Teenager Patrick Haggerty wanted to be Pep Promoter, also known as head cheerleader at Port Angeles High School.
On election day, he hopped in the car with his older brother John, and off they went, Patrick applying purple glitter and a wide lipstick smile on the way.
They headed for the school assembly — but not before John gave their father, Charles Haggerty, a call.
This was 1959, you see, when boys didn’t go out for Pep Promoter, much less wear makeup.
When Patrick saw his father, in grubby overalls and clodhopper boots, walking down the hall at Port Angeles High, he ducked out of sight, or so he thought.
Dad’s clothes embarrassed son
“I didn’t want him raining on my parade,” Patrick remembers now. His dad, in his farmer’s clothes, embarrassed him.
Patrick was elected Pep Promoter that day. His father did not interfere, though there was some fuss among a few faculty members because he was the first boy to be in the position.
He went on to graduate from Port Angeles High in 1962.
And the words Patrick’s father said that day 56 years ago have carried him forward.
He recalled their conversation last year on StoryCorps, the public radio program broadcast around the world, and this month his account, titled “The Saint of Dry Creek,” became a StoryCorps animated documentary, seen by hundreds of thousands on www.YouTube.com.
The short film also is slated to air on KCTS-TV, Seattle’s public television station, in November.
In it, Patrick recalls: “I’m riding home with my father . . . and my father says to me, ‘I was walking down the hall this morning, and I saw a kid that looked a lot like you ducking around the hall to avoid his dad. But I know it wasn’t you, because you would never do that to your dad.’”
Patrick squirmed, then demanded: “Why did you have to wear your cow-crap jeans to my assembly?”
“I’m a dairy farmer. This is who I am,” Haggerty replied, turning to look his son square in the eye.
“How about you?” his father asked.
“When you’re a full-grown man, who are you going to go out with at night?”
“I don’t know,” was all Patrick could say.
“I think you do know,” said Haggerty, adding: “Now, I’m going to tell you something today, and you might not know what to think of it now. But you’re going to remember when you’re an adult.
“Don’t sneak. Because if you sneak like you did today, it means you think you’re doing the wrong thing. And if you run around spending your whole life thinking that you’re doing the wrong thing, then you’ll ruin your immortal soul.”
Be true to self
Haggerty knew, even before Patrick did, that his son was gay. And as he told him that day after school: Be true to yourself and the world about who you are. That’s how a man lives his life.
After high school graduation, Patrick went to Western Washington State University in Bellingham to study sociology. He became a social worker in Seattle — while finding fame as a musician.
In 1973, his band Lavender Country released a record, the first gay-themed album in country history. The LP, whose tracks include “Back in the Closet Again” and “Come Out Singin’,” was funded by Gay Community Social Services of Seattle, and the band played at Seattle’s first Pride event in 1974.
After many years in Seattle, Patrick met his future spouse, Julius Broughton. The two of them have lived in Bremerton for a couple of decades now. Together 28 years, they were married in Canada in 2005 and then in Washington state in 2012.
Premiere in NYC
Last month, when the documentary was finished, StoryCorps flew Patrick and Broughton to New York City for its gala premiere.
It was a chance for people to get to know Charles Haggerty, just a little.
“For that time and place,” said his son, “I had a particularly caring and sensitive father,” one who set an example in countless ways.
Dry Creek farm
Patrick was the sixth of 10 children born to Charles and Asylda Haggerty on a Dry Creek farm west of town.
Charles had married relatively late in life, at age 38 — after bringing up his own eight brothers and sisters.
Charles’ parents had both died when he was just 20, so he raised the family, staying home until the youngest one finished high school.
Charles was a Catholic who attended church every Sunday after laboring on the farm all week.
And he was an extraordinary man, Patrick said, who devoted his life to children.
“My dad was really cool, a neat guy,” added his older sister Judy Haggerty, who still lives in Port Angeles.
“He loved kids. And he was very, very smart.
“Both of my parents were really dynamic people,” said Judy, who ran the Laurel House of Beauty here for 2½ decades until her retirement some years back.
But the Haggerty children said goodbye to their father too soon. Charles died Oct. 29, 1961, at just 60 from hereditary atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries.
Their mother, who at 46 still had six children at home, went back to school, attending both Peninsula College and Western Washington State University with Patrick.
She earned a degree in English and, soon after graduating, became a teacher who worked many years in the Port Angeles district. She died in 1999 at 84.
Frequent visitor
Today, Patrick, 71, visits friends and family in Port Angeles whenever he can.
He still plays music, too: a few Lavender Country gigs here and there, as well as lots of appearances with his Memory Lane Songs duo, which specializes in standards from the 1940s through the ’60s.
He and bandmate Bobby Taylor visit senior centers, assisted living homes, “anywhere old people meet.”
Thinks of parents
Every day, Patrick thinks of his mom and dad.
“They truly were a united front,” he said.
“Both of my parents believed that each child was an individual. It was not ‘one size fits all.’”
And in an era when corporal punishment was the norm, “he never laid a hand on me or any of us. That’s who he was. Oh, he worked me like a dog. But he was never unkind to me in any way.
“Long before I knew, he knew what the deal was,” that his son was gay.
“He took it in stride, that this is the child God gave him to love.”
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Features Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5062, or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
