05/30/2026
Carl Smith is a retired public school teacher and Kerry Drach is a retired clinical psychologist. Both have lived in Maine for many years and both came out as gay men late in life after raising their families in long marriages. Carl is now divorced, and Kerry was widowed by the death of his wife to breast cancer.
“We are both fathers and grandfathers, and Carl is even a great grandfather. His children live in Maine, Texas, and Oregon, and Kerry’s daughter, his single child, lives near Paris, France, with her French husband and their children.
We met online at Match.com in 2015. At time Kerry lived in Portland and Carl in Brunswick, Maine. We found that we share a lot in common in terms of background and social values. Both of us grew up in the Philadelphia area, Carl on the Pennsylvania side and Kerry on the New Jersey side. We were both foreign exchange students in high school. We both graduated from Antioch College in Ohio, though we did not know one another there. Carl is an avid gardener, growing vegetables and flowers, and he was also a landscape gardener during times between teaching positions. Kerry is an avid classical pianist and is actively involved with the Portland Conservatory of Music chamber music program. We have taken trips together, including hiking in the southwest, a three week tour of Vietnam, and multiple visits to Mexico.
From the beginning we were mutually attracted by one another’s intelligence, sensitivity, and good looks. In 2021 Kerry moved to live with Carl in Brunswick with the shared intent of being supportive, helpful partners as we age. We are fortunate to have a great circle of older gay men as friends and enjoy doing things with them. Given our age (in the 80’s), both work hard at keeping as fit as possible. At this point in our lives our idea about living in a q***r world is simply that people should feel free to be who are, and others do not need to judge what is right and wrong.”
