Audio Interview, Bob Day, March 30, 2012

KEVIN INDOVINO: Evelyn has explained most of this to you.

This whole history and documentary project

is being done in different phases.

One phase was the digitization of The Empty Closet,

which is done.

One phase is the oral histories that Evelyn is doing.

That's what she's going to record you

on this little digital recorder here while we talk.

And then eventually the film documentary phase,

which is what I'm helping her work on.

So this is also my chance to get to know you and know

what your story is so that eventually when

we go to start filming and such, I might say to you,

oh, Bob, we really need to do an on-camera interview with you.

But we won't be starting cold.

I'll know exactly what I will want to ask of you on camera.

BOB DAY: OK.

EVELYN BAILEY: And as I mentioned in my email,

we're not looking for names of people or things like that.

But we are--

KEVIN INDOVINO: Unless you want to share.

EVELYN BAILEY: Unless you want to share.

We are interested in places, because a lot--

we've got a lot of places that people have mentioned

to us that were in existence, like the Mango Bar

and the Mango Hotel or something--

BOB DAY: Manger.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Manger.

EVELYN BAILEY: Mangan.

Well, anyway.

And so we need to have some verification from other people

that these places did, in fact, exist

and that they were catered to gay men and so forth.

So the whatever your mind can pull out in terms of places

and locations and bar owners and things like that or whatever is

what we're--

BOB DAY: Try and reference, though.

There's one that I'd forgotten completely

and I just can remember going there.

But well, where do we start?

KEVIN INDOVINO: Are we recording yet?

EVELYN BAILEY: Yeah.

KEVIN INDOVINO: OK.

Well, let's just first start about your--

we won't talk about places yet.

Talk to me when you first came to terms

with your sexual identity.

And talk to me about that time period.

Was that here in Rochester?

BOB DAY: No.

I think really children already know what their feelings are

and what they're attracted to and things like that.

So I always knew as a child.

And different-- and I don't know if I was effeminate or not,

but I was delicate, to put it that way.

I didn't like to play baseball.

I was frightened of baseball and stuff.

And of course, I was always the last one chosen on the team.

And so you go through childhood.

And then where do you get your sex education?

My parents didn't set us down and tell a whole lot of stuff.

You'll eventually find out about the birds and bees on your own.

And this is the way they were coming up in the--

I was born in 1934, so the early '40s.

But the older children, my older brother, he

started getting these books about sexology.

I guess that was the name of it--

Sexology-- that had all the stuff.

I didn't identify it when I saw the word homosexual

and stuff like that.

Then I started reading what happens and what was--

I guess it was about Kinsey's time

when he was coming up with some of his things and what not.

And sometimes they were talking about it's

a phase that people go through, some boys when

they're going through.

And then they monkey around and circle jerks

or whatever you want to call it.

Then they find girls and then they move on.

So I waited for the stage to move, but I never moved on,

and things like that.

Then you start hearing about these strange people and queer

people and started identifying with that and stuff like that.

And then I was sort of active in high school.

And--

EVELYN BAILEY: Was that here in Rochester?

BOB DAY: No.

It was in Bloomfield.

When I came to Rochester, the ones

in the life, or the gay ones, would say,

well, you can take the girl out of the country,

but you can't take the country out of the girl.

KEVIN INDOVINO: This is Bloomfield, New York, right?

BOB DAY: Yes.

Yeah.

EVELYN BAILEY: Yeah.

BOB DAY: And so, you know, where'd you get your education?

Out behind the barn?

(Laughs) out behind the barn type of thing.

EVELYN BAILEY: Yes.

That's true.

BOB DAY: Like that.

And so I was sort of secret and closeted.

And I wouldn't say on the down low,

but you could call it on the down low.

And then when I got to Rochester and went

to school, that's when the closeted part started really

getting in 'cause I didn't want classmates knowing and whatnot.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Roughly what year are were talking?

BOB DAY: We're talking 1952.

Yeah.

Evelyn, you probably can help me with this too,

because there was such a thing as in schools, parentis--

proprietor or something, or the school, the college

could be in lieu of your parent.

And they could discipline you like your parent would do.

EVELYN BAILEY: Yes.

BOB DAY: I don't know what the terminology.

I guess it's not--

EVELYN BAILEY: It's not parental rights.

