Why Harold Jeffries was outside the LA Medical Center on June 24th

I grew up in Glen Dale, West Virginia where everyone listed to the Oakridge Boys and Crystal Gayle. It was very isolating for me, since, from the time I was very young, I knew I was different. I have never liked blue jeans, eschewed plaid flannels for woven silks, and once saved for months to buy a pair of loafers with tassels. In middle school, I discovered Michael Jackson. Sure, I’d known him before as that round-faced, afro-wearing child star, but I never really knew him before 1982. When I met Michael through his music, it was like I met part of myself. He saw who I was inside and gave voice to it in ways the Judds never could.

His style inspired me to go out and find my own unique look. For a while I experimented with a fedora. None of the feed stores carried them, so I had to order one from the J.C. Penny catalogue. Sadly, it ended up being more trouble than it was worth after the bowling team took an especial disliking to it.

I spent one whole summer wearing nothing but button-down white shirts that were at least two sizes too big for me. My mother, who was unwilling to “indulge my teenage phase” wouldn’t buy them for me, so I had to scour the racks at the local thrift store for white shirts that didn’t have yellow stains under the arms or dingy rings on the insides of the collars. I was devoted to those shirts and would launder them myself. I would take the time to pull them from the dryer at just the right moment so I could minimize the time it would take to iron them. It was hard to make it through the day without getting some sort of stain on my shirt, and I swear that that summer my mother served more spaghetti than she ever had before, but I persevered.

No, I never wore a glove as a fashion statement, but I changed my mind about jeans after watching Michael dance. I saw that what I had disliked about jeans was their color; they are just too light. Jeans at Union Junior High school were only one of two things in 1982. They were either stone washed, or if you were one of the girls who wore a banana clip, they were acid washed, but Michael’s dark rise showed me who I was. I watched the “Billie Jean” video over and over until I was that guy on the street strutting with the girls. I learned the moves, and I knew I had “it,” whatever “it” was. I gained a lot of confidence from Michael.

The day after I graduated from high school, I left the town of Glen Dale, West Virginia for good. No, I didn’t become a huge pop star, or even a fashion designer as I’d once hoped to be, but I’m here, and not in West Virginia anymore, and I have Michael to thank for that. I’m here - at the hospital today - because I’m not there anymore.