You were my friend with whom I had so much in common for so many years. You were a rock. I can’t believe this.
Just got terrible news about losing one of my closest gaydad friends in the world, Gene Baugh, in Columbus, who raised his five kids. I read his autobiography, although I don’t think it was ever published. He was a huge fan of the Spanish language and had spent time in Spain in his youth. I flew to Columbus to be in his marriage to a man in 1998, and he and I also spent time together at various gay parenting conventions around the country. We originally met in 1996 in Minneapolis and stayed in touch quite regularly the whole time, sharing the drama of our kids and our lives before and after coming out. He was only 56, and a big bear of a man (also very tall).
His daughter, Ruth, who lives on the West Coast now, as I do, went with my daughter and me to our first Provincetown Family Week. Ruth and I recently got back in touch with each other and today she emailed me with the news that he had been taken off life support as he had requested be done if he should ever be in this state. He had a stroke on Friday.
As I am so glad that you posted this blog, I was wondering today what happend to my dear friend Gene today at work.
He was a rather interesting guy that kept to himself, but was always friendly to others, and had a heart of gold. He truely reached out to others around him and had a serious desire to succeed in the Agency, and to help our spanish speaking clients with their overall finances.
I have one great memory of Gene as one night I was leaving work and saw him running thru the dark towards the bus stop and turned out it was raining/snowing heavily, so I decided to stop in the middle of the road and have him get into my car to help him get to the bus. Funny though, he didn’t hear or see me stop. I rolled down the window, had to yell at the top of my lungs to get him to come closer, and let him get into my car as if it was a chore for me to just take him down the street. He didn’t say much of anything as he was grasping for breath and fear that he was going to for sure miss the bus. A couple blocks later, we managed to get him on the bus that evening, and I for sure felt like I saved the day to keep him from waiting for hours on the next bus to come along.
Its my thought that Gene is certainly in a better place as of today. No more client phone calls, client research problems, missing the bus and certainly no more riding his bicycle in the rain and snow.
Gene’s presence at CCCS/Apprisen will certainly be missed.