The Proud Papa

Pride!
The Motor City hosts it's annual Gay Pride festival the first weekend of June every year. I don't usually attend it because we are normally out of town. This time, we stayed in the D, and decided to go.
The event was moved this year from the trendy suburb of Ferndale (Detroit's version of West Hollywood) to our Riverfront in Hart Plaza in downtown Detroit. I wasn't sure what to expect, it has been a while since I last went to one.
As we entered I was really struck by the amount of people. I had no idea there were this many gays in the city. I've been open and proudly out for 30 years (don't you dare do the math) so I thought I knew every gay in the city.  I've been involved in social groups, theatre, political groups, I'm even a hairdresser. I thought I had the gay market cornered. "Where did they all come from" I asked Anthony. I really had no idea that there was an entire population of proud gay people from Detroit that I have never met.
I love to people watch and this was the perfect place to do it. It was really a melting pot of gold at the end of the a big gay rainbow. I saw everything from drag queens to grandfathers with their grandchildren. Well, let me say, we thought they were grandfathers. You see, sometimes, we say the wrong thing and wish we could go back in time.....
I found the perfect perch to watch the crowds. It was on the second step that led to a platform right in the middle of all the action. Just high enough to see the action, but close enough to be a part of it. Anthony and I grabbed a beer (yes, a beer) and sat on the steps to observe all the fun. We watched people go by, chatted with a few, we were just enjoying a great day. After about a half hour, we noticed an older gentleman with a baby. "Look", I said, "isn't that great, a gay grandpa and his grand-kid". I remarked how times have changed even since I first came out.  "You would never have seen that 30 years ago". We both thought this rainbow grandad was pretty cool and decided to tell him so.
Throughout our conversation with this proud grandpa, I noticed he started to get a "funny" look on his face. I wasn't sure why. We were telling him how cool it is that today's society is finally embracing everyone. We continued by saying that seeing an openly gay grandfather who is comfortable enough to bring his grandchild to event such as this is truly inspiring. We were being really complimentary.  As we went on, his "funny" look evolved to more of a "perturbed" snare.  I couldn't understand why he would be getting mad, we were saying really nice things. Then it hit me, I started to think that maybe this gay grandad wasn't gay at all, maybe he was just taking his grandson for a walk on a beautiful Sunday afternoon.  I was in the middle of trying to find the right words to get out of this, when he made his announcement. An announcement that made me swear never to talk to anyone ever again. "This is not my grandson, he is my SON! I'm only 45! I was shocked, inside, I thought "wow, he should really stay out of the sun". Outside, I was speechless. There really weren't any words to fix this one. "He's got your eyes", came to mind, but I think it would have only made it worse.
We were thoroughly mortified and stumbled out an "I'm sorry" and a "he is so cute, he totally takes after his daddy". "Blah, blah, blah" I think our embarrassment was satisfying enough for him as he chatted with us for another minute or two before he politely went on his way.
We stayed on our perch for a while longer. We decided that maybe it was better to just watch the people and keep our conversations to ourselves.