STORY: This is Terry, pictured on the left, my first boyfriend. He managed Albert’s Menswear in my hometown in Southern Illinois, where I got a job the summer after my mom died, after my first year in college.
10 years older, Terry taught me so much. The Red Door in Indianapolis, my first drag bar for one. And I’ll never forget dancing at Chicago’s Bombay Bicycling Club to the new sounds of disco, especially Donna Summer “I Feel Love”. Pure magic.
Terry came to my rescue after I dropped out of college after 2 years, taking me in to his world in St Louis where he’d moved to work in the Neiman Marcus Fur Salon at the glam Frontenac Mall. It wet my appetite for the finer things in life, like the Vetiver by Guerlain cologne that I STILL wear to this day.
Terry introduced me to his BFF from the homeland, Robley Eagleton, and her family. Here I’m brushing her daughter Suzie Tessler’s hair. That little girl turned 41 today! Sadly, after I moved on we lost touch.
Terry died in 1995. As gentle and kind a man there never was.