But they take over some form of guardianship

where they can get health care for you if it's emergency.

And they could.

Today, all of that's done by medical card

and all of that stuff, which they didn't have back then.

BOB DAY: Yeah.

But they also thought if you were gay or something

too, try to discipline you and tell your parents and da da da

da da and try to correct it and all that other type of stuff.

EVELYN BAILEY: This was in college?

BOB DAY: Yeah.

The college-- since they had that parental type

of right type of thing.

And so you didn't want the college

to know that you're gay type of thing, too.

And you sort of kept that hidden.

And so being at RIT, it was, what, downtown.

And the kids I was in school with would go to Dimey Day

bars down on the corner of Washington and Main

Street or D'Apriles Grill up on Fitzhugh Street, which

is all torn down and the garage is there and stuff like that.

And then I was staying with relatives

over on Morton Street, I didn't have to take the bus.

But after I get through partying and drinking with those guys,

I'd go down Main Street and I'd look up and down.

And if I didn't recognize anybody or anybody

didn't recognize me, I'd shoot down Front Street.

And that was it.

And but then the other part, the (unintelligible) the separation

of my life was that part with the classmates down

on Front Street, or I'd go over in the ghetto--

it wasn't quite a ghetto, but over on

Clarissa Street where Pythodd Hall was.

And so the people over there, I'd present one way

and present another here and present another in this.

And then I had some friends--

there's Herald.

He grew up in Geneseo.

And he went away to the service.

And he was back.

And he became Bill Johnson's private secretary.

And then another friend was Bill Bracey, who was older than I--

the two of us.

And he had some real wild stories

about back in the '40s and things when he came out.

I wish he was still alive, 'cause he passed away in '80.

So that was that.

And so the two bars that I remember was on Front Street

with Ma Martin and Pa Martin and Martha's.

And then further down was Ottoman's Bar with Peggy--

Peggy whatever her name was.

I should remember, if I ever knew.

EVELYN BAILEY: Ottoman?

BOB DAY: Yeah, that was her husband.

And then he passed away.

And it became the Bizarre Lounge.

She moved over on State Street and went there.

I wish I could remember her last name.

So--

KEVIN INDOVINO: Were these bars-- some of these bars,

were they strictly gay bars?

Or were they mixed and it just happened

to be the gay people mixed in?

BOB DAY: Yeah.

From my recollection, Ma Martins was sort of a mixed.

And I always said what hung out there

was whores, cut throats and thieves, and gay people

and stuff like that.

It was down, you know.

But mostly at night, during the evening hours, in Mart--

this is how the story came to me,

that Martha's was next door.

Oh I can see that old dusty balloon over the bar, now.

And one night Ma Martins got so full that some of the guys

went next door considering it was empty.

So the street is sort of empty.

And old Dick, who was sort of a big time--

I won't call him a gangster.

I don't know.

But Dick Gruttadauria or something like that--

some other parts.

You're shaking your head.

You probably concur on that story.

But anyhow, he come in the next day to check to receipts

and said, "Where'd all this money come from?"

She said, "All those gay people came over here last night

from next door."

And so that became very gay friendly right away

with the suits.

EVELYN BAILEY: And that was Dick's 43.

BOB DAY: Well, it wasn't 43 then.

It was just Dick's then.

Then it moved to 43 Stone Street, Union Street,

or wherever they went.

But that was-- they had two of them,

'cause they moved up to where (Unintelligible) was

or something before they went to Stone Street.

And so there's sort of class consciousness about it,

I think, a little bit.

The ones that were at Martin were street wise,

sort of down and out.

I wouldn't call them down and out.

I hate to generalize.

But there are people in there named like China Clipper

and all these other things.

EVELYN BAILEY: Less desirable?

BOB DAY: (Laughs) Well, they were there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And more hardcore.

I'd say heavy drinkers and hustlers

and all that type of stuff.

And over at Martha's Bar, it was the (unintelligible) ones,

the Pat Boone show, saddle oxfords

and bow ties and blazers and other things like that.

And then down at Peggy's Ottoman on the other side,

I don't know.

They probably-- what do I want to call them?

A mixture of heterosexual and homosexual, but kinky hetero

type of thing so to speak too.

So that was it.

KEVIN INDOVINO: What was your favorite?

Did you have one?

Not favorite, maybe just a regular--

BOB DAY: I think I preferred Martins, Ma Martin.

