By DEBORA WILEY
Of The Register's Cedar Rapids Bureau
WEBSTER CITY, IA. - Confession has been good for Tony Bowser's soul.
People in Marengo, where he's lived for six years, knew Bowser as a husband, father of three small children and a truck driver for a moving company.
A tall, muscular man who passionately loves Iowa, his family and his life, Bowser for a long time kept a gray secret that nearly two years ago turned black as death.
Through sexual encounters with other men, he was infected with the virus that causes AIDS.
Word of his illness turned relatives, friends and neighbors against him. He was shunned for a time by his church pastor. Adults stood outside the Bowser home, hurling insults and obscenities like stones. Schoolmates taunted the Bowser children, 8-year-old twin sons and a 6-year-old daughter, and petitions were circulated to keep them out of school. Tony was not allowed to become a Cub Scout leader. His wife, Dixie, was fired from a job.
Nonetheless, he openly tells his story, hoping to put a human face on the deadly disease. He wants people to arm themselves with facts, not fear.
In more than a dozen programs, he has told small-town Iowa that acquired immune deficiency syndrome is not confined to a certain area or a certain population. AIDS, Bowser says, will affect everyone — even here in the heartland — and people had better be ready to deal in compassion, not hatred.
"Don't treat people with AIDS like dirt. Be extremely understanding and compassionate and not judgmental," he said. "It's a problem for all of us, no matter what the situation."
Bowser learned he carried the human immunodeficiency virus in October 1986. Last July, he was diagnosed as having contracted AIDS. In December, he started telling his neighbors.
Realized Mistake
"After I did that I realized I made a mistake," he told an audience of about 100 people at First Congregational Church, United Church of Christ in Webster City on Thursday night, "Not that I went public, but I forgot to educate the community."
Bowser said his mother has been supportive, but his father "has not talked about the issue. He has ignored me as a person."
There is nothing harder for Dianne Bowser than to know that her only son is going to die from AIDS.
"I've carried this by myself for so long," she said, nearly in tears but head upright as she spoke Thursday night. "It hurts. He's our only son and we're losing him."
"Wake Up"
"Hey, folks, wake up. Educate your families. It's hard to see someone die slow. I'm going to support him. I'm going to be by him to the end, if and when, and Dixie and the kids, because they're my life, same as my husband and my girls and their families. They're my life.
"Please wake up. Stick by your family and your kids."
Slowly, Marengo residents have learned that AIDS is not spread through casual contact, only through direct exposure to body fluids.
Dixie Bowser has twice tested negative for the virus. The children are not infected, and the family is at extremely low risk from everyday contact, health officials say.
Some people have reached out. Bob Loffer, pastor at Trinity United Church of Christ in rural Marengo, took two days before he could bring himself to dial the Bowsers' phone number.
Pastor Was Scared
"Quite frankly, I was scared," Loffer said. He wasn't quite sure what to say to these people he barely knew. He wasn't sure what their reaction to his call would be. He wasn't sure he really should get involved with something as fearful as AIDS.
But Thursday night, Loffer shared a podium with Bowser and told the crowd he was going to show them "one way you don't get AIDS." He smiled broadly and gave Bowser a hug.
With the support of Loffer and others, Bowser has begun to examine his own spiritual life. "There sits beside me one of the most spiritual people I've met in a long time," Loffer said about Bowser. "He has difficulty expressing that in front of people."
A measure of acceptance occurred on Easter Sunday, when Bowser took communion at Loffer's church. "One of the parishioners said later that one of the most fulfilling things that happened to him was that he served communion to a person with AIDS," Bowser said.
Good for Community
Loffer believes Bowser's willingness to tackle the taboo subject of AIDS directly has been good for the community.
"Sometimes the hysteria carries us away," Loffer said. He pointed out that a person who cares for a bleeding person infected with the virus runs "almost the same risk on a one-shot basis of contracting the HIV virus as a nuclear accident at the power plant in Palo tomorrow. It's not that it's not serious, but we need to realize there are risks in everything we do."
Dixie Bowser won't talk about her experience publicly. She stayed home with the children Thursday night.
"His wife, Dixie, is a strong, able, courageous woman who has suffered a tremendous amount of indignation at the hands of her own family and the hands of what were her own close friends," Loffer said. "She opted to stay with a man who was a bisexual with AIDS because she loved him."
Dixie Bowser doesn't like the fact that Tony's secret is out. "She's a very private, quiet, unassuming lady who doesn't like crowds, who doesn't like publicity," Loffer said. "And she's been madder than hops at her husband because we do some of these talks. But she understands why. She understands the need."
Sympathy and Empathy
Grappling with moral issues along with a terminal disease is tremendously difficult. "There are still some who will treat the Bowsers shabbily, but by and large the community has been supportive," Loffer said. "For a lot of people who know Dixie and the kids, there is sympathy and empathy. But a lot of people have written Tony off."
Still, Loffer said, Christians are called through Scripture to "hate the sin, but love the sinner."
People don't need to excuse Bowser's behavior, but they can help simply by withholding unkind remarks, Loffer said. Or they can do more, offering support in many ways.
"It's not that the Bowsers want to be public and have everyone pay attention to them and feel sorry for them because they have AIDS in their family," Loffer said. "These people don't want it to happen to anyone else. That's why they're here."
That's why Tony Bowser's secret is out. Some people would rather not hear it, but if Tony Bowser doesn't spread the word, someone else will.
49 Dead, 49 Living
Iowa Health Department statistics show 100 cases of AIDS have been reported in the state as of July 1. Of those, 49 are dead, 49 are living and the locations of two are unknown. Many more people in Iowa are believed to be carrying the virus, which isn't reported to state health officials until it develops into one of the infections that signal AIDS.
Bowser wants people to stop thinking of him as an AIDS "victim" or "patient." He's not a victim, and he's not in the hospital.
He said he's a "person with AIDS." Words and images that are neutral, instead of negative, are a start toward acceptance of a person who has the disease, he said.
His health is good for now, though he sometimes has trouble with short-term memory. He used the drug AZT, which helps relieve the symptoms of the disease, for three months, but it has been temporarily discontinued because it was starting to cause wide swings in his mood.
Family finances are tight, but Bowser collects disability payments, and his wife works full time. "I feel like I'm in my retirement at age 29," he said. "I shouldn't even be thinking of it."
Forgives Himself
Since confronting the reality of AIDS, Bowser has learned to forgive himself, and that has given him the strength to handle rejection from others. But he is fierce when it comes to rejection of his family.
"I feel like I have to do this because I've been treated unfairly," he said after the program. "I just don't think anyone else needs that pain, especially If they don't know the facts behind the situation.
"I've always been told, love thy neighbor as you would have them love you. When I see someone getting the treatment like I was given, or my wife or my family, that's not the way it's supposed to be."