by Paul Gibb
Which of our members has been a maitre-d’ and wine buyer for a top restaurant called “Frög” in Philadelphia for 6 years? Which of our members is a fluent Spanish speaker who started learning Spanish in the third grade and has spent considerable time in five Spanish-speaking countries? Which of our members has an MA in journalism from Temple University and has been an editor of two publications, one in Santiago, Chile.
If you guessed Marc Killinger, you’d be right, except that he now wants to be called Marco. For years Marco thought about such a name change, both because he wanted to have a two-syllable name like his identical twin Eric did and because Marco speaks Spanish. He was born in 1955 in Marlborough, Massachusetts.
His father, Paul Killinger, was a Unitarian minister with a degree from Harvard Divinity School. Marco describes him as follows: “he was ‘distant, not warm, and after dinner usually went into his woodshop and carved bowls and trays on a lathe.’” Paul served congregations in Stow and Maynard, Massaschusetts; Bloomington, Indiana; Anaheim, California; and Flint, Michigan.
Marco’s mother, Loretta Killinger, was “fairly warm, nurturing, and sometimes a hugger.” She had a sociology degree from University of Buffalo and worked at “interesting secretarial positions.” With his mom not home to cook, in high school Marco frequently made meatloaf with mashed potatoes and macaroni and cheese,” launching his lifelong love of cooking.
Marco’s dad was removed from UU ministry in Flint after having had an affair with a congregant. His parents then moved to Boulder in 1973. They had already been summering in the Boulder area and in 1961 they built a pre-fab cabin in Ward on land they purchased in 1959 for $50. Marco says: “The family spent all summer every summer there for 15 years. One of my many strong memories of those times is the smell of hamburgers being cooked on a grill carved out of the rocks below the cabin. I think it was my first foodie experience.” Marco inherited the cabin and finally sold it in 2015.
When asked about his childhood, Marco responded, “I was a ‘best little boy in the world’ [it’s a book], i.e. I compensated for my gayness, which couldn’t be expressed, by being a super high achiever in school, having hobbies (a shell collection, drawing house plans to scale, building models, and working on an underground newspaper), and going to UU Sunday school and to junior LRY (Liberal Religious Youth) at the Flint UU church.”
As for his experiences with religion, he says, “I remember fondly the World Religions class I was in in maybe fourth grade at Dad’s UU church in Anaheim. I really think it made me an agnostic! There’s no creed superior to another. I began a sense of being a pagan while going out of the city into some land that the church owned.”
Marco describes his youthful self as “a touch out there, precocious I suppose.” He says his earliest memory, at age three, is of Eric and himself running up and down the aisle in the plane when the family was moving from Massachusetts to Indiana.
While at Haverford College for two and a half years in the late 70s and going to some Quaker meetings there, he became involved in a leftist political group, as he also did after leaving Haverford and going to Temple University. He became involved in the socialist-feminist New American Movement. He still self-describes as a “socialist-feminist.”
A crucial thing in Marco’s life took place soon after he left Haverford, when he was 22: he came out of the closet as gay. “It just felt so right to me. I met a more experienced gay man who I dated and another who was like a mentor to me, showing me ‘the scene.’ Plus there was such political ferment then, only eight years after Stonewall, into which I fit right in.”
Marco moved to Boulder in 1992, after 18 years in Philadelphia, moving into a house shared with Janet Meyer and another friend, before moving in for six years with a partner, Willie. Before and after living in Chile he was associate editor of some alumni publications at CU Boulder.
In 2004 he started attending our Fellowship while Catharine Harris was the minister. “I was wanting a sense of community and missing the rituals I had grown up with, especially the celebration of the Solstice.”
He loves the Fellowship for “its wonderful sense of community, loving souls, lots of hugs; the Queer (Rainbow) Covenant Group that features heartfelt sharing; the amazing auction; and pretty good food after the services.”
His feelings about Rev. Lydia’s departure this month are that “I will really miss her because she speaks about things that move me. She shares lots of personal experiences and has been personally supportive of me in my journeys. But I respect her decision to move on.”
For the last two-and-a-half years Marco has lived in an 8th floor, east-facing apartment at Golden West, an affordable senior residence in east Boulder. “It’s warm and bright, a great change from my last place,” he says. “And a great antidote for depression, which has kind of been one of my life-long challenges.”
After a long struggle with the same difficulty, Marco’s identical twin Eric took his own life in 1988. “In 2002, when I returned from Chile, I was diagnosed as bipolar. It’s sometimes been a difficult road, and Lydia and many people at the Fellowship have been important supports.” He says his two and a half years at Golden West have been a great period of wellness.
During his almost 13 years at BVUUF (he stopped attending post-Catharine for a while), Marco has been on the Spirituality and Arts Council, the Rainbow Covenant and the Welcoming LGBTQ Congregation, and the Service Associates. He shared his Coming Out story a number of months ago from the pulpit.
Outside of the Fellowship, Marco has volunteered on and off with BCAP and Out Boulder, and was until recently on the advisory committee to the Rainbow Elders.
He is one of the most heartfelt people I have ever met.
Published January 22, 2024
