During the course of running this magazine, we are often notified of people in the community passing away.  In some cases we may write an article on them to summarize their contribution to the community, helping to ensure they are properly enshrined in history for generations to come.  In other cases we leave it to friends and family to write an obituary (if they choose) to try to capture the essence of who their loved one was, and how they lived their life.  Now we are in a position where we feel we need to do both. Approaching 10 years of publishing, we suffered a loss last month that has hit closer to home than any we’ve experienced before.  Don Turgeon was not only an extremely close friend and confidant to Steve and I, but he also did a great deal behind the scenes to help us with the magazine.  He wasn’t one to brag, but during his life he did a great deal that positively impacted the people around him, both within the LGBT community, and outside of it.

In his youth, Don joined the army.  He would often tell us the anecdote of how he joined to try to "straighten" himself out – and yet, spending time in close quarters with other men had the complete opposite effect.  During that time of his life, he told us he found his way into training other personnel how to operate large vehicles such as trucks and buses. But this was long before most in the LGBT community met him.  Steve has known Don for much longer than I have – around 20 years in total.  He told me the story of how they first met: two complete strangers passing by one another at the entrance to a Shoppers Drug Mart store, and yet something possessed them both to say "Hi" to each other at the same time.  Ever since then, Steve knew they had a special connection. Don was an owner of the Rekroom, the lounge downstairs from the popular private men’s dance club, Metro Boyztown, along with his then-partner Kevin, and others.  Though he started out as a bar tender, Don earned his moniker "DJ Don" from occasionally DJing upstairs at Boyztown.

Steve spent a lot of time hanging out at the bar around Don, and often Don would find ways of encouraging Steve to get past his self doubt and apply himself to do things.  From their discussions and bouncing ideas off one another, Don was excited to see Steve move forward with setting up the Men for Men Terminals in both the Rekroom and Boyztown, which became a unique and popular feature of the club.  Don also introduced Steve to the Scala presentation software that powered the TV slide presentations that Men for Men was known for, and that we continue to use for presentations today.

Another idea that they bounced off one another was that of "Metro Magazine", a newspaper for the club.  The idea never quite came to fruition at the time, but a good deal of their brainstorming became the seed for the concept of GayCalgary Magazine.

Steve and his straight roommate Mark would often take Don out on his days off to strip clubs and straight bars, just for fun.  It was always a sore point for Mark that all the women were more interested in Don than in him.

Back in those days, there were so many people named Steve (including Boyztown’s main DJ, Krazay Steve) that were in their circle of friends that they attempted to come up with nicknames for each them, such as Massage Steve, and KY-me Steve, etc.  Don’s suggestion for our Steve was "Big Heart Steve", but unfortunately across the bar Steve heard and reiterated, "Big ARSE Steve?"  Don just about fell over, he was laughing so hard.

I came into the picture quite a bit later.  I first met Don shortly after I had met Steve, while he was taking me out to visit the gay clubs for the first time.  He introduced me to Don as he was DJing, and as a newbie there, it definitely made me feel special to be hanging out in the DJ booth with the two of them. For those who knew Don, it was no secret this was a turbulent time of his life.  Although his DJing role lead him to get involved with the community and meet many people, he also struggled with many of the vices and peer pressures that present themselves at a nightclub.  Through this, it was often a battle for Steve to maintain a stable friendship with him, though he remained steadfast despite some of the mixed signals Don would give him.

After witnessing one particular incident where Don had teased Steve on one night, then tried to deny his part in it and chew out Steve for it the next day, I got fed up.  I stood up to Don – a 22 year old kid still new to the scene outright scolding the gruff and sometimes intimidating DJ and bar owner for his unfair behaviour.  Ever after that, he treated Steve a great deal better for fear of pissing me off.  As for me, he realized I was more than just eye candy and treated me with a new (almost fearful) respect.  Over time I softened my attitude toward him so that he knew I still liked him, and this created a new, healthier dynamic for our friendships moving forward.

After he retired from the bar scene, he went into trucking, which took him on trips across Canada and into the US.  Most of the time he and Steve would keep in contact over the internet, but once in a blue moon he would ask Steve to accompany him for particularly grueling trips, to keep him company and to help navigate.

He once told us a story about how on a trucking trip, he went to check the container he was hauling and a swarm of dragon flies flew out from underneath it, causing him to freak out.  Steve and I found this story hysterically funny because it was hard for us to imagine a tough guy like Don losing his composure over such harmless (albeit large) insects.  In good fun, we would often tease him about dragon flies, which gave him a good laugh too.