Sophie Martin was a little lady in what Bill always says,

wait until New Year's Eve.

And she'd always have this beaded dress

on and these old dirty diamonds all over

like they'd never been-- in a big mansion on East Avenue.

And I think they had a bar before that on Main Street,

some sort of--

EVELYN BAILEY: But she--

BOB DAY: --box type of thing.

Yeah.

And her husband was a whiskey runner way back in--

so just getting into prohibition.

Boy, I didn't think I--

do I overlap prohibition?

No--

KEVIN INDOVINO: Well, this would be after.

BOB DAY: Yeah.

Just a little bit after.

Yeah.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Well, in the '50s,

it would be about thirty years after.

BOB DAY: Yeah.

OK.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Twenty, no twenty-five--

KEVIN INDOVINO: Twenty, twenty-five years.

BOB DAY: The roaring '20s, yeah.

KEVIN INDOVINO: '20s, yeah.

BOB DAY: And so--

oh yeah, before I hit the streets, that would be that.

But that was over in the mid '20s

and I was born in the mid '30s.

So just ten years from that stuff.

And it was all--

and (unintelligible) I guess whatever it was,

and then the whiskey went in.

But I liked that bar, because now I'm

getting into my psychological makeup.

When-- what is it--

internalized homophobia and internalized racism and stuff

like that, to build myself up, it was like, well,

I'll go down where I can feel superior to some

of these other people, because I was a little Joe college

boy, something like that, and what have you.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Well that was my next question.

I wanted to get into your experience in the 1950s.

Not only were you a man of color,

but you were a gay man of color.

What was that experience like for you?

And, like you said, you mentioned kind

of living a double life, but--

BOB DAY: It was terrible.

I had a whole lot of resentment which

I internalized that turned to anger and sort of self

destructed.

KEVIN INDOVINO: But, now was it resentment

because of your sexuality?

Or resentment of your skin color?

BOB DAY: Everything.

KEVIN INDOVINO: It was everything?

BOB DAY: It was society, the United States in general.

And there's oppression, because it was in the '60s.

And this is after I'd gotten out of the service

and came back and the riots in Rochester and stuff like that.

And that sort of turned things around and got people

thinking a little bit.

But there was that stuff.

My first significant other was a white fellow.

And I had these very romantic ideas too.

And so he was an officer and a gentleman.

And he worked at General Dynamics as an engineer.

And so I was going to volunteer for the service and come back,

and we were going to live together.

But it never panned out or anything like that.

But I met him--

KEVIN INDOVINO: I don't want to rush over this.

OK, you've got a white significant other.

Caucasian.

When you guys walked into one of these bars together,

did you get a lot of looks?

Did you get any comments?

BOB DAY: No because when we went out to a gay spot,

we went there.

There was some-- it's sort of blurred

and I can't separate the sequence.

But we'd gone to Canada one time and it

was okay in Toronto and stuff.

But one time we were in Montreal.

And we were dancing or something and got some racist things,

because I guess the riots were going on in Birmingham.

And some of those French-Canadians

who don't like English speakers anyhow

said, "Why don't you all go back to Birmingham?"

So I was getting that stuff.

And in the city, when we got ready to get an apartment,

he had one.

And when he said he's going to have a black roommate,

well he won't have him here and this and that.

And he was up on Park Avenue.

It amazes me today when I see how many people

are renting apartments.

But, so he couldn't have one there.

And so we went looking for an apartment.

And there always-- when we'd show up there,

they would say the apartment's taken.

Well, they said that because it was

two men that wanted an apartment together

and it's only a one bedroom or he's saying it because of this.

But except we found one on South Avenue and Comfort Street

near Francisco's grocery store, mom and pop grocery store.

And she was taking information.

You both work?

Where do you work?

General Dynamics and I was working

at St. John Fisher at the time.

And--

EVELYN BAILEY: You were working where?

BOB DAY: St. John Fisher.

I was in food service there.

And she said, "Oh, you're feeding the priest?"

I think that's sort of when we got the apartment

or something like that.

And--

EVELYN BAILEY: Yes, if you were feeding the priest,

you absolutely had to be blessed by God.

(Laughter)

BOB DAY: Yes.

But that was the beginning of the end of the--

yeah.

