Flashback Friday: Patriotic Edition

It was my distinct pleasure to sing with the Chicago Gay Men's Chorus for six years when I lived in Chicago. My membership in the chorus afforded me a lifetime of mountaintop experiences I will remember with awe and gratitude forever: repeatedly singing on stage with 100+ gay men (and a few straight women; we didn't discriminate) in proud and pure celebration of the collective experiences of US, recording a CD of love songs arranged in a brilliantly conceptual story arc, spending almost a week in Montréal cheering for and being cheered by gay choruses from around the world, performing in the brand-new 1,500-seat underground Harris Theater in Chicago's Millennium Park, performing in defiance of hate-group protesters on stage in the Frank Gehry-designed Pritzger Pavilion also in Millennium Park, learning and repeatedly performing the forever glorious "In Whatever Time We Have" from Children of Eden, tapping my heart out with a steno pool of other tappers to "Forget About the Boy" from Thoroughly Modern Millie, beveling seductively in little more than a leotard and heels as Velma Kelly in "Cell Block Tango," and singing a stunning, robust eight-part men's arrangement of the National Anthem three times to cheering -- cheering! -- crowds at Wrigley Field, where I fought back choking sobs of pride and experienced emotional chills to the core of everything I've ever thought and felt and believed and loved about myself and our celebratorily diverse chorus as gay men, as singers, as members of a loving, fraternal community and as citizens of America.