Threads of Love : Tribute: A Camarillo couple travels to the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt to view their son’s panel and share in an acknowledgment of the disease’s human toll.

Glenn Scrivner is puttering around the garage of his Camarillo home in preparation for a trip. A retired property manager, he has worked hard in the last year planting and maintaining the gardens and lawns surrounding his house and wants to make sure they are well-tended in his absence.

“I’m hooking up an automatic watering system so when my grand kids stay here while we’re gone, it will be real easy for them to water everything,” he says, wiping his hands on a towel.

Inside the one-level ranch-style home, Jo Ann Scrivner is tending to last-minute preparations before their flight from LAX to Norfolk, Va., then on to Washington. The home is immaculate, warm and exudes comfort. Pictures of children Brent, David and Lark and grandchildren grace a piano in the spacious living room. A banjo and guitar lean near the wall next to the fireplace, testament to Glenn’s love of music.

“We will be very busy. Some friends will be meeting us there,” says Jo Ann, a retired school teacher. “There will be lots going on.”

The Scrivners have been planning this trip for months.

“It’s been quite a while since we have seen Brent’s panel. It was very hard for me when we sent it from our house to include in part of the national display,” Jo Ann says. “I’m looking forward to seeing it again.”

The panel she is referring to is for her son Brent and is part of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt. And it is to Washington that she and Glenn will head the following day to see the quilt displayed. Brent died of AIDS in January, 1991, 11 days after his 40th birthday.

A Growing Memorial

A short walk from the Vietnam Memorial along the Mall, the NAMES Project Quilt was displayed from Oct. 9-11. There are striking similarities between the Vietnam Memorial and the quilt.

Both monuments are tributes to people whose lives were tragically cut short. And both are symbols of a government accused of indifference, callousness and political expediency. They are testimonials and focal points for grieving friends, lovers and families.

Both bear silent witness to the anger, pain and disbelief of millions of Americans. And both represent events so divisive to the nation that a national debate on those events continues.

There are equally striking dissimilarities. One monument is fixed, immutable, unchanging and unchangeable, neither growing nor shrinking; dark stone engravings buried with stunning effect in view of two of our countries most-beloved monuments. Next to it, a statue of three young men in fatigues of solid brass, staring blankly, painfully on at the tribute to their fallen comrades.

The other is in constant motion, ever changing, still horribly growing. Bright colors abound; funny, sad and poignant photos, mementos and keepsakes carefully, lovingly sewn or glued to pieces of cloth the exact size of a grave. All joined in another larger patchwork: doctor next to prostitute, third-grader next to grandparent, transvestite next to cowboy, famous and infamous next to anonymous. They are linked only by the cause of their deaths, now part of a huge tribute created by the love, passion and anger of lovers, friends, families, acquaintances and sometimes even strangers.

The Quilt’s Beginnings

The NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt was started only five years ago by San Francisco resident and longtime gay-rights activist Cleve Jones, with a single panel created in memory of his friend and lover, Marvin Feldman. In June, 1987, Jones organized a group of strangers into a quilting bee in a small San Francisco storefront with the goal of documenting those killed by AIDS.

The idea was one whose time had come. Thousands of individuals and groups from all around the country began to send panels to San Francisco as awareness of the quilt spread. By October, only four months after its inception, there were 1,920 panels. Displayed for the first time in Washington on Oct. 11, 1987, the quilt already covered a space bigger than two football fields.

Now the quilt has become an entity unto itself. Since 1987, more than 3 million people have visited sections of it in over 700 displays worldwide.

There have been four displays of the entire quilt in Washington. It has been twice nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. A documentary film, “Common Threads: Stories From the Quilt,” won an Academy Award. Panels representing individuals from every state in the union and 29 other countries are now part of the quilt.