When not away on a trucking run, we could always count on Don to help us out.  At the time we didn’t own a car, and he was regularly willing to help us with transportation, whether to events in and out of town, or to drop off magazines at locations that were difficult for us to get to on foot.  At one point, he even helped us out by doing a great deal of data entry to get old editions of the magazine into our website database.

When he made the difficult decision to break up with his partner Kevin, we did our part as friends to help support him through the separation and help him get on his feet as he started his new life.  He moved in with us for about a month until he was able to find a place for himself.  During the time he stayed with us, he fell in love with our cats - especially Snoopy, because he reminded Don, sometimes tearfully, of his own cat Butchie who had passed away many years ago.  He was just as devastated as we were, when Snoopy passed away in January of 2012 from his kidney condition.

Around this time in his life, Don bought his blue Jeep; the thing was horribly fuel-inefficient and more of a status symbol than anything, but he loved it.  Not needing it any more, he practically gave away his old Ford Escort to us to help us get a step closer to being self-sufficient.  It meant that when I got my driver’s license, I immediately had a car ready to use.  Even so, he would still volunteer his time to drive Steve around in the Jeep when I wasn’t available, or I was away handling other errands.  We continue to use his old car to this day.

In general, he was very protective of us and looked out for our best interests.  When we were working too hard, he would often be the one to tell us to take a break, or nag us to go see a doctor when we were too busy to take care of our ailments.  Steve would often do the same in return. As we were running the magazine, Don was a sounding board for us.  We knew that we could trust him with our ideas until we were ready to make them public, and with our frustrations until we could sort ourselves out.  As we were working toward press deadlines, he would check in on our progress and offer encouragement. He took a great deal of pride in the work we did with the magazine, and it showed by how eager he was to get a copy of our latest edition for himself. He never asked for any credit for the things he did to help out with the magazine.  In most cases, he didn’t enjoy being in the spotlight at all – he was much happier helping behind the scenes.

Being on the road alone began taking its toll, so he went down a new path in the same industry by becoming a driving instructor for people learning to operate trucks.  He seemed to excel in this teaching role, and although he was a tough instructor, he had one of the highest success rates in Alberta when it came to his students passing their final driving exams.  When we were out with him, he would occasionally bump into one of his students - he must have done something right for the way they loved him and were thrilled to see him.  There were a few times when he tagged along with Steve and I as I was driving his old car, and he couldn’t help the instructor in him shining through as he’d offer me a good driving tip here and there.

Don went through a tough enough time when his brother passed away from cancer.  Less than a year later his mom was also diagnosed, and so Don moved to Red Deer to be with her and help support her through it.  The plan was that he would move back to Calgary once an outcome was reached, and once again was going to move in with us for a while to collect himself, find a stable job and get back on his feet anew.

A few months later in Red Deer, Don went to the doctor complaining of stomach pains and he was diagnosed with stomach cancer.  There were so many things that could have contributed: his family history, his smoking habit, his heavy drinking, even possibly his frequent use of his propane BBQ.  It had spread so severely that only a small fraction of his stomach was still functioning.  To prolong his life the doctors recommended he have an operation to remove his stomach entirely and attach his esophagus directly to his small intestines.  When we heard this, it took us several days to wrap our heads around this notion because we didn’t even know it was possible for a person to survive without their stomach.   Don was determined to fight, so he went ahead with several months of chemo to prepare him for the operation, and then more chemo and radiation treatment to follow.  Some days he coped with it well, and other days he told us it was really taking its toll.  His treatments were administered in Calgary, so often he would stop by our house during the day to rest for a while before making the drive back to Red Deer.  This was all happening during the summer of this past year, so he would enjoy sitting on our front porch in the gorgeous weather, watching the world go by along 17th Avenue as our cat Spike played in the yard. The operation and treatments caused him to lose his hair and drop a substantial amount of weight, and his appearance made him a little self conscious about going out.  We had to kick his ass to come down for the Boyztown reunion party at Vinyl, and in the end he was glad he went.  It was a priceless chance for him to reconnect and reminisce. From his check-up after his treatments concluded, his doctor had informed him that he appeared to now be cancer free.  Aside from his mom whose condition was still growing worse, Don finally felt free to start living his life again.  He went back to his job, he adopted a cat, and he started pursuing new love interests.  Steve and I were so happy for him. Despite this, Don hinted to Steve that he was still dying, that he could feel the cancer was still there.  Thinking he was just being negative, Steve discouraged him from saying that, and just to enjoy his life.  Without his stomach, Don’s biggest concern was keeping his weight up, so Steve had a whole list of suggestions of things that he knew he himself should not eat because of the fat and calorie content.

