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Larry Copeland SR 11233, Oral History, by Kenty Truong & Emily Bowen

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Larry Copeland SR 11233, Oral History, by Kenty Truong & Emily Bowen Larry Copeland SR 11233, Oral History, by Kenty Truong & Emily Bowen Gay and Lesbian Archives of the Pacific Northwest (GLAPN) 2011 February 17 COPELAND: Larry Copeland KT: Kenty Truong EB: Emily Bowen Transcribed by: Kenty Truong & Emily Bowen, ca. 2011 Audit/edit by: Pat Young, ca. 2011 Reviewed by Larry Copeland, ca. 2011 This oral history interview was conducted as part of the Portland State University LGBT History Capstone course, Winter Term 2011, with Instructor Pat Young. Introduction Larry Copeland is a gay-rights activist. In this interview, he describes what life was like in Portland during the 1970s. He talks about his work with Portland Town Council (PTC), which was a gay-rights organization in Portland, Oregon. And he discusses the AIDS epidemic. This Oral History Interview may be used according to the following license: Creative Commons - Attribution, Non-Commercial, ShareAlike (BY-NC-SA) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ Copeland SR 11233 Interview 2011 February 17 KT: Hello my name is Kenty Truong. EB: My name is Emily Bowen. And we are interviewing Larry Copeland. KT: So Mr. Copeland to begin, when were you born and where were you born? COPELAND: I was born in 1947 right here in Portland. KT: Oh wow. And have you been in Portland all your life? COPELAND: Pretty much except for about maybe a total of four or five years, and a little bit in Reno, Nevada and California. KT: For your childhood was it basically in Portland then. COPELAND: I moved. My family moved to Redmond, Oregon when I was in the 4th grade and we stayed there until I came back here to go to college at Lewis and Clark College, which was in 1965 I think. KT: So basically Portland since you went to college then. COPELAND: Yes yes yes. It’s my home yes. KT: Can you tell us a little bit about your childhood? 2 Copeland SR 11233 COPELAND: Yeah. I had 1 brother who was two years older than I am. We grew up here as little kids here in the Portland area and then moved to Redmond. Gee. I haven’t thought about this for a while. (laughs) My brother was quite the sportsmen and played football, basketball, all that. I was more the bookworm, shy and retiring gay one I guess. So my parents own a store in Redmond and I worked in there variety store for years and years and years. EB: When did you come out? COPELAND: Somewhere around 1967 or 8. EB: So right after college? COPELAND: It was my second year of college, yeah. EB: Do you think that being back in Portland had anything to do with that or…. I can’t imagine coming out in Redmond (laughs). COPELAND: (laughs) I couldn’t either and that’s why I left as quickly as I could. Definitely coming to Portland made it possible. But I was 20 just going on 21 at that point and it was definitely time to come out. KT: Did you have good responses or bad responses from your friends? COPELAND: Good responses from my very close friends. Luckily I was going with a girl in college who was an actress and we liked each other a lot and I finally had to tell her one night after a date we parked in a car and you know, I think I may be gay. She wasn’t happy to hear that but since she had been an actress she had been around a lot of gay 3 Copeland SR 11233 people so she was very reassuring and kinda key in my whole coming out process. She was the first person I told that as accepting of that. EB: Great. COPELAND: Cause it was a really different time back then. Coming out was not anywhere near easy. I know it’s not now sometimes but it was scary back then actually. EB: How did your family react? COPELAND: I went away. I took a trip to Vancouver BC. I decided one weekend while I was there I would write a letter to them and tell them who I was finally. And so I did and my mother read the letter and cried and said I still love you but I want you to see a psychiatrist. (laughs) You may have heard this story before. And I’m not sure if she ever told my father or not I think she probably did but he was the kind of person who wouldn’t talk about it anyway. So mostly I dealt with my mother and that took a period of maybe 3- 4 years and at the end of that 3 or 4 years she kinda got use to the idea. Did some studying on her own and did some reading and listening and the person she sent me to was a psychologist actually who was on T.V. at the time and only person she knew so she said go see him. And turned out we became friends. He and his family. And you know it’s like what’s the problem here? So over the years my mother’s gotten good about it. My father died before we really ever talk about it. And yet a couple different times I brought my boyfriend up to Redmond and we’d go camping with him just the three of us and stuff like that. So he was pretty accepting. As long as you didn’t want to talk about it you know. (laughs) KT: So you went to Lewis and Clark during all this time? COPELAND: I did. 4 Copeland SR 11233 KT: What were you studying? COPELAND: Business administration. I was actually on a scholarship with US Bank that I got from the Redmond branch of the bank and I was going to go to school a year and work a year and go to school a year and work a year and so I had to study business. But over the years I sort of devolved into mind and music classes and philosophy and ethics. It seemed more of my home. KT: More culture? COPELAND: Yeah. KT: Did you stay working at Redmond or moved here to Portland and… COPELAND: No I finally after a year and a half, well mid way through the second work extent, I decided since it was Vietnam time and the time of the draft that I didn’t want to deal with maybe getting drafted that year and maybe throwing everything into um… I couldn’t stand that decision so I decided to volunteer for the draft and get it over with. So I went and volunteered and I took a physical and was classified as 1-A which meant I would be called up next time they needed somebody. Luckily I was called up a year and a couple weeks later and since it had been a whole year since I had the physical, I had to get another physical so they gave me a physical again and the eye doctor said your eyes are too bad you can’t go and I said thank you very much I got to go home now. (laughs) And I had already sold everything. I had gotten rid of my stuff and I was ready to ship out. It was come to Portland, take the last physical and ship out the next day. I was clutched from the jaws of something. EB: Yeah 5 Copeland SR 11233 KT: Wow COPELAND: Yeah. Scary. EB: Never thought having such bad eyes would have such a great impact. COPELAND: Yeah yeah. The one pay off. KT: Wow it sounds like around that time a lot was going on. COPELAND: Uh huh KT: When did you start coming onto to like the gay scene? COPELAND: Well after I came out it was really like I said was just almost 21, but I couldn’t go into the bars yet, so I wouldn’t, uh, the area of Morrison and Yamhill downtown was called the camp. It was like where a lot of gay men just by walking on the street and the cars would circle and they would look and make eye contact and all that. So my first sexual experience was that way because that’s the only way I knew how to do it. I had no frame of reference what so ever from this activity. I just started walking and sort of figured it out. So it took about, I don’t know, a couple of boyfriends that first year. And then started meeting people and then started going… I was 21 by then… I started going dancing, and that sort of thing, but for me, especially for most people back then, what you did was go to the bars. I mean there’s not much else to do. (laughs). There wasn’t even a gay church at that time you know. So I loved to dance, drinking and dancing and meeting men. It was fun. A lot of fun. It was also pre AIDS so were talking 1970… early 70s. You work all week totally straight, tell your friends about your girlfriend. I 6 Copeland SR 11233 mean your coworkers about your “girlfriend” (laughs) in quotes, and make up stories, and then on weekends you go out the bars dancing, having a good time. It was a lot of fun but it was also very much split personality type thing. I mean Monday morning you had to start covering your tracks.
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