The numbers are staggering. There are 21,000 individual panels, weighing 26 tons and covering a space larger than 12 football fields. The logistics of displaying the quilt in its entirety are daunting, requiring a small army of staff, volunteers and vehicles. Loading eight 48-foot trailer trucks with the 700 boxes of quilt panels to begin the 2,792-mile trek from San Francisco to Washington took 20 staff and volunteers an entire week.

Laying out the site at the base of the Washington Monument required the use of lasers and control lines as well as 100 volunteers. Another 200 people sewed the individual panels into the 658 24-by-24 foot panel sections.

More than 600 people read names from the quilt, including celebrities like Liza Minnelli, Susan Sarandon, Tom Hulce, Harvey Fierstein, Lily Tomlin, U.S. Surgeon General Antonia Coello Novello and Sen. Howard Metzenbaum (D-Ohio). Mary Elizabeth (Tipper) Gore even made a surprise visit. The reading of names took almost 24 hours over three days. Two thousand new panels were added in Washington. Numbers, however, do not tell this story.

Gone But Not Forgotten

Jo Ann and Glenn Scrivner have been married for 47 years. They raised three children in Torrance and moved after retirement to Camarillo to be closer to their grandchildren. Their son David, father of their two grandsons, is a dentist in Port Hueneme. Daughter Lark, 38, is developmentally disabled and lives in Lakewood. Their son Brent designed electronic props for movie and television in Hollywood before his death.

“Here, do you recognize this?” asks Jo Ann as she rummages through a pile of aluminum cases and pulls out a small, hand-held space-age-looking device.

Lights flash and wings extend from the side depending on the button pushed. It is the ghost detector from the motion picture “Ghostbusters.”

“All these cases have props made by Brent. He was just starting to do very well in the business when he got sick. We’re going to set them up on display in his room so people can play with them.”

Jo Ann and Glenn knew of their son’s homosexuality since he was in his early 20s. It was never a big issue for them.

“It is just not that important. He was always accepted and loved. Since Brent got sick, we have met some of the nicest, most caring people who happen to be gay,” Glenn says. “He had so many great friends who visited him almost every day when he was sick, right up until the very end.”

Brent first tested positive for HIV, the virus that causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome, in 1987. The results, according to his parents, shocked him. He had only taken the test to assure himself that he was OK. He wasn’t.

He didn’t tell his family until about a month later. Jo Ann and Glenn assured him they would do whatever was necessary to help him. He remained relatively healthy and independent for three years. As his health began to fail, he started to turn down work.

Finally he became too ill to continue to live on his own. He moved in with his parents in Camarillo, where he lived for the last two months of his life.

“He was a fighter,” Glenn says. “Even though he had a bad reaction to and couldn’t take AZT or DDI (two drugs commonly prescribed for people with AIDS), he didn’t give in.”

Friends of Brent’s got together and created a panel for Brent, presenting it to his parents. It hung in their home for months before being sent on for inclusion in the national NAMES Quilt.

“I was devastated,” Jo Ann says. “I didn’t want to let it go, but I knew I had to.”

She disappears for a moment and returns with a large, framed color photo of Brent’s panel.

“Someone suggested we take a photo of it so we would always have it,” she says, propping the photo against the television.

The 3-by-6 foot piece of denim-colored cloth is decorated by strips of purple, pink, green, yellow, orange and white, framing the center in an art-deco style. Two photos of a bearded Brent--one a formal portrait, the other at work in his shop surrounded by all manner of gizmos and gadgets--are framed in silver piping with small charms attached. In simple large, green letters is:

“BRENT SCRIVNER, 1-19-51/1-30-91 . . . ARTIST, INVENTOR, CRAFTSMAN.”

Ventura County Victims

In Ventura County, an organized group has been creating quilt panels for ultimate inclusion in the NAMES Quilt since Aug. 15, 1991. Ten panels have been completed honoring residents of Ventura County who have died of AIDS.

“We’re here to help families or friends who want to memorialize their loved one,” says Mark Lager, co-coordinator of the Ventura County AIDS Quilt project. “We can be as involved or uninvolved as they want us to be.”

