I saw a few other friends from high school I'd always suspected were gay, and they spied me, which was awkward but I thought, "Oh well." I'll never forget that whole night. I'm amazed they didn't kick us out right then (probably because we were 16 year old boys!) Kind of a weird vibe for my first gay bar experience. At some point the bouncer came over to us and told us we had to calm down or they'd make us leave. So I wasn't alone and nervous but was really uh… alert to my surroundings? We had cocktails which I wasn't used to drinking and all started acting really crazy, which included loudly breaking a glass on the patio. We were all 16, the drinking age at that time in TX was 18. I went with gay friends (boy and girls, we were all 'new wavers') from high school who already knew the place and the doorman and could get in. The Frat House in Dallas, TX, probably 1984. I think it's still kicking.or at least nudging a bit. I don't know if that was by design or just happenstance.Īnd, of course, Parliament House in Orlando. The Cove was replaced with a sewage processing plant. The Cove was good once the slut stage had taken hold, and it was all about the sex. The Armory was good for being young and hot and pickups. The ones I really miss are The Armory and The Cove in Atlanta. There was also a guy named Monroe in Jax, FL who opened up lots of very nice bars, though they never stayed open for very long. The first one I regularly frequented was Stone Castle in Greenville, SC. My brother died the day I got back home, so that trip is very entrenched in my memory. I could not believe there were that many gay guys in the world as I saw on that dance floor.
My smalltown bf refused to dance with me because it looked odd to him.