I haven’t heard the word “peripatetic” since I saw “A Chorus Line” many moons ago, but that’s the kind of talk I guess I should expect from a Harvard grad. Sandy Smith, self-described peripatetic fellow, is a writer who has launched newspapers and newsletters that have won several awards for excellence. He currently manages a growing real-estate blog in the City of Brotherly Love. You’ll also find his work on blogs Hidden City Daily and the University City Review/Weekly Press.
PGN: Tell me about the time and place you were born. SS: It was 5:55 in the morning in Menorah Hospital in Kansas City, Mo. (I read the birth announcement in the Kansas City Star many, many years later.) The first few years of my life are a complete blur. All I know is what my mom told me, that I was reading at age 2. She used to read to me at night and I think it must’ve had an imprint on my brain to make me later take up the pen and write. At the time I was born — Oct. 22, 1958 — there were only three hospitals in Kansas City that would handle black births. One was General Hospital #2, one was Wheatley Provident (the black hospital) and the third was Menorah, which, as you might guess, was the Jewish hospital. I’m the son of civil servants on both sides.
PGN: More specifically? SS: My dad worked for the post office all his life. He was a letter sorter and I used to play with his sorting case as a kid. My mom was a nurse; she worked for the Veterans Administration for most of her career. Mom was something of an overachiever and Dad an underachiever.
PGN: That’s one way to achieve balance. SS: Yes! I grew up in a city that straddled the state line. If you know Civil War history, people talk about Gettysburg and Antietam, but the Civil War was recapitulated in Missouri. There was a fight over extending slavery into Kansas and Nebraska — the Kansas Nebraska Act of 1854, border ruffians riding over the border from Missouri into Kansas terrorizing the Free Soilers, voting for slave state constitutions and all that.
PGN: Free Soilers? SS: The Free Soil Party was a short-lived political party in the United States active in the 1848 and 1852 presidential elections. Their main purpose was opposing the expansion of slavery into the western territories, arguing that freemen on free soil comprised a morally and economically superior system to slavery.
PGN: Aah … Back to your history. SS: Dad was from Missouri, Mom was from Kansas. She was the first black woman to get both her BSN and her MSN from the University of Kansas. She wanted her kids to function as well as they could in the white world and she flung us into it hard [laughs], and I’ve sort of remained embedded there ever since!
PGN:Do you have siblings? SS: I have one brother who is nine years younger. He lives in Kansas City still.
PGN: Tell me about growing up. SS: I was pretty bookish, very talkative. Invariably, my report cards would have something like, “Knows his numbers, knows his shapes, can do addition and subtraction. Lacks self-control.”
PGN: Favorite book as a kid? SS: [Laughs.] This is going to sound funny but I had a children’s version of “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey.” I got a lot of history books and books about literature, but my mom told me that my first book was called “Buffety Mouser.” I have no idea what it was about. I liked “The Little Engine That Could” and another book, oh shoot, what was it called? It was about a little house that had a city built up around it. The house gets sadder and sadder as the city encroaches on it. I think that must’ve made an imprint on me too, as I have been fascinated with the built environment and architecture since I was a kid. When you ask most small kids what they want to be when they grow up, they would say cowboy or astronaut; I always told people I wanted to be an architect. I guess I’m living the dream vicariously now through my writing.
PGN: What was school like? SS: I attended William Rockhill Nelson Elementary School. My mom had me transferred out of district and I single-handedly integrated my grade school. I don’t know how familiar you are with the history of American journalism, but William Rockhill Nelson founded the Kansas City Star, which I went on to write for. It’s kind of karmic!
PGN: I should know more about journalism; my father was the first black editor of an all-white newspaper, the Clifton Leader. SS: Wow! That’s interesting. I didn’t know you were mixed. We have an interesting family dynamic as well. My grandparents make much of their lineage; I learned that we were part-Irish and part-Scotch and my family had been in Missouri since it was a territory. My mom said of them, “They’re light, bright and almost white.”
