GreenOnThursday

Do you remember in school, wearing green on Thursdays meant that you were "that way" ??

CapnDan writes: Of course, in my rural high school this was not a way to show how many of the kids were gay or to communicate your secret desires to other closet cases - it was an excuse to taunt the unfortunate kids who forgot to NOT wear green on Thursdays. In May 2004 I asked some members of the gay Maine mailing list:

• Nanci writes: I remember that, the way you've said it.
• Paula Stockholm writes: In my school the fairy color was yellow on Thursdays. But then we celebrated Thanksgiving in November, too.
• Peter Rees writes: In my high school (Newton Mass.) in the late 1940's we, too, joked about "green on Thursdays" for "homos", but I don't think anyone took it seriously.
• Waterville Bill writes: In my school, it was those little locker loops on the back of Oxford shirts... they were called "Fairy Loops".
• Jim Fotter writes: What I remember most was wearing white socks with dress shoes meant you were queer....now I think it was more about bad accessorizing <g>. Of course, there was wear jeans if you're queer or queer friendly in college. Was pretty funny to see some of the homophobes struggle to find alternative slacks on those days.
• Michael Martin writes: In my high school in Sanford, it was yellow on Thursdays.
• McCann?, Pamela writes: Yeah-those locker loops were called "fag tags" at my school in Baltimore.
• Jennifer Hodsdon writes: Me too, me too.... in Monmouth, ME. And let's not forget earring etiquette. I memorized the charming saying "left is right and right is wrong" for fear that I should somehow accidentally only get my right ear pierced and be "wrong." And, just to be safe, I never wore the one long earring (it was the 80's, OK??!) in my right ear.
• massamuda writes: It was green on Thursdays in my HS in NJ as well. Could it be, as so well expressed by Maggi Smith's character in Gosford park; "Green is SUCH a difficult colour!"
• Pat Putnam: Well, just down the street from you in Newton Center,in the 60's, it was yellow and green on Thursdays that made you a queer.
• Dave Garrity writes: In the sixties in Jersey we used to say "her house has green shutters." We read someplace the green was the favorite color of all queers . . . and we called them "fruit loops"
• Queah: Yeah, I remember yellow on Thursdays, too.
• Justin M. Gifford: Back when i first wanted my ear pierced at 10 and my mother took me to get it done, i remember the woman saying that I didn't want to get it in my right ear because it "meant something bad" Years later I just want to hunt her down and say "Honey, I got news for you...left ear, right ear...I'm still a queen!" ;)
• Phaedrus: Fifty years ago, I was told about fairies wearing green on Thursdays by a slightly older boy on whom I had an intense secret crush. He always had "fairy" and "queer" jokes, but when I was old enough to join him in high school, I noticed that he never dated any girls! In later years, he never married, but died of alcoholism at an early age. How often I have wished that I had been smart enough to connect those dots! But who is, at age 12?
• KateD? says: I remember this from more than a quarter of a century ago...sigh... Try 45-50 years ago! (in Toledo, OH, one of the backwaters of the universe)

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