The next-to-last stop on my recent family trip to Minnesota was, randomly enough, to the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, MN.

My husband and kids and I had spent two days with my brother’s family at their home in Minneapolis, then four glorious days with them on the north shore of Lake Superior, and three on a smaller lake an hour from both Hibbing (Bob Dylan’s birthplace) and Grand Rapids.  The highlight of the small lake visit for me had been, on our last night there, a sighting of a bald eagle taking off from a tree near me, and soaring in all its majesty, right over my head.

It was a week for American icons.

The day after that sighting, one car of family members headed back to Minneapolis, while my daughter, sister-in-law,  and I drove my younger niece to sleep-away camp in Bemidji. Grand Rapids was exactly half-way to the camp, and we were fixed on visiting Judy Garland’s birthplace.

I’d forgotten what a long career and woefully short life Judy Garland had.  The children and I were mesmerized by videos of her singing; I was grateful for so many from her later years (i.e when she was close to my age—though I’d always imagined much older).

My daughter was briefly confused, even after I explained that the actress who played Dorothy grew up at some point. When she finally got it, she said, “I like her younger better,” and, about her ‘50s and ‘60s up-do: “Her hair is freaking me out.”

I think it was really the frail, somewhat shaky—though still powerful-voiced and tough—woman that Dorothy grew into that may have been most freaky of all.

At some point, I realized that I should explain Judy Garland’s significance in history—besides being Dorothy, and a great singer. And so I explained the following to my daughter and niece:

“You know how young gay men seem to really be into Lady Gaga?” I asked. My niece nodded; my daughter nodded, then tilted her head. “Well, there was a time when it was much harder to be open about being gay, and back then, gay men really loved Judy Garland. I don’t know why, exactly (I said, though I have theories), but they did. And because people were more secretive about being gay, they used a kind of code with one another. If you were gay, you were a  ‘Friend of Dorothy.’ Get it?”

They both nodded, my niece more definitively,my daughter more slowly.

Then my daughter suddenly asked, “What’s a gay man?”

I sat stunned for a moment, and then replied. “A gay man is a man who loves other men, who might get married to another man.” I quickly mentioned two lesbian moms we’d just seen on our trip, with kids near my children’s ages, and then other lesbian moms we knew. “Like them,” I said, “but men.”

She got the concept quickly enough; it’s not a new concept for her. I realized that she might not know the term lesbian, either. But I was left suddenly very aware of the lack of gay male parents in our lives (since we’d be more likely to identify partnered men as “gay” than single men to our kids, in the general course of things, and the kids would be more likely to know them if they also had kids their age). And  I wondered at the vocabulary lapse.

Had we not talked about “gay marriage”? Or just “Marriage equality” for men who want to marry men, or women who want to marry women?  Perhaps it’s time to judiciously be more explicit in our language, as we celebrate diversity…

So, just in time for the 50th anniversary  of the 1963 March on Washington, here’s a pop quiz for all of us (including my kids):

What gay Black Civil Rights leader was posthumously awarded a Medal of Freedom by the President earlier this very month?

If you don’t know, you’ve got Google (or some less fraught search service).   Look it up!

(And if you’re curious about Pop Quiz #1, here it is).