PGN: I’m familiar with that phrase! Are you close with the extended family? SS: Yes. My mother had two sisters and several brothers. The sisters lived in Kansas City, so I knew them pretty well, but none of the brothers did. There was a little sibling rivalry that could be prickly but I got along with my cousins pretty well. I’m looking forward to seeing everyone when I go back this summer for the first time in ages.
PGN: So where did you go to school? SS: I spent six years at William Rockhill Nelson, and in the summertime my mom would send me to summer school for educational-enrichment programs. Ed students from UMKC taught us. One of them told my mom, “Your son is going to need more than they teach at Southwest High” and handed her a brochure about Pembroke Hill Country Day. So starting in the seventh grade, she enrolled me there. It was the most prestigious private school in the city, all boys. All of Kansas City’s finest families and half its car dealers sent their sons there. I was one of two black students.
PGN: Was that difficult? SS: You know, there’s sort of been a theme of wanting to fit in all my life and yet I tend to be something of an outlier nonetheless. In grade school I got teased a lot, but I also had some peculiar habits that caused people to pick on me. There were kids who would racially taunt me as well, including using the n-word. It’s interesting how “us and them” works. When I was in third grade they started bussing in other black kids from the school I would have gone to. But since I had gone to Pembroke for so long I became one of “us.”
PGN: Tell me about your Harvard days. SS: I got kind of shellacked by some of my black classmates because they thought I was acting way too white, but I managed to make a few friends who were black classmates who brought me out of that shell and taught me that being black was more than conforming to a certain set of stereotypes. That you can do whatever you want and you’ll always still be black. And trust me, I’ve learned since then that in the eyes of some white people, it doesn’t matter what you do, you’re still black no matter what your achievements.
PGN: What was your major at Harvard? SS: Government — on the advice of the managing editor at the Kansas Star, where I was the only intern they ever hired right out of high school. He said, “You already know how to write news stories, Sandy. When you go to college don’t major in journalism, major in something you want to write about.” And what do most reporters want to write about? Politics. So I majored in government.
PGN: What was the biggest story you wrote about in your high-school paper? SS: We did a series on the effect of inflation in the ’70s on the school budget. We interviewed the principal, spoke with people in the kitchen, we created bar charts and everything. We had a damn good paper. We won national awards year after year.
PGN: What other extracurricular activities were you involved in? SS: I was in the glee club. What was then is still now. I sing with the Philadelphia Gay Men’s Chorus. I was in the drama club. Everyone had to do a letter sport at Pem Day; mine was wrestling. [Laughs.] I was in the 112-pound weight class. I think I won one match out of 30-odd matches in two years. But I got my letter!
PGN: What was a favorite achievement? SS: My sophomore year at the Kansas City Star there was a contest to honor the top-five high-school journalists and I was the Jackson County winner. I was the only sophomore to win, the others were all seniors. I did not, however, diligently pursue journalism as a career option during my college years. I dabbled in it a bit — I worked on the weekly newspaper the Harvard Independent but I was a bit of an underachiever during my freshman year. I kind of sleepwalked through Harvard. I tell people I majored in debauchery and the radio station.
PGN: What was a best moment at Harvard? SS: Coming out to myself between Harvard and Harvard. I took a few years off between starting and graduating and worked at the Boston Children’s Museum on a project that got kids to use public transit to get around the city. I’m a big old train geek so I really had a blast doing that. Finally, a kid who I guess had always suspected … Well, funny thing, I’ll fast-forward to this past November and a fellow from the Pem Day class of ’77. His father was the next to last conductor of the Kansas City Philharmonic Orchestra. I used to spend many a Saturday afternoon at his place getting stoned off my gourd and listening to Gil Scott Heron records. He liked me a lot and I didn’t find out until this past winter when we got together after more than 30 years when he said, “Oh, I kinda had you figured out back then.” It seems a lot of people did and the only one who didn’t have myself figured out was me. I thought it was something bad and there were times when I was working my way through college when I wondered if I was ever capable of loving anyone. Until some guy who knew me through somebody else came on to me. At first I recoiled but then I let him and realized that I enjoyed it. The day after that I came out to my roommate, who was this Jewish kid from New York City, and his response when I came out to him at an ice-cream parlor across from where we lived was priceless. He said, “So, what do you expect me to do? Run out of the room screaming?” It was no big deal for him.
