Harvey Milk!

"If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door in the country."

That was a quote from a tape made by Harvey Milk, to be released just in case he was murdered. If you dont know who Harvey Milk was you oughta learn.

40 years ago today a conservative San Francisco supervisor, that's city councilman to us rubes,named Dan White walked into City Hall and murdered Mayor Willie Moscone and Harvey Milk, one of the first openly gay elected officials in the entire nation. Oh yeah, he used a gun, like all chickenshit assassins do, and he did it because he saw a conspiracy against conservative white men like himself.

1978 was a long time ago. I was in college. I had no idea who Harvey Milk was. I hardly knew any gay people. But the murder of a Mayor and a Supervisor by a loser "victim" like Dan White really appalled me. I didnt understand the grief, the horror, the fright that must have come down on San Francisco that day. It was just another assassination of somebody making a difference. JFK, X, MLK, RFK, Lowenstein and now Milk and Moscone.

But then came that candlelight march. That hit me hard. Hey kids, this was the days before the internet so I had to go to Love Library and read the San Francisco Chronicle for something other than news about the Giants. I learned a lot in the next few days. Lessons that changed me from naive and ignorant to woke as the kids say.

You wanna read a great story? Read The Mayor of Castro Street. I carried this dog eared paperback around with me for years and still have it. In fact, I think I'll read it again.

Harvey, we hardly knew ye.