Many of you will see the news next weekend and just shake your head.

Plastered on the screen and newspapers will be images of drag queens

and leather boys celebrating Gay Pride in Atlanta. But those flamboyant

folks are not the only stories Pride has to tell ...

I've been sneaking around this planet for about 50 years now, living

and working among the "heteros" trying to pass myself off as

one of them. At first it was easy. I even fooled myself into thinking

I could be just like them, but as time went by and I reached my 30s,

it became more and more obvious that something was amiss.

I had never had a steady girlfriend and the women that I dated were

more like friends than lovers. I can remember trying to awkwardly put

my arm around my date at a movie or fumbling to hold her hand as we walked

down the street. A goodnight kiss was sheer terror for me and anything

beyond that seemed completely alien. I was a real gentleman, all right.

I was also lost and lonely.

I knew when I was a young teenager that I had certain feelings, which

set me apart from most other boys. It wasn't just my disinterest in sports,

although I was corralled into several pathetic attempts to "be a

man." Somehow, I became the pitcher of the Little League team. Imagine

my horror. Imagine everyone else's horror when I couldn't figure

out the whole pitching mound thing. I stood there crying and they took

me out of the game.

"Thank God!" I thought. I just wanted to go home and color

or watch cartoons. I couldn't understand why everyone was yelling and

screaming and insisting they were having a great time. It seemed like

a real drag to me. I think it was soon after that I became ostracized

from the group I called my friends. I didn't speak their lingo, didn't

share their state of mind. The password was Mickey Mantle and I was into

Vincent Price.

A couple years later I was coerced into joining the track team. My father

thought I should follow in my brother's footsteps. He was several years

older than me and ran cross-country. I was skinny as a rail and it seemed

like a good idea to cash in on my ability to run away. I was more bored

than ever running around in circles, sweat pouring off of me as I became

even more emaciated. I was geekin' big time!

That summer I finally got involved in something I liked: a play. Having

spent most of my childhood in the company of little girls (I have three

sisters and there were a dozen more in our neighborhood), play-acting

was in my blood. I had an overactive imagination and a tendency to dream.

I was ripe for the stage. I'm sure my father was mortified. This was

the first red flag to go up in a long series of crimson fabrics.

I acted in plays and helped on crews all through high school. It was

my social world. My father would chew me out for going to play practice

every night saying that he didn't run a "personal cab service." Sure,

I only had a few lines, but it was fun being backstage, more fun than

hiding from my parents up in my room.

Eventually I went to college. I was going to be a commercial artist.

It was just an excuse to get out of Dodge. My first year at Illinois

State University was a fabulous disaster. I became the classic dropout.

I had made so many new friends that year. The thought of another summer

in Dachau was just too horrible to think about. I ran away from home

soon after. I was 19.

It totally freaked out my family. My brother called me "The runaway

kid." He always had an endearing nickname for me. When I was younger,

it was "Brains" or "Coordination." The year I got

a job washing dishes at a local restaurant, my father began calling me "Professionally

Speaking."

Why would I not want to stay where there was so much love and mutual

respect? I wasn't sure, but I was going to find out ... elsewhere.

I lived with friends or on my own in many different places over the

years. I joined the Navy about 10 months after leaving home. I wanted

to get the GI Bill so I could go