Don was a huge Star Trek fan, and somewhat of a closet sci-fi geek, so he was thrilled when the magazine started crossing paths with actors from the Star Trek series.  He got to meet George Takei (Sulu) as we interviewed him at the Hyatt Hotel just prior to the Calgary Comic expo a few years ago, and in October of 2012 he went with Steve to the Edmonton Expo where he was ecstatic to meet, and even participate in the interview with Nichelle Nichols (Ohura). Otherwise, he drove out to Calgary a number of times to visit the bars and have a few drinks in moderation.  Sadly his drink of choice, Labatt Blue, was off the menu along with any other carbonated beverages, due to his dietary concerns.

After he got home from one trip, he panicked because he thought he had lost one of his hats in Calgary.  Don always wore a ball cap that showed off something he was proud of, such as the logo of the trucking company he worked for, or the EMS hat he had received from a close friend.  After Steve did an exhaustive search at the Backlot where they had been the night before, and in our place where he had stayed overnight, Don was relieved to find it tucked away safely in his Jeep.  Those hats meant a lot to him. Early in December he was having pain trying to eat.  He struggled through for a few days but eventually found that he couldn’t force himself to eat at all.  He spoke to his doctor who at first thought the join between his esophagus and intestines had healed too narrowly, and that a procedure was needed to widen it.  But after he checked into the hospital the prognosis became increasingly grim - he told us they then thought he had a blood clot that was blocking a duct in his liver, then they thought he had developed pneumonia. Steve and I went to visit him in the hospital in mid-December.  We thought it would be a simple visit to spend time with him while he recovered, as we had done when he had gone through his first operation.  We weren’t prepared for the condition he was in.  He had lost so much weight, and he was having difficulty summoning enough breath to speak.  He tried to explain to us what the doctors had told him, but it was difficult to understand him.  However, he still seemed quite strong and coherent, so we felt there may be hope that he could get past the pneumonia and return to being well enough to have the operation to remove the clot from his liver.  Steve managed to corner the doctor at one point to ask what was going on, which is when we got the crushing news that his cancer was back with a vengeance.  There was no blood clot or pneumonia, it had grown back both in his liver and lungs. Though I had to head back to Calgary on Sunday night, Steve stayed behind in Red Deer for a few days to spend time with Don.  During that time he met Don’s stepfather Al for the first time, and several of his friends and co-workers from Red Deer who were also stopping by to visit.  The morphine left Don a little loopy and there were times where he would stare up at a particular spot on the window beside his bed.  Some of the more religious of Don’s friends from work went into a frenzy of prayer, believing that he was "seeing angels".  But after some thought Steve figured out Don was just staring at the reflection in the window so he could see out the doorway of his room that was otherwise blocked by the curtain.

At one point, Don noticed the Apollo Western Cup t-shirt that Steve happens to wear as part of his standard rotation of clothes.  He pointed to it and gave Steve a thumbs-up.  Don had fond memories of DJing at one of the big Apollo Western Cup dances back in the day.  The next day Steve wore his ARGRA t-shirt which brought back fond memories of the time Don had spent with us camping at the Rodeo.

Steve fussed over him for those days he was there, to the point that Don surprised everyone by summoning enough breath to clearly say "would you sit the fuck down already?"  It made everyone in the room laugh, because it was so typical of Steve to fuss, and for Don to get annoyed at him for fussing.