Recently, the panels were displayed at both Oxnard and Ventura colleges to promote AIDS awareness. Any local organization, including schools, can request to display the panels.

“This is a tremendous way for the community to see the human toll of AIDS,” Lager says. “They are friends, family members.”

Ventura County is continuing to be more and more affected by AIDS. In August, there were nine new cases, a nearly 13% increase in the number of people living with AIDS in the county in just one month, according to Ventura County public health officials. Local AIDS workers hope this increase is only a statistical abnormality and does not represent a trend.

Opening Ceremonies

Weather in Washington does not cooperate with plans for displaying the quilt outdoors on the mall. Rain postpones the opening ceremonies on Friday. Word gets out to disappointed visitors and a small crowd of 200 people who in the pouring rain gather near the podium where the names are read. The weather is expected to be clear and sunny on Saturday.

It is a beautiful, clear autumn day in D.C. when the quilt is finally unfurled at noon. Tens of thousands of people have gathered at the base of the Washington Monument to watch the hundreds of white-clad volunteers unfold the panels.

With the help of a well-defined grid and numbering system, visitors swarm the black plastic walkways in search of panels for people they knew. Each panel is assigned a number, which in turn is assigned a sector and number within that sector. Brent Scrivner’s panel is number 1951 in section R23.

“I thought there was some mistake,” Glenn says. “1951 is the year of his birth.”

But there is no mistake, simply a remarkable coincidence. Jo Ann and Glenn spend Saturday afternoon at section R23 greeting friends of Brent’s who have come to see his panel.

By Saturday night they are exhausted from standing and walking all day. They miss a candlelight march at the White House attended by 250,000 people.

At the rally held later, NAMES Project founder Jones delivers an angry speech lashing out at the Washington political Establishment for ignoring the AIDS crisis, saying “. . . (the quilt is) a terrible, horrible burden of truth and beauty and love. But truth and beauty and love have no power here.”

Caring for Loved Ones

Jo Ann and Glenn are having breakfast Sunday morning with Sergio Ramirez, a friend of Brent’s, who is in town to see the quilt. The forecast calls for rain even though it is currently dry. The hotel sends a clerk to the site and he returns with good news. The panels will be on display after 2 p.m. Some sightseeing is in order, then a return to the quilt.

Glenn reaches Brent’s panel with Sergio before Jo Ann. Ramirez takes some pictures before running off to join his family.

“Last night there was a program about AIDS on TV with former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop,” says Glenn, hands folded neatly behind his back, looking warily at the rapidly darkening sky over head. “Jo Ann has a copy of the program at home and I’ve been trying to watch it for months and just haven’t been able to do it. But last night I watched it without any problems. I guess I was finally ready.”

There is an announcement over the public address system that an “emergency rain fold” has been called. Everyone is invited to fold the panels quickly and then cover them with the sheets of plastic that lay underneath. It will mark an auspicious end to the weekend.

Glenn jumps into action along with several other volunteers, grabs a corner of the section of quilt containing his son’s panel and carefully and gently folds it, then bundles it neatly in the plastic. Glenn Scrivner is still caring for his son.

Facts on AIDS and the Quilt

National Ventura County Reported AIDS cases* 230,179 247 AIDS deaths 152,153 176 No. quilt panels on display 21,000 11** % of deaths represented 13% 6%

Total weight: 26 tons Size: 15 acres (12.5 football fields) New panels added in D.C.: 2,000 Number of visitors in D.C.: 250,000 (est.) Total visitors to date: More than 3 million * As of 6/30/92 for national; 9/10/92 for Ventura County

** Ten have not as yet been sent on to the national NAMES Project Quilt

For more quilt information:

Ventura County AIDS-CARE, 643-0446

NAMES Project National Headquarters, 2362 Market St., San Francisco, CA 94114; phone (415) 863-5511