Harvey Milk

I wrote this piece in one sitting (in about 10 minutes) in response to a posting on craigslist from thequeertimes.com. The request was for personal stories about Harvey Milk. The piece was featured on the homepage of the 5/22/10 issue. Here's the story:

I lived in the Castro when Harvey Milk had his camera shop there. I wasn't gay, but just about all my friends were. I loved basking in the adoration of all those gorgeous men. We had fun and fabulous conversations. In many ways, I derived way more satisfaction from those relationships than with any of my straight friends. The Castro was a mecca for self-expression of all kinds. No one was too weird. It felt good living in an environment of total acceptance.

Street life was prevalent in those days. A sunny day meant spending time hanging out on the street--coffee and a sweet at the Bakery Cafe or maybe a mid-day cocktail at the Elephant Walk, followed by walking around, looking around, maybe heading over to Buena Vista Park and back. But outside was the place to be. There was always a lot of activity in front of and inside Harvey's camera store. Political meetings or just people talking. And whenever you got a glimpse of Harvey, chances were good he was smiling. It's how he viewed the world and the people in it--with a big Harvey Milk smile. You can't fake that kind of smile. It comes from the inside. You either have it or you don't.

It was a street fair of some sort. Maybe Gay Pride Day, not sure. But in any case, I remember Castro Street swarming with people--from Market to about 19th or 20th. Street vendors, musicians, people talking, dancing, checking one another out. One of the activities was some sort of game where dunking Harvey Milk was the prize. I don't remember if it was a fundraising activity or just some random amusement park kind of thing, the purpose being just silly fun. In any case, I happened to walk by just at the moment Harvey was being dunked. He emerged with that big smile, laughing, wiping the water from his face, and then immediately got dunked again. Always in on the fun, Harvey just lapped it up--enjoying himself like everyone else.

The night of the candlelight vigil, I was there with my best friend, a guy I had lived with for three years. Both of us were so sad, we could hardly speak, which was the general mood of the night. Silence. Earlier, when we had received the news, we were stunned like the rest of the city. Of all the people. . . and by the hand of an insane, homophobic man, a man Harvey had tried so desperately to befriend. Who could believe it? Why?

The Castro or San Francisco, for that matter, will never be the same. It was one big party in those days. Before AIDS, before the murder of Harvey Milk, who was not only the King of Castro Street; he was the sunshine.