All the worry that we were going through, Don’s stepfather Al was experiencing two-fold as Don’s mom – his wife - was also in deteriorating health.  Because neither were in any condition to travel, they weren’t able to see each other.  The best they could do was say a few words on the phone, which was difficult for Don. Steve returned to Calgary mid-week to get caught up on work, and then we prepared to head up to Red Deer again over the weekend, so that Don would have someone there with him through to, and during Christmas.  But after being there for only 24 hours, Steve received a page that one of our web servers was not responding and critical websites were down because of it.  It was the worst time for such terrible luck to strike us.  We might have ignored it if it wasn’t for the fact that one of the websites was for the Distress Centre, whose suicide hotline is particularly important over the Christmas holidays. I made the drive home on my own and tried my best to stabilize the server, but it was clearly experiencing a hardware failure that needed Steve’s expertise to deal with.  Greyhound was fully booked for the next several days, so Steve grudgingly caught Red Arrow back into town.  The only surefire way we could deal with the complete systemic failure that was happening on the machine was to migrate the data over to a new machine entirely.  24 hours later we were fairly confident the web server was stable again, and as we were already preparing to make the trip back up to Red Deer, we received a text that Don’s condition was worsening. As we made the drive back up again on the 23rd, the bitter cold temperatures that day began wreaking havoc with the car, and we were fearful that we might break down along the way.  I did my best not to aggravate the odd symptoms we were experiencing, and we managed to make it to the hospital.  Don was still hanging on, although unconscious for most of the time, only waking up for a few seconds every now and then. Unbelievably the new web server went down the next morning just as we were arriving at the hospital.  I was completely furious and cursed as quietly as I could, but I refused to let Steve come back with me whether he was needed to fix it or not.  I couldn’t take him away again at a time like this. Probably the hardest thing I’ve had to do in my life so far was to say goodbye to Don, knowing I would likely never see him again.  I could have taken the easy way out and pretended like I would be back in time to see him again, but I didn’t.  When nobody else was in the room, I spoke to him to wake him up and through tears I said what I needed to say and thanked him for what I needed to thank him for.  I can’t even be certain he understood what I was saying because once I was finished he simply closed his eyes and went back to sleep.

When I got back home to Calgary, I found that the computer had rebooted due to a windows update, and it was trying to boot from a thumb drive that we had left plugged in from setting it up.  I simply removed the thumb drive and it was fixed.  Well, fuck.  I couldn’t force myself to go back onto the highway again that night, I was just too tired and frazzled.  I decided to wait for tomorrow.

My parents were surprised but happy to have me over for Christmas dinner.  I had already informed them days prior that I would be missing it (for the first time ever) to be with a friend in the hospital.  I felt really sad that in all the bustle I hadn’t been able to finish my Christmas shopping for them, but they understood.  Usually I would stay the night in my old room and spend the next morning with them too, but preparing for the worst, I opted to head home instead.

I woke up at 9am, Christmas morning to the sound of the phone ringing.  It was Steve.  He had already tried phoning numerous times and I had somehow slept through it.  Don had passed away nearly an hour ago.

Steve told me how he had woken up that morning in one of the hospital quiet rooms, after staying up most of the night and having taken a nap for an hour or two.  He had a sudden feeling of urgency, and rushed to Don’s side.  The hospital was very empty, as one would expect for Christmas morning, and Steve was the only one there.  He was by Don’s side as he passed.

Don’s mother Pat made it through to the New Year, but had already passed at the time of writing this.  The funeral for both of them is set for Monday, January 14th at 1pm in a Catholic Church in Red Deer.  More details can be made available to close family and friends.

For those unable to attend on such short notice, we’ve planned an informal wake for his friends in the LGBT community to happen at the Backlot on Wednesday, January 23rd starting around 8pm.  While this article was purely from our point of view, this event is an opportunity to share your own stories about him with his other friends.  We’d also like to put together a slide presentation of photos, so we welcome you to share any photos that you may have of him that we don’t.

Finally, we would like to dedicate this edition to our dear friend Don G. Turgeon.  He knew about some of the exciting things we have coming up with the magazine this year, so we hope that we do him proud.  Rest in peace, my friend.

Cowboys hosted their second drag show this month, entitled "Jingle Balls".  Once again April Storm hosted, and performed with Farah Moan, Argentina, and Selma Body to a packed room of over 600 people – a class act for a Wednesday night.  You can watch a video of the show on our website.

Also, there is an exciting event in the Canadian drag scene coming up at Cowboys.  Look for the full page ad in this edition.

You’ll notice that our usual New Years Eve coverage is missing this year, aside from the ISCWR’s NYE Gala in Edmonton (photos submitted by B&J Productions).

The reason for this is that on December 31st, we returned to Red Deer to help move some of our late friend Don’s furniture and possessions out of his apartment.  We began at 10 in the morning and didn’t make it back into town until after 7pm.  Completely exhausted from the heavy lifting and heavy hearts, we decided for the first time since we started the magazine that we would take the night off, and just go out and celebrate New Years Eve together.

In addition, our magazine is out a little later this month than we had intended.  Many people have been contacting us on Facebook to express their condolences on the loss of our friend, and while we appreciated the thought, it also made it difficult for us to set the situation aside so that we could concentrate on completing our work on this edition of the magazine.

Additionally, we also received the sad news that past ISCCA Empress 26, Kylie Van Doren, had passed away over the first weekend of January.  We offer our deepest condolences to all of her friends and family.

After all of this, we can only hope that 2013 starts to get better from here.