And there was a time--

he was in the service, and he had

duty in Ohio, Columbus, or at Wright-Patterson

Air Base, Dayton, which is close by.

And so I was in service and I was at Fort Bragg.

And he came down to visit me.

And I asked the sergeant where is the black motel?

Because he could be accepted to black motels,

but I couldn't darken the door of the white one.

So we spent there.

And then we went back to Columbus where he was.

And then he was going to bring me back home.

And so we got to Columbus.

And he'd been going to a gay bar in Columbus all the time.

And it was sort of secretive thing.

And so when he knocked on the door

and they looked out and saw me, "Oh, this is a private club."

And he'd been going there for months.

And it got private real fast.

So this is one of the things that was going on.

Then we got to Warren, Ohio, his hometown.

And we were in this bar.

He said, "This is a bar and sort of some timey--

some action around there."

So we went in there.

And I come back and he was agitated--

I had to go to the restroom.

I come back, and he was agitated.

"Finish that, get up, and we go.

Let's go.

Let's go."

And I said, "What?

I'm having fun sitting here looking at these hillbillies

from West Virginia."

They looked just as--

And then, anyhow, he says real stern, "Let's go."

I'd never seen him do it like that.

And we went out.

And I heard the woman say, "Break up the glasses."

And I could hear the glass, what I was drinking out of,

crash against the wall.

And I said, "What's going on?"

And they said, "Well, they didn't know what you were.

They asked if you were--

what you were.

And I told them that you are negro."

I guess that's what we were at the time.

They couldn't tell if you were Mexican or whatever

at that time.

But I was young and pretty.

So they didn't know what I was, but when you said negro,

they knew that's the way they should act.

That was the type of thing that went on.

So that was what it was like in the service about that time.

But then the riots came and things

started changing and civil rights

and all that other stuff.

KEVIN INDOVINO: So in this time period,

either here in Rochester or in Ohio, in the service,

were you feeling more oppression because of your skin color

than you were being identified as a gay man?

BOB DAY: I--

OK.

Your friend Lee.

Do you remember Lee and her--

EVELYN BAILEY: Lee Andrews?

BOB DAY: Evelyn and I--

EVELYN BAILEY: Yeah.

BOB DAY: We have a little history of our own going on.

EVELYN BAILEY: I remember Lee.

BOB DAY: Didn't I have some good friends?

Lee and Michael--

EVELYN BAILEY: Well, you--

BOB DAY: Evelyn's going to tell me,

"Don't you bring any more of your friends around me

anymore."

EVELYN BAILEY: You never lacked for variety and uniqueness.

BOB DAY: But anyhow, Lee told me one time

and somebody asked a friend of her's, what do you have--

like your question.

What was more problematic, being black or gay?

And she said, "Well, I never had to tell my mother I was black."

And this is it.

It's harder to tell, because you can cover up

the gayness so much that you don't feel the discrimination.

It's more internalized.

You know, I don't want to wiggle down the street.

And I don't want to do, "Hey, Mary,"

and all that other stuff.

So you carry yourself different.

And other people, they don't know.

And they'll tell-- at work if you're

in the closet or something, you can

listen to a whole lot of gay jokes and stuff like that.

You don't hear too many racist jokes when you're around,

unless you stepped somebody over or something like that.

So I'd say it's more problematic with the racial part.

EVELYN BAILEY: Yeah.

I was going to say today it would not be kosher for either.

But being black you can't hide, unless you go into a bakery

and become covered in flour and--

but being gay is not something that's outwardly observant.

BOB DAY: And that's your real-- what do you say-- fem, or what?

EVELYN BAILEY: Yeah.

BOB DAY: Or what's Carson--

Carl-- I have some bias towards that.

When I'm watching Good Morning America,

I know you probably wouldn't, but he comes on.

And I can't stand him.

He's so, da na na na.

I said, get a backbone type of--

and he was here, I guess, where--

KEVIN INDOVINO: Who is this?

BOB DAY: Carson whatever his name is.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Oh, Carson Daly?

BOB DAY: Yeah.

Something for the gay guy, the straight guy or something

like that.

And so when I see those fun things--

KEVIN INDOVINO: You mentioned in the interview

that you were talking with Bruce Woolley at one point.

You seem to remember a bar called the Rustic?

BOB DAY: Yeah.

This is one that I don't remember it,

but my friend Bill remembered it.

