[This posting will eventually turn to sexual matters for which the F-word seems to be indispensable; this content is not suitable for children or the sexually modest]
From 2/14 on Facebook, from Leland Wykoff, passed on to soc.motss-folk by Ellen Evans yesterday:
[AZ:] Dennis Sullivan Lewis, Jr. born 7/11/1956 in Jefferson, Ashe County NC to Dennis Sullivan Lewis and Georgia Mae Miller (data thanks to Ann Burlingham); Dennis was a frequent contributor to the soc.motss group and also a frequent participant in the annual motss.cons over the years (including 2017, here in Palo Alto)
[LW:] Sadly, I must report Dennis Lewis has died [AZ: on 2/3; thank you for the date, Chris Ambidge]. Dennis was a good friend and will be missed by so many in life and on Facebook.
[He] had many interests: organ concerts, live theatre, music, ghost hunting, media, and, of course, TV shows and movies.
… Dennis passed at home peacefully in his sleep. [He] had moved to Jacksonville decades ago to work for the Florida Times Union newspaper, which was a positive and upward career move. Following his tenure at the Times Union [he] began working on grants for higher education in Florida. A position he held for over 25 years.
Dennis was an alumni of Lipscomb University [AZ: a private Christian college in Nashville TN; Dennis was also serious about his Christian beliefs], where he excelled in his studies. Dennis had love affairs with his cars: a Cadillac Cimarron, his current Buick, and the trustworthy Ford Taurus. [He] enjoyed trains, subways, and streetcars.
I responded on Facebook:
— AZ: A shock indeed. Dennis was genuinely sweet and astonishingly open in his enthusiasms, which embraced trains, organ music, movies, and gay sex hotels. And just investigating new places [most often throughout the southeast US, but also all the way to Wales] and telling us about them, in minute detail. I will miss seeing things through his eyes. (Then, purely selfishly, I’ll miss Dennis because he was one of the most faithful readers of my blog, often the first person to note my postings. And yes, I did thank him for that.)
And then Troy Allen picked up on the fourth item, gay sex hotels, on my short list of DL’s enthusiasms:
— TA > AZ: His Parliament House tales were legendary.
Parliament House in Augusta GA bills itself as a “men’s resort” (“an all-male, clothing-optional retreat offering a welcoming space for the LGBTQIA+ community”). Similarly for Parliament House in Orlando FL; from my 2/20/20 posting “love nest”:
[El Nido is] a love hotel — where love is a more decorous way of referring to sweaty sex; such places are sometimes bluntly referred to as fuck hotels.
… The places often have bland names, inconspicuous entrances, and few if any windows. Gay sex hotels, on the other hand, are often open and celebratory about their function. Some are managed as resorts; of these, probably the most famous in the US is the Parliament House in Orlando FL — a fuck hotel resort with drag shows and a celebrated gay bar. [3/2025: it’s currently closed.]
