed here in St Louis last year for the display, and that was the only panel that I ha d made until we had our own little mini-manic workshop the week before Bill and I left to go on tour, and we made two panels there. One of them was for Dale Emerson, who was the president of EFA, who had died in in May. We made a panel for him. And then also there was a friend of ours who was part of the original NAMES project staff in San Francisco, man named Jack Castor, who was on tour with the quilt here last year, and that was the other panel that I participated in making.

John Hilgeman  9:09  
What about you? Bill?

Bill LaRock  9:09  
Well, As Cathy said, we worked on, worked on Jack Caster's panel together. First panel I made, I guess, was over a year ago when the workshop first started here in St Louis, prior to the Quilt coming to St. Louis. And at that point, I hadn't known anyone that had died of AIDS, and I made a panel for a young man who had written a book that had moved me a great deal. It was called To All the Girls I've Loved Before, and I made the panel to resemble the cover of his book. I just been very moved by the book. It was his account of dying with AIDS and living with AIDS, and I wanted to be a part of the Quilt or to contribute to it in some way, so I made a panel for him. I knew that no one had done that. Since then, of course and unfortunately, I've had several friends die with this disease, and one of them was Jack Castor in San Francisco, and Cathy and I and some other people and my daughter made that panel together, and I have some others in the wings for friends that have died here in St Louis.

John Hilgeman  10:16  
I'm wondering how the two of you been involved in, you know, with people with AIDS for some time now, how do you handle it? I mean, it's emotionally. It can be such a draining experience. How do you manage?

Cathy Johnson  10:30  
Sometimes I'm not sure I do manage. It feels, I think for me, getting away was a way to manage it and just be with it all the time, but in a much different environment than my day to day living here. Mostly it's kind of like Bill said, it's an emotional roller coaster. There are times when I feel really okay. I guess for me, my managing it is being a volunteer. And that's how I originally got involved doing volunteer work with people with AIDS was that if people that I knew and loved were going to be affected by this disease, my way of helping them would be to do volunteer work and help provide services. And I feel like the Quilt is a natural extension of that, because that involves not only people with AIDS, but those of us left behind, the survivors, friends and families of people who have AIDS,

Bill LaRock  11:23  
I think I sort of look at it as a kind of war. I mean, it's you wish it wasn't there, and you wish you didn't have to fight it, but it is, and you just really don't have much choice. As Cathy said, one of the ways I manage that is by volunteering for St. Louis efforts for AIDS. It gives me a sense of control and allows me to feel like I've contributed something. And the work that I do with the NAMES project gives me both of those things, and at the same time, allows me to work out some of my my fear about dying with this disease and my sense of loss of control watching my friends die. It's just, I mean, it's terrible thing, this whole disease, but it's also provided us with opportunities that we wouldn't have had before, and the Quilt is certainly one avenue for that. 

John Hilgeman  12:17  
You first became involved with the NAMES project in January of last year, right Bill, the first meeting, when Jack came to see us.

Bill LaRock  12:23  
Oh, yeah I did, uh huh, yeah, when the idea the Quilt coming to St Louis first came off yeah and became involved.

John Hilgeman  12:29  
Um, Cathy, you're involved with a small display in connection with Heart Strings. Can you tell us a little bit about Heart Strings and the display?

Cathy Johnson  12:43  
Sure. Heart Strings is a play that's touring nationally, going to about 20 cities, that is sponsored by the organization called DIFFA, which is a Design Industry Foundation for AIDS. And it's a play that has vignettes about people affected by AIDS, people living with HIV, and there is actually Quilt traveling with the play. In every city that the play performs, there'll be Quilt displayed as part of that. And we're trying to do a number of very small displays in a number of cities. Here in St. Louis, we don't know yet exactly where it will be. We're looking at at one of the malls, and there'll be probably about 48 or so, between three and four twelve by twelves, which is eight panels each. And there'll be St Louis panels, panels that were made here in the area, for people who have died of AIDS. And they'll be displayed probably the weekend before the play, which is October 24 and that'll be at the Fox Theater.

John Hilgeman  13:41  
Another Another thing that's coming up is, I understand there's this, well, I know there's going to be this major display in October in Washington, which will be the final time that the Quilt is displayed in its entirety. And there's almost 11,000 panels for that display. I understand that both George and Barbara Bush have been invited. George has been invited to meet Cleve on the Cleve Jones on the Quilt. And Barbara has been invited to read names. Has, do you know if Cleve has received any response yet?

Cathy Johnson  14:18  
I don't think that they've heard I think there that in San Francisco, they're much more hopeful this year of someone in the government visiting the Quilt than we've ever been before, when Ronald Reagan was president and would leave Washington DC, whenever the Quilt was displayed there. But there really hasn't been any kind of confirmation that either one of them will be there. The Quilt's hard to miss when it's in DC. It covers about, it's on the ellipse, which is 14 acres, and we'll probably be covering about 10 of those, and it will be, as you said, close to 11, probably more than 11,000 panels, because we've we're pretty much sure that all the Canadian panels will be there as well. And that was about 300 when we left Canada.

John Hilgeman  15:00  
Yeah, in August. Okay, so it's in the President's backyard. It's in the President's backyard. So maybe what people might want to do is, if they'd like the President to and Barbara Bush, who seems to be a fairly sensitive person, to experience the Quilt for themselves, and to experience what AIDS is doing, and the real human face of AIDS, we might all contact them by phone, call the White House or by mailgrams or letters or something, and just say, Come and see the quilt and feel what AIDS is doing to this country,

Bill LaRock  15:35  
Right. And not only that, but people could contact their own congressmen and congresswomen and their senators, and ask them to visit the quilt town, and emphasize to them that what this is about is not some people out there dying of AIDS, but our neighbors and our family members, and that this is a powerful instrument that people who run our our local and state and federal government ought to experience themselves.

John Hilgeman  16:03  
Okay? Thank you, Bill LaRock and Cathy Johnson for being on Lambda Reports. This is John Hilgeman. This is a program by and for the lesbian and gay community in the St. Louis area. 

Transcribed by https://otter.ai