And he was talking about drag shows that were there.

And people would come from Buffalo.

And they'd all get busted and had

to be running down the street and breaking their heels and--

high heels and stuff like that, which

brings to mind another thing like Martins

down there on Front Street.

Every time there was an election year,

the police were going to get tough on crime and faggots

and clean up the city.

They'd come in there and start arresting people.

And it was like--

EVELYN BAILEY: For what?

BOB DAY: Like Stonewall--

pre-Stonewall.

EVELYN BAILEY: Oh, raids.

BOB DAY: Yeah, raids type of thing.

Now, we haven't had a raid on a gay bar here

in the city since--

EVELYN BAILEY: No.

Not in a long time.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Were you at a bar when it was raided?

BOB DAY: No.

But when the police come in and all that other stuff,

it's you sort of managed the behavior.

And you'd get that tension.

And they'd look around like they smelled shit or something.

And they weren't our friends.

And we didn't have a liaison or any of those other things

then that we fought for.

So you felt very intimidated, type of thing.

EVELYN BAILEY: Go back a ways, Bob, to the service.

When you were at Fort Bragg or when you enlisted,

and it wasn't voluntary.

You had--

BOB DAY: It was.

It was.

EVELYN BAILEY: Oh, it--

BOB DAY: But there was like an eight-year obligation

type of thing.

It was before the draft came up.

But with the draft, you don't know when you're going to go.

But I wanted to synchronize with Richard's when he

was going for his active duty--

his active duty.

And then he'd get out in so many years, because he was

ROTC or something like that.

So I wanted to coincide that when

we'd be out of the service, not have

that obligation all at once.

EVELYN BAILEY: And so were you and this friend friends

before you entered the service?

BOB DAY: Yeah.

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

That's one of the reasons why I volunteered

to go so I could get back.

EVELYN BAILEY: And at Fort Bragg--

that's where you were deployed?

That's where you were sent?

BOB DAY: Yeah, for basic training.

Yeah.

EVELYN BAILEY: And did you ever go overseas?

BOB DAY: Yeah.

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

I went to Germany, Stuttgart.

EVELYN BAILEY: How was that?

I mean--

BOB DAY: Oh, it was a ball.

EVELYN BAILEY: --were you out?

BOB DAY: (Laughing) It's a bunch of flaming faggots.

It was.

First of all, I went to a line outfit that was--

an artillery outfit that was out there in the field.

And then they came request because of my culinary skills

and knowledge and stuff.

The commanding officer said, "There's

a job at the general's mess at Seventh Army

headquarters in Stuttgart.

Would you like to go down there and apply for that?"

And so I got a transfer.

Well, I got to Seventh Army headquarters,

and the Seventh Army symphony band was there.

That's some of the first-- (laughs) and Seventh Avenue

road show with all the theatrical ones

there, and then the Ann Southern ones, the favorite secretaries

that were all up in the different offices and what not.

And there was a gay bar in Stuttgart, the (unintelligible)

and all that stuff.

And so we just running down there all the time

and what not.

So that was a good gay time.

But gay friends and we'd go off to Zurich for weekends, Zurich,

Switzerland, and take vacations down to Cannes

on the French Riviera.

So that was it.

And this is humorous because Seventh Army,

their patch was a triangle and it was purple.

And there's seven steps to heaven and seven steps to hell.

So it was purple and gold and red.

So you came into base, and there was this big flower

bed with all these different pansies in here.

And so they had a big purge (laughter)

from all of these faggots out there.

They had the commanding general call the guard.

He said, "And that pansy bed has got to go too."

And they said many recall--

somebody had written on the shit house wall, many were called

and many went.

So that was-- they said, that pansy bed's got to go, too.

So there was stuff that was going on in the service

and stuff like that.

And it's taken us all these years, all of this

until now, to don't ask and don't tell.

And this was about '55, '56, '57, around into there.

EVELYN BAILEY: But you never felt discriminated against

or oppressed--

BOB DAY: No, not in the service, because--

EVELYN BAILEY: In the service.

BOB DAY: --the color line was--

yeah.

And even in North Carolina, I was in Fort Bragg,

the white sergeant.

They'd have black master sergeant.

Hey, Sergeant.

You went along, but if you step off that base,

it was another thing.

EVELYN BAILEY: Story in North Carolina.