PGN: How did you come out to the family? SS: By telephone. I had phone calls with both my mom and my dad. My dad took it pretty well. He wrote me a letter — no, actually it was the Christmas after I came out when I went back to Kansas City, must’ve been 1980, and he showed me a copy of a book he bought called “Now That You Know,” and he told me that he would always love me. I didn’t like my father that much growing up: He had a horrible temper and I think he never got over not having the full affection of his oldest son. It wasn’t until after he died — both of my parents died young — that I realized how much of him is in me. I have his personality and I try mightily to avoid having his temper but I can occasionally be a drama queen. [Pauses.] I have his depression too. I make a point to try to talk about it with people because I think a lot of people who just see me out and about would never know that I possess a black dog. But it’s something that’s wired into your brain. Mine is low-grade. It’s a rare morning that I wake up and just don’t want to get out of bed, but situations can trigger it. But I vowed that I wasn’t going to make the same early exit that my dad did from this planet. So far, so good.
PGN: So let’s get to the present: What do you do now? SS: I’ve always done something that is either journalism or looks like it. Currently, I’m the editor and chief correspondent of the Philadelphia Real Estate blog, which is sponsored by Noah Ostroff & Associates. I was originally hired as the marketing person but I guess they must have sensed my eyes were glazing over writing marketing copy for houses and the owner, Noel, wisely kicked me out of the office and told me to go blog. So that’s what I do.
PGN: Now for some random questions. What was the first LGBTQ movie you ever saw? SS: “Making Love” with Harry Hamlin, Michael Ontkean and Kate Jackson from “Charlie’s Angels.” I remember it was billed as a movie that was supposed to have a lot of big moments in it. We were just so thrilled that they were making an LGBT movie that we really didn’t care that it actually wasn’t all that hot. My favorite LGBT movie is “Paris is Burning,” about the ball culture. I love that movie. The kids and the houses, and the whole stick with “realness.” [Laughs.] I thought that movie was the shizzle!
PGN: What was the most embarrassing thing you’ve ever done on a date? SS: I never did a lot of dating when I first came out. I was always on the dance floor partying. I wore bandannas on my head and had an Afro out to here and was as thin as a rail.
PGN: What’s your favorite item in your house? SS: I have to say my coffeemaker. Coffee is one of my four food groups. I also have some great model trolleys on display. Oh, I do have one book: “The Pictorial History of the Negro in America” by Langston Hughes. It was a gift from my grandmother, who wrote an inscription that basically says, “I’m worried that you won’t have the knowledge of your own race attending the school that you do. And that you won’t have the association with your own race that would benefit you. A good book is a good friend, keep it with you for life.” I’ve honored her wish.
PGN: Hobbies? SS: I love to cook. I make a mean chili, and I’m also good with barbecued ribs.
PGN: Who was your first love? SS: Jesus, I wish I could remember his name. He had black hair and was about the same age as me at the time — 22, 23. He was the first person to give me a really romantic, deep kiss. I melted right then and there. I’m somewhat of a romantic. Though thinking about it, maybe it was the kid from the Pem Day who lived right around the corner. He used to come over and we’d hop into bed and do frottage and he would ask me if I was getting hard. I thought he was trying to humiliate me. I just didn’t know. When I came out to him later, he took me out of his parents’ earshot and said, “I’m glad I could help.” It still didn’t soak in until some 25 years later when we reconnected via a music professor at Penn and I got an email from him saying, “Jeffrey and I just bought a house!” Fast forward, he was here in Philadelphia doing a presentation on Negro League baseball. His father was one of the last surviving umpires (he ghost-wrote his dad’s bio). I blew off choir rehearsal to go hear him perform and, as we sat and spoke, I said to him, “You know if I had been more comfortable in my sexuality back then … ” And he finished my sentence: “Oh, the fun we could’ve had.”
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