BOB DAY: Yeah.

EVELYN BAILEY: Not so in Europe.

BOB DAY: No.

No, it was not so in Europe at all.

No.

And as a matter of fact, there was

five of us that were African American

and we all hung together.

And this one friend, she was a secretary, but a musician,

played the piano.

And she had an old Packard car, great big old Packard.

And we'd all pile into this Packard car and get going.

Sputnik went up and then we named the car Sputnik.

So that will tell you the timeframe when we were out.

And when we'd get to the gay bar,

they were sort of fascinated with the black soldiers.

It was sort of a different type of thing.

And I remember seeing in Stuttgart, there goes my--

black entertainer with a big ponytail.

She went to Paris and she danced with the bananas and all

that other stuff.

No?

You don't remember her?

EVELYN BAILEY: No.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah, I know who you're talking about.

BOB DAY: Josephine Baker.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah.

EVELYN BAILEY: Josephine Bacon?

BOB DAY: Yeah.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Because she kinda got ousted from America,

so she went to Paris.

BOB DAY: Yeah.

Yeah.

But then her last song, she sang--

and I could hear it in her voice now she was singing,

"I'll be coming home.

Wait for me."

And I could hear that longing that she'd like

to come back home to America.

But it still wasn't--

and that was in the late '50s and stuff like that.

But I do remember that.

But it was that how she was welcomed in Europe and in Paris

and things like that.

You could feel that difference there.

KEVIN INDOVINO: So how did you do then when you

had to come back to Rochester?

BOB DAY: Oh, Rochester when I got back

here was sort of a depression like we're in now.

And I'd gotten back from Germany where things were building up,

and comrades were getting little Volkswagens.

You could feel prosperity in the air.

But when you came back here, it was sort of depressed

and things like that.

Yeah.

KEVIN INDOVINO: What year did you come back?

BOB DAY: '59, yeah, just before '60.

Yeah.

KEVIN INDOVINO: So did you find it a changed city then?

Particularly in regards to the gay community,

did you find it changed?

BOB DAY: Well see, I was in a relationship, so I didn't--

I wasn't in the whatchamacallit.

EVELYN BAILEY: You weren't out and about.

BOB DAY: Yeah.

Yeah.

But there was sort of a little line down through there.

You don't get invited to the parties

afterwards and things like that.

You sort of feel left out.

You could meet socially and things would be social.

But you take that to that intimate level sometimes,

socially intimate, like when you get together for parties.

Maybe I wasn't gregarious enough or something,

or maybe I was so internal--

frightened, fear, and stuff like that.

So I didn't push out with a big personality type of thing.

EVELYN BAILEY: So socially you did things, went to the bars

and went out and got to know people.

But you then weren't included in people's inner circles.

Yet, out there at the bar or out there wherever--

BOB DAY: And this is the thing too.

Then you have to start talking about sexual encounters, too,

and how that stuff plays out, too.

And you probably heard about people

who would go with black people and they'd be dinge queens.

Or if they liked Chinese people, they'd

be rice queens or something.

And so there was that sort of thing going on, too.

EVELYN BAILEY: Had Front Street changed?

Or was there no more Front Street?

BOB DAY: Oh, Front Street changed with urban renewal.

And I can't remember when that went, because Main Street used

to have stores all across there, and they tore those down

and made the bridge and stuff.

And Front Street went down with it, too,

and then all of a sudden the buildings and the hotels

and all that.

And I can't remember when that exactly happened.

But I know Ma and Pa Martin there, they'd passed away.

They were elderly.

And that's when Dick's Tavern moved up to Stone Street--

EVELYN BAILEY: Stone Street.

BOB DAY: --and what not like that.

So exactly when that happened, I don't know.

EVELYN BAILEY: And that's when it became Dick's 43--

BOB DAY: Yeah.

EVELYN BAILEY: --because it was 43 Stone Street.

BOB DAY: Stone Street.

Yeah.

EVELYN BAILEY: OK.

BOB DAY: And then they went to South Avenue,

and she got murdered over there.

But that's another thing, too.

One time she had her little friends around there,

the little white boys-- excuse me.

(Laughter) Could do all their little deals.

KEVIN INDOVINO: You know what, they would've passed right

by me unless you-- until you--

(Laughter)

--said something about it.

BOB DAY: Excuse-- but it was a dance bar and stuff.

And they'd be doing this little fish thing

and holding each other close and wiggling and stuff.

And Bill and I were-- and this friend

of mine that knew the Rustic owner.

And his mother used to have these old rent parties

and stuff to raise money for the rent

and stuff and (unintelligible) and the old blues and all that.

And so we were in Martha's when this song came on.

And he come up, "Let's dance!"

And he got me out there on the floor.

And he was doing this old nasty boogie, old buck dance.

And he had Martha, "Stop that dancing!"

And so she singled us out because our dance style

wasn't the same as the cute little slim, hip white boys.

"Stop that dancing!

Have you no shame?"

EVELYN BAILEY: She said that?

BOB DAY: She said that.

When I heard she died, I grinned.

Oh.

EVELYN BAILEY: Wow.

BOB DAY: But she did--

(interposing voices)

BOB DAY: --she tried to abuse the gay guys, too.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Well let me ask you that,

because you're not the first person

to tell us that Martha really wasn't a very nice person.

BOB DAY: No.

KEVIN INDOVINO: So why did they patronize her bar?

BOB DAY: Because it was the only game in town,

the only show in town, that type of thing.

That's it.

My second lover was older than I by fifteen years.

And he was Jewish.

And I'm not saying he was tight, but he was cool with his money.

So I wanted to go to Martha's and everything.

So we went in and we ordered some Manhattans.

And she charged some astronomical price,

like $1.75 or something like that.

And he was out and done.

And so I took the two Martini glasses.

And she raised them.

"You come back with my glasses."

When I went back the next time, she's mad at me

and she probably won't let me back

in there again or something.

So he mailed them back.

And he says, "Well the price of those drinks,

I thought that included the glass, too."

But then too-- this could go in here.

It's sort of-- well, I'm getting out of date,

when I got back from service, the first romance broke up.

And Richard had gone to New York and met some other black fellow

and what not.

And let's say I was drinking heavily.

And Bill and Harold and I--

my mother told my father to let me have the car

'cause I was moping around the house.

And we went drinking.

And I don't know, we were at the Treadway Inn and stuff.

And then we were going down Main Street into Martha's at the 43.

And I hit a car and dented it and had this little accident

type of thing.

But that time when I wasn't driving and was healing up

over this breakup and all like that,

I'd gone to a concert at the Eastman Theatre.

And across the street was the old town and country

thing, which was sort of--

you probably have heard of this.

Now that was really pissing on--

excuse my French.

But that was a group with Holly Ward and Ted Holland back

and Shoemaker and his lover and all like that.

So it was all quiet underneath the table.

So I met this Melton in there.

And then we started.

And that was about eighteen years.

Was it monogamous and high fidelity?

No.

But it was a lasting thing that went on.

And so--

EVELYN BAILEY: So how many relationships have you had?

BOB DAY: Two.

EVELYN BAILEY: Two.

OK.

BOB DAY: And a half.

EVELYN BAILEY: We're not going to the half.

KEVIN INDOVINO: We've all had the half.

BOB DAY: That was it.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Put enough halves together

to make a couple wholes.

EVELYN BAILEY: And all in Rochester?

I mean--

BOB DAY: No.

The half was out of Rochester.

EVELYN BAILEY: Oh, yes.

But--

BOB DAY: It was a little Swiss one

I had on the side when I there.

EVELYN BAILEY: But when you came back from the service,

you lived in Rochester?

BOB DAY: No.

Oh, yeah.

When I came back, I lived in Rochester.

EVELYN BAILEY: You lived in--

BOB DAY: And then after that-

EVELYN BAILEY: --Rochester.

And you worked in Rochester.

BOB DAY: Yes.

And then when we broke up, I left the apartment

and moved back to Bloomfield.

And I've lived there ever since.

EVELYN BAILEY: OK.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Just generally talk to me about the 1960s.

You come back.

I mean, what was going on?

What were you finding--

BOB DAY: I probably wasn't there.

I-- let me see.

It is so hard for me to remember exactly.

The '60s--

KEVIN INDOVINO: There was the riots in 1964.

Were you around for them?

Do you remember-- I mean, obviously you heard about it,

but--

BOB DAY: I remember that, too.

And there was no drinking in Rochester.

I think one of the things